In Which Ryan Gets Some. And Then Some More.


Ryan is good at keeping secrets. He has to be.

The first secret he keeps is Marissa. Marissa's not really a secret, because everyone know that there's something going on, even thought they're over and done with and Ryan moved to Chino to have a baby, for crying out loud. Ryan doesn't know why he keeps Marissa as a secret- she is the worst of both his worlds, and thinks sometimes at night that he should let her go.

Sex with Marissa is all long limbs and tender kisses, his rough hands gentle because she's always so close to breaking. She cries a lot, but he's used to tears and Marissa wouldn't taste like Marissa if there wasn't a hint of saline in her mouth, along her breasts, weeping from her cunt. Marissa tastes like tears and sour alcohol, and sometimes that makes him want to cry, too.

Ryan doesn't cry for Marissa.

Marissa comes to him like clockwork, on Sunday nights because Sunday's the day Julie and Caleb are both home, and after a family dinner with Julie Cooper and Caleb Nichol Ryan really can't blame her for wanting to get out of the house.

I'm sorry, She always tells him, muttered while her eyes look elsewhere and hurried hands tug on her expensive, silky, clothing. He remembers once upon a time when her eyes lit up at the sight of him. He wonders if they still would. He doesn't know for sure because Marissa hasn't looked at him in a long time, a very long time, even though it's still his name she whispers in the dark.

The first secret he keeps is Marissa.

The second secret Ryan keeps is little Anna Stern from Pittsburgh. She's a wildcat in bed, oddly enough, all fire and spit, hands clawing down his back. Anna leaves the lights on, and she fucks Ryan the way he's always been fucked, rough and hard and cold. Her nails leave marks in his back and his hands bruises on her thighs. Anna as a secret is a hard one, because everyone knows she's back in town for a week or two or ten, and the marks they leave are proof of where they've been.

Anna says she doesn't miss Seth when Ryan asks her- Seth? Whose Seth? In that wannabe tough voice that's a touch too raspy and tad too transparent. But Ryan leaves her with her lie because at least she's trying to move on, and he just keeps getting sucked back in.

Anna gives Ryan head behind the apartment he shares with Theresa, while the TV blares from inside. Ryan doesn't want to love it but can't really help it. He tilts his head back and screams.

Anna is the second secret Ryan keeps, and she is the hardest because Anna has never been any good at letting go.

The third secret Ryan keeps is Hailey. I'm fucking my aunt is kind of the word of the day, but he fucked with his could-be grandma too, by the same standards, and Hailey's pretty hot. She's nothing like Kirsten but he catches himself worrying about some freudian issues, before discarding them because fuck if he cares about his mother. Or anybody else's.

Sex with Hailey is fun. There's no other way to put it, but that's not quite the right way either, he thinks. It isn't happy, because they're both desperately unhappy and desperately alone and both trying very hard to forget not where they came from but how close, how close, they both came to escaping. But sex with Hailey is fun because she's a helluva woman, all grins and giggles and slapping his ass.

Hailey doesn't make a point of meeting his eyes and she doesn't make a point of avoiding them, and when she leaves she always makes a rude comment or a taunting point that leaves him blushing and furious and hating her, and hating himself. But he's fairly certain she hates herself, and him, as well, so when she comes back he kisses her and fucks her and changes the sheets before Theresa comes home.

Hailey is his third secret. He thinks she's his favorite, but maybe not.

Summer is his fourth secret.

Summer's all long hair and pouty lips and sharp nails. Summer tastes like strawberry lip gloss and a little like Seth, but he thinks that's just imagination. Summer tastes mostly like guilt, guilt as his tongue massages her throat, guilt as his mouth dips between her thighs.

Summer's a bitch, and she hits him every now and then, slapping him hard even though they're just little-girl hits and don't mean anything. They hurt, but not so bad. She hits him and says she hates him and won't meet his eyes, but not in the way Marissa won't meet his eyes. Summer won't look at him because she's terrified she'll fall apart.

Ryan's main job with Summer is to hold her rough edges together. He runs his hands up under her shirt, lifting it easily, and instead of a rude comment she just sits there, looking at him, eyes not crying even though the rest of her is. Summer is strong, and Summer is breaking.

He abandoned me, the bastard, She tells Ryan the first time he says, Seth. He doesn't deserve me. And she tosses her head like she means it, but Summer's had a long line of boys and men who'd throw themselves through fire for her, and nobody's ever looked at her like Seth did. She wonders why she wasn't enough to make him stay.

Sex with Summer is all about experience, slow and languid, sometimes fast and hard. Never too hard, never too gentle, just two people who don't know where else to turn for comfort. Don't know how else to cry.

Ryan's fourth secret is Summer, head thrown back, his hands on her ass, her breasts against his chest, someone elses name a whisper on her silent, silent, lips. Someone elses face in her distant eyes.

Ryan's fifth secret is Theresa. They share the same apartment, but nobody's yet guessed they share the same bed. Ryan's fifth secret is domesticity as Theresa's belly grows bigger, big enough that it's easy, easy, to see that he's not the father. Ryan's fifth secret is working overtime to bring in a paycheck, is cooking mac and cheese and rubbing the aches out of Theresa's feet.

Theresa cries sometimes, real tears. Not sobbing, really- no shudders, no gasping, none of the dramatics that Marissa's crying epitomized. Theresa just cries, tears running down her face, as silent as Ryan on a bad day. Ryan kisses her, but he can't make her stop crying, and sometimes he can't quite work up the energy to want to.

Sleeping with Theresa is something he's always done. He lost his virginity to her when he was twelve, and he knows every curve and every secret in her body. She thinks she knows his, but Ryan's good at keeping secrets and shutting people out.

Theresa lights candles around the bed at night, and Ryan drops his clothes in a puddle by the door before sliding under the sheets and kissing her. Theresa cries and Ryan kisses her stomach, feeling the baby move and is terrified, terrified, that he'll never be enough. Ryan knows the way the story goes and he's tired of fighting it, but he's scared that this kid will flinch from him because Theresa isn't enough.

Because he isn't enough.

Ryan's fifth secret is Theresa, and the way she never comments on the scratches down his back of the hickey on his thigh or Hailey's bite-mark on his shoulder.

Ryan's sixth secret is Seth.

Seth sailed his boat around for a day, sold it, and moved to Chino. Seth stays in a hotel downtown and Ryan visits him. Seth doesn't want his parents to know and every Wednesday night when Sandy calls, sounding more tired and more worn-out, Ryan lies and says he hasn't heard from Seth, of course he'd say something, he's so sorry.

Seth babbles while they fuck and moans when Ryan kisses him and screams when Ryan goes down on him. Seth has curly brown hair and friendly brown eyes and he's going to have go home soon, his money's running out, but Seth is seizing the moment and fucking Ryan like there's no tomorrow, no home, no expectation. Seth fucks Ryan like there's no such thing as homophobia, as Summer, as his mother falling apart, as his Dad not being able to fix her. Seth fucks Ryan like there's no Newport Beach waiting.

Ryan isn't sure about this. Ryan loves Seth and has for a while now, but Ryan's straight. Ryan's dick doesn't get hard from his brother's face, his brother's chest, his brother's ridiculous voice saying ridiculous things. Ryan thinks of every girl he's ever touched, ever looked at, and concentrates on the friction. Seth needs this. Seth needs him.

Ryan's final secret is Seth, and everything he can try to be, and everything he fails at.

Shhh. The End.