"The Words" – chapter 2
Neverending thanks to those who reviewed chapter one and especially to those who left another review after I had to pull the story and re-post it. Big oops on that. Guess I'll preview more carefully this time. I also got some nice feedback that let me know my plan to convert EVERYONE to believing in Ryan/Summer is slowly working. (rubs hands together in fiendish glee)
In the teaser line for this fic I mentioned two of the prequels but don't think I plugged "Seth Gets Lucky." It helps to read that one too to understand how Seth slowly moved from being angry and jealous to finally accepting R/S's relationship.
The story of the Commitmentphobe Couple continues....
"Hey, Summer, what's up?" Seth greeted the dark haired girl who was standing in the cafeteria line comparing the relative merits of apples.
She ignored him, picking up one of the pieces of fruit and examining it. Finding a dime- sized bruise, she replaced the apple in the bowl and picked up a different one.
"You know you're not supposed to handle the food, right?" Seth enquired.
"Does this look mealy to you?" she asked, rotating the second apple in her hand. "I hate when you bite in and they're mealy."
Seth took the apple from her hand and bit into it. "Crisp. Definitely juicy with just the right amount of tartness," he reviewed, as he placed the fruit on her tray.
"Ew, gross, Cohen." Summer wrinkled her nose but kept the apple and moved along to the checkout. Seth followed behind.
As the cafeteria worker swiped Summer's card, Seth broached the subject again. "So, what's new in your life?"
"Nothing." Summer shrugged, put the lunch card back in her purse and picked up her tray.
"No new and exciting developments in the saga of Summer?" Seth pried.
"Not really. Not unless you want to hear about my manicure and the new pair of shoes I bought the other day." Summer turned her back on him and began to walk away. Seth quickly paid for his lunch and hurried after her.
"So there's no trouble in paradise?" he asked, "Because I was getting a definite storm warning vibe from Ryan this morning."
"It's no big deal," Summer assured him. "We're just taking a break for a while."
"You broke up?!" Seth accidentally jabbed her in the back with his tray he was following so closely.
"No," she snapped. "It's just a little ... hiatus. Ryan agreed," she added quickly.
"Oh really? He was cool with it?"
"Yes."
"But it was your idea," Seth confirmed.
"Yes." She continued to thread her way through the tables.
"Can I ask why?" he pressed.
"No!" Summer cut him off. She stopped moving and turned to face him. "Look, I'm going to sit with Amber and Whitney so unless you want to spend your lunch time listening to Amber complain about Chad or Whitney bitch because she didn't get to go to France last summer...." She looked at Seth pointedly.
"Sure. I get it," he said, nodding. "Girl time."
"That's right."
"You miss Marissa," he concluded.
Summer simply shrugged once more.
"Well, if there's ever anything you need to talk about...." He trailed off since Summer had already resumed her course toward the pretty girls' table.
Seth stood, holding his tray and wishing for the hundredth time that he shared the same lunch hour as Ryan. As the tables on the patio filled up with laughing, chattering teens, Seth realized that he was alone again, just like every year of his life up until last school year. He missed Anna and mentally promised to send her an email. Hell, he even missed Luke and wondered if the guy had found a pack of jock friends to hang with at his new school. And surprisingly enough, Seth found that he kind of missed Marissa too. It's not like they'd ever really talked but she had been part of the landscape for his whole life and he noted the lack of her in it. He hoped the rehab was working and she could return home by second semester.
By now most of the tables were taken. Seth saw a pod of freshmen computer geeks huddled over a manual of some kind and arguing fiercely. He wondered where kids like these had been when he was a freshman. He would have appreciated their friendship then, but now he felt he'd grown a little past that gawky, nerdy phase.
But there was an empty chair at their table so he sighed and headed over. Perhaps it was time he struck up some new friendships.
Chad Munson brayed his harsh laughter at yet another of Mike Flynn's jokes. Ryan sighed and poked his spaghetti with a fork, trying to remember why he was sitting with these guys. Oh right. They were his teammates.
Ryan loved playing soccer, and he could even admit to liking the camaraderie of being part of a team, but he pretty much despised the guys as individuals. Besides, today he sort of hated the world in general and the last thing he needed was to be sitting here, faking a mask of interest whenever someone talked to him.
"Atwood here knows what I'm talkin' about," Flynn was saying. "Dontchya?"
"Mm." Ryan smiled and made an agreeable grunt. He didn't know what he was agreeing to since he hadn't listened to a word of the guy's monologue, but it was probably something about sex – it usually was.
"Come on. Spill." Munson turned to Ryan. "That chick is HOT! What's she really like in the sack?"
Ryan abruptly realized they were talking about Summer and he felt his insides do a quick freeze. He couldn't stand these guys verbally pawing over his girlfriend when he and Summer were together let alone now that they were split up. For the first time in a long time a wave of that murderous urge to hit ... and hit ... and HIT swept over him. He glanced at Munson's square jawed perfection and pictured his nose shattering in a bright burst of red as Ryan's fist nailed it.
He shrugged, the half smile never leaving his lips and never reaching his eyes.
"Give it up," Carl Bayles chimed in. "You guys should know by now that Atwood's never going to give you the goods. Jesus, Munson, isn't your own woman enough to keep you occupied? If I had me some Amber, you can bet I wouldn't be...."
And they were off, rattling on about their sex lives and sports and trying to one-up each other about everything they did or had; cars, motorcycles, boats, women, physical prowess. The list was endless and Ryan quickly tuned it out again. He excused himself from the table after another minute, taking his still untouched tray of food up to the racks. He walked across the quad, looking for a quiet bench in the sun where he could relax for the rest of his lunch period.
Ryan wished Seth shared his schedule so he could have somebody real to hang with. Then he was suddenly glad that he didn't. Sooner or later Seth was going to want the details about what had happened with Summer, but Ryan decided later was better. He wasn't ready to talk about it yet. Actually, he didn't know if he ever wanted to dissect his tangled feelings where Summer was concerned – especially not with Seth.
Ryan found an empty bench and settled on it, opening a textbook and resting it on his leg, but staring off into the distance. Inevitably his thoughts drifted to Summer. It was hard for him to remember the time when Marissa was his magnetic north, because now all things came back to Summer.
He wasn't quite sure when his feelings for her had moved from the easy friendship and fierce sexuality of the early days to something deeper. But yes, he did know. It happened in Chino, when she walked up and down countless streets with him helping search for his mom. She wore those ridiculous high heeled shoes which must have hurt like hell but she never once complained, never begged to go home or told him he was crazy for trying to find Dawn. She was relentless and relentlessly cheerful and he fell in love with her that day.
He had actually said it. That night in Mr. Murchison's funky old bedroom, he had told Summer he loved her. Hadn't meant to say it but he was a little buzzed on pain medication and it just came out. She didn't answer and he knew right away he'd made a mistake. After that he pushed those syrupy, dangerous feelings deep down inside him and resumed their regularly scheduled light and breezy relationship.
It had seemed like enough ... until recently. Lately he ached when he wasn't with her and ached even more when she was in his arms. He wanted something else, something more, something different, but he was afraid to name it and definitely afraid to express it to Summer.
Sitting on his quiet bench, Ryan tried to relax and just enjoy the simple pleasure of the sun on his face and to force his mind into blankness. His stomach rumbled and he wished he'd eaten his spaghetti. He fished around in his backpack until he found a power bar to nibble on. The pages of the textbook on his lap fluttered in the breeze, reminding him of the quiz for which he really ought to be studying. Ryan opened the book to the right chapter and began reviewing the material. He was able to push Summer out of his mind for almost two whole pages.
Summer saw the familiar shaggy, dirty blond head bobbing along in the crowd of students walking toward her down the hall. Her heart began to pound. She panicked and ducked into the next classroom she passed, waiting for him to go by. As she pressed her back flat against the door and peered out into the hallway, Summer realized how ludicrous this was. She was actually hiding from Ryan. Hiding!
She glanced behind her and noted that she was in one of the science labs and that she was attracting some curious looks from the kids who belonged in the class. A couple of students brushed past her on their way in and Summer scowled at them for blocking her view. She took another peek into the hall and saw the back of Ryan's head still moving along in the middle of the stream of teenagers. Summer went out into the hall and continued on her way to class.
She hated herself for hiding. Hiding! Like some middle school freak with self esteem issues. But she simply couldn't face Ryan. She didn't know what to say, how to act with him now. How was it possible to go from the intimacy of having someone literally inside you, molded to every part of your body, to treating him like a casual acquaintance? Of course she had done this in the past during her wild, party girl phase, but it was different with those random guys she could barely remember because of being too drunk or high. This was Ryan. Ryan, who she had spent almost every day of the last five months with. Ryan, who she had talked and laughed with; who had held her when she cried about her mom; who had made love to her in countless ways from gentle and sweet to passionate and rough. And now she couldn't even bring herself to say 'hi' to him in the hallway? It was insane.
Summer entered her World History class and slipped into her seat, unzipped her backpack and took out her text. It occurred to her how funny it was that Seth had automatically assumed she was missing Marissa when she sat with Amber and Whitney at lunch. It was actually Anna that Summer wanted to talk to. There wasn't a single girl at this school she felt comfortable sharing her Ryan problems with, and she certainly couldn't talk about them with Seth or, god forbid, her stepmom.
She really, really missed Anna's calm, common sense approach to life and wished that their budding friendship hadn't taken a back seat to their catfight over Cohen. Now Anna was gone back to Pittsburgh and their relationship had never gotten deep enough to where Summer could feel comfortable calling or emailing to discuss her romantic life. Who did that leave to give her advice and listen to her troubles? Even if Marissa were here, Summer could hardly have discussed Ryan with her. God, Summer wished she had a real mom – a mom like Kirsten Cohen.
All right. All this moaning and whining was getting her nowhere. Summer clicked her pen rapidly in and out a half dozen times then opened her spiral notebook to take notes on what Mr. Abernathy was saying. She would make a deal with herself and then she would put the whole Ryan thing out of her head and start concentrating because she really wasn't doing so well in this class.
The deal was this; if Ryan called her or contacted her by the end of today - by twelve midnight this day, then it would be her sign. She would know that he cared and that there was still hope. But if he didn't call then she would be proved right. She would know for sure that she felt way more for him than he did for her and that it had been totally the right thing to dump him before he had a chance to dump her. What did Seth call it in that stupid war game he liked to play? ... A preemptive strike.
"It was at this time that the Germans allied with Italy...." Mr. Abernathy droned on and Summer clicked her pen a couple more times before she began to write.
Summer took notes. She learned about Hitler and Mussolini, and she didn't think about Ryan Atwood for the next ... ten whole minutes.
"Ryan." Kirsten's voice intercepted him as he walked through the kitchen, grabbing a soda from the fridge, on his way to the pool house. Ryan followed her voice to the dining room where she was seated at the table, papers strewn across the surface and her laptop front and center. "Hi," she added, bestowing a warm smile on him.
"Uh, hi," he replied. "You're home early."
"Well, I'm not really home since I brought half of the office with me." She gestured at the work in front of her. "I won't be done with this for another couple of hours at least."
"What are you working on?"
"The new development at Rock Ridge. Remember, I showed you the blueprints for the model home the other day?"
"Oh yeah. I like that one," Ryan said. "Especially the center courtyard."
"Me too." Kirsten smiled again. "So, now I have to coordinate the...." she trailed off. "You know what? Somehow you always get me talking about work. I actually wanted to talk about you."
"Me?" He was taken aback.
"Yeah." She hesitated. "Sometimes I feel like you and I don't discuss anything but ... surface things. And ... I don't think that's right."
Surface talk was just fine with Ryan, but he couldn't tell her that. She looked so open and hopeful when she asked, "So, how are things? Are you and Summer getting along all right?"
"Um. Fine," he automatically replied, but then amended it to the truth. "I mean ... actually, we sort of, uh, broke up yesterday."
"Oh, no." Kirsten's forehead wrinkled in concern. "I'm so sorry. If you don't mind my asking, what happened? I mean, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to but sometimes it helps."
Ryan shrugged.
"Please. Sit down," Kirsten urged, gesturing to one of the chairs. "Tell me about it."
He didn't take the seat but set his backpack on it, fingering the shoulder strap as he talked. "She just said she wanted to be, uh, alone for a while."
He nodded his head as he continued to examine the unraveling stitching on the backpack, "And that's probably a good thing ... I guess. We should ... take some time. Don't you think?" he asked, stealing a quick glance up at Kirsten.
She hesitated. "Well.... Taking stock of where you're at ... emotionally ... is always good," she replied carefully then added, "Do you know? I mean, do you know what you feel for Summer?" She asked it as if it were a question she'd been mulling over a long time.
Ryan didn't answer right away.
A red flush crept up from Kirsten's neck as she continued. "I know that you two have had a relationship ... a sexual relationship ... for several months now." She pressed on, her voice sounding as awkward and pained as Ryan felt listening to her. "But I've never heard you say that you ... well, of course I wouldn't because I'm probably not around when you say it, but I still feel like its pretty unclear how you feel about Summer and that as a mother or guardian or whatever, I should know what you're thinking and what you're going through, but I don't," she blurted out in a rush. "And I feel really bad about that, like I should be more available or ask how you're doing more often...."
Ryan half held up his hand to stop her flow of words. "You don't have to...." His face tensed as he searched for just the right words to reassure Kirsten. "I know that you're there if ... if I have a problem. But I don't. Not really. There's just some stuff I need to figure out." He gave her an encouraging smile. He hated it when he could tell Kirsten felt she was doing a bad job of mothering him. He wished he could tell her that she didn't need to do that. It wasn't necessary.
Kirsten returned his smile and drew a shaky breath. "I know, I'm not very good at this," she admitted. "But, let me say one more thing and then you can go, okay?"
He nodded.
"When I first met Summer, I wasn't exactly impressed with her. She seemed spoiled and self-centered, and I wondered what Seth thought was so special about her. Then when she came between you boys I thought my impression was confirmed, that she was the kind of girl who loved stirring up drama." Kirsten's voice was calm but her hands in her lap, moving restlessly against each other, betrayed her anxiety. "But over the past months, as she's been around basically all the time, I've talked with her and gotten to know her better, and I think ... that there's a lot of good in Summer. There has to be for both of you boys to have fallen in love with her."
Ryan started at the word 'love.' His first impulse was to deny it.
"So, I guess I'm just saying that if you care for her and you haven't let her know, maybe now would be a good time." Kirsten raised her brows and smiled gently at him.
"Maybe," he mumbled, nodding his head, but he had no intention of following her advice. He wouldn't say, "I love you," to Summer again unless he heard it from her first.
"It's only my humble opinion." She continued to smile at him and finally relieved the awkwardness by changing the subject. "What do you want me to order for dinner?"
Ryan had managed to sidestep Seth's barrage of questions that afternoon and evening by the simple, declarative, "I don't want to talk about it," repeated loudly and often.
He had eventually added, "I'll let you know when I'm ready to talk about it," for some variety. But mostly he had distracted Seth from his goal of meddling by getting him involved in a long bout of Playstation, during which Ryan kicked his ass ten ways from Sunday.
"Seriously," Seth tried one last time before Ryan went out to the pool house for the night. "When you're ready ... I'm here for you, man." He patted him on the shoulder and Ryan was suddenly, unaccountably, deeply touched by the sentiment. He felt tears spring to his eyes and had to quickly blink them away.
"Thanks," he answered gruffly. God, he hated when that shit happened.
Once in the pool house, however, Ryan found himself sleepless and restless. He gazed at the TV as he had the night before, but it didn't lull him into passivity. Finally, he jumped up, put on his swim trunks and went out to the pool to swim laps. He had a strong sense of deja vu as he dove in and began to stroke through the water. This was just like last spring when he had first gotten Summer into his system and tried to work her out of it through physical exorcism.
He swam to the end of the pool, turned and swam back. As he sank into the rhythm of the motion, he began to feel his tension loosen. After a while there was only the movement of his body and the feel of the water on his skin and the cool air when it touched him. His mind began to calm. He swam until his muscles ached and his lungs were close to bursting. Ryan knew that his body would ache even more tomorrow, but it felt good – really good. He pulled himself, dripping, from the pool, toweled off and went back in the pool house. He thought he could finally sleep.
Summer sat in her room watching late night TV and stripping the polish from her toenails in preparation for applying Angelblush Rose, which she had purchased at the salon when she was there for her manicure.
The house was quiet and empty. That was nothing new. Summer punched the button on the TV to turn it up even louder. She couldn't stand the quiet tonight. She would even have welcomed talking to her stepmom or her father at this point. She was that sick of being alone.
On a normal evening she would have called Ryan if she was having trouble sleeping. She would have told him about the show she was watching and maybe he would have told her about the American Chopper episode he had watched earlier that evening, and eventually they would have said 'goodnight' and gone to sleep.
But there was no Ryan to call now.
And Ryan didn't appear to be calling her.
Summer looked at the clock again. Another minute had passed. It was now four minutes until her midnight deadline. Four minutes closer to admitting the truth that Ryan really didn't care that much about her – was probably even glad she had broken up with him since it saved him the trouble of doing it. He was too nice a guy that was the trouble. He had probably been sick of her for months now but was just too kind to end it. Look at how long he had put up with Marissa's shit.
Part of Summer knew she was being a teensy bit illogical but most of her couldn't see past the pain of her disappointment in Ryan for not saving the day with a phone call. It would be so easy.
"Ring, damn it!" she hissed at the phone. "Call me, Ryan, please," she begged, broadcasting mental messages at him. "Call! Tell me you ... miss me. Tell me anything. Just talk to me." But her phone stayed silent.
She checked it for the tenth time to make sure it was still fully charged. It still was.
It was two minutes until midnight.
Summer looked at the bottle of nail polish and set it aside. She wasn't interested in seeing how her toenails looked painted with Angelblush Rose. She wasn't interested in anything except hearing her stupid cell phone ring and listening to Ryan's husky voice coming through the receiver, telling her things about his day, telling her that things would be okay.
Summer forced herself not to look at the clock. She watched an infomercial about a hair restorer and wondered if it really worked. She would have to ask her dad. As a plastic surgeon, he would know.
She broke her promise not to watch the clock and glanced at it quickly from the corner of her eye.
It was a minute after twelve.
Summer felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. Somehow she had managed to convince herself that miraculously, against all odds she would get her phone call, her happy ending. She should have known better.
The tension of the past few hours was suddenly too much. Tears welled in Summer's eyes and spilled down her cheeks and for once she didn't try to brush them away or pretend she wasn't hurting. There was no one to see anyway. Why bother.
She wept, big, choking sobs that shook her body. She gasped for air and cried some more and thought about how ugly, real crying was. Your eyes were swollen and your face was red and snot flowed freely from your nose and you sounded like a dog hacking up a bit of food. Thinking about how disgusting she must look only made her cry harder. Summer threw herself face down on her bed, not worrying about the mascara smearing into the white smoothness of her pillowcase.
She cried and cried, waiting for the tears to relieve some of the ache in her heart. But it didn't work that way. When she finally subsided into sniffles twenty minutes later, she still felt like someone had taken her heart and ground it into the dirt underneath their boot. And for the flicker of an instant, Summer thought it would be easy to learn to hate Ryan for making her feel this way.
To be continued....