"I broked it," Ryan said at three years old, hardly able to talk, as he tottered over to where his mama sat with an elegant glass of wine in her hand.
She picked him up with her one arm, something she worked out quickly so as not to put her drink down, and sat him on her lap.
Each time she did it, Ryan was a little bit heavy but she was getting considerably stronger.
"What did you break honey?" She asked, sweetness in her voice.
"My toy car," said Ryan who didn't talk much but that he did was more understandable than the garble teenagers said those days.
Mama smiled and hesitantly put her glass down on a mat and then wrapped her arms fully around him, pulling him closer to her.
"That's okay sweetie, mama will fix it, or, if not," because Ryan was usual with concerned questions she added. "I'll buy you a new one. Until then you can play with me."
Ryan smiled and giggled, quite pleased with the way things had turned out.
But the smile was broken quickly when the front door opened. Ryan was three but even then he learnt quickly, quick enough to know he didn't trust his father.
"Hey honey," father said when he walked in and wrapped his arms around his wife from behind. "How yo…"
Fathers eyes had wandered and he saw the glass on the table.
"Jesus Dawn," he said quietly. "It's four o'clock."
"For God's sake Dave, then why the hell are you back so early?"
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"I don't know which started first. Mum's drinking or dad consistently being fired. Sort of like the egg or the chicken thing."
"That's okay, it was obviously began for you at a very young age, too young for you to remember. What do you think was first?"
Ryan picked at the worn seat and didn't look up.
"I remember dad being pissed off when he would come home early and find mum drinking or drunk. But that could have been a result of all the jobs. I'm not really sure, maybe they aren't related at all."
Ryan sighed and said, "Maybe there was another reason?"
The doctor could see this was a question not ready to be answered and decided to stir this session in another direction.
"Obviously this issue is buried deeply in the beginning of your life Ryan, and I know your girlfriend Marissa Cooper had trouble with alcohol. This is definitely all related."
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Ryan slammed the car door shut 4, 5, 6 times before he stopped and kept it shut.
Marissa was sobbing and he couldn't look at her.
He stepped back and turned away, wondering who he was right now.
"I'm sorry," Marissa said arms around his waist, head on his shoulder. Her voice trembled with tears.
"It's a disease Marissa," Ryan said his voice filled with half spoken emotion. "Sorry doesn't stop it, doesn't stop hurting you or those around you. Drinking destroyed my mums life and I watched her fall. I'm not here to watch someone else fall."
He pulled away from her and got in the car, she followed his lead and he drove her home safely and silently.
As soon as he got back to his beloved pool house, Seth was on him in a jumble of words and confusion.
"Thank God you're home man, I have something really really…"
He didn't have time to finish.
"Fuck off Seth," Ryan half shouted. "I don't want to hear about your and Summer's latest invisible kiss so just go away."
Seth left droopily, like a puppy and Ryan buried his head in his hands.
The next day Ryan apologized and Seth, who could not hold a grudge even if he wanted to, launched into his story about Summer dressing up as Wonder Woman as if nothing ever happened.
Far too familiar for Ryan.
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"So you told her to stop?"
"Yes."
"At that point, did she?"
"Well she began seeing a therapist and I didn't see her drink again until after the Oliver thing."
"When you were suspended for breaking into the school to find the truth out about him, Marissa dumped you and Oliver tried to kill himself except you talked him out of it?"
Ryan smirked. "Right."
"Well, you lead an interesting life kid."
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"Well, I have to say kid, this tops everything that's ever happened over the last couple of months." Sandy was referring to all the incidents since Ryan had come to live with them.
"Yeah I know, I'm sorry for all the trouble I've caused."
Sandy clasped a hand to his shoulder.
"Don't worry about it, I was just beginning to get bored with this place before you came along."
"Don't encourage him Sandy," Kirsten exclaimed as she marched around the kitchen table picking up stray papers and generally tidying.
"Well, I was just saying," Sandy smiled as he bit into his bagel.
"Saying what dad?" Seth came into the kitchen still wearing his pajamas.
"Why aren't you dressed, young man?" Kirsten asked annoyed, finally stopping all her movement which had been dizzying Ryan.
"Because I'm sick," Seth argued looking quite the opposite of sick.
"Go back up there and get changed."
Seth understood and turned when suddenly the doorbell rang.
"I'll get that," he said. "Hopefully the cold air will give me some sort of disease that will make you all apologize profusely to me."
"California son," Sandy shouted not looking up from his newspaper.
Ryan smiled at the easiness but stopped when he saw who entered.
"Hey," Marissa said clutching her school bag nervously as she faced the Cohen clan.
"Hello Marissa," Kirsten immediately launched to cover an impending awkward silence. "How are you? Would you like something to eat, we have plenty?"
"No thanks," Marissa said, hardly taking her eyes off Ryan who kept his aimed firmly down.
"I was just here to talk to Ryan."
Ryan stood up but Kirsten and Sandy beat him to it and left quickly, the kitchen was now empty and silent.
"How are you?" Marissa asked, her voice low.
"Don't." Ryan snapped.
"Look I…"
"Don't!"
Silence as they both contemplated their next move.
"Just leave Marissa."
Marissa nodded her golden head and left but not before whispering so that no one listening in could hear, "I love you."
Marissa walked out the house and shut the door behind her. Out of her bag she brought a bottle of tequila, just in case this happened.
Because she knew it would.
From a window Ryan watched.
He was watching again.
Watching someone fall.
He had watched his mother fall and hadn't done anything.
Or at least not enough.
He had asked but not done.
He wasn't going to make that mistake again.
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"So you decided to help her yourself?"
"Sort of."
"Sort of how?"
"I talked to her mum, her dad. They agreed something was wrong but didn't do anything."
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"Please STOP IT DAWN!"
There was shouting in the kitchen. He could hear it and Ryan squeezed closer to his brother under the covers.
Trey was eight and Ryan was six and Ryan couldn't remember a time when everyone wasn't shouting and wasn't angry.
"Dawn this is KILLING YOU! Think of the boys!"
"I'm fine Dave. Why can't YOU leave me alone?! Why can't YOU get a PROPER JOB so WE CAN BE A PROPER FAMILY?!"
"Because I have to keep coming home to look after you and pick up the boys from school, because you won't look after them yourself!"
Things had been disintegrating around them for the past few months.
Dawn was drinking more and she became less mama and more Dawn.
And dad was angry. Always angry, at everyone. He didn't drink but he was still as angry as drunk Dawn, and still as apologetic as sober Dawn.
He couldn't get a job because he hit people or argued and shouted too much, or because he was looking after Dawn, Trey and Ryan.
Dad left that night and didn't come home again.
He robbed a shop with some friends and some guns and they were caught by the police.
Dad became Dave and was arrested and not long after Dawn made them all move out to Chino where everyone was angry and drunk and falling down and breaking apart.
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"So that was the quick version?"
"That was the quick version."
"What about the slow one? What about all the stuff that happened in-between the lines?"
"Look," Ryan said, still picking at the chair and staring at the floor. "I thought this was about the now not the then?"
"It's all relevant Ryan. Like I said earlier, issues from your past are affecting your future and present."
There was silence and the doctor could see Ryan didn't want to talk about his real family.
"Okay, if this is getting too uncomfortable for you, lets focus on something else. Like Marissa and what happened next."
"What happened next," Ryan repeated. "A downward slide."
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Ryan spoke to Marissa and told her he didn't want to watch her fall and that he was going to help her.
She said okay but with one condition. They tried again, to be together.
At that point Ryan was desperate, and he was in love. He thought.
He agreed and right that second Marissa handed him the tequila and came inside with him and had breakfast with the Cohen's and smiled.
Ryan smiled too though he felt queasy.
But later that week disaster struck.
An idiot from Ryan's English class came to him while he was ordering coffee for him and Seth and told him that Marissa had stumbled into class, late and drunk and was ordered home.
Ryan thought he was an idiot and for that he got a black eye.
But Ryan ran down to the car park nonetheless and just in time to see Marissa climb into her mums car.
"Marissa, Marissa wait!" He shouted and she turned around, her eyes slightly glazed over.
"Leave Ryan," Julie shouted clearly pissed off. "This is all your fault."
"How can you say that?" Ryan shouted right back. "I warned you that her drinking was out of control. You didn't do anything. Now look at her."
"Ryan I'm sorry," Marissa whispered into his cheek as she leant on him heavily, unable to sustain herself. "I couldn't stop thinking that you might doubt me, or leave me and then I couldn't stop myself. I haven't even touched any for three days though."
"It's okay Marissa," Ryan said and then pulled her away from the car. "You can come home with me."
"Come right back here Ryan," Julie shouted but Ryan ignored her. "I'll have you for kidnapping."
And then, surprising Ryan, for he thought she cared more, she drove off. She hadn't even fought and Ryan felt a twang in his heart. He and Marissa were in the same place and she didn't even know it.
He carried Marissa to the car, told the office he was leaving because he was sick and before they could protest, walked out the door and drove Marissa back to the Cohen's.
He carried her into the pool house, and lay her on the bed where she slept for hours.
He emptied her bag and found a drained bottle, threw it away and then watched her sleep.
Ryan's eyes began to droop and several times he jerked awake sure he had seen his mum lying on the bed instead of Marissa.
Around lunch time Seth came running in but Ryan ushered him out and explained what happened. Seth said he had explained to the office what happened and how the whole school thinks Ryan and Marissa have runaway together to Tijuana to commit suicide, together.
Ryan asked who came up with that story and Seth said that he did.
For that he was punched in the arm.
Seth went back to school and Ryan went back to watching Marissa sleep.
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"That was the downward spiral?"
"No, it wasn't even close to what happened next."
"Then why don't you tell me?"
Ryan shifted uncomfortably. "Why don't we go back to the family stuff?"
"Okay, are you ready to go into the long version?"
A deep breath and Ryan said, "Yes."
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Dave and Dawn's place.
That's where Ryan and Trey lived.
And whenever Ryan told kids down the road where he lived, the house with the broken bike on the front lawn, they looked at him funny and told him they had to go home for tea. Even if it was 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
But Ryan understood.
He knew that other kids parents told them to stay clear. That house was associated with drugs, alcohol and shouting. Lots of shouting.
It was associated with the bruises Ryan and Trey tried to hide unsuccessfully.
And the more bruises they got, the more times Dawn looked at them and then looked away, and then started drinking again.
Four months before today, July the fourth, there were less bruises but the same amount of empty bottles.
Now the bruises and the alcohol were neck and neck.
Dave was getting angrier and angrier, and he had hit Ryan the other night for trying to help him.
Trey had jumped in then, jumped in to help his brother. Eight years old Trey was and Trey was used to protecting small Ryan from the bigger older kids.
But now it was David and Goliath.
Dave was huge, angry and scary. He used his fists only but he managed to pin Trey down, kicking and hitting, and still make patterns on his skin.
Then they were locked in their room, whimpering, while Dawn got the same.
Two nights ago and Ryan was still feeling the affects as he walked home holding Trey's hand. It was dark now, they tried to stay out as long as possible without making Dave angry.
They crept around the back, and climbed up through their broken bedroom window. Ryan climbed into bed as Trey shut the door quietly and then climbed in beside him.
They wiggled up together and Trey smiled down at Ryan and then rolled his eyes as the fighting started, making Ryan giggle and try to do the same.
But then the shouting got louder and the sound of things breaking joined it. It was like an earthquake was ripping through Ryan's home and he didn't like it.
He began to quietly cry, soaking Trey's t-shirt as he tried to comfort his little brother.
It was worse then ever, Dave and Dawn both having tyrant goes at each other, pulling each others lives and problems apart and spilling them to the world.
And then Dawn did it. She told him something she was terrified of, she told him and both Trey and Ryan heard it. Loud and clear.
"You KNOW what Dave, I fucking hate you and how much do I HATE YOU?! Enough to FUCK your best friend, yeah, I FUCKED ERNE!"
It was very quiet after that.
The shouting had become dormant and Ryan wondered if Dave had killed Dawn. Or if Dawn's words, that she had done something with Ernie, the guy who worked at the corner store, had ripped Dave to shreds.
Because they were best friends in Ryan's eyes, just like he and Trey were except they were brothers.
They went drinking together, not like Dawn's drinking, and played poker together and did lots of fun things and Dave had even once told Ryan, in one of his good moods, that Ernie was the only thing keeping him sane and standing upright.
Next second though, Ryan's eyes were being assaulted by light and when he looked up he saw Dave standing in the doorway staring at them angrily.
"Did you know about this Trey?"
He always addressed Trey because Ryan never talked to him, he was too scared.
"N…no…" Trey stuttered.
Dave asked again.
"Did you know about this Trey?"
Ryan did something then, that scarred him more then the bruises, but he regretted it less then when he had tried to help Dave.
"I knew daddy, Trey didn't know. Only I did, mummy told me."
Dave grabbed his arm and hauled him off the bed and out the room. Pain lanced up his arm and Ryan tried to pull away, he tried to escape and Trey helped him.
He kicked Dave and hit him but he was thrown across the room where Dawn ran to him and screamed when she saw the blood on his head.
Ryan stopped squirming after that, he stopped wriggling and trying to escape. He just stared at his bloody, unconscious brother as he was hauled out the door and into the truck.
And when he closed his eyes the picture of his strong, brave brother, now broken and bleeding was burnt into his mind.
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There was a very deep silence between Ryan and the doctor.
Ryan's eyes were prickling with tears as he remembered more then clearly what had happened that night.
And it suddenly occurred to him that what happened that night was what had happened to Marissa.
It was his karma.
It was his fault.
"Ryan," the doctor said tenderly and Ryan looked up, tears now burning in his eyes as he blinked rapidly to get rid of them. "Ryan, you were very brave that night."
"…no…you don't what happened afterwards…it's all making sense now…"
"What happened next Ryan?"
"…it's like karma…like everything I did wrong is coming back…"
He broke down, then and there he cried.
It was like it was happening all over again.
Replaying in his head, every little thought and action.
Everything he did wrong.
His Karma
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Ryan sat in the front seat of his dad's rusty, old truck.
He was terrified, breathing quickly but as quietly as possible in case Dave heard him.
In case he reminded Dave that he was here.
Ryan already knew where they were going, it was pretty obvious. It was coming together in Ryan's mind, like a movie.
Dave wanted revenge, he had already called all his friends and told them to meet him at Ernie's store. They were going in for revenge and Ryan was being brought along to watch.
They were there seconds after Ryan had managed to piece together what was going to happen.
He was still reeling from his brothers brutal beating. Still trying to blink away the burning sensation in his eyes from the memory.
His ears ringing still with the pleas his brother had given as Ryan was pulled along by Dave.
"No dad…no don't take Ryan…LEAVE HIM ALONE! He's only a KID!"
I'm no longer a kid, thought Ryan. I'm no longer safe.
"Stay here kid," Dave was talking to him and he looked up, surprised at what he had said. "Don't leave the car, do you hear me?"
Ryan nodded and returned to staring at his lap.
Dave left the car, for two whole minutes Ryan heard him talking to some men and then shouting at someone else whose replies were muffled. After that glass was broken and bullets were shot.
And Ryan couldn't sit there, he had to see what was happening.
He knew he was being stupid, and he was terrified, but curiosity was stronger then both.
He crept out the car and saw no one there, he crept up and saw a broken door and peeked through it.
Inside the shop it was dark and murky, Ryan could hardly see anything. But what he did see was six men, standing in a semi-circle, their backs to him, and between them was another man, lying on the floor, bloody and broken just like Trey.
And at the centre of the semi-circle, gun in hand, stood Dave.
Suddenly though the man lying on the ground looked up and seemed to look straight at Ryan, straight at him. Staring and calling wordlessly for help.
Ryan didn't move, didn't breath, scared that the other men would turn around and look at him. But they didn't and seconds later Dave was pointing a gun at another human being and pulling the trigger.
Ryan moved then, as the ringing in his ears gradually subsided, he backed away. Fear and horror painted across his small, pale face.
He ran away, ran away from the man who had seen him and seen hope. Who had looked at him and wanted help.
He ran as fast as he could and didn't look back. For fear that the dead man would come after him and ask him why he didn't help him, why he didn't ask his father to stop.
To not kill another human being.
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If silence could speak then, in the aftermath of what Ryan had relayed to the doctor, then it would say a million words at once.
It would say everything that either person was not saying, and so strongly feeling.
"…it's karma…" Ryan mumbled to himself and was then thrown into the throes of another memory, just as nightmarish.
That completed the karma.
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"Marissa please stop the Car! Please just stop and let me help you! Please Marissa!"
"You know Ryan, I have no one to blame but myself, that's what my therapist tells me."
Marissa was slurring, her eyes glazed over as she clutched the wheel of the car and swerved them down the road.
Ryan sat beside her, close enough to smell the alcohol on her breath. Close enough to see that she was hardly even seeing the road.
He was shit scared, but more scared for Marissa then he was about crashing.
"I fucked Luke and me up, I fucked my parents marriage and then I fucked us up…TWICE!"
She shouted and the car swerved around another corner, just missing sliding over the edge.
Ryan's heart missed a beat and he went back to pleading her.
"Marissa please pull the car over and let me drive. We can work this out but you have to let me drive."
His voice was tender and calm, hushed and soothing.
"WHY?! Am I drunk to you, am I not enough for you?!"
"No Marissa you are, your more then enough, I love you Marissa."
"No you don't, you never loved me. YOU just LOVED the idea of me. You LOVED that I was perfect and popular. You just wanted my money and my friends and MY life!"
"You THINK that!?" Ryan shouted and all ideas of soothing slipped from his head. "YOU were the one that LOVED the idea of me, you were the one who wanted to date the bad boy…YOU were the one who was always too much and always pushing me and always keeping me FROM THE LIFE I COULD HAVE HAD! ALWAYS BRINGING BACK A PLACE I'VE BEEN TRYING TO ESCAPE!"
Marissa stared at him and when Ryan came back to reality, where a drunk girl was driving a car in the middle of a wet, stormy night, he looked ahead. Straight ahead at the road and saw none.
He couldn't remember what happened next, phantom ideas of rolling around in a car before being thrown out a window and thudding into concrete plagued his memory.
But it was God knows how much later when he woke up and things became clearer again.
He was lying on his back, hard ground beneath him.
He stood slowly, his head pulsating, his muscles straining and groaning, pain rippling through his body.
He looked around and saw the burning car and everything came flooding back to him.
He half ran, half limped to the upside down, fire writhen wreckage and then paused, his mind working a hundred miles an hour.
He whirled around, trying to find her, hoping that she hadn't been burnt, that she hadn't died in a mass of flame and pain.
And Ryan saw her.
Lying on the road, on the other side of the wreckage from him. He ran to hear, the pain in his leg all but forgotten.
She lay, on her side, unblemished from afar but when he approached her, slowly cautiously, paining with curiosity, dying with fear, he saw her body.
Mottled with bruises, her head dripping blood.
He knelt beside her and tenderly touched her neck, he felt for a pulse. He felt for a sign of life.
And he found none.
He found no pulse, he felt no beat of her heart.
She was dead, and when he lay his head upon her stomach, he could see straight through the car wreckage and to the spot where he had lain only minutes before.
Where she must have looked at him and begged for his help, her death coming quickly and she could feel it. Feel her death upon her and the only person who could help her was meters away.
Because her eyes were open and staring endlessly on.
Just like Ernie, surrounded by people and reaching out to him.
Karma.
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"Well thanks for coming kid, I have to say that was the best first session I have ever had. No one has ever quite opened up to me that quickly,"
Ryan smiled tiredly. "I kind of needed someone to talk to. I've been sort of falling apart I guess."
"I can understand completely, after all you've been through you needed someone to talk to. I hope we can carry on like this and get more in depth. I'm not sure more emotional is the word to use right now, that session just about tops all others."
"Yeah about that I'…"
"No need Ryan, I'm hear to talk to. So I'll see you next week?"
"Yep, Thursday at 4 0'clock."
"And Ryan?"
"Yes…"
"Both Marissa's and Ernie's death weren't your fault, okay?"
"Yeah I know."
"No Ryan, really, they aren't your fault, there is no karma."
"I…yeah."
"Ryan, Ernie died at your fathers hands, Marissa died and it was her own fault, her parents fault, alcohol's fault. None of this was your fault."
"I…I…please don't make me fall apart again."
"Okay kid, you can go. Sandy's probably getting worried about you."
"Okay, bye."
"Bye Ryan."