Atwood, Ryan
He is so angry he cannot bear to look at them, let alone speak to them. He cannot bear to see their exchanged looks of concern or listen to their explanations and their platitudes. Rage has engulfed him, robbed him of coherent thought and smothered all other emotions that threaten to replace it. He is beyond reason.
Ryan has been angry before, here in Newport, mad with people, the world, himself. It's not an emotion that's totally foreign to him. He's been pissed off with Seth, with Marissa, with Luke, Oliver, Trey, Johnny, Volchok. The list is a long one but it's never featured Sandy and Kirsten. They've disappointed him, hurt him, annoyed him, but he can't remember one single occasion when he was angry with them.
So what if it's taken five months of repressing his feelings and one brief glimpse of Sandy's retreating car to get to this point? Ryan doesn't think that's any excuse. Always they've been honest with him, or so he's thought. Always they've treated him like he deserved to have a voice, or so he's thought. Now? He's not so sure. The punch in his gut as he watched Kevin Volchok drive off in Sandy's care not a half hour before was more brutal than any kick he'd received in that cage and if he wasn't in such a blind rage right now he'd stop to wonder how they could do that to him.
He's not going to stop to consider. Clearly if he wants to finish this thing then he's on his own and he has no time for deep and meaningful reflections about his relationship with two people he'd classed as his parents in every way but biology.
He casts his eyes rapidly over the desk. He doesn't take in the toothy grin of Seth at eight years old, nor the happy scene of the four of them at Chrismukkah. He doesn't notice the gleaming shield standing proudly in the corner, awarded to Sandy over the summer for some PD's surf contest. He can only focus on one thing. He's sure it will be here somewhere or Sandy is not as thorough a lawyer as Ryan believes him to be. When he sees it, resting under a pile of law books, he grabs at it, not caring that the books cascade haphazardly onto the floor, pages bending backward at awkward angles as they land. A brief look inside it should tell him all he needs to know. Only when he reads the name at the top does he stop short. It's not the name he was expecting or wanting.
Later, long after Thanksgiving dinner and the departure of the extra guests, long after Julie has left the pool house, eyes red from crying but with a genuine smile on her face, Sandy finds him alone, on his bed, the manila folder balanced across his knees. Sandy recognizes it immediately and curses himself for leaving it out, unattended.
"I'm sorry," he says, as Ryan looks up at his entrance. "I never meant for you to see that."
Ryan is pragmatic.
"It's not like I didn't know you had a file on me."
Sandy shrugs.
"Knowing it and seeing it aren't really the same, are they?"
He knows Ryan understands this more than most.
He doesn't ask what Sandy knows he wants to ask. Sandy tells him anyway.
"Sometimes I get it out to read through it. I did that today."
He knows this isn't enough of an explanation.
He sits down next to Ryan and removes the file gently from his hands. He smoothes down the small snapshot of Ryan, aged ten, attached to the front with a paperclip.
"When I first met you this was all I had to go on. It's not like you were much of a talker. This told me who Ryan Atwood was at fifteen, how you'd got to be the person you were."
Sandy continues as though he's talking to himself.
"Later, when you got into trouble at Harbor it helped me get a handle on why you behaved the way you did."
Ryan's face shows no response though his body radiates resentfulness.
"Stuff in here helped me track down your mom, both times," he added.
"And then, when you and your brother got into that fight I read it again to try and work out why you'd want to kill him."
Ryan raises his head at this and all the hurt that Sandy had once hoped would disappear forever is there in his eyes.
"You thought I'd do that?"
The resentfulness disappears and his voice is small.
Sandy knows now is not the time to fob Ryan off with a lie.
"I think it's possible, yes." Sandy looks at him intently. "But then you know that too, right?"
"I guess everyone knows it. That's why Seth did what he did in Mexico, right?"
Sandy ignores the resignation in the boy's voice.
"Ryan, I know you think we lied to you, or at the very least kept the truth from you, and it's true, we did. It's just…" Sandy pauses as if it's difficult for him to get the rest of his words out. "It's just that Seth and Kirsten and I? We love you like you were our own. We will do anything to protect you."
"From myself, huh?" Bitterness permeates his words.
Sandy shrugs but his face is taut, strained with anxiety.
"Maybe we didn't do the right thing, I don't know, but I do know this. We did it because we couldn't handle the idea that we might lose you."
Sandy stops now. He cannot continue because his throat aches with emotion and he cannot think of how he can make it any more clear to Ryan how much his family loves him.
Ryan takes the file back from Sandy and looks at the photograph of his ten-year-old self. The anger is long gone but he's still defensive and just a little bit confused.
"So you read this today because…"
"Because after you were so angry with us, I had to really think about it. You had a valid point, and really there comes a time when we have to trust you to do the right thing. You're not a kid any more. You're not that kid." Sandy nods toward the photograph.
"So I got it out, read through it. It reminded me of how far you've come. And once I'd read it, I knew, despite everything, that you wouldn't kill him." he answers simply.
Ryan stays silent as he takes one last look at the photograph before handing the folder back to Sandy. He knows that Sandy has an almost identical folder somewhere in his office with a different kid's name on it and he knows how lucky he is not to be that kid.
End