Chapter One
Ryan Atwood had never had a stable life growing up. When he was a young child, his father had been arrested for armed robbery and was sent to prison, after which his mother moved him and his older brother Trey from Fresno to Chino, California. Moving into a small shack, their happy new start ended abruptly when Dawn began going through a series of boyfriends, each one worse than the one before. The last one was AJ and as the epitome of white trailer trash, he had been the worst. He and Dawn would almost always be drunk and AJ would lay his hands on Ryan, beating him violently.
One night, in the midst of using both drugs and alcohol, Trey got the crazy idea to steal a car. Seeing a police car not too far away, Ryan got in against his better judgment. The car chase was short-lived and pretty soon, both Atwood brothers were sent to jail. The following morning was when Ryan's life would suddenly change: his first meeting with Sandy Cohen. As his court-appointed defense attorney, Sandy had gotten Ryan out of jail and upon meeting Ryan's mother, his heart went out to the young boy. He gave him his home phone number in case he ever needed help.
Once Ryan had gotten home, his mom Dawn kicked him out and after another physical fight with AJ, Ryan packed what little things he had and ran away. With no where else to go and no one else to turn to, Ryan dialed Sandy's number. Thinking back, he still remembered the faint smell of fresh salt water coming from the beach as they drove along the coast and entered Newport, Orange County. Sandy had gone inside his house to explain the situation to his wife Kirsten while Ryan waited outside. Walking down the driveway, he had reached into his pocket for a cigarette and that's when he saw her for the first time: Marissa Cooper, the girl who stole his heart that night with a single smile.
When Sandy returned, they went inside together and he met Kirsten and eventually Seth, their nerdy, comic-book loving son. As the memories continued, Ryan remembered everything from the Model Home, to Sandy and Kirsten becoming his legal guardians, to Cotillion and to Tijuana, where Marissa had OD'd after finding her boyfriend Luke with another girl. When he had found her unconscious body, Ryan had stopped breathing altogether. Seeing her unmoving form curled up in a dirty alley, Ryan couldn't help his heart from breaking. She had lived, though, and he swore to himself that he wouldn't miss another chance to tell her how he truly felt.
Next came a series of good memories he had of her, his two favorite being their first kiss on top of the ferries wheel and their New Year's Eve kiss weeks later, where they shared their 'I love you's' for the first time. But all good things eventually come to an end and so did their relationship thanks to Marissa burgeoning friendship with Oliver, a boy that she had met during her therapy sessions…a boy that Ryan never trusted and had been right about.
After the Oliver drama finally unfolded, Marissa wanted to make up but Ryan was unable to trust her again and eventually broke up with her. After a brief fling with his old childhood friend Teresa from Chino, Ryan realized that Marissa was the only girl he cared for and he took her back. But Teresa showed up on his doorstep one day, pregnant and scared, and in a bittersweet goodbye with the Cohens, Seth and Marissa, he left with her back to Chino.
Months passed and Teresa realized how depressed Ryan was that he had left his family and came up with a lie that she had lost the child so he would go back. Bidding her farewell, Ryan returned to Newport to the awaiting arms of his family and friends. But his relationship with Marissa was too strained and they ended up going their separate ways. When his brother Trey was released from jail, Ryan picked him up and brought him back to Newport to stay with him and the Cohens until he got back on his feet, all the while knowing that Trey was bad news but trusting and having faith in his brother nonetheless. Marissa went out of her way to help Trey and this brought her and Ryan back together as he was able to trust her again.
But their relationship was about to hit another disastrous bump in the road when a drunk Trey tried to rape Marissa one night. She hid the small scars on her neck from Ryan and swore to keep the secret, but Ryan eventually found out through Seth and Summer and went to confront Trey. After a bloody fistfight, Trey got the upper hand and began suffocating Ryan. Marissa arrived and tried her hardest to pull him off, but it was no use. Seeing Ryan dying, Marissa did the only thing she could think of: she grabbed Trey's gun and shot him. Nothing would ever be the same again after that night.
The months that followed were some of the hardest of their lives. Once Trey woke up and questions surrounding his shooting were finally answered, they desperately tried to make things better between them. Trey left town and they tried to put everything behind them, but were unable to do so. Getting kicked out of their private school didn't make things any easier for them. Even though Ryan was eventually allowed back in, Marissa was forced to go to public school and that's when she met Johnny Harper. As Marissa spent more and more time with Johnny, her relationship with Ryan suffered because of it. At the end, they had grown too distant from one another and far too much damage had been caused. When Marissa finally realized what she was doing, she told Johnny that her heart lied with Ryan and tried to make things better with her boyfriend. Unable to stand the rejection, Johnny got drunk one night and slipped off a cliff. Ryan and Marissa had arrived and Ryan had reached out for his hand, but Johnny slipped away and fell to his death. After his funeral, they found it too difficult to be together anymore and they broke up for the final time.
Ryan began dating Sadie, Johnny's cousin, and out of her sadness for losing both a friend and her boyfriend, Marissa began sleeping with Kevin Volchuk, a no-good, lowlife who drank his days away on the beach. Everyone, including Ryan, tried intervening but she was hell-bent on acting out. After seeing him with another girl in a repeat of her experience with Luke, Marissa left Volchuk and got her head on her shoulders before graduation. The night of graduation would soon become the worst night of Ryan's entire existence for he would have never been able to foresee the tragedy that awaited him. After a tumultuous three years in Newport that saw both ups and downs, Ryan's life was about to come to a screeching halt.
As he drove Marissa to the airport where she was to take a year off and go be with her father, they had a good outlook for the future of their relationship. All of a sudden, an angry Volchuk chased them in his van and soon ran their car over the side of the road. Once he finally came to, Ryan pulled an injured Marissa out of the burning car and carried her away from the flames before his knees buckled beneath him and he fell to the ground. She was awake and he wanted to go for help, but she begged him not to leave her. All of his desperate pleas and tears were useless, though, and she died right there in his arms. Her eyes slowly closed, her breathing softened and her heartbeat gradually stopped.
The ride to the hospital and the memories that followed were all a blur for Ryan. All he remembered was her frail body in his arms on the side of the road, the paramedics trying their hardest to revive her and the doctors telling him that she was dead at the hospital. Ryan Atwood would never again be the same as he was about to enter the darkest phase of his life.