Shine On
General/Romance - K+
Summary: "And Ryan finds it so ironic that as keeps moving on with his life, Marissa just stays at the bottom of the driveway." Postfinale.
A/N: Just a short introspective piece because I always found the driveway flashback to be a very symbolic scene in The O.C. that sums up RM's relationship and Marissa's tragic nature.
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Youth is like diamonds in the sun
And diamonds are forever
It seems so wrong to see the house this way. Boarded up and half-destroyed like it had never once sheltered a family and years of memories.
Ryan shifts the car into reverse and slowly backs up, keeping his eyes glued on the house the whole time. He's surprised to feel tears sting the back of his eyes. It's not like he's never left this place before. But it had been different all those other times. He had been leaving behind a home that was warm and inviting and filled with people who loved him. Even when he was working himself to death in Chino or wasting away in the back of a bar, it was still comforting knowing that the Cohens were still back there, worrying about him over black coffee and schmeared bagels.
But now there was nothing for him to go back to.
Seth was right, Newport really was over. And it shocks Ryan to realize that he is actually really sad about leaving it all behind. Walking around the house, he felt like he'd been caught in a time warp. An overwhelming onslaught of nostalgia had consumed him as he made his way from room to room. Despite all the chaos of the past four years, it didn't change the fact that it was in this house in where his life had changed. It was that house in which he gained a family. A home.
Ryan sighs. It figures now that they were all leaving, he finally accepts his place as his home.
He turns the steering wheel and pulls onto the road. He barley goes anywhere before he's blinded by the sun's harsh rays, his breath shortening and chest becoming tight.
She's there.
He knew she would be. She always was.
She had been unpredictable. And tragic and confused and stupid and selfish and gorgeous and oh so horribly flawed. He could never reach her no matter how hard he tried.
But this was one thing he knew she'd never let him down with. There was one place he'd always be able to find her.
And Ryan finds it so ironic that as keeps moving on with his life, Marissa just stays at the bottom of the driveway.
He wants to stop. He wants to hold on to this moment for as long as he can because God knows when and if it will ever come again. But he knows it doesn't work that way. He has to keep going no matter what. He has to move on and start every new chapter that will inevitably come his way.
Even if it means leaving her behind.
He turns his head around and surely enough she's fading away. He keeps his eyes fixed on her as she gets swallowed up by the sun, becoming smaller and smaller until eventually disappearing above the horizon.
Like always, he waits a moment before turning back around, staring at the empty space that is now nothing but sunlight. He has to look that extra second just in case she decides to come back. Even though she never ever does.
With a shuddering breath, Ryan shifts back around in the front seat and tries to focus on the road despite the maelstrom of emotions swirling in his head and heart.
He tries to avoid the familiar self-loathing thoughts from all those months ago creeping up his mind. He forces himself to think of something positive and realizes that he is grateful for how he sees her. That when he looks back he is looking at the freckled shining face of barley sixteen years that still holds some semblance of innocence, instead of the poor tortured soul that went limp in his arms three years later on a cold dark road.
Maybe it's because she never really changed from that sticky August night that now seems like another lifetime ago. Even amidst all the chaos and the drama, she always stayed the same. She never leaned from her mistakes and instead made them over and over again. She died the same girl he first met.
He drives past the cemetery with a lump in his throat and thinks of how unfair it is that the one person who needed to get out of Newport is condemned here until the end of time. It seems like some sort of bitter cruel fate for this to be her eternal resting spot.
He remembers what she said in her letter, his hands shaking as he slowly read her final words, trying to savor them for as long as possible. She had also realized by the end that she needed an escape. He wants to think that her faults were simply a product of Newport. There was no way she was really that broken. He needs to believe that she would be happy somewhere else.
And it hurts him more than anything that she had to die just as she was finally starting to live.
He can't stand the idea of her being stuck here forever. It's not fair to let her
He has to get her out of here. He at least owes her that.
So Ryan takes her with him. He saves a special piece of his heart just for her and lets her presence linger wherever he goes. With every milestone he passes, she's there too.
She's with him on his first day of Berkeley as he nervously scans the students swarming the campus. He takes a deep breath and finds his first class and has five new friends before the day is over.
She's there when he sees his little brother for the first time at four months because he had been way too busy with school to fly back to Newport. And even though it's beyond weird that they share a sibling, it comforts Ryan to know that Julie now has someone else to fill the gaping hole in her heart.
His second graduation rolls around just four short years later and he can't help but he hit with old emotions of how his first one ended up. But she still sits in the audience and beams at him proudly. When he gets his diploma, he closes his eyes and pretends it is five years earlier. He can still hear the sound of her laugh as their parents snap photo after photo.
She stands next to Summer when he marries Taylor on a bright May afternoon. She smiles at him, even though her eyes look a little sad.
She's there when he finally convinces Jason that they see him as a son and not a charity case. And she's there when his daughter is born and is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Aside from Sophie that is.
She's there as his children and siblings grow and he buys a house that's still close enough to Berkeley that he can have dinner with Sandy, Kirsten, and Sophie every week. For every birthday and holiday and wedding and extended family dinner, she's a part of it all. And even as the memories of a sad teenage girl with a beautiful smile become harder to recall, they never go away.
Ryan grows up.
He lives a full life and cherishes each day that passes.
Marissa stays forever young.
I'll keep a part of you with me
And everywhere I am there you'll be
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Everything will be okay
We will meet again one day
I will shine on for everyone
Fin.