"You ready?" Marissa asked happily, standing outside the heavy oak door of her therapist's office.
Ryan shrugged his shoulders. Summer had lied. Flat out lied about the reason they were coming here. She didn't have any purpose other than to say "hi" and deliver him. He was the one who had to sit through a therapy session with his ex-girlfriend and her tag team partner, Dr. Alecia.
Pushing the door with her thin shoulder, Marissa looked around the room and then let herself in. "Hey, 'Lecia," she greeted.
A short, chubby woman with blonde hair, a friendly face, and glasses stood and made her way to the couple in the center of her office. "You must be Ryan," she said, extending her hand.
Ryan nodded, shaking her hand. Marissa sank to the couch behind them and waited while he looked around uncomfortably. "Have a seat, Ryan," she whispered.
He did, and the doctor did. And they all sat there, staring at each other while Alecia prepared her notepad from the arm chair across from them. "So, I know you're probably wondering what in the world you're doing here, Ryan," she smiled easily and he shifted again. "Well, Marissa, do you have something you'd like to say to Ryan?"
She cleared her throat and licked her lips nervously. "I have a lot I want to say, but I guess I'll just start with I'm sorry for lying to you to get you here." She sank back and crossed her legs under her on the couch. She was comfortable here. "You're the only one I have left to talk to, though, and I didn't think you would come if I told you the truth."
He wanted to spew something about how lying had always worked so well for them in the past, but he kept his mouth shut. "It's fine," was all he said.
"Alright," Marissa cleared her throat. "I guess I should just start at the beginning?" Alecia nodded in confirmation. "When you left Newport, when Theresa got pregnant, I didn't cope so well. I started drinking," she rolled her eyes and smiled knowingly at him, "more. My mom and Caleb were together, and Seth was gone, so Summer was whining all the time, and you were gone. I didn't want to deal with the lonely, so I started drinking and sleeping with the yard guy." She blushed and wondered for a moment if she should tell him that. Nothing but the truth, she reminded herself. "And my mom found out and shipped me off to boarding school."
"Summer told me all that," he said, his eyes focused on his hands.
"Ryan," Alecia spoke softly, calmly, "it will help Marissa to know you're hearing her, if you look at her when she speaks."
He didn't want to look at her, or hear her, or have anything to do with her. This was nothing more than a painful reminder of his mother, and he wasn't ready for it. But he turned his eyes anyway, watching her screw up another batch of courage to move on with her tail.
"The drinking got worse in Prague," she started again, her voice catching. "And then I met this photographer and he hooked me up with an agent and the modeling thing took off for me. And everybody wanted me around all the sudden, in about thirty places at one time. All I really wanted was to be back in Newport, especially after Summer told me that you had moved back. I thought we could get back what we had, the four of us, but I had contracts and obligations.
"He knew that I was falling behind, that I couldn't keep up with the demands, so he introduced me to the cocaine, and then the LSD, and the heroine. And the meth. I mean, there was nothing I didn't snort or shoot or swallow at some point – I had a substance for everything. And none of it made me feel better. None of it helped me forget," she sighed, leaving the sentence to hang in the air.
"Forget what, Marissa?" Alecia asked. "Tell Ryan what you were trying to forget."
She bit her lip and he met her eyes, hoping for the only time since he had met her, that she didn't say his name. He did not need the guilt of knowing he was the one that put her here. Not after he had driven his mother to it. And who knows what drove Theresa to do what she had done. "I just wanted to forget that I ever had a perfect life. I wanted to forget Newport, and my mom and dad, and Caitlyn. I wanted to forget my friends and school, and everything I had been. Because if I didn't have to think about what had been, I wouldn't hate who I had become so much."
Ryan shifted in his seat as Alecia spoke. "Marissa? Why don't you tell Ryan why you really wanted him to come here today."
She sniffled and reached out to touch his hand. "I wanted to thank you for giving me the strength to believe in myself. I mean, I might have lost sight of who Marissa Cooper really was, or I think I maybe came face to face with who she really was. But the woman that you always believed I could be is the one that I wanted to find when I was woke up on my kitchen floor and decided I needed help. You're the reason I'm here, Ryan," she whispered.
He tensed. "Great. I drove another woman to drink," he chuckled to himself.
"No, you didn't. You drove this one to get help," she offered him a smile and slid her palm in between his clinched palms. "I miss you."
There was a long, awkward silence, as Marissa watched the conflict playing across his face and Ryan felt her fingers trembling between his hands. Alecia spoke, finally. "Ryan, how do you respond to Marissa's confession?"
He shrugged and looked up at the therapist. "What am I supposed to say? It's been five years," he insisted, letting go of her and turned to tuck a leg under his body. "Marissa, I've missed you, too, but, Jesus. I mean, I'm twenty-two now, I have a daughter and a job and I'm getting a degree. I'm not the guy you knew back then."
She shook her head, wiped her nose with the tissue in her left hand, and drew her knees up to her chest. "So tell me who you are now. Tell me about how you got here. I just wanna know who you are now."
He looked at Alecia and then shook his head. "Can we do this somewhere else?"
The doctor stood from her chair and shut her notepad. "If Ryan would be more comfortable somewhere else, you should go, Marissa. Why don't you take a walk around the lake?"
Nodding, the burnt out supermodel stood and nodded toward the door, letting Ryan walk out the door before her. She had known from the beginning that this had the potential to turn out badly. But she needed him there. And she was willing to hear anything he had to say to her. She had to be.
