Hello all! Thank you, thank you sooooo much for all of the wonderful reviews you've given me. Now, The majority of this story will be told from Ryan's point of view, but this chapter will be told from Sandy's point of view and I plan to have one told by Summer and possibly Marissa if I can come up with anything. This story is supposed to explore what they all mean to each other and I think Ryan and Seth are starting to discover how important they are to each other. Anyways, enjoy! Read, review, and oh! Yeah, I don't own nothing. (always forget that one.)
***
1986
I had resorted to counting the flecks on the tile floor. I don't do patience well. I have very little, actually. And you wouldn't believe how little pacing actually helps. My lack of patience was the reason I decided to marry my wife two weeks after I proposed. The reason I was born three weeks early and took one hour of labor to come out. It was the reason I wanted to have children right after Kirsten and I got married.
Apparently, my new son was following in my footsteps.
It wasn't time yet. The baby wasn't due for another month and a half, but so he appears. And it wasn't going so well. I had been kicked out of the room a while ago and they had taken Kirsten in for a C-section. There were complications, but I really didn't think to ask what. All I knew was that my wife and my child were in trouble and I, Sandy Cohen, Big Kahuna that knew everything (yes I do), could do absolutely nothing.
It was a very unsettling thought. Kirsten hadn't been ready to have children, as opposed to me and my burning need to get started right away. But once she became pregnant, she had started glowing with the brightness of a perfectly ready mother. We bought the crib and the cute onesies from Baby Gap and prepared for our bundle of joy. But now, in his impatience to come out and be with us, I was afraid we were going to lose him.
I didn't want to lose him. The last person I had lost had been my best friend, Seth. He had been like a brother to me for nearly ten years. The last day I had seen him, he told me that no one in the world had ever meant more to him and that I was his hero. Then he got into his car and hours later his mother called and told me he had died in a car accident. I was heartbroken, losing someone who meant that much to me. I wasn't sure I could handle one more loss.
I also had big plans for my son. Maybe he would be athletic…play sports…we could work on cars together…less Jewish. I was Jewish, and you could so tell. Or, maybe he would be different; like comic books like me, or like music like his mother. I just prayed to God that the poor kid wouldn't be cursed with my curly hair. But all that didn't matter now. I just needed someone to come tell me that my kid was okay.
As if they could hear me think, Kirsten's doctor entered the waiting room. "Mr. Cohen?"
"Yep. That's me. How's Kirsten?"
The doctor smiled and said, "She's doing just fine."
I swallowed. "And the baby."
The doctor's smile shrunk a little. "Your son is in incubation. He's very small and he's having trouble breathing. But I'm very confident that he will be just fine very soon."
I just looked at him. Okay, I can deal with this. Captain Optimist was taking over, and I thought 'okay. He said he'll be fine.' Yea. My baby would be fine.
I made my way down the hall towards the nursery preparing to meet my son, knowing, or more accurately, hoping, that everything would be okay.
***
2004
I had expected that people would ask me the question. Seth was my son, after all. And I figured no one would go to Kirsten. She was too fragile, too hysterical about Seth's condition. I think that everyone knew that if they asked her, she would have thrown a fit and told everyone that they were crazy for even thinking such a thing. But I was the man, I was more stable, and I guess they figured I would tell the truth.
I was surprised at how startled I wasn't when the first ones asked me. It was a day or so after the diagnosis when Seth's friends started coming to see him. Ryan, Marissa, Luke, and Anna came to visit after school. While Ryan, Marissa, and Luke were making their way down the hall to Seth's room, Anna pulled me aside and danced around the question in a polite manner fitting to her personality.
"So, what do you think is going to happpen?" she asked.
I looked at her and shrugged. "Um, chemo. Pretty much. We found the disease fairly soon, so that's good."
She narrowed her eyes at me. "Do…you think it's going to work?"
I nodded. "Yeah, sure."
She seemed to accept this answer. Then she turned around and followed the other three into Seth's room. I sighed.
Anna was slightly more difficult than Luke was earlier. He, possessing nothing that could be vaguely referred to as tact, came right out and asked, loudly, while Ryan and I explained what was going on.
"Dude, Mr. Cohen, is he gonna die?"
Marissa gasped, Ryan looked frozen, and Anna rolled her eyes. Marissa then slapped Luke fairly hard in the head and practically yelled, "Ass! Of course not! Why the hell would you ask that?"
Then Marissa looked slightly taken aback by her own forwardness. Ooh, Potty mouth Cooper. Never would have guessed. Then she looked back at me with an earnest look in her eyes, a plea for me to back her up.
Luke was a piece of cake. The completely random and blunt way he asked just added a sense of annoyance and, in a sick twisted way, humor.
"Of course he'll be fine, Luke. You kids don't worry."
I saw Ryan glance at me and then look back down at the ground. I averted my eyes too; I wasn't sure why, but it was hard to look him in the eyes at that moment. So I looked back at Marissa and smiled reassuringly. With a mother like Julie Cooper, she needed all the support she could get.
I also figured on Seth asking me himself. He was a very smart young man, and he was also forward and curious. It was on an afternoon right after he started chemotherapy, so he was tired and sore and sick. I entered his room at about 3:45, expecting Ryan to be in there (he was every day after school.) and stopped immediately.
The sight before me nearly launched me into a giggle fit ending in tears. Seth was lying on the bed, sleeping, with a comic book opened across his chest. Ryan was stretched out with his head at the foot of the bed and his feet crossed and resting next to Seth's arm. I heard the extremely obnoxious snoring coming from underneath the exact same comic book Seth had, draped across his face. I had to squeeze my eyes shut for a moment so I could walk across the room to the pair without my laughter startling them awake.
I gently shook Ryan's shoulder. Except, he was so sound asleep that I had to shake him hard and yell his name before he jerked awake and the comic book fell to the floor, revealing Ryan's startled face.
"W-what…" Ryan wiped at his arms and cleared his throat, then looked worriedly over at Seth. "What's up? Is…"
I almost giggled. "Nothing. Nothing at all. I just came to check in on you guys."
Ryan looked around the room, then back at Seth, and then stretched. "Um, we're fine. Seth was feeling kinda crappy, so he dozed off. Apparently, I followed suite."
"Apparently." I looked at Seth. He looked fairly pale. Then I noticed the comic book on his chest. I looked down at the one by my feet and pointed. "Um, exactly why did you two both invest money in the exact same comic book when you could just borrow each others?"
Ryan looked down and picked up the comic. He shrugged. "It's just something we could do together."
I stared at him. "Together? Okay, so you're going to both read. Not communicating, just reading. To be together." I'm assuming I displayed my confusion through my face.
"Oh. Um, we had this thing where we'll read it to ourselves and when something happens we discuss."
I was still not seeing the purpose, and I'm guessing Ryan could tell because then he said, "Never mind. It's just something stupid we do."
"No! No, it's just…"
Searching for the right word became unnecessary because we were both startled by Seth making a small noise as he woke up. He rubbed his nose and mumbled before he opened his eyes and looked, first at the ceiling, then around to Ryan and me. "Hey, Dad. What's up?" he croaked.
"Ah, nothing. Just getting the shimmy on the new diggy thing you cats do for fun."
Yeah, that was really trying too hard.
Even though Seth had a hard time keeping his eyes even slightly open, him and Ryan both stared at me. Wow, I felt old.
"Dad, I needn't even grace that with a retort."
"'Retort.' Good vocab, man," Ryan said and Seth nodded his head in appreciation. Then Seth bit his lip and closed his eyes, looking strained.
"Seth?"
He shook his head and then sighed. "I'm okay. Just feelin a little barfy."
Ryan looked like he was going to panic. I just moved next to Seth and rubbed back his hair in a (hopefully) comforting manner. He then proceeded to rub his hand through it, subconsciously making sure it was still flying free through his head. "It'll get better. Just wait." I wasn't exactly sure if that was true, but it seemed to be the right thing to say.
Seth nodded. We all stood there uncomfortably for a moment, Seth appearing to be trying desperately to hold in his cookies and stay awake, Ryan trying to keep an inconspicuous eye on him, and me, just standing around I'm sure looking like an idiot. Right when I thought we all couldn't take it anymore, I said to Ryan, "Hey, Ryan?"
I could practically see the struggle to peel his eyes off Seth. "Yea?"
"Could you go down to the cafeteria and get me a Mountain Dew, please?"
Ryan slowly nodded, glanced once more at Seth, and headed out the door, not before saying to him, "I'll be right back."
Seth nodded. "'Kay."
Once Ryan was out of the room, I looked hard at Seth. He looked very pale and sick. We all knew what chemo would do to him, but I don't think any of us were quite ready for it. Especially Seth. But he was definitely a trooper. He was being very brave through the whole thing. He hadn't cried since that first day with Ryan, when I walked into the room to find him sound asleep with dried tear streaks on his red face. Ryan was watching him, with his tears dripping onto Seth's bed sheets. Since then, Seth had put on a brave face for I'm assuming everyone except Ryan, and Ryan had devoted every free moment he had to hanging out with Seth. The bond between the two of them astounded me, considering the fact that for the first sixteen years of his life, Seth had no one. And now he had the kind of friend that I had and that I'd always wished he could have.
"So how're you doing, Seth?"
He shrugged and licked his lips. "I'm alright. Today has been better than most."
I nodded. "That's good."
I stood there for a moment, not knowing what to say. I glanced up at the T.V., seeing an old episode of "Roseanne." I laughed to myself, remembering Seth's bizarre obsession with the sitcom. I became engrossed myself watching the episode, when I heard Seth ask me. Very quietly, so that I wasn't quite sure he had asked.
I looked at him. "What?"
I noticed him swallow and twiddle with the plastic bracelet on his wrist. He didn't look up. "Am I going to die?"
My breath caught in my throat, and I'm pretty sure I made a strangled-sounding noise. I had prepared for the possibility that Seth would ask me, but it was still like a punch in the nose. I took a deep breath and placed my hand on his shoulder.
"Look at me, Seth."
He resisted. He didn't want me to see his face. But he looked up anyway, and I stared at him for a moment, taking in his dimpled chin, his soft eyelashes, and his gentle brown eyes. And his full head of curly brown hair, something I hoped against hope didn't go away. He gazed up at me, awaiting my answer, and I suddenly became harshly aware of just how young he was. 'God,' I thought, 'this isn't fair.'
I placed my hand on the side of his head and ran my fingers through his curls. "No," I said simply.
He looked down at his hands and shook his head. "You…you don't know that."
I nodded. "Yes I do. You are going to be fine. You're going to brave this whole treatment and you'll come through good as new. And then you'll read comic books and chase Summer around and graduate high school and have a good life. You're going to be just fine."
Seth stared down at his hands for a moment. The he looked up, and I saw just the slightest glisten of tears in his eyes. I waited, hoping he'd buy what I'd said, because I needed one of us to believe it completely. Then he nodded and gave me his best attempt at a smile. "Yea. You're probably right. What good is worry gonna do, huh?"
I knew he was fronting, but I said nothing. I just gave him my best smile, and then Ryan came back in the room and I sat there watching "Roseanne" while the two of them read their comic book, stopping occasionally to discuss some plot twist.
***
So, I dealt with Luke, Marissa, Anna, even Seth asking me the inevitable question. They all feared the worst happening, but they all needed me to reassure them otherwise. It didn't matter whether I was telling the truth or not, they just needed to hear the answer they wanted. But one person I didn't prepare for; the one person I never thought would ask.
I was sitting on the couch at about three in the morning reading, waiting for Ryan to come home. It was a few weeks later, and I knew that Seth had finally talked him into going out with Marissa and Luke and taking a break from "baby-sitting" him, as Seth put it. Neither Seth nor Ryan quite understood it, but I knew why Ryan spent so much time just being with Seth. He needed to be near, because I knew that he was afraid.
But Ryan was pushing it, being out as late as he was. I thought to myself that I had enough worries with my son's cancer, much less my adopted son that couldn't keep himself in line. Then I felt absolutely horrible about my thoughts, and kicked myself repeatedly for them. I knew that Ryan was having as hard a time as anyone, but it was hard not to feel self-involved.
I heard noise coming from the pool house, and I, assuming that Ryan was trying to sneak in and doing a very poor job of it, went outside. When I entered the pool house, I saw Marissa and Luke leading a very disoriented and very obviously intoxicated Ryan to his bed.
"What the hell is going on?"
Luke jumped, and Ryan flopped on his bed and grinned. "Hey, Sandy," he slurred. "What's up?"
"I think that's something I should be asking you," I said calmly and crossed my arms.
Luke looked at me helplessly. "I'm sorry Mr. Cohen. We went to a party and kind of got split up. When I found them again, they were both trashed."
Them. I looked at Marissa and could tell that she was quite inebriated, also. I shook my head and sighed. "Have you been drinking Luke?"
He shook his head. "Nah. I really couldn't; I had my hands full with these two."
I nodded. "Okay. Well, if you'll take Marissa home, I'll take care of Ryan." Ryan was starting to drift off to sleep with his nose buried deep in his pillow.
"Thank you, Mr. Cohen. Tell Seth tomorrow that I'm going to stop by after soccer practice," he said and headed out of the pool house with Marissa.
I nodded and made my way over to Ryan. He was snoring quite loudly into his pillow, the sound muffled. I gazed at him, and in a gesture that I had just realized I did with Seth all the time, I rubbed back his hair. I've never understood why I do it, it just always felt like I needed to. The feel of my son's hair was comforting, just as the feel of Ryan's was. But, then again, Ryan was my son now. But he did have thinner hair.
I sighed and moved to the foot of the bed to take his shoes off. I had untied the laces when I heard him stop snoring and move. I looked up at him, and he was sitting up with tears streaming uncontrollably down his face. He was crying so hard that he was hiccupping. I scrunched my enormous eyebrows, confused, and moved to sit on the bed next to him.
"Ryan? What is it? Did something happen?"
Ryan shook his head, hiccupped, and looked me directly in the eyes. "Is Seth going to die?"
I was pretty positive my entire body shut down at that moment. I had never expected Ryan to ask me the question. I figured that he had been thinking about it, but Ryan would never ask. It just wasn't his nature. He would worry over it forever and never ask, always trying to convince himself what I had been telling everyone else. That Seth would be perfectly okay.
But the look in his crystal blue eyes was heartbreaking. I knew that this boy didn't want my generic, rehearsed answer. His entire life was built on lies, and I knew that he didn't want me to lie to him. He wanted to know whether I really thought Seth would die.
But, how do you tell a young man that you had absolutely no idea whether his only true friend in the world would survive to see adulthood? I looked into Ryan's eyes; I followed the stream of tears flowing down his red cheeks, and I shrugged.
It was a helpless, almost hopeless, defeated shrug, and the only thing I could think of. I couldn't lie to him. "I don't know," I said. Ryan closed his eyes, then put his face in his hands and his shoulders began to shake. I hesitantly put my arms around him, and thankfully, he accepted me. He wrapped his arms around my waste and he mumbled something into my shoulder.
"What was that?" I asked.
He lifted his head and looked me in the eye. "What do I do then?" He wiped at his nose. "What do I do if he doesn't get better?"
I sighed and closed my eyes. I wasn't sure what to say to that, so I just opened my mouth and prayed that the inner lawyer would take over. "You'll love him. No matter what; if he outlives everyone or if he dies tomorrow, you'll love him. Because that's all anyone needs."
I waited for Ryan to say something. I needed him to accept my answer, so I could start believing it. And he did. He nodded and lay back down, and within minutes, he was asleep. When I saw his breathing even out, I let my tears fall freely down my face.
***
1986
I walked into Kirsten's room quietly. My son was a few days old, and he was okay. He was a fighter; I could tell. He'd be okay. I saw Kirsten sitting in her bed, holding him. I marveled at his full head of dark hair and his large, curious eyes. I smiled every time I thought of his name, and Kirsten screaming it in labor, and her telling me after she was done with surgery that she thought the name suited him. I agreed of course, feeling like a little piece of my best friend would always be around. I hoped Seth had a Seth of his own someday.
"Hey, Sweetie," Kirsten said brightly.
I smiled and moved closer to her and looked down at my son. Kirsten handed him to me, and I took him, feeling the weight of his small body in my arms. A certain feeling gushed through me, one that I shared with him out loud.
"Nope. Definitely not a football player."
***
Okay, phew! Sorry it took a while, I was busy with school. I am but a lowly high school student (Senior, though, whooooo!). About the timeline, I know this doesn't match up; I realized I wasn't lining up, but I figured it was okay. It's just kind of weird with Seth and Summer together, (oh yea, I haven't really mentioned that. Oops.) But Anna's still there. And Ryan and Marissa are together. Just try to ignore it. And if you're wondering why Summer isn't around, you'll find out soon. Tell me what you think of this chapter. I believe the next chapter will resume Ryan's pov. Thank you sooooo much from the bottom of my heart for the excellent reviews you guys have given me. I love you guys so much.
***
1986
I had resorted to counting the flecks on the tile floor. I don't do patience well. I have very little, actually. And you wouldn't believe how little pacing actually helps. My lack of patience was the reason I decided to marry my wife two weeks after I proposed. The reason I was born three weeks early and took one hour of labor to come out. It was the reason I wanted to have children right after Kirsten and I got married.
Apparently, my new son was following in my footsteps.
It wasn't time yet. The baby wasn't due for another month and a half, but so he appears. And it wasn't going so well. I had been kicked out of the room a while ago and they had taken Kirsten in for a C-section. There were complications, but I really didn't think to ask what. All I knew was that my wife and my child were in trouble and I, Sandy Cohen, Big Kahuna that knew everything (yes I do), could do absolutely nothing.
It was a very unsettling thought. Kirsten hadn't been ready to have children, as opposed to me and my burning need to get started right away. But once she became pregnant, she had started glowing with the brightness of a perfectly ready mother. We bought the crib and the cute onesies from Baby Gap and prepared for our bundle of joy. But now, in his impatience to come out and be with us, I was afraid we were going to lose him.
I didn't want to lose him. The last person I had lost had been my best friend, Seth. He had been like a brother to me for nearly ten years. The last day I had seen him, he told me that no one in the world had ever meant more to him and that I was his hero. Then he got into his car and hours later his mother called and told me he had died in a car accident. I was heartbroken, losing someone who meant that much to me. I wasn't sure I could handle one more loss.
I also had big plans for my son. Maybe he would be athletic…play sports…we could work on cars together…less Jewish. I was Jewish, and you could so tell. Or, maybe he would be different; like comic books like me, or like music like his mother. I just prayed to God that the poor kid wouldn't be cursed with my curly hair. But all that didn't matter now. I just needed someone to come tell me that my kid was okay.
As if they could hear me think, Kirsten's doctor entered the waiting room. "Mr. Cohen?"
"Yep. That's me. How's Kirsten?"
The doctor smiled and said, "She's doing just fine."
I swallowed. "And the baby."
The doctor's smile shrunk a little. "Your son is in incubation. He's very small and he's having trouble breathing. But I'm very confident that he will be just fine very soon."
I just looked at him. Okay, I can deal with this. Captain Optimist was taking over, and I thought 'okay. He said he'll be fine.' Yea. My baby would be fine.
I made my way down the hall towards the nursery preparing to meet my son, knowing, or more accurately, hoping, that everything would be okay.
***
2004
I had expected that people would ask me the question. Seth was my son, after all. And I figured no one would go to Kirsten. She was too fragile, too hysterical about Seth's condition. I think that everyone knew that if they asked her, she would have thrown a fit and told everyone that they were crazy for even thinking such a thing. But I was the man, I was more stable, and I guess they figured I would tell the truth.
I was surprised at how startled I wasn't when the first ones asked me. It was a day or so after the diagnosis when Seth's friends started coming to see him. Ryan, Marissa, Luke, and Anna came to visit after school. While Ryan, Marissa, and Luke were making their way down the hall to Seth's room, Anna pulled me aside and danced around the question in a polite manner fitting to her personality.
"So, what do you think is going to happpen?" she asked.
I looked at her and shrugged. "Um, chemo. Pretty much. We found the disease fairly soon, so that's good."
She narrowed her eyes at me. "Do…you think it's going to work?"
I nodded. "Yeah, sure."
She seemed to accept this answer. Then she turned around and followed the other three into Seth's room. I sighed.
Anna was slightly more difficult than Luke was earlier. He, possessing nothing that could be vaguely referred to as tact, came right out and asked, loudly, while Ryan and I explained what was going on.
"Dude, Mr. Cohen, is he gonna die?"
Marissa gasped, Ryan looked frozen, and Anna rolled her eyes. Marissa then slapped Luke fairly hard in the head and practically yelled, "Ass! Of course not! Why the hell would you ask that?"
Then Marissa looked slightly taken aback by her own forwardness. Ooh, Potty mouth Cooper. Never would have guessed. Then she looked back at me with an earnest look in her eyes, a plea for me to back her up.
Luke was a piece of cake. The completely random and blunt way he asked just added a sense of annoyance and, in a sick twisted way, humor.
"Of course he'll be fine, Luke. You kids don't worry."
I saw Ryan glance at me and then look back down at the ground. I averted my eyes too; I wasn't sure why, but it was hard to look him in the eyes at that moment. So I looked back at Marissa and smiled reassuringly. With a mother like Julie Cooper, she needed all the support she could get.
I also figured on Seth asking me himself. He was a very smart young man, and he was also forward and curious. It was on an afternoon right after he started chemotherapy, so he was tired and sore and sick. I entered his room at about 3:45, expecting Ryan to be in there (he was every day after school.) and stopped immediately.
The sight before me nearly launched me into a giggle fit ending in tears. Seth was lying on the bed, sleeping, with a comic book opened across his chest. Ryan was stretched out with his head at the foot of the bed and his feet crossed and resting next to Seth's arm. I heard the extremely obnoxious snoring coming from underneath the exact same comic book Seth had, draped across his face. I had to squeeze my eyes shut for a moment so I could walk across the room to the pair without my laughter startling them awake.
I gently shook Ryan's shoulder. Except, he was so sound asleep that I had to shake him hard and yell his name before he jerked awake and the comic book fell to the floor, revealing Ryan's startled face.
"W-what…" Ryan wiped at his arms and cleared his throat, then looked worriedly over at Seth. "What's up? Is…"
I almost giggled. "Nothing. Nothing at all. I just came to check in on you guys."
Ryan looked around the room, then back at Seth, and then stretched. "Um, we're fine. Seth was feeling kinda crappy, so he dozed off. Apparently, I followed suite."
"Apparently." I looked at Seth. He looked fairly pale. Then I noticed the comic book on his chest. I looked down at the one by my feet and pointed. "Um, exactly why did you two both invest money in the exact same comic book when you could just borrow each others?"
Ryan looked down and picked up the comic. He shrugged. "It's just something we could do together."
I stared at him. "Together? Okay, so you're going to both read. Not communicating, just reading. To be together." I'm assuming I displayed my confusion through my face.
"Oh. Um, we had this thing where we'll read it to ourselves and when something happens we discuss."
I was still not seeing the purpose, and I'm guessing Ryan could tell because then he said, "Never mind. It's just something stupid we do."
"No! No, it's just…"
Searching for the right word became unnecessary because we were both startled by Seth making a small noise as he woke up. He rubbed his nose and mumbled before he opened his eyes and looked, first at the ceiling, then around to Ryan and me. "Hey, Dad. What's up?" he croaked.
"Ah, nothing. Just getting the shimmy on the new diggy thing you cats do for fun."
Yeah, that was really trying too hard.
Even though Seth had a hard time keeping his eyes even slightly open, him and Ryan both stared at me. Wow, I felt old.
"Dad, I needn't even grace that with a retort."
"'Retort.' Good vocab, man," Ryan said and Seth nodded his head in appreciation. Then Seth bit his lip and closed his eyes, looking strained.
"Seth?"
He shook his head and then sighed. "I'm okay. Just feelin a little barfy."
Ryan looked like he was going to panic. I just moved next to Seth and rubbed back his hair in a (hopefully) comforting manner. He then proceeded to rub his hand through it, subconsciously making sure it was still flying free through his head. "It'll get better. Just wait." I wasn't exactly sure if that was true, but it seemed to be the right thing to say.
Seth nodded. We all stood there uncomfortably for a moment, Seth appearing to be trying desperately to hold in his cookies and stay awake, Ryan trying to keep an inconspicuous eye on him, and me, just standing around I'm sure looking like an idiot. Right when I thought we all couldn't take it anymore, I said to Ryan, "Hey, Ryan?"
I could practically see the struggle to peel his eyes off Seth. "Yea?"
"Could you go down to the cafeteria and get me a Mountain Dew, please?"
Ryan slowly nodded, glanced once more at Seth, and headed out the door, not before saying to him, "I'll be right back."
Seth nodded. "'Kay."
Once Ryan was out of the room, I looked hard at Seth. He looked very pale and sick. We all knew what chemo would do to him, but I don't think any of us were quite ready for it. Especially Seth. But he was definitely a trooper. He was being very brave through the whole thing. He hadn't cried since that first day with Ryan, when I walked into the room to find him sound asleep with dried tear streaks on his red face. Ryan was watching him, with his tears dripping onto Seth's bed sheets. Since then, Seth had put on a brave face for I'm assuming everyone except Ryan, and Ryan had devoted every free moment he had to hanging out with Seth. The bond between the two of them astounded me, considering the fact that for the first sixteen years of his life, Seth had no one. And now he had the kind of friend that I had and that I'd always wished he could have.
"So how're you doing, Seth?"
He shrugged and licked his lips. "I'm alright. Today has been better than most."
I nodded. "That's good."
I stood there for a moment, not knowing what to say. I glanced up at the T.V., seeing an old episode of "Roseanne." I laughed to myself, remembering Seth's bizarre obsession with the sitcom. I became engrossed myself watching the episode, when I heard Seth ask me. Very quietly, so that I wasn't quite sure he had asked.
I looked at him. "What?"
I noticed him swallow and twiddle with the plastic bracelet on his wrist. He didn't look up. "Am I going to die?"
My breath caught in my throat, and I'm pretty sure I made a strangled-sounding noise. I had prepared for the possibility that Seth would ask me, but it was still like a punch in the nose. I took a deep breath and placed my hand on his shoulder.
"Look at me, Seth."
He resisted. He didn't want me to see his face. But he looked up anyway, and I stared at him for a moment, taking in his dimpled chin, his soft eyelashes, and his gentle brown eyes. And his full head of curly brown hair, something I hoped against hope didn't go away. He gazed up at me, awaiting my answer, and I suddenly became harshly aware of just how young he was. 'God,' I thought, 'this isn't fair.'
I placed my hand on the side of his head and ran my fingers through his curls. "No," I said simply.
He looked down at his hands and shook his head. "You…you don't know that."
I nodded. "Yes I do. You are going to be fine. You're going to brave this whole treatment and you'll come through good as new. And then you'll read comic books and chase Summer around and graduate high school and have a good life. You're going to be just fine."
Seth stared down at his hands for a moment. The he looked up, and I saw just the slightest glisten of tears in his eyes. I waited, hoping he'd buy what I'd said, because I needed one of us to believe it completely. Then he nodded and gave me his best attempt at a smile. "Yea. You're probably right. What good is worry gonna do, huh?"
I knew he was fronting, but I said nothing. I just gave him my best smile, and then Ryan came back in the room and I sat there watching "Roseanne" while the two of them read their comic book, stopping occasionally to discuss some plot twist.
***
So, I dealt with Luke, Marissa, Anna, even Seth asking me the inevitable question. They all feared the worst happening, but they all needed me to reassure them otherwise. It didn't matter whether I was telling the truth or not, they just needed to hear the answer they wanted. But one person I didn't prepare for; the one person I never thought would ask.
I was sitting on the couch at about three in the morning reading, waiting for Ryan to come home. It was a few weeks later, and I knew that Seth had finally talked him into going out with Marissa and Luke and taking a break from "baby-sitting" him, as Seth put it. Neither Seth nor Ryan quite understood it, but I knew why Ryan spent so much time just being with Seth. He needed to be near, because I knew that he was afraid.
But Ryan was pushing it, being out as late as he was. I thought to myself that I had enough worries with my son's cancer, much less my adopted son that couldn't keep himself in line. Then I felt absolutely horrible about my thoughts, and kicked myself repeatedly for them. I knew that Ryan was having as hard a time as anyone, but it was hard not to feel self-involved.
I heard noise coming from the pool house, and I, assuming that Ryan was trying to sneak in and doing a very poor job of it, went outside. When I entered the pool house, I saw Marissa and Luke leading a very disoriented and very obviously intoxicated Ryan to his bed.
"What the hell is going on?"
Luke jumped, and Ryan flopped on his bed and grinned. "Hey, Sandy," he slurred. "What's up?"
"I think that's something I should be asking you," I said calmly and crossed my arms.
Luke looked at me helplessly. "I'm sorry Mr. Cohen. We went to a party and kind of got split up. When I found them again, they were both trashed."
Them. I looked at Marissa and could tell that she was quite inebriated, also. I shook my head and sighed. "Have you been drinking Luke?"
He shook his head. "Nah. I really couldn't; I had my hands full with these two."
I nodded. "Okay. Well, if you'll take Marissa home, I'll take care of Ryan." Ryan was starting to drift off to sleep with his nose buried deep in his pillow.
"Thank you, Mr. Cohen. Tell Seth tomorrow that I'm going to stop by after soccer practice," he said and headed out of the pool house with Marissa.
I nodded and made my way over to Ryan. He was snoring quite loudly into his pillow, the sound muffled. I gazed at him, and in a gesture that I had just realized I did with Seth all the time, I rubbed back his hair. I've never understood why I do it, it just always felt like I needed to. The feel of my son's hair was comforting, just as the feel of Ryan's was. But, then again, Ryan was my son now. But he did have thinner hair.
I sighed and moved to the foot of the bed to take his shoes off. I had untied the laces when I heard him stop snoring and move. I looked up at him, and he was sitting up with tears streaming uncontrollably down his face. He was crying so hard that he was hiccupping. I scrunched my enormous eyebrows, confused, and moved to sit on the bed next to him.
"Ryan? What is it? Did something happen?"
Ryan shook his head, hiccupped, and looked me directly in the eyes. "Is Seth going to die?"
I was pretty positive my entire body shut down at that moment. I had never expected Ryan to ask me the question. I figured that he had been thinking about it, but Ryan would never ask. It just wasn't his nature. He would worry over it forever and never ask, always trying to convince himself what I had been telling everyone else. That Seth would be perfectly okay.
But the look in his crystal blue eyes was heartbreaking. I knew that this boy didn't want my generic, rehearsed answer. His entire life was built on lies, and I knew that he didn't want me to lie to him. He wanted to know whether I really thought Seth would die.
But, how do you tell a young man that you had absolutely no idea whether his only true friend in the world would survive to see adulthood? I looked into Ryan's eyes; I followed the stream of tears flowing down his red cheeks, and I shrugged.
It was a helpless, almost hopeless, defeated shrug, and the only thing I could think of. I couldn't lie to him. "I don't know," I said. Ryan closed his eyes, then put his face in his hands and his shoulders began to shake. I hesitantly put my arms around him, and thankfully, he accepted me. He wrapped his arms around my waste and he mumbled something into my shoulder.
"What was that?" I asked.
He lifted his head and looked me in the eye. "What do I do then?" He wiped at his nose. "What do I do if he doesn't get better?"
I sighed and closed my eyes. I wasn't sure what to say to that, so I just opened my mouth and prayed that the inner lawyer would take over. "You'll love him. No matter what; if he outlives everyone or if he dies tomorrow, you'll love him. Because that's all anyone needs."
I waited for Ryan to say something. I needed him to accept my answer, so I could start believing it. And he did. He nodded and lay back down, and within minutes, he was asleep. When I saw his breathing even out, I let my tears fall freely down my face.
***
1986
I walked into Kirsten's room quietly. My son was a few days old, and he was okay. He was a fighter; I could tell. He'd be okay. I saw Kirsten sitting in her bed, holding him. I marveled at his full head of dark hair and his large, curious eyes. I smiled every time I thought of his name, and Kirsten screaming it in labor, and her telling me after she was done with surgery that she thought the name suited him. I agreed of course, feeling like a little piece of my best friend would always be around. I hoped Seth had a Seth of his own someday.
"Hey, Sweetie," Kirsten said brightly.
I smiled and moved closer to her and looked down at my son. Kirsten handed him to me, and I took him, feeling the weight of his small body in my arms. A certain feeling gushed through me, one that I shared with him out loud.
"Nope. Definitely not a football player."
***
Okay, phew! Sorry it took a while, I was busy with school. I am but a lowly high school student (Senior, though, whooooo!). About the timeline, I know this doesn't match up; I realized I wasn't lining up, but I figured it was okay. It's just kind of weird with Seth and Summer together, (oh yea, I haven't really mentioned that. Oops.) But Anna's still there. And Ryan and Marissa are together. Just try to ignore it. And if you're wondering why Summer isn't around, you'll find out soon. Tell me what you think of this chapter. I believe the next chapter will resume Ryan's pov. Thank you sooooo much from the bottom of my heart for the excellent reviews you guys have given me. I love you guys so much.