Disclaimer: If i owned the O.C. would I write fan fiction?
Author´s note: Yay a one shot! (Kind of) I should be writing my essay about Schubert. But the sudden urge to write this out of my system won.
Summary: A.U. One shot. She was fresh, witty, and could switch from practical to serious to amused like a flash of fire. Ryan/Taylor.
Me? I´m no one. (1/2)
It was time to test his stealth, Ryan had decided, as he hurried quietly and (he´d never admit it out loud) scared. These Newport chicks were a spectacular view, each one as flawless as the next. And blonde, there were lots of blondes, Ryan had liked that, at first. But at the moment, as he tried to scape the endless stream of chemically induced gold he considered setting the library on fire and making a quick getaway.
He heard whispers and femenine giggles, and realized he´d never get rid of the Newpsies. They´d been chasing him all morning, stalking him from class to class, injuring his ears beyond repair with their constant giggling and high pitched voices, taking advantage of Marissa´s absense, who was recovering from a summer cold, to try to have... as Holly Fisher had put it while cornering him in the boy´s bathroom, show his chino tricks.
He´d have taken her on her offer if she hadn´t used such a lame come on line, or so Ryan had told the speechless Holly after he had rejected her.
This had to be the definition of hell, he thought, having gorgeous girls running after you and being unable to do anything. Because he was with Marissa.
Even though she hadn´t forgiven him (yet) for running away with Teresa. She was confused, and didn´t want to get back together until she was certain of where her heart stood, maybe she had madured in his absence?
He reached the back of the library, the giggling couldn´t be heard anymore but Ryan was sure they´d come back, he sat on the farthest table, which was perfectly blocked from view by some kind of old furniture he did not payed much attention to.
Ryan didn´t notice he had company until said company sighned and started to pick her books hastily. Making noise.
A hell lot of noise.
Noise that could give the idiotic girls clue of where their lost prey was. He drawed her attention by taking one of her books and pressed a finger against his lips, asking for silence.
The girl nodded, the edges of her big round glasses sparkling as she sat down again. She had a messy auburn hair and looked scrawny and small. It seemed not even such a priviledge school like Harbor was Nerd-girl free. Any other day Ryan´d have seen it as bad luck, having to sit with such a boring girl, the kind that in chino only lived to study and go to the church, but not today. If there was a way to step out of temptation it was by spending what was left of the luch break with a girl who wasn´t easy on the eyes.
"You are gonna stay?"she asked softly and surprised, as she spoke he saw the faint glint of silver in her teeth, God, she had braces to. Ryan felt a sudden pang of pity for the girl, must be really shitty to attend a school full of jaw-dropping girls and outstand for all the wrong reasons.
"Do you mind if i do?"
"As long as you don´t bring the airheads with you, is fine by me." she answered as she opened her book and began to read again. "If they keep on squealing like that, my ears are going to bleed." She added, obviously irritated.
Ryan chuckled.
The girl continued, never looking up from her book "You won´t be able to enjoy my slow bloody dead, though. Because if they come this way, I´ll sink my pen into your heart, in an act of pure benevolence."
Ryan let out a light laugh. Suddenly amused instead of freaked out at how morbid nerd-girl turned out to be. "I´m Ryan Atwood." He introduced himself out of politeness.
"I already knew that, it´s not everyday a guy from chino gets into Harbor.You´ve become quite the novelty." The girl´s gaze remained fixed on the book and both fell in a deep silence. She was to entraced in her book and Ryan was too busy concentrating in any sound, smell or whatever else that may alert him of the return of the newpsies.
But not even that task kept him from noticing the glances the weird morbid girl was throwing his way. Oh, god don´t let her develop a crush on him! Because yes, he believed in inner beauty but he was sixteen, the outside counted too. Damn, he shouldn´t have laughed, she probably thought he liked her now or something, lonely girls always misread boys.
"It must be so cool" That took him off guard, he hadn´t expected her to talk again, he thought she would keep on stealing glances and maybe then blush and look away or something.
"Coming from chino?" The girl put her books aside, looking at him and shaking her head. Behind the glasses her eyes looked wistful.
"No, hanging out with Marissa Cooper"
"It´s more complicated than cool, sometimes I don´t like the way she makes me feel" The girl didn´t ask, instead she blinked. He went on, feeling comfortable with her, maybe because she made him laugh, maybe because she wasn´t distracting him with her beauty or perhaps because she looked like an outsider too. "Guilty, like I´m letting her down everytime she makes a mess out of her life."
"Well, friendship and love imply responsabilities" She explained severily.
Ryan groaned, regretting his confession. "I don´t wan´t to talk about the L word."
She was about to (surely by the look on her face) argument against it but a squealing in the distance made them both freeze. After a while they both released their breaths, the girl looked somehow mocking and less serious. She leaned closer almost teasingly "Why´s the sex hunk from chino hiding from a bunch of admirers anyway?"
Against all his orders his cheeks stained themselves in pink a little at the remembrance of that stupid name girls here kept on calling him behind his back.
The girl smiled smugly and decided to twist the knife, "I even heard Miss. Kim calling you that once."
She pretended to think a minute clearly enjoying his shocked state (he was gaping, he was sure) "I was kidding"
Ryan relaxed.
"She called you "that hot piece of chino ass" His eyes must have goggled unnaturally or something because the girl started to laugh histerically at him. He joined her, half because she had an infectuous laughter and half because he felt like doing it.
After that Ryan lapsed into a surprisingly entertained conversation with the library girl, she liked anime and asian movies, specially gore ones, she also advised him on which classrooms and halls were deserted most of the time. He wasn´t having a bad time, and after a heated discussion about classical musical´s influence in the heavy metal scene he decided he liked her. She was fresh, witty, and could switch from practical to serious to amused like a flash of fire. Back in chino he wouldn´t even consider talking to this girl again, but she had charmed him to the point he genuinely wanted to keep in contact, it wasn´t everyday he met a Newport girl he wante to... be friends with. In fact it had never happened before, but he felt attracted to her in a non-sexual way... maybe in a fraternal one? ´cause suddenly he kind of wanted to protect that unique innocence she possesed. Always beaming and clapping happily, he didnt care that he´d skipped his last two classes to keep on talking to her.
"I can´t believe you´ve seen it! FMA rocked my world, my friends won´t see it because they´re too busy finishing Naruto´s suquel"
"I didn´t like that one" He admitted. Her smile widened and her braces sparkled as she assured him it was overrated.
"I so have to lend you blood , maybe we could..." Whatever she was going to say got lost as the sound of steps and girly voices got louder and louder.
In his realaxed state he´d forgotten about those plastic monsters, but they apparently didn´t.
He closed his eyes wearily, wishinng for the floor to swallow him.
"...why would Sasuke go for Hinata when he´s gotta deal with the akatsuki? It´s just ridiculous..."
"Because, they belong together, opposites attract!"
"Na-uh, he´s gonna end up with Sakura, you´ll see"
Those weren´t newpsies he found out, those were three equally nerdy girls, all of them staring wide eyed at him. Did god really loved him that much? Had he ran over a nun on purpuse in his past life? And if he had, Marissa almost dying a couple of months ago was punishment enough in his book.
The middle one was chubby and mean looking, the other too were wearing band uniforms and the same condescending slash angry expressions on their faces.
"T, we´ve been looking for you everywhere! let´s go, we have a movie to catch." Chubby girl sure sounded bosy.
Ryan´s table partner didn´t need to be told twice apparently, because in less than ten seconds she was already side by side with the short haired one.
"Wait, I don´t even know your name" His mouth acted on his own accord it seemed because he had meant to ask her if they could talk alone. But the chubby one was mistrustedly ogling him with a less than friendly expression on her face.
"Me? I´m no one." Auburn haired girl Enthusiasm had dimmed considerably at the arrival of her friends. Before he could say anything else to her, chubby girl practically pushed the whole group away from Ryan.
Ryan resisted the urge to gag as Marissa emptied the contents of her stomachs on Seth´s bedroom floor. She hadn´t made it to the bathroom, and it was his fault because she was back with him. He should´ve controlled her drinking. Beside him, Summer did gag and Seth made a comment about finally getting a present from Marissa.
"...It must be so cool... hanging out with Marissa Cooper"
Yeah, he was having the time of his life.
Damn, they´d overslept, mostly because they had spend half their night, a school night, looking for Marissa, who decided she wanted to marry her new (druggie, violent and not trustworthy) boyfriend and had ran away to Vegas with him, it had taken one of Summer´s rage blackouts (Marissa´s face was still badly swallowed) and Ryan kicking Volchok´s ass to prevent that disaster from happening. Seth had drove everyone home, so he was tired too.
But he still considered Marissa a dear friend even if lately all she had become was a headache.
Both brunettes waved goodbye as they ran upstairs to their math class, quickly dissapearing from view. On his way to his physics class he tripped (on garbage, a pen or with his luck with his own foot), he was so tired, and his folder fell, the loose papers scattering around the hall. Ryan cursed Marissa and Volchok mentally as he tried to pick his papers fastly. He was so going to have a talk with Julie about Marissa´s alcohol abuse and about that Volchok guy to. He yawned and decided he would take a nap before that talk.
"Here" A girl that looked strangely familiar handed him most of his papers sheets. She had big hazel eyes and the brightest (sweetest, most innocent and nice) smile he´d ever seen since coming to Newport.
"You should use clips, that way if your drop your notes it´ll be easier to pick them up. Though you better make sure they´re not made of plastic because those tend to become useless in less than a week. Also, shouldn´t you be in class? only the members of the debate team were allowed to miss school today, I myself only came because of an assigment I had to deliver." She´d said it to fast for his tired and almost comatose body and brain to respond. Eventually while he was still kneeling on the hall floor and she stood in front of him waiting, he nodded.
"Goodbye, then" The girl turned to leave and his body regained strenght and speed in record time. He caught up with her in a matter of seconds.
"Wait, you hav—" Ryan gaped, the shiny (only description he could make of her in his daze) girl he´d been about to talk into having a cup of coffee after class was now wearing big, distasteful glasses.
"Yes?" Now, he recognized her! It was the library nerdy girl he´d talked to the previous year. Ryan had never crossed her in the hallways or at lunch. And he´d kind of looked for her in the library after that first meeting (though he would NEVER admit it). But she may as well had been a ghost because no one knew who she was and between Marissa´s slips into drugs, criminal behavior and rebelliousness against her mother, he had little time for anything else.
"I wanted to thank you"
"You´re welcome" She was leaving again.
He caught up to her quick paced walking again "You know, we never got to finnish that talk about Full Metal Alchemist" he grinned at the disbelief in her pretty face.
"Oh, I wanted to talk to you but my friends didn´t like you... I ´m sorry." And she seemed honest about it and ashamed.
"So, you, me and my brother´s limited edition DVD with the comments from the creator of the series and manga is impossible?" She looked tempted, and adorable biting her lip and playing with her hands while whispering to herself. She also looked painfully resolute when she shook her head and continued to make her way to the exit.
For the third time Ryan willed his tired body to run after the geeky.girl. "Are you even gonna tell me your name this time?"
She smile sadly before replying "Taylor Townsend"
"Well, Taylor Townsend before you leave you should know that if they´re really your friends they´ll accept you as you are. With or without your glasses."
She left without saying anything else and later that day as he and Seth walked out of the school to the parking lot an alrmed Summer ran up to them to tell of how Holly Fisher had broken her nose when she had stepped and slipped over a big pair of glasses.