Disclaimer: I own Nada. Except what I make up.
WHAT HAPPENED?
The words hit him like a ton of bricks. Sandy and Kirsten, the seemingly perfect Couple. They were the couple that he had always envisioned his relationship with Marissa to be like. Ahh yes then there was Marissa. But that was a different question.
Ryan felt so guilty for what he believed he did. This was all his fault, just like any other thing that may have happened during these three years. Sandy seemed to be happy in the beginning, just like the old days, but now, he saw a Sandy that he had never seen before. This Sandy was weak, hurt, and distraught. This was much more than divorce, his heart had been broken.
"Sandy, I am so sorry." Ryan said, trying to patch up the wound that could not be healed with anything.
"Ryan, don't feel down, it has been almost a year now. You shouldn't feel guilty about this at all." Sandy told him, knowing full well he would anyway.
Ryan paused at first, not really sure where to go on with things from here, when he needed his questions answered.
"Sandy, I have but one question. How did all this happen?" Ryan asked Sandy. He had to know what happened to his family, if things could be fixed. He hoped they could. Ryan could not imagine life without Sandy and Kirsten. It would be too hard. He would go back to having nothing, nobody in his life that cared, except for one person. At home, it was his brother. He was the person he looked up to. In Newport Beach, it was Sandy.
"Well Ryan, it all started………."
FLASH BACK TO PAST THREE YEARS
Sandy was sitting at the dining room table eating his customary sesame bagel. He was having a cup of coffee, and the newspaper was sitting in front of him. But he didn't read it. He was looking at it, but his mind wasn't there. He had lost that shine in his eye that he had for so long.
It was day 240 of Ryan's Coma. Sandy had gone there just yesterday to check on Ryan. He had wished he could do it when he was awake, but that was kind of hard. Sandy had been going to the hospital everyday for the past 30 plus weeks. He would sit down next to Ryan and have a conversation with him. It didn't matter to Sandy if it was only one-sided, because to him, Ryan was still there.
When he was done letting everything out to Ryan like he did for about twenty minutes, Marissa would meet him in the room, she would say her words, and they would be off to have lunch at their favorite diner down the street. But when she left, that stopped. Back on the home front the last couple of months, things were changing, and not in the direction Sandy had liked them to.
Kirsten used to go with him to visit Ryan every morning before they were scheduled to go to work. She would stay with Sandy some times overnight. Seth also used to go after school everyday to visit his brother. But these things slowly deteriorated. Sandy and Seth's visits became too far apart. Sometimes, it would be almost two weeks between their visits. TO them, they thought it didn't matter to Ryan, because he was not awake. But to Sandy, he knew that Ryan knew.
Everything slowly fell apart, and came to a crashing end today on day 240. Sandy sat down for his morning ritual. Seth sat down with his arts and leisure section of the Newport News, and Kirsten reviewed plans for the latest model home. Like normal, there was no talking, especially about Ryan. That was a touchy subject. Kirsten made it very adamant that she didn't want to talk about Ryan anymore. Sandy didn't like this rule, and had to say something about him.
"So I was at the hospital yesterday visiting Ryan and…." Sandy started, but was quickly interrupted by a clearly angered Kirsten.
"What are you doing Sandy? I thought we agreed to not talk about Ryan anymore!"
"Actually you agreed." Sandy stated softly under his breath.
"What did you say?" Kirsten asked, loudly, knowing full well what he said.
"I said you agreed, Not ME!"
Here is what I am going to do. I have to go, but I will give you this part and I will update around ten o'clock Eastern time. So here is the beginning of this chapter.
"Where is this coming from?" asked Kirsten with anger and confusion in her voice.
"This is coming from ME! I have let you push Ryan away so you think everything will be better for THIS ENTIRE TIME!! But we CAN'T! RYAN IS OUR SON!!"
Kirsten was speechless. She didn't say anything, so Sandy continued.
"He is our son. And you are trying to make everything easier by saying he doesn't exist. Like these last two years, which have been the best two years of our lives, never happened? You should be ashamed of yourself!" Sandy spat at Kirsten who had tears in her eyes, but was not going to back down.
"Well this is coming from the man who drove Ryan off in the first place! If he had never gone to Chino, he would have not needed to go to Marissa's house to make up to her!"
"IT WAS MYYYY FAULT? You were the one that convinced Theresa to have the baby, after she was steadfast on having an abortion!! If anybody's fault, it should be yours!! You put Ryan in the worst position in his life, because you were upset that you had an abortion when you were young!!!"
"YOU knew?"
"Of course I knew. When we had that talk about you giving the advice, and you said you knew what she was going through, I asked you what that meant, and you sidestepped my question."
"Why didn't you say anything then?!
"Because unlike some people, I like to avoid conflict. For the sake of our children. Whom you do not care about!"
"How DARE YOU." She screamed as she took her plate and threw it at Sandy's face. Sandy moved his head quickly, getting out of the way. Kirsten yelled and walked out of the room. Seth sat there silently the entire time, with his mouth wide open.
"What just happened here?" Seth asked, trying to ease the tension that had already boiled over.
But Sandy glared at Seth just like Ryan would, shutting him up. Sandy got up out of the kitchen and instead of going to his room, walked outside, slamming the door behind him, and into the pool house.
Sandy had actually gone to the pool house a lot lately. It was a place of escape for him. It was a place where he could remember his son, without Kirsten saying anything about it. He could tell that she had not reached that room yet. It still had pictures lined on the outside. It still had Ryan's picture of the Cohen's and himself. IT had that sitting on his dresser. It also still had a picture of Ryan and Marissa, just the way he had left it almost two years before when he left for Chino.
Sandy came down here when things got rough for the family. That had been happening a lot of late. It was the spot where he would practice Ryan's favorite activity, brooding. He would brood for hours on end. He would do it when Kirsten was mad at him, or just when he missed Ryan, which was basically all the time.
END OF FLASH BACK
"So that is why you guys are divorced?" Ryan asked.
"No there is more."
"There's more."
"Yes, and it has to deal with you. This may upset you a little bit. It did me, so be prepared for your emotions to take over okay?"
"Okay."
"So a week later….."
A week later, Sandy was sitting in the office watching the latest stock figures roll across the TV screen. He had just got back from his meeting with Ryan, and he was kind of lonely. It was now a month since Marissa had "left," and he didn't have anyone to talk to. It seemed that as the days went by, Seth sided with his mother more and more, and Sandy was the only one let to care for the well-being of Ryan.
Sandy sat at his desk with his head in his hands, when the phone rang, startling him from his sulking. He waited for his secretary Corey to pick up the phone. He had taken his ex assistant Corey from the public defenders office to the other firm, so that is who he had.
"Newport Memorial Hospital, Mr. Cohen." Corey said, as Sandy pressed the button for line 1, picking up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hi Mr. Cohen, this is Dr. Brown. I was just visited by Kirsten." The doctor started, with confusion ridden all over his speech.
"She visited. Well that is good. She keeps trying to replace Ryan. Every time we try to talk about him, she changes the subject, and says we cannot talk about him. It is good to see she has changed her ways." Sandy said, with relief for once.
But there was something else that the doctor had not told him yet.
"Actually Sandy, she just visited, to tell me to pull the plug."
"WHAT!!!!"
"She came here, said you and her discussed it, and have decided that to end Ryan's suffering, you were both ready to end it. She said it was time to remove the life support."
Sandy had tears in his eyes as he dreaded the next question that he had to ask, "Did you do it?" He hoped he didn't, but was not sure.
"No."
"Thank God, Don't!"
"I wasn't going to. I know that you would never want that. I remember that time two months ago when I brought up the money, and you said that you had the money and would never take him off. So when she gave me the okay, I decided to call you, even to know, technically all we need is her word."
"Thanks Doc. You are amazing."
"Don't mention it."
Sandy hung up the phone. He was fuming. He couldn't believe she would do such a thing. That was something that he would believe Julie Cooper to do. But not Kirsten Cohen. Sandy grabbed his jacket and left the office and headed over to the Newport Group's office. He sped over there, going over fifteen miles over the speed limit. When he got there, he marched inside, stopped by the receptionist, but walked right past her. He stormed into Kirsten's office, just as she hung up the phone.
"You Bitch!" Sandy spat as he slammed his briefcase down on his desk.
"What did you call me?" She asked, shocked at his outrage.
"I called you what you are! A maniacal Bitch, who couldn't give a shit for our son who is lying in the hospital trying to get better. No! Instead, you try to kill him. What the Hell were you doing without talking to me?"
"I was trying to ease his suffering."
"HE ISNT SUFFERING, HE IS IN A FUCKING COMA!! He can't feel anything!" Sandy screamed, louder than he had ever at Kirsten.
Kirsten didn't respond. She was so furious. Yet at the same time she was sad and upset. She knew then that this was it for them.
"Well, Ryan has been a major burden on us. I mean he has cost us a lot of money."
"I don't believe you! First of all, we are the richest family in Newport Beach, so do not give me this money crap! You would never do this to Seth! And don't you ever say we don't want him because we don't have the money. His life is more important than what we have left in the wallet!!" HE screamed back at her.
"SHUT UPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!"
He was silent.
"I can't stand this anymore! I want a divorce!" She said simply, as she motioned for him to leave his office. He walked out and home to tell Seth. Something that did not go over well.
END OF FLASH BACK
"Wow!"
"wow is right. So that is how we got to where we are today."
But Ryan picked up on a lot of things over that speech. He had picked up on something strange about Seth, and Marissa. But his conversation with Marissa would have to wait to where he was in the comfort of the pool house.
"Sandy, what really happened with Seth?" Ryan questioned, not really believing what Sandy said the first time.
Sandy bowed his head to the ground, as a tear fell from the floor onto his shoes.
"He is not at USC. He is at NYU. He hasn't spoken to me in almost a year."
Things were really messed up, and he hadn't even heard about Marissa yet.
