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Ryan POV.
I couldn't even hang the phone up - I just kept staring at it. It felt like everything around me was tumbling. My breathing had become so rapid I had to shut my eyes and bend my head to concentrate on normalizing it. After a few minutes, Anna gently took the phone from my hand and hung up. If I'd heard correctly -unfortunately, I was sure I did- somebody was trying to claim that Seth could possibly be lying cold in God-knows-where. Seth? The same guy who taught me about Chrismukkah, welcomed me with no qualms into his home and life, the same sonofabitch who'd tried to get me to sail, who'd been my friend when everyone else insisted on making me feel like an outsider? That Seth? It couldn't be. It just couldn't. Life couldn't be so cruel, could it? Things like that just didn't happen to good people, right?
Fuck, Seth could be lying cold and it would be all my fault. All mine. I'd done it again. Ryan Atwood had screwed up once again and now Seth was dead. All because of me. But what was I supposed to do? Could I have done anything differently? I had to go back to Chino, right? I couldn't allow Theresa to go through that alone. That couldn't have been the right move to make. Right? At the time it felt like the only thing -the correct thing- to do, so why did it suddenly feel so wrong?
At that moment, I felt Anna slip her hand over mine. She probably thought it was reassuring but all I could feel was my skin crawl, so I shook her off. Luckily, she didn't react. I wasn't in the mood to talk - my mouth was too dry to form any words and I just wanted her to leave me alone to wonder how the hell Seth could be dead. We'd completely forgotten the purpose of the stupid trip. The whole time we were sailing, dancing, kissing, Seth was somewhere suffering, drowning... possibly dying. Why the fuck weren't we more observant? We would have found him if we'd paid more attention. I glanced at her and was just disgusted. Why the hell did she even make me come with her? It was a pointless trip - we didn't achieve anything. Instead, Seth was probably dead and I'd left Theresa all alone. If she hadn't come up with the stupid sailing idea, I, at least, would have been able to be with Theresa instead of being completely useless on the Pacific.
At that thought, I remembered that Theresa had told me the date of her first ultrasound. Because we were low in funds, we were utilizing free prenatal care so they were pretty backed up. But luckily for her, the nurse, who was a friend of her mother's, had managed to get her an earlier date. She needed me to be with her, to hold her hand when they showed her the first pictures of our child but instead, she was going to be all alone. All because Anna couldn't sit her ass down in Pittsburgh.
I reached for my bag and rummaged for the sheet I'd written all her information on. I found it: May 30th.
"Huh?" Anna asked. I must have said it aloud.
I'd drifted into my own world and forgotten she was sitting next to me. The color was yet to return to her face. "I said, May 30th."
She nodded. "Yes, that's tomorrow. We get to Hawaii tomorrow."
"Who cares? It's the day Theresa gets her ultrasound," I mumbled, looking back at the paper.
"That's nice."
What? Couldn't she see what was happening? "No it isn't, Anna." I turned to her again. "It's not nice."
She looked confused. "It isn't? Why not?"
My blood had begun to boil and usually, that's the point I just shut up to keep myself from saying something I might later on regret but all I could think was; it was a wasted trip because Seth's dead anyway. And I needed to lash out.
"It's not nice because I'm not there with her," I replied in a louder voice.
"Oh," she mouthed.
"Is that all you have to say?" I'd started shouting.
"Alright, I see where this is going," she said, getting up.
"Going? We are going nowhere. Can't you see that?"
She folded her arms and looked down at me. "Are you actually screaming at me?"
"What does it look like? This is all your fault! I shouldn't be here at all. I should be with Theresa! "
"Ryan, in case you've forgotten, I didn't ask you to come with me," she said in a firm voice. I could see that she was trying her best to keep her cool and that just annoyed me even more. I wanted a reaction from her. Seth was dead and I hadn't done anything to prevent it.
"Anna, are you honestly saying that you expected me to let you come here alone?"
She shrugged. "Let me? Are you my boss? Remember I never asked you to come with me. You insisted. If you felt you had to stay with Theresa, you should have."
"How the hell would that have worked? I couldn't let you be alone!"
She looked away from me. "Ryan, it was your choice - don't blame me."
I started seeing red. She was standing there calmly, trying to rationalize things, trying to argue with me when the world was just falling apart around us. What was her problem? "Really? What did we accomplish by coming here? Nothing! Absolutely Nothing! Why did you suggest it in the first place? We came here and Seth's dead anyway! W--"
"We don't know that. Nothing's been confirmed," she interjected, looking back at me. Her voice betrayed that she didn't truly believe it herself.
"So what? Where the hell is Seth? For all you know, he could have sailed to Timbuktu."
Angrily, she clapped once. "Ryan, what the hell? What do you want from me? You chose to come here."
"Why do you keep saying 'chose'?' I had no choice. I had to come with you instead of doing the right thing and staying with Theresa. At le..."
"You can fly up tomorrow," she said, interrupting. "We'll go to the airport and you can fly up."
"As if I could. I can't leave you." I would have loved to but there was only one of me. I annoyed me she couldn't understand that.
"Listen Ryan, I get it - you want to protect everyone. But you can't be in two places at the same time. You have to choose which girl you want to save. And I don't need you. Go to her."
"Whatever Anna." I really wasn't listening anyway. "Why in the world did you come up with this stupid idea in the first place? As if my life wasn't fucking complicated enough... If you hadn't -"
"Listen, you! Stop trying to put the blame on me because of some misguided guilt you feel. As you say your crap, just remember this; I'm not the reason Seth went sailing in the first place."
That stung. "You think I don't know that?"
"Who knows what you think you know, Ryan? You're here screaming at me," she pointed out.
"Want to know what I know?" I didn't wait for a response. "It would have been better for everyone if you had just stayed in Pittsburgh. As far as I remember, no one actually invited you."
She glared at me then picked up her handbag and walked out.
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I'd finally gotten a reaction from her, so why did seeing her walk out make me feel even worse? I immediately realized that I shouldn't have flung those words at her, that she wasn't at fault for anything and that she was just trying to help. The stupid fight didn't even make sense. I was just mad. I knew I'd been irrational, but I was so emotional that I'd unwisely unloaded my tongue on her. I regretted ever going up the stairs to tell her about the problems with the phone because if I'd just taken care of it on my own, like I ought, I'd have gotten through to Sandy in her absence and all the crap wouldn't have happened. I would have dealt with killing Seth on my own. I'd let her non-reaction, which was probably mature, get to me and I ended up acting like a punk.
I knew it wasn't her fault - I knew she had nothing to do with it so I had to apologize. It was completely wrong to treat someone who'd been so nice to me like that. I didn't need the extra stress and I couldn't stand that I'd selfishly hurt her feelings. At that moment, I felt worse about that than about abandoning Theresa.
She was steering the wheel when I got to the deck. She was also wearing the largest T-shirt I'd ever seen in my life. I was sure it was made for a 400lb man - she must have been cold. She didn't turn to acknowledge me like she usually did. Instead, she just stared at the calm aqua waters. It was such a beautiful day - mild sun, no clouds and even the air didn't smell so fishy. The irony of life; we couldn't have had weather to match our moods.
"Anna, I'm really sorry for what I said in there," I began in my most humble voice. I really meant it.
She didn't reply. I might as well have been talking to a brick wall.
"I understand you're mad but I'm really sorry. I should never have yelled and I can't believe what I said." When she didn't respond, I continued. "I don't think sailing was a bad idea at all. In fact, I think it's great and I'm glad you let me tag along."
She just keep looking ahead, completely ignoring me.
When I turned to leave she said, "you're booked on tomorrow's 12:30 flight to LA. I trust you can find your way from there."
"What?" I was so shocked - I hadn't expected that. She must have called the airline from her cell phone. I finally understood why she'd taken her bag with her.
"You heard me. We'll be arriving in the morning, so you can take a cab to the airport."
"Sandy said --"
"Fuck Sandy. This trip is over. Go and save Theresa. I am sure she's going to die if you're not standing by her, watching, as they put that cold gel on her belly, so go on. Not that I care, though. Go wherever you want. All I know is you're not staying with me any longer. You can leave now."
"Anna," I said, reaching for her shoulder. I hadn't realized that my words had affected her that much. I certainly didn't want to leave.
"Don't you dare touch me! Just leave."
I didn't move a muscle. I tried to think of the right thing to say but came up empty.
"Alright," she said, forcefully hitting some buttons on the computer screen. "If you don't leave, I will."
With that, I turned around and walked away.
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A/N: In case you were confused about the phones remember in Chapter 4 she said the boat had a GPS phone and she had a GSM mobile phone.