Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or any songs or other trademarked/copyrighted things that I may mention in this story. I am obsessed with Ryder and Marley. If you don't believe me, you should see my Tumblr. I warn you in advance that I haven't been the most reliable about finishing stories in the past, but I do have an 11 chapter outline for this story, so that's at least promising.
Chapter 2
Ryder Lynn ran his right hand through his hair as he entered the hallways of McKinley High. It was a nervous tick that he had recently developed.
A new sort of hyperawareness had filled him since Valentine's Day. Every day, he tried to resist the urge to go talk to Marley the way he had before their kiss; he was scared now that seeking her out would make Jake suspicious, or worse, would make Marley herself feel uncomfortable. He missed being able to go chat with his best friend, but he knew that, after he had assaulted her face, she deserved space to figure things out for herself.
Worse than the ache he felt from forcing himself to avoid Marley's locker was the sinking in his gut he felt whenever he walked past Jake's locker. For the past couple of months he had endured the rare days when Jake showed up to school on time; on those days Ryder usually found Jake and Marley acting all adorable and couple-y. He had done his best not to let it affect him, but after all of the work he, Ryder, had put in to making sure that Valentine's Day was perfect for Marley, only for Jake to assume that he was getting laid as a result… Ryder couldn't deal with it anymore. That combined with the guilt of kissing Marley – because she was still his bro's girl, no matter what douchey comments he had made – had created an unbearable situation for him whenever he saw his two friends together.
A selfish part of him liked to think that Marley and Jake's interactions had seemed different since Ryder had kissed her, but it was probably just his imagination. He was reading too much into the way Marley's eyes seemed to linger on him instead of staying put on Jake, or into the fact that her smile wasn't quite as bright as it had been in the weeks before. She was just stressed out about the situation that he had put her in; it wasn't because she had any feelings for him.
He had known that before, but when she had said to him that she knew he was the one who had remembered all of her favorite things and made sure that Valentine's was perfect for her, and she had told him that whenever he did that for a girl for real, she would be the luckiest girl in the world… He hadn't been able to help himself. He had waited for so long for her to realize he had never given up on her, and a small part of him…
But she wasn't that kind of girl. He knew that, and he had been stupid anyway. Now he had gone and messed everything up, and he didn't even know if she was okay. She didn't seem terribly upset – he couldn't get that smile from yesterday's performance of 'Footloose' out of his head – but maybe that was because she had decided that the kiss meant nothing, and she could go on being happy with Jake.
Fortunately, today he didn't see Marley at Jake's locker – perhaps Jake was going to skip first period today, since he hated math. Ryder rustled through his own nearby locker quickly though, just in case they did show up.
"Oh, man," he muttered to himself, realizing that he had left his own math book in the choir room yesterday afternoon. That was back on the other side of the school and would lead him right past Marley's locker. He knew he wouldn't be able to resist talking to her if those blue eyes of hers even briefly looked his way.
He cracked the door open to the choir room, but two voices stopped him in his tracks. He could hear Marley and Jake, and the last thing he needed was to walk in on one of their makeout sessions. He moved to close the door, but something about the tone in Marley's voice stopped him.
"Jake, please… I know you're upset, but can't you at least talk to me?" she pleaded. Ryder knew he should close the door, he really should, but…
"Why should I, Marley? You kissed another dude! I mean, I knew that he still had feelings for you, but – " Oh shit. Not only were they fighting, but they were fighting about him. He could hear how upset Marley was, and it was his fault.
You sure do know how to treat a girl, Lynn, he thought to himself bitterly. He made her feel uncomfortable and now it was his fault that Jake was angry at her, too. He went to close the door again, amazed that they hadn't noticed it was slightly ajar, as Marley cut Jake off.
"You knew?!" she asked incredulously. "You knew he had feelings for me and you still asked him to do all of that stuff to help you?" Her tone had changed slightly – was that a hint of anger? – and Ryder's hand left the doorknob once more.
"Well yeah – he remembered all kinds of mushy crap that you had said to him before. I wanted to impress you! Now I don't know why I wasted my time… You probably would have liked it better coming from him anyway," Jake muttered darkly.
"Mushy crap?" Marley sounded slightly wounded. Ryder felt a surge of protectiveness and wished that he could reassure her; what kind of boyfriend thought his girlfriend's interests were mushy crap? He hoped that Jake was just saying these things in anger and that he didn't really feel that way about the things Marley cared about.
"Marley, I've told you. I don't do this monogamy thing; I've never had to pay attention to a girl's favorite flowers or candy or jewelry or movie or whatever before. I thought you said yesterday that you appreciated that I tried!"
"Yeah, but I didn't think trying meant that you were deliberately hurting one of your friends! Didn't you stop to think about how hard that must be for him? If you knew that he had those kinds of feelings for me, why would you rub it in his face like that? God, you made him sit there and watch everything you did during Valentine's week, and you just expected him to feel peachy every time I just swooned over how sweet his ideas were?" Ryder tried to quell the surge in his spirits as he listened to Marley defend him; he wouldn't let him read into it, wouldn't let him think that it was out of anything more than respect for him as a friend.
"Seriously? He kissed you behind my back and you're defending him? Why are you even bothering to apologize to me, Marley? Why are you here begging for me to forgive you if you're more worried about Ryder's feelings than mine?"
"That's not fair." Marley's voice had dropped so much that Ryder could barely hear her give her response. "I care about both of you. You're my boyfriend, and he's one of my best friends. I just…"
"You just what? You figured it's okay to suck face with one of your best friends? You asked me to change and do this whole one-person-only stuff for you, and I tried, and then you…" Jake's tone had grown accusing.
"I know!" Marley's volume rose again, and her tone sounded desperate. "I know, I know, I know. I screwed up. I hurt you. I made a mess out of everything. I shouldn't have kissed him back, I shouldn't have – it was so hypocritical of me to let that happen after all you've done for me – but please, you have to realize that I've always cared about you. You were there first, Jake, and from the moment we met…" Marley trailed off, and Ryder tried to ignore the fact that she hadn't mentioned that she had also hurt him. Jake had shut her down the first time she had tried to acknowledge Ryder's feelings, after all.
Harder to ignore was the tenderness in her voice when she started talking about the first time she met Jake. He didn't want to listen to anymore, but he really did need that math book, and he couldn't interrupt.
"Does that really matter to you? That I was there first? By that logic you may as well be saying I should have stayed with Kitty," Jake muttered darkly.
"You've still never explained that one," Marley pointed out. "At least Ryder's a good person."
"And who says Kitty's not? You seem friendly enough with her these days," Jake shot back. "Look, Marley, I can't deal with this right now – especially when you haven't even been able to tell me what you want from me. You're begging me not to be angry at you – and not to be angry at Ryder, which, pfft, yeah right – but I'm not even sure what that means." Ryder gulped as Jake scoffed at the thought of not being angry with him; who knew what kind of trouble that would lead to later.
"Maybe I'm not sure either." Marley's tone was tearful. "I've always wanted you," she confessed. "I just… things got confusing, okay? I didn't mean to do this to you… or to him. To either of you. I just – you're both really important to me, okay? And I really like you, but…"
"You like me? Do you even hear yourself? What happened to duets? To the calendar? To the 'I love you's'?" Jake's tone had softened; his anger seemed to have been replaced by hurt.
"You really want to tell me everything leading up to that calendar was your idea?" Marley asked quietly. Her voice hid her emotions, which was rare for a girl who so often wore her heart on her sleeve.
Jake ignored her question – at least he wasn't going to pretend Ryder hadn't urged him to make Marley feel special then, too. "You really like me but you love him? Was that what you were going to say? Because I really don't want to hear it, Marley. Maybe I'm not the most sensitive guy in the world, or the best at being all romantic, but if that was what you wanted why did you waste my time instead of picking Ryder in the first place?"
Ryder couldn't help but wonder the same thing himself, but he pushed back the dejected feeling he got whenever he remembered his could-have-been first date with Marley. He had been so stupid to cancel on her. He had been so excited – he should have just found the time to keep his plans with her too, instead of taking it for granted that she would wait around for him. He knew that Jake had been showing his interest in her then too; he never should have given him the opportunity.
"I never meant to be a waste of time," Marley said sadly.
"Oh come on, Marley, don't take it like that," Jake protested. "You know what I mean. I just – you need to figure out what you want. I can't guarantee you that I'll just be waiting with open arms if you decide you want me, but we can't fix things like this, either."
"I know – " Marley began, but Jake wasn't finished talking yet.
"Yesterday was all me, Marley. The ceramic wheel, the song from your favorite romantic movie – " There was no ceramic wheel in The Hunger Games, Ryder thought to himself, " – serenading you with 'Unchained Melody'? I thought I finally had an awesome idea on how to impress you, an idea that was totally my own, and it just seems like it wasn't good enough, since right afterwards you started talking about Ryder."
Well that's interesting. "And then you just let me leave – " This time Marley succeeded in cutting off Jake.
"I begged you not to go! And I found you now that you've cooled off, didn't I? It's not like I was happy to watch you walk away," Marley interjected.
"Yeah, after you were all happy to dance with Ryder right in front of me at rehearsal! Really, Marley? It seemed pretty clear to me that I'm not the one that you want, so why are we even here?" Ryder tried not to take too much satisfaction from the fact that Jake had also noticed the way Marley had beamed at him during 'Footloose'. It was nice to know that he hadn't imagined it, though.
"That's not fair. I don't want to lose either one of you. I just…" Marley seemed at a loss for words.
"Well, you've got a funny way of showing it. Look, Marley, I thought you were a great girl. Maybe you still are. But I need time to get over what you did, and even if I didn't have my Puckerman pride to protect, I would still think you needed some time to sort shit out. I'm not Ryder, okay, and maybe it was stupid of me to try to impress you using his ideas – maybe I set up some unrealistic expectation for what kind of boyfriend I'm gonna be." Silence followed, and Ryder could imagine Marley's hesitant nod – the same one she had given him when he had apologized to her for kissing her in the first place.
"So… we're broken up." Ryder couldn't tell if Marley was questioning Jake or stating a fact.
"I don't know," Jake admitted. "You're the first girl I've ever thought I loved, and Puckerman's aren't quitters. Do you want to be broken up? Do you want to just get out now and run off to some fairy tale with him?" Ryder could tell that Jake was barely keeping himself from sneering, even though he couldn't see his friend's – were they still going to be friend's after this – face.
"Can't we just – you said we should all get some space? Can we settle with that for now?" Marley's voice was back to a whisper again, and Ryder felt that the conversation was coming to a close, if for no other reason than the fact that the homeroom bell would ring soon. He closed the door slowly, not sure he wanted to hear the conversation's conclusion. He backtracked to the bathroom down the hall and gathered his thoughts for a moment.
So Marley told Jake. Marley told Jake, and she didn't even deny that it meant something to her. She told Jake she was confused. She and Jake were, at the very least, taking a break. Ryder tried to calm his racing heart. She still needed space, probably from both of them. Plus, she had said she loved Jake just a couple of weeks ago. It wouldn't be right to go for her now, even if they did break up. It hadn't been right to go for her after Valentine's Day. He just needed to calm down, let her be, not push anything. He refused to be that kind of guy. Jake was his friend too, not just Marley. He had to back off and let them figure out things on their own.
Plus, this was Marley Rose – she was worth waiting for, no matter how long it took for her to figure out her own feelings.
Ryder took a deep breath, and then heard the first bell that told him it was time to head to homeroom. He quickly made his way to the choir room to grab his math book, hoping that Jake and Marley would be gone.
He got half of his wish. He pushed in to find Jake alone, sitting right next to the chair where he had left his math book. Ryder moved toward him quietly, hoping he could grab the book and go without any fuss, but Jake looked up and glared at him.
"Oh, hey man. Just forgot my math book," Ryder said, feeling too guilty to meet his friend in the eyes. He had no idea how to act in this sort of situation; he had never been the douchey guy that went behind a friend's back before. Plus, he had just eavesdropped on an entire conversation between Marley and Jake, and since he hadn't spoken to Marley, didn't that mean he should act clueless? He had left it up to her to decide what she did and didn't want Jake to know; if Ryder had been the one to tell him, it would have seemed like he was trying to force them to break up so that he could have Marley to himself. He had been willing to let Marley pretend she hadn't kissed back if that was what she wanted; it was up to her to decide what she wanted to do, and not his place to intervene in their relationship.
Not that that stopped him from kissing her and screwing up her relationship for her anyway, he reminded himself miserably.
"Oh, shut up, Lynn," Jake said, standing up. "I know about what happened." Ryder opened his mouth to apologize, but before he could get a single word out, Jake's fist collided with his face.
