Thanks for all the great reviews. I'm glad you're enjoying the story. Brandywine, you're right. I pretty much only have a textbook knowledge of drugs. I did research, and think I have the facts right, but I've been waiting for someone to point that out. Hope it doesn't ruin the story for you.
Thanks to whoever nominated the story for a Citrus Award. Enjoy.
And finally, Mr. Schwartz, when you look at my bank account, it's painfully obvious that I own no part of the O.C.
Kirsten breathlessly ran into the room as soon as she was able to put a fussy Christina down. She had heard the commotion, but Christina would not calm down and Kirsten didn't want to upset her further by bringing her close to the loud confrontation, though she had been desperate to see what was going on. She was stunned to find Sandy on the floor, his back to the wall, staring icily at Ryan. Seth was nowhere in sight.
"Sandy. Ryan. What happened? Where's Seth?"
"Seth ran out," Ryan told her. He fixed his gaze on Kirsten, trying to avoid, Sandy's glare.
"Sandy, how'd you get on the floor?"
"I'm fine." He pushed himself off the floor and stood. Kirsten steadied him as he got to his feet. Sandy rubbed his the back of his head. "I'm fine, Kirsten," he said shaking her off. "Seth and I were arguing."
"He pushed you?"
"I stum-" But Sandy stopped himself. He realized the worst thing he could do was to lie for his son. Obviously, Seth's problem ran deeper than he realized. He'd get Seth the help he needed. And maybe right now that was a kick in the ass. "He pushed me. We'll deal with it when he comes home."
"What if he doesn't come home?"
"He'll come home as soon as he cools down. I trust he knows that we love him no matter what. But there are other things we have to deal with now." He fixed his eyes on Ryan and took a deliberate step closer. "Ryan, tell me what you meant before."
Ryan backed up until his back was up against the wall. His eyes were wide with fright, like a deer caught in headlights as Sandy inched closer. Sandy's usual affable expression was a stony mask of rage.
"Kirsten and I didn't tell you that he was charged with drug possession before we left for the police station, so how is it that you knew to go into his room and look for drugs?"
Kirsten stood glued to her spot, listening and watching in disbelief. She couldn't ignore Ryan's terrified expression, but Sandy's words were like a hand squeezing her heart until she could barely breathe. Ryan knew about the drugs? Ryan knew and didn't say anything to them?
"I knew," Ryan said slowly and purposely, "because I saw him smoking once and saw the drugs in his room."
"And you didn't tell us?" Sandy asked.
Ryan shook his head. Sandy was invading his personal space. There wasn't even an inch between them and Ryan had nowhere to run.
"Why the hell not?" Sandy's roar shook the chandelier right above them. "Why the hell did you let things spiral this out of control?"
"I thought," he choked. "I thought I could handle it myself. That I could help Seth before either you or Kirsten had to know."
"You're seventeen-years-old-Ryan. What the hell did you think you could do?"
"Sandy, calm down," urged Kirsten, though she was equally upset. But she saw that Ryan was near tears. She doubted anyone had managed to bring Ryan to tears since he was a very little boy.
"I will not calm down. Seth's life is in the toilet, because he's hooked on drugs and has a criminal record to boot. This is how you repay us for everything we've done for us?"
Ryan's head snapped back as if he'd been slapped. Sandy had never referred to taking him in and adopting him as charity. They had always insisted that he was party of the family. That he was a Cohen now. His stomach churned. Acid rose to his throat. He had always been grateful for everything they had done for him. For their love and support. But Sandy's words had made him feel dirty and disgusting.
"Ryan, why wouldn't you tell us about Seth?" Kirsten asked softly, trying to minimize Sandy's words. She could see Ryan's face turning shades of green and red. She tried to ease Sandy back, away from the terrified boy, to no avail. Sandy was too angry to see what he was doing to his other son.
"You had the baby. And I knew Seth would see reason." His voice shook and cracked.
"But he didn't see reason did he?" Sandy spat.
Ryan shook his head. "It got out of control too fast. I couldn't stop him."
"Again, why didn't you come to us?" Sandy said each word slowly and deliberately.
Ryan didn't know what to say. So he didn't say anything. And that just infuriated Sandy. He wanted answers. He wanted to know how this boy, whom he took in as one of his own, could endanger his family like that.
"Why didn't you come to us?" Sandy shouted again. He stretched one arm out to hold the wall, locking Ryan in one side. "Answer me, dammit," he said, raising an open hand to Ryan.
"Sandy!" Kirsten cried in a shrill voice.
Sandy's whole body jerked as if was being shaken awake from a bad dream. He looked at his hand, confused, realizing what he had been about to do. What his anger had nearly done. Embarrassed, shocked, sick to his stomach, he backed away from Ryan.
"I'm sorry, Ryan." His voice was choked with tears.
Ryan was struck dumb. He blinked once. Twice. Sandy had been about to hit him. The acid rose to his throat again and Ryan bolted from the wall and headed straight for the bathroom. He pushed the door open, but didn't bother trying to close it. He just leaned over the toilet, bracing himself by holding the sides of the porcelain bowl. After a minute he could see everything he had eaten in the toilet, yet he was still having dry heaves. He was gagging up nothing, but bile, but he couldn't stop.
Kirsten was behind him suddenly, patting his back, trying to soothe him with reassuring words. "You'll be okay sweetie. It's okay. We love you so much. We wouldn't do anything to hurt you."
It took nearly ten full minutes, before Ryan could stand up straight. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, trying not to swallow, so he wouldn't have to taste the bitter flavor of vomit. Kirsten handed him some mouthwash and a placed a cold compress on his forehead. He pushed it away.
"You don't have to be so nice to me," he said. "I don't deserve it."
"You're my son. You don't have to deserve it." Her words were firm. Definite. As if she dared him to defy her. She said them with such a steely determination that it made Ryan wonder how she could still think of him as her son, when he had failed her so.
"Ryan, I'm so sorry. Please forgive me."
Ryan lifted his eyes. Sandy looked older. As if he had aged ten years in the past twenty-four hours. "I deserve worse."
"No one deserves to be hit. I let my anger take control. I shouldn't have lost it like that. Can you ever forgive me Ryan?"
Ryan shrugged. "You didn't hit me. You stopped." He moved to step out of the bathroom, and Sandy shifted to the side to let him out.
Sandy wished that he could turn time back so that he could change what he did. He had broken Ryan's trust. Did the very thing that he had sworn he would protect the fragile boy from when his mother had abandoned him. At that very moment, Sandy hated himself and from the look of utter disappointment on Kirsten's face, he knew she wasn't far behind.
"Where are you going, Ryan?" All of a sudden Kirsten noticed that Ryan was walking towards the front door. "We have to talk about this."
He shook his head. "No. We don't." His voice was detached as if he were far away. Ryan felt like he was swimming under water. Everything was so surreal. He couldn't wrap his head around everything that had happened.
"Please, Ryan," Sandy begged. "Don't go." He was afraid that Ryan would never come back.
"I have to find Seth."
"We'll call around. We'll find Seth," Kirsten urged. "But I want you to stay here. You're not well. You just threw up." She mustered every ounce of her no nonsense, don't argue with me voice, and she saw it made Ryan hesitate for just a minute, but it didn't work. "Well, at least take your cell." She scurried into the kitchen and quickly grabbed it from the cabinet Sandy had placed it after confiscating it from Ryan. Ryan hadn't waited for her, so she had to run after him. "Ryan, I mean it. You have to take this." She pressed it into his hand. "Please call us. And answer it, if we call you. Don't ignore the calls."
Ryan stuffed the phone into his pocket.
"Don't stay out too late."
He looked at her as if he couldn't understand what she was saying. It was as if she was sending him off to a concert or on a date. Didn't she realize that nothing would ever be the same?
"I know you need to clear your head. What happened in there is a nightmare neither of us ever thought could happen in this house." She spoke rapidly, as if trying to fit everything she needed to say before Ryan took off. "But you can't run away. That would absolutely break this family."
What family? He thought. What was left of it?
"I love you," she said. "We love you. Sandy, Seth and I."
He didn't acknowledge her, but just walked off. He couldn't deal with Sandy or Kirsten just at that moment.
Ryan walked down the driveway, beyond the gates and down the winding road to the beach. It was a windy night. So he kept his head bent low, his shoulders slouched and his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. He fingered the metallic cell phone and wondered if he would pick it up if he thought Sandy would be on the other end. He knew one of them was bound to call, especially if he didn't, and he knew he couldn't call them.
He wanted to find Seth, but wasn't sure what he would say to his brother, who was just as messed up as he was at that moment. Seth needed help. He knew his brother. The minute he realized that he had hit his father, Seth would either look for more drugs or do something drastic. Seth Cohen could never live with himself for the way he had acted earlier that evening.
But he couldn't face Seth. Didn't have the energy to look for him. He fingered the phone again and realized that someone else would. He flipped it open and browsed his phonebook until he found Summer's number. He pressed send and waited while the cell connected. She answered on the third ring.
"Summer, it's Ryan."
"Chino. To what do I owe this honor?"
He closed his eyes. She sounded so perky. He couldn't imagine that anyone had a reason to be happy at that moment. Sadness weighed down so heavily on his chest.
"Seth and his dad had a really bad fight tonight. Seth pushed him down and then ran out of the house."
"Jeez," she breathed.
"A lot of shit happened. I can't get into it. But Seth needs someone. Do you think you can try and find him?"
"I'll go." She was already grabbing her purse and car keys. "Any idea where he might of gone?"
"He mentioned Mitch, but I doubt Mr. Weider would let Seth anywhere near his son."
"I'll look in some of our regular spots. I'll find him. Don't worry." She was about to hang up, when she softly asked, "Ryan, are you okay? You sound… I don't know… really sad." She had never heard Chino sound so morose and wondered if there was more to it than what had gone down between Seth and his dad.
Suddenly, she realized Ryan had said that Seth had hit his dad. He hadn't called Sandy Seth's dad in a long time. While he didn't outright call Sandy Dad, he usually called him Sandy, as if he had a place in the Cohen family.
"Ryan, did Sandy find out that you knew about Seth's drug problem?"
He didn't answer. Finally he said, "Just go find Seth." And he pushed the end key, concluding the conversation as it started to hit uncomfortable territory.
Seth leaned against the mainmast. His little sailboat bobbed in the water, but Seth could barely feel it under him. He shut his eyes tight, but then opened them when he started to see images of his father on the floor, looking dazed. He, Seth Cohen, had hit his father. How low could he go?
Then there was Ryan. His brother. His best friend. Ryan had tried to help him, but he had pushed him away and had been nasty to him. He didn't know if he could ever go home again and face his family. Maybe he'd stay on his boat and just sail away. To Catalina or Hawaii. But then he remembered his probation. Had Ryan felt like this when things got difficult at home? Trapped. Knowing that running away would just land him back in jail.
Seth remembered visiting Ryan in Juvie and the baldheaded thug who had threatened his mother. He didn't want to end up there. But how could he go back home?
Tired of his own thoughts, Seth thought it was time to find people who would spend time with him. Anything, so that he didn't have to think about Ryan or Sandy or Kirsten or what a screw up he was. He stood up, but it must have been too violent, because the Summer Breeze rocked violently. He had to carefully sit down to calm the boat down or he would end up in the water.
"I thought I would find you here."
Seth squinted into the dark. "Summer?"
"Who else Cohen?"
"What are you doing here? Why are you looking for me?"
Summer sat at the edge of the dock and crossed her legs Indian style. "Ryan called. He was worried. Said a lot of shit went down at your house."
"I'm on probation. I pleaded guilty on the vandalism charge."
"Your parents must have been pissed."
He shrugged. "Mostly, they're focusing on the drugs."
Summer was quiet for a minute, unsure of what to say. So much had happened between her and Seth. She wondered why she had agreed to go and find him. She stared at him in the dark, seeing his mop of curls that fell into his eyes. She loved him, like she had never loved a boy in her entire life. She had given her virginity to this boy and she didn't know him anymore. But Summer wanted Seth. She didn't want to lose him and so she made up her mind that tonight she would be strong for him, make him see that he needed help. That he needed his friends and family.
"Cohen, you've got to stop with the stuff. It's not making you a nice person."
He looked down at his feet and twisted the rope lying on the bottom of the boat around his hand. "I need them."
"That's the problem right there. No one should need marijuana. That's when you know you have a problem."
"It makes me forget stuff. I could use some weed now, so that I could just forget everything."
"Do you want to forget me?"
He lifted his brows. "What are you doing here Summer? I broke up with you. I was a bastard to you. A real prick. Why would you want to sit here and listen to me wallow?"
"Because I love you, Cohen. We didn't really break up. That was a drugged out Seth Cohen. And I was to upset and angry to realize what was really going on. So I don't accept the breakup. As far as I'm concerned you are still my boyfriend. But," she said, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder, "if you keep using, I can't be with you. You have to stop."
It started to drizzle. Seth felt the drops on his hair and his eyes. He heard the rain fall into the water and into his boat. Yet, he didn't focus on that. Instead he concentrated on Summer's last words. "You'd take me back?" he asked.
"If you get help for your problem… yeah. But don't think I won't be there for you. I'll hold your hand the entire away."
"I love you Summer. But I don't know if I can do it. I can't go back home."
"Why not? Ryan's worried about you and so are your parents. They want you home."
"I can't face them."
"Why not?" she demanded.
"Because I hit my father, Summer. What type of low down scum hits his own father?" Seth's voice cracked.
She knew that Seth was sensitive. He wasn't like the macho jocks she had dated before she got to know him. But Summer had never seen Seth Cohen on the verge of tears before.
"I know you Seth, you'd never do that if you'd been yourself. Come home. See your dad. I bet he's just worried about you. I bet he'd be thrilled to see you that you're all right." She stretched out her hand and offered it to him. And Seth took it.
Ryan trudged through the sand; his head bent low, his arms crossed against his chest as if he were hugging himself. It had started to drizzle. It was light, but persistent and after a few minutes, he was soaked, sending a chill down his spine. But Ryan didn't care.
As much as he tried to block it out the nights events kept replaying in his head. He tried to knock them out by banging his temple with the palm of his hands. He didn't want to remember. He didn't want to think. He just wanted to curl up and forget. He had never felt certain of his place with the Cohens. Even after they had adopted him, letting him know that he would always be part of their family, in the back of Ryan's mind there was always that small nagging feeling that if he did something big enough, they would send him away. Tonight, Ryan was convinced that he had crossed that line. He had seen and felt Sandy's rage and the fury that Kirsten had tried to hide. If he went back, in all probability his bags would be packed and waiting at the door.
But Ryan wasn't sure that he wanted to go back.
How could he?
How could he when Sandy had raised his hand and had almost slapped Ryan?
But in the end Sandy hadn't done it. He had stopped himself.
Ryan took a long shaky breath. So what if Sandy had hit him or almost hit him. He deserved it and a whole lot worse. When he was young, and his father and later her mother's boyfriends, even his mother, had hit him, he hadn't always thought he deserved it. Sometimes he knew that it was his fault for not keeping his mouth shut, or not being careful enough to go unnoticed, but for the most part, he knew that the people who were beating him were doing it out of anger or drunkenness and it wasn't Ryan's fault.
But when Sandy raised his hand at Ryan and it seemed to just hang in the air, Ryan knew that if it came down on him, it would be his fault and that he would deserve the pain. Had he told Sandy and Kirsten right away when Seth's drug use had become habitual so much could have been avoided.
He sat down on the wet sand and pulled his knees to his chest. He rested his chin on the top of his knees and wrapped his arms around the front of his legs. He had never felt so confused in his entire life. Even when his mother had thrown him out, Ryan knew exactly what to do. He knew he needed to find someplace to stay until things blew over. Then he could go back home. Not that it had worked out like that. But he had known what he was supposed to do.
Now, Ryan had no idea what he should do or where he was supposed to go.
Kirsten sat by the kitchen table with a comforting hand on Sandy. He was bent over the table, his head buried in his hands. His whole body shook as he sobbed.
"I ruined our family."
"It's not ruined," Kirsten said firmly. "All families have bumps in the road. Why should we be any different?"
"I got one son so mad at me, he pushed me down before he ran out and the other son, I managed to push out of the house by raising my hand to him. What do I have in store for Christina Hope?"
"Sandy, you've got to stop feeling sorry for yourself. Right now, we have to focus on the boys and how to get them back home safely. So get yourself together and lets figure out what to do." Her voice was harsh, the way she often talked to the boys when they weren't doing what they were supposed to do. It caught Sandy's attention.
He stood up, ripped a paper towel from the roll, and dried his face of tears.
"What should we do? Ask Ms. Rothman to watch the baby, split up, look for the boys?"
"Ryan has his phone," Kirsten reminded her husband. She was glad that Sandy was slowly starting to pull his self together.
"What about Seth?" asked Sandy.
"What about Seth?"
Sandy and Kirsten whipped around at the familiar voice.
"Hi," said Seth sheepishly.
Kirsten ran over to her son and flung her arms around his neck. "Are you okay?" she asked.
He nodded his head.
"I was so worried," said his mother.
"I'm sorry."
Seth let his mother rub his hair and stroke his face, even though he hadn't let her show that much affection at one time in years. He kept his eyes to the ground, studying the pattern on the kitchen floor. He didn't dare look his father in the eye, even though Sandy was only a few feet away.
"I should go," Summer piped in uncomfortably.
Kirsten pulled away from her son, realizing that someone else was in the room for the first time. "Summer, I didn't see you there. Did you bring Seth home?"
Summer shrugged. "Ryan called and asked me to find Seth. He told me Seth needed a friend."
Kirsten smiled, taking Summer's hands in hers. But before she could say anything, Sandy broke in.
"You spoke to Ryan?"
"Yes," said Summer.
"When?"
"Almost two hours ago. But he sounded off. I don't know—"
"He ran out of the house and he was very upset," explained Kirsten.
"Should I go find him?" asked Seth.
Kirsten shook her head. "You need to sit and talk to your father," she said sternly. "We all need to talk," she added, softening her voice. She rubbed his arm with a weak smile.
"I can go," said Summer.
Sandy looked at her gratefully. "Is your father expecting you? It's getting late."
"No. He's not home. I'll look for him."
"Check in with us," Kirsten instructed.
"I will." Summer waved and exited the kitchen. "I'll let myself out," she called. "Go talk."
"You heard your girlfriend," said Kirsten to her husband and son. "Go talk with each other. Just give me a minute. I'm going to try Ryan on his cell."
Kirsten dialed Ryan's number and listened to it as it rang.
Ryan was staring at the dark water, which reflected the moon. He heard his phone ring. He only took it out after it rang a few times. He squinted as he tried to make out the green numbers. When he saw it was the Cohens, he sent the call to voicemail and put the phone back in his pocket.