I'm really sorry this update took so long. I've had it written in my spiral for about a week now, but every time I planned on typing it up, one thing or another came up. I just started my new job last week, plus I have finals in a few weeks, so everything is piling up on me at the moment. Thank you all for the reviews, and I hope this chapter is as good as you expect, I'm not all that good with writing out emotions like this.

IMPORTANT A/N: Partway through the chapter, it may seem at first that I messed up on the names, but I didn't, it's just how I wrote Ryan's thoughts and memories.

~*~*~

(Ryan's POV)

The house is filled with an eerie silence as I slowly wake up from my sedated sleep and roll over onto my back, rubbing my face with my hands before allowing my eyelids to slide open and reveal the living world to me again.

Everything from the previous night is hazy as I sit up in the bed and look around, noticing that I'm not in the pool house as usual, but in the guest bedroom of the main house instead. The door to the room is slightly opened, making me a bit uncomfortable as I shakily stand up and walk over to it, closing it quietly so no one can hear me.

There's another door leading to the guest bathroom on the other side of the room, and I slowly and carefully walk over to it as a wave of nausea washes over me for a split second, leaving as quickly as it came.

When I get into the small bathroom, I close the door and stand in front of the large mirror, taking in the pale image that stands in front of me, the dark bruises littering my face, arms, and neck.

I raise my fingers to my neck and gently touch the dark bruise encircling it, and the second my fingers seem to come in contact with it, all the images of the previous days events come rushing at me like a tidal wave and I quickly fall to my knees in front of the toilet as I begin to dry heave into the white porcelain.

The sound of me hacking up the stomach contents I don't have seems to alert everyone in the house as the bathroom door bursts open, and a pair of hands quickly find their way to my back as Kirsten whispers quietly that everything's going to be okay, and that they're going to help me through it every step of the way.

I want to believe her, but I've been lied to so many times that I have a hard time trusting anyone who says they care. My mom always used to tell me she cared about me when she wanted me to go out and find her some money for her drug and alcohol problems, or when she wanted to pretend like she was sorry that she allowed her god forsaken boyfriend to put me in the hospital.

You would think that at least the people at the hospital would care that you were almost killed by one of your own 'caregivers', but you're just a paycheck to them. If you don't have insurance, they have no room in their hearts to consider the fact that the next time you go in there, it will probably be in a body bag because they were too busy looking for the dollar signs the last time you were there with gash's covering your body.

As my thoughts begin to mix together with my past, I open my eyes that I've had closed for the past few minutes and turn my head slightly, looking at A.J., who in turn is starring down at me like I'm the scum of the earth. I can feel Dawn's presence behind me, and the sudden need to get away from the two of them rises in me as I use the edge of the counter top closest to me to steady myself as I pull my body up off the floor.

I push the hand away that's gone from my back to my arm, and I can feel the sweat covering my body as I turn towards the door and push my way past A.J. as he stares at me blankly.

I hear the two people calling after me as I use all my strength to quickly walk out of the room and through the kitchen, almost falling on my face as I open the back door and stumble into the hot sun. I feel someone's strong hand grab my arm, but I push the person away from me and yell at them to leave me the fuck alone before stumbling into the pool house and locking the door before anyone can come in.

I try to calm my breathing as I walk over to the bed and lower myself on it, my mind reeling from all the images and memories that are flooding it. I want to get away from them; the voices and faces of my tormentors, my nightmares and fears. I just want to be alone.

I lay on my side and draw my knees to my chin, trying to block out the sounds as I hear A.J. and Dawn screaming at each other, telling each other how much of a fuck up I am and that they need to get rid of me quickly before I screw their lives up more than what they already are. I can hear the shakiness in Dawn's voice, and I can tell right away that she's doped up on something heavy, something that will cause her not to remember any part of this day when she wakes up tomorrow.

After a few minutes, the voices finally disappear from outside and I slowly sit up in the bed, looking around and blinking rapidly as I realize I'm not in Chino.

I look around for Dawn and A.J., but I quickly realize that all of it was just my imagination as I hear Sandy knock on one of the glass doors to the pool house and call my name quietly. He keeps calling my name repeatedly, telling me to open the door so that we can talk, and in a fit of anger and other mixed emotions, I pick up a textbook that's sitting next to the bed and throw it at one of the pool house doors, watching as the glass shatters and falls to the floor.

After a few seconds, Sandy carefully sticks his hand through the door where the glass previously was and unlocks it. There's a plethora of emotions covering his face when he walks into the small room, but the one that seems to be more noticeable is the anger as he walks over and stops next to the bed.

He makes a swift motion, like A.J. used to do whenever he would hit me, and I quickly jump away from Sandy, standing up and preparing myself in case I need to lock myself in the bathroom to avoid anymore beatings from people who 'care'. He looks at me slightly shocked, and I look at the book in his extended hand that he was just trying to give back to me.

"Ryan, did you think I was going to hit you?"

I open my mouth to answer him, but the only thing that comes out is a quiet sob that surprises both of us. I quickly turn my back to Sandy and cover my mouth, trying to keep the tears in that are threatening to escape as I feel his eyes boring holes into the back of my body.

She's not worth it; Dawn and anything in relation to her isn't worth the tears. The only thing she deserves from me is the one thing I stopped doing the second time she left. I don't care what she did or where she went after she left here, and I certainly shouldn't care that after all that she's put me through, she did something so stupid as to get herself killed, along with some innocent kid.

But the problem is that somewhere deep inside me, I do care. She's my mother, she's supposed to be there and care about me, and I actually hoped she would get better. I wanted her to come back for me, prepared to be the real mother that she's supposed to be without the drugs and alcohol.

"Ryan honey, can you hear me?"

Kirsten's soft voice appears from behind me, and it isn't until she's standing in front of me, pulling me into a hug that I realize my cheeks have become moist with tears. Her arms envelop me tightly as she rubs my back gently, and the walls that I've spent sixteen years building up around me seem to crumble as I breakdown in her arms, realizing that I have no one left, and that my mom will never be coming back for me the way she was supposed to.

My family, all my old friends and enemy's, they seem to have disappeared right out from under me, leaving me nothing but an empty shell with these terrifying memories. People have always told me that if I kept things inside for too long and not talk about them, that it would cause some serious problems for me in the future, I just never wanted to believe them.

It's so much easier for me to just hide my feelings and act like the person they want me to be. Marissa, Seth, the Cohen's, they all want me to be this happy kid who's life they saved from ending in a terrible place like juvie, so I put on the façade around them, around everyone, but I cant do it anymore. I can't pretend that my past just slipped my mind like a bad case of amnesia, and now I'm cracking and they're all going to see it. They're going to see how fucked up I really am, and how big of a mistake they made by bringing me here. I'm beyond help, and there's nothing anyone can do to save me.

"Ryan honey, I can't understand what you're saying."

I'm pulled from my terrifying thoughts as Kirsten looks at me concerned, and I look back at her, confused by her words.

"You were mumbling something, what were you saying?"

I quickly look away from her questioning eyes and fixate them on a spot on the carpet, whispering to her that I'm tired in a voice so low that even I can barely hear it. She seems to except my lie and nods her head, helping me over to the bed that's lying in the middle of the pool house so that I can lie down.

Kirsten sits down on the edge of the bed as I pull the comforter over my aching body, and she leans down and kisses my forehead gently as I close my eyes and listen to the quiet around me. I don't think this is something I would ever be able to get used to, the quiet.

"Kirsten…"

It seems almost impossible to choke out the simplest words, but Kirsten seems to hear it nonetheless as I feel her hand lightly smoothing over my cheek.

"Will you stay until I fall asleep?"

She doesn't say anything in response to my question, but simply pulls me closer to her like I'm a small child as she holds me partially in her lap with the top of my head under chin, flattening my hair out as she gently rocks back and forth.

I squeeze my eyes closed tightly, and the tears seem to immediately find their way back to my cheeks as I silently let them fall, too weak and emotionally drained to stop them anymore. Maybe it's best that they see me like this, so I can find out how they all feel about how screwed up I really am.

It's never too late to runaway from them, from what's to become my past, not after I've been doing it for so long.

~*~*~

Hope you guys liked it, and hopefully I'll have the next chapter up sooner than not.