She wishes he would come home. If she could fold a thousand paper cranes and wish every single time for him to come back, she would. She would even wish on a star or pray to a God she doesn't believe in, can't believe in. What sort of God would take away the only person who she can even depend on?
She knows he's needed where he's at but she can't help but feel selfish. Nobody has ever accused anyone in Newport of being selfless and she doesn't feel selfless. She knows it's her fault he's gone, that it's her fault Seth is gone away on his stupid boat while her best friend cries and cries and cries.
Actually, crying and drinking is all anyone does these days. She saw Kirsten yesterday at the mall and the woman looked so distraught and abnormally upset that she almost wanted to hug her, the woman who lost both of her boys. She didn't though; instead, she got a few feet behind her and hesitated, then turned around and left. There was something about a heartbroken adult that left her feeling helpless and Kirsten had always been the strong woman in the neighborhood, the one to count on. Now, though, there was a lack of color in her eyes and she seemed almost fragile. She needed her sons home.
She thinks about him every day. She thinks about the first time they met, right down her old driveway while she had everything in the world. "Who are you?" she asked in a somewhat amusedly uppity voice. "Whoever you want me to be," he'd replied, and it was like even then they both knew that someday, somehow, they would be together. And it took awhile, but they finally were together.
She thinks about the first time she kissed him, on a Ferris wheel where he was so afraid that she found it charming and Anna had paid for them to have more time up in the stopped container and she decided to let go of all she had been and just kiss him. So she did, and he kissed back, and the wheel spun around in a bright mirage of color. She knew him in that instant and he understood her. With him, she was something.
There are so many things she will never get back. Even at the practice before the debutante ball, she had already chosen him. He had slid his hand down when she told him to and it was a slow beginning of their future. He had looked at her a bit shyly and a bit cockily and she had only wanted him. He had been her escort at the actual cotillion and she had looked at him and smiled because even if he wasn't Newport royalty, she wanted no one else with her. He had come outside and put his jacket around her shoulders after Holly's father hit hers and she had wanted to lean against him and cry but she couldn't because she had to be strong.
She doesn't remember much about Tijuana and maybe that's for the best. She remembers waking up at that motel and how it felt to have his strong, lean body wrapped around hers. He wasn't hers then, but she loved how it felt to have him so close to her. And they walked down the street with Summer and Seth ahead of them and even though she said she would be meeting Luke, he didn't leave. But then she saw Luke and Holly dancing and she doesn't know anything else from there. Summer told her, later, that Ryan had been the one to go to her while she lay in the alley and when he picked her up and carried her out, Summer said that even then there was love written on his face. Summer knew he loved her and Summer trusted that…so why hadn't she?
She thinks about him coming back every day. The different variations are there, are hers, and even though she knows she should feel guilty because Theresa needs him and she had him first, all she feels is bitterness because he is gone and so is Seth and her best friend cries and cries and cries and she knows it's her fault that Seth is off sailing away on the damned boat he named after Summer and she doesn't even know the words to say to comfort Summer. They always had had their parties and drinks and clothes and boys and now all they wanted were two boys who changed their entire lives. Summer wanted Seth Cohen, the lonely boy who had been hers since forever and she wanted Ryan, the only one who helped her understand.
So, even though she knows she shouldn't, she still imagines how he'll return.
It will be a Monday. She and Summer will be watching reruns of Gilmore Girls, desperately needing some amusing normality. The doorbell will resound throughout the mansion of Caleb's and Summer will drag herself off the queen-sized bed to answer the door. Footsteps will be coming up from the stairs and she will assume it is Summer coming back up. She'll turn to the door and he will be there with his half smile she used to love and she will stand and stare in disbelief. He will walk to her and apologize over and over and over until she's crying and he is too and that scares her because Ryan doesn't cry and she will kiss him to make him stop crying and he'll kiss her back and everything will fall back into place because that's how it's meant to be.
No, it won't be a Monday. Instead, it will be a Thursday. She will be with Summer at the beach and even though there is a silence between the two, she can't make herself say anything. It's like they both lost who they were when Ryan and Seth came around because then they finally learned what love was. She had been with Luke for years and Summer had had flings but neither knew the meaning of sacrifice and the pains of love until they met the two unlikely candidates. She thinks about how she never felt beautiful until Ryan said she was when he saw her dressed for cotillion because even though Luke said it all the time, it was only because he wanted her to sleep with him. When Ryan said it, she felt it through and through and she loved him for making her special. She will end those thoughts when Sum says "Ohmigosh Coop, is that Ryan?" and she will sit up and see him walking towards them. Summer will look up hopefully but Seth isn't there and she leaves instead. Ryan will come to her and hold her and she will sink into his embrace even though it isn't okay, not yet, but maybe it will be soon.
She doesn't like that variation sometimes but even so, she keeps thinking. It won't be a Thursday; it will be a Wednesday. It will be the first day of school and she won't want to go but Summer needs her there and so she complies. She and Summer will be standing in the hallway with space between them because Ryan and Seth were always, always, always there with them. But they're both gone and Seth isn't there to entwine his hands with Summer's and Ryan's not there to place his hand on the small of her back, just hard enough so she knows he's not leaving. Sum will look at her and she'll look back and see her sadness reflected in her eyes until she hears their names called and Ryan and Seth are both there and they come to the girls. Neither of them will know what to do or say but Seth and Summer go off to talk and Ryan comes to her and she throws herself into his arms as his hands go to her back, just like always.
Or maybe it will be a Saturday when he comes back to Newport. She will be in her room in the mansion that isn't home. She will be watching some show or another, she doesn't keep track anymore. Summer will call a total of eight times and she will not answer the phone, instead losing herself in the memories she can't forget. She thinks about how he came to the New Year's Eve party even though he didn't want to, how he ran to her and kissed her. Summer had said that how you spend that night is how you'll spend the rest of your year but it wasn't because Ryan is gone now and it's only halfway through the year. Caleb will yell up that someone is there for her but she didn't care enough to reassure Summer that everything was fine. Her bedroom door opened and as soon as she saw that white tank top she had kidded him about at their first date, she knew it was him and nothing needed to be said. Instead, he came to her and sat on the bed, curling his arm around her shoulders and she lost herself in his kiss again.
There are other days, other variations. Sometimes when she dreams, she sees him leaving again and sometimes she sees them as they were or could have been but the dreams that he isn't in are the worst of all because then she is only trying to find him. All she knows is that he's gone and even though she calls him sometimes, just to hear him answer, she knows he won't be back. She knows he can't come back but she wants him to anyway. Every single day, she wants him back.
But he doesn't come and the days pass as she and Summer find their old selves and party more. The next time she sees Kirsten she smiles in a fake way and kisses her cheek, the usual Newport greeting. There is something in the way that Kirsten looks at her that makes her think she understands why she's choosing this life instead of fighting for the thing she wants. So she walks ahead and wherever she goes, he is with her even if it's only in her memories. Sometimes she wonders if he ever thinks about her but she doubts it. Maybe it meant nothing to him, maybe she meant nothing to him…maybe the "I love you" he had whispered on New Year's Eve was really the end of the beginning.
She heard once that Peter Pan pulled off Tinkerbell's wings so she couldn't ever leave and sometimes love is just another way to bleed. She had never understood why it made her cry and feel so sorry for Tinkerbell but now she knows. Ryan doesn't need her, or Summer, or Luke, or the Cohens, or Newport life. He only needs himself and for a long time that was enough. She wonders if it still is.
She thinks he really left her three times. Once was when he was going back to Chino. She stood at her driveway and watched him leave with her hidden hopes and dreams with her. She spent so much time wondering what would have happened between them that when he came back she wasn't surprised. The second time was after Oliver and even though she couldn't blame him, she didn't want to give up. The final time was when he left with Theresa and took her heart with him because in reality, he was all she had needed.
Ryan has a hero syndrome. He wants to save and she needed saving but now that she doesn't, is that why he left? Theresa does need him – Theresa with the beautiful onyx hair and gentle smile, the original next-door girl who came to Newport to find Ryan's rescuing arms.
Ryan.
"You know what we haven't done in awhile?" he'd asked, kissing her slowly and softly until she responded with the same tone he had when she first kissed him. Summer and Cohen had surprised her that night with a redone room and laying there with the three of them, she thought that that was how it was meant to be.
She doesn't hate Theresa for being beautiful or for loving Ryan as much as she does. She doesn't even hate her for taking him away. She can't hate Theresa or Ryan and that's what makes it so hard. Ryan betrayed Theresa by leaving without a good-bye. Theresa betrayed Ryan by going back to Eddie. She betrayed them both by taking and giving without thought.
She wonders if the baby will have Ryan's eyes or the flaxen hair she loved to touch. Or maybe it will look like Theresa with wide eyes and gorgeous hair. Sometimes she doesn't like wondering these things but she has to. She has to get over him.
Today is Monday and she still looks at her bedroom door in hopes that he will be back.
She was never accused of being selfless.