"God, why did this happen?" Marissa looked up to her bedroom ceiling and squeezed her eyes shut, desperately wishing that she would just wakeup from what had to be a terrible nightmare.
Unfortunately, this was not a nightmare. She opened her eyes only to be still standing in her bedroom. She slowly breathed in and shuddered. Blood. All she could smell was blood: Trey's and Ryan's blood. She looked down to her shirt.
"Oh Jesus." She hadn't realized that her shirt was stained with it. She was only now regaining her senses as the shock was wearing off. She pulled her shirt over her head and not knowing what to do with it, walked to her bathroom and dropped it in the tub.
It was at this instant that she fully grasped what had happened only a few hours ago. Her legs wobbled and her head started spinning. She collapsed in the corner of the bathroom and dropped her head in her hands, the tears falling freely in her palms.
"I shot someone…oh God, I may have killed someone." Bang! Marissa jolted at the sound of the gunshot in her mind and then sunk even lower to the ground, as if trying to hide from her memories. She was in the same position now as when she had shot Trey. All she could see was his face, looking at her after he realized what she had just done. His eyes were burned into her sole. The next few hours were a blur; the emergency room, the police station, the drive home with her parents. But those eyes, she would never forget those eyes.
"Trey." She whispered his name. Ryan's brother. She remembered the first time she had met him. She was with Ryan last thanksgiving visiting him in prison. She didn't know how she was supposed to feel about him at that time. But oddly she remembered feeling connected to him somehow; he was a part of Ryan, the boy she loved and the man she still loved now. Marissa had only affectionate feelings for anything or anyone that was a part of Ryan. Maybe that was why when Trey was released this year and came to stay with the Cohen's that she felt this overwhelming urge to help him. She knew that he meant a lot to Ryan, and she wanted nothing more than for the two brothers to somehow re-connect, forge a bond. Marissa would do anything to see Ryan happy, and she truly felt that Trey being a part of his life would be nothing but positive. She knew of his past, but if Ryan could change, she was sure that Trey could too.
Her mind suddenly arrived at the beach that night; her and Trey's celebration party. She knew something wasn't right, the look in his eyes, the way he said her name.
"How could we all have been so wrong about him?" she asked herself. Marissa remembered waking up the next morning and feeling so many things at once: hurt, anger, hate, but most of all sadness. She didn't feel sadness so much for herself, but more for Ryan. How could someone hurt Ryan the way Trey had? Ryan was just starting to trust Trey again, just starting to relish in the fact that he had his brother back. And now this. She knew she couldn't tell him. She couldn't bear to be the one to turn his world upside down. It was that decision that ultimately got them all to the tragic situation that they were in now. Her mind suddenly flashed back to when she had first walked in Trey's apartment and how she found the two brothers. For the first time that night she remembered Ryan's choking face. She was so scared; she knew that she wouldn't be strong enough to force Trey off of him. When he picked up the phone and aimed it at Ryan's head, she knew she had to stop him somehow. Thinking about it now, it seemed as if her eyes were drawn to the gun on the floor. She didn't even think twice when she picked it up, she just did the only thing she could to stop Trey. Whatever consequences she would suffer for her actions, she knew it couldn't possibly be worse than losing Ryan.
Marissa took a shaky breath and lifted her head to focus her eyes on the wall opposite her. She didn't want Trey to die, but she knew at this moment that she would never regret what she did. She would have hell to pay, but Ryan was alive and safe, and that's all Marissa cared about. "I love him so much" she whispered.
She was shaking now; not so much from the chill of the cold, hard wall of her bathroom, but from the realization that her life, and Ryan's will be forever changed. Tears were again cascading down her cheeks. She wished Ryan was with her right now; she needed to feel his arms around her. For a second she considered going to see him, than a terrifying realization struck her. "He probably never wants to see me again." She wondered if Ryan would blame her for everything. If she just hadn't tried so hard to push Trey into Ryan's life again, this never would have happened. "Will he ever be able to forgive me?"