Josh is quite the genius, isn't he?
So I returned from my trip on Saturday, and I was excited to see the reviews in my Inbox...along with the 300-odd stories and chapters. In the next few days I'll be sorting through them, so expect reviews from me!
"Mom?" asks Ryan, his eyes locked on Kirsten but body tensed and ready to run. A long pause, and then, "How long have you known, Kirsten?"
"Not long," Kirsten admits, and Ryan can sense in her voice the veracity of her words.
"And yet you told Jimmy before me? Who else did you tell? Marissa? Julie? The Newpsies?"
"Ryan, it's not like that. I was going to tell you at the right time, sweetie."
"Well, I guess that didn't work out. Just like me being your child didn't work out either."
If Ryan wasn't so upset at the news Kirsten hid from him, he might actually be happy. Kirsten is his mother. His biological mother! But…how could his own mother do such a thing to him. She'd put him up for adoption and basically condemned him to sixteen years of misery with Dawn and Trey.
"Nothing you can say will make it untrue. You didn't want me then. You didn't want me last summer. Nothing's changed, Kirsten."
Kirsten blinks. Ryan couldn't be more wrong. She wants him now; she's always wanted him, she just never knew that. He has to understand. She has to make him understand. It's not going to be easy. Through Ryan's eyes, Kirsten had no trouble abandoning him and therefore is more than likely to do it again. It's not like that though…oh, what has she done?
"You have nothing to say? Well, I don't blame you. There's nothing to say. You ditched me and that's that." Ryan feels emptier and emptier as he forces the words out of his mouth. One after another they form spite-filled sentences that batter Kirsten. She deserves this, thinks Ryan, because nothing can make up for what she did. Nothing.
Kirsten's eyes swell with the pressure of tears. Ryan hates her. She's his mother. She should have told him straight away. She should have never put Ryan up for adoption. Kirsten's no fool; she's read the files in Sandy's office and knows of the abuse Ryan's been subjected to, and she's always felt sick to her stomach. Now she knows. She did this to him.
Ryan notices the waves of pain across Kirsten's face, the tears threatening to fall any moment now. She didn't know…Ryan knows this. She couldn't have guessed what the Atwood family would do to Ryan when they'd adopted him oh so many years ago. His guards are breaking down a bit; he's determined to feel nothing for Kirsten, to bestow no pity upon her, but it's hard when his mother's watery eyes gaze lovingly, albeit regretfully, at him.
"How long have you known?" His voice is softer, gentler, wanting to reach out to Kirsten yet not knowing quite how. He's always felt a sort of hatred towards Dawn, like she didn't give him a fair chance. Now Ryan knows, though it's like a knife through the heart. It was Kirsten who put him there. It was Kirsten who determined his future. But apparently she was fate. Still, Ryan cannot put into words, or thoughts, how he feels about Kirsten right now. He never knew it was possible to hate someone with all of his being, yet love them in an underlying shadow with all of his heart and soul. At this time Ryan feels as though killing Kirsten would be both the life and death of himself. He can't decide which he wants more.
"How long?"
"A few days," admits Kirsten. At least it wasn't longer. She prays Ryan won't run, prays that she can sit down with him and cry her heart out until everything is okay. She prays he won't hate her forever, that in knowing of his true roots, he won't discard the Cohens, Seth and Sandy especially, like a moldy loaf of bread. Kirsten's almost positive Ryan will try and avoid her for the rest of his life, and, quite frankly, she's almost positive she can't blame him. After all, if it weren't for her, Ryan wouldn't have had a crappy life.
But would life in Newport, with herself and Jimmy, really have been all that great? Sure, there were the material things, but included in the package was the back-stabbing, the gossip, the fallible relationships and the infidelity.
Even Kirsten had to admit that Ryan would've had a thousand percent better life if he'd been raised in Newport with herself and Jimmy. There was no doubt about it. But what was done was done. There was no going back and altering the past to change the future. How could Kirsten make Ryan aware of this, how could she tell him that the only thing she could do was make sure of his future? She could tell him, but even the right approach would be wrong in Ryan's eyes.
She looks up again at him, his eyes are cold and accusing. "How could you do that to me? Just give up on me like that? You didn't even know me." Kirsten tries to cut in, to explain, to placate Ryan, to say anything at all. But Ryan continues. "You're worse than Dawn. She's more of a mother to me than you'll ever be. You're not my mother."
With each word Ryan knows he's stabbing Kirsten repeatedly, but he doesn't care at this point. He's through with caring. She abandoned him, gave him up to a worthless family. He could've had a great life, if only Kirsten had loved him enough to keep him. That was it. Ryan wasn't good enough, even as an innocent baby.
"I wasn't good enough then, and I'm not good enough now!" Ryan leans in close to Kirsten, so close she can feel the anger on his shaky breath. His teeth are bared and Kirsten's afraid Ryan's gone off the edge, that he's going to attack her.
But Ryan backs off.
And away.
He breaks into a run, disappearing behind the shiny flash of a black SUV, and when it passes he reappears in Kirsten's line of vision.
Kirsten begins to run after Ryan, hoping she'll be able to catch him, that he's slowed down, but knowing that it's not possible. If Ryan wanted to be caught, he would have never run. But, as his mother, Kirsten feels a rising from deep within her soul, an intense cry to stop him, to save him.
"Let him go." And there's Sandy, all cologne and no cigarettes now, but it's him nonetheless.
Kirsten lets Sandy hold her tightly. He's the only man she's got left right now. He won't run from her. Seth left her, Ryan left her. Sandy. He's here.
"You're here," Kirsten mumbles, and Sandy nods, holding Kirsten so forcefully he's not sure he'll ever let her go.
"Yes," murmurs Sandy into Kirsten's hair. "I'm here. Just relax." Sandy has absolutely no idea what he can do. There's really nothing he can say to Ryan to calm him down, and Seth is nowhere to be found.
Everything that's happened since Ryan came would be different if it were not for Kirsten's secret past. Everything. But somehow, Sandy can't even muster up a reason to blame her. Kirsten's to blame, but she's not at fault. Sandy doesn't know how, but he knows he needs to make everyone, Kirsten included, understand this. What happened, happened. Now can be changed, but that's about it.
"It's not your fault," Sandy pacifies his wife. "We'll work it all out, Kirsten. You'll see."
Sandy wants to laugh, but thinks he might cry. Why is it that he always ends up reassuring everyone, even when he has no real way of doing so and actually needs support himself?
Adversity seems to be his middle name, but Sandy always works through the trials and tribulations. He does so because he has to, because if he doesn't, no one else will.
Sandy rests his slightly wrinkled cheek on Kirsten's hair, smelling from the side of his left nostril the coconut mango shampoo she always uses. Sandy sighs with an unknown, slightly disturbing contentment as her head moves steadily against his cheek, her sobs little needles into his body.
"I'm sorry," Kirsten whispers, bawling by now. Sandy sees a small group of people staring curiously at him and his wife, people who have obviously just been witness to the Kirsten-Ryan shouting match. He shakes his head disapprovingly at the nosy ones, who turn their heads.
He really couldn't care less though. Sandy's mind is on Kirsten. Ryan. Kirsten and Jimmy. Seth. Himself and Kirsten. Ryan and Marissa. Marissa. Kirsten. Jimmy. Julie. Julie and Jimmy. Ryan.
Where to start, that is the question.
There's so much to do, but this tangled rope of connections has no apparent end.
"I'm sorry," Kirsten whispers again.
So am I, thinks Sandy.