Thanks to melanie39 for being a great beta.

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

Come Undone

Chapter 18.

Ryan sat with his arms on the counter as Sandy and Kirsten circled around, shooting questions at him.

"Why did you run off again?'

"Why didn't you call us?"

"Where did you go?"

"Were you being safe with this girl?"

Ryan's one-word answers weren't satisfying them but that was all he had the energy for.

Then the questions stopped and the lecture started. Ryan sat silently. He had dodged the bullet concerning Caleb apparently. How the hell had they managed that? He was surprised that this information didn't make him as relieved as it should have. Ryan realised that he really didn't care anymore. The words were floating around the kitchen but they could have been speaking to Seth as far as the impact they were having on him. He knew that he was probably coming across as a typical sullen teenager to the Cohens as he sat there staring at a point somewhere above the coffee pot. He couldn't explain it, he just felt detached. He had that feeling in the pit of his stomach, like when you were a kid and you were excited about something or you had that dread that some misdeed was going to be found out. It was that weird butterfly feeling that usually only lasted a few seconds but this seemed to be permanent. All that was replaying in his head was his mother's face as she told him to leave her alone. Again and again he saw her face telling him to go and with that word the last vestiges of his family crumbled to nothing. Ryan just wanted to crawl into bed and curl up in a ball.

"Ryan, are you even listening to us…Ryan?"

Sandy's voice penetrated his brain.

Ryan turned his head, looking at Sandy as if he had only just noticed him in the room.

Sandy frowned and looked at Ryan.

"Did you take drugs last night?"

Ryan turned his head away and found his spot again on the wall.

"No!"

"Are you sure about that 'cause we're going to test you?"

"If you're going to test me anyway, what difference does it make? You'll find out if I have or not," Ryan responded listlessly.

"It matters because we want you to be honest with us, it matters because we are worried about you. Dammit Ryan we never thought you'd take drugs in the first place, you know how stupid getting involved with drugs is!" Sandy raised his voice in frustration.

"What…. like when you smoked weed Sandy?" Ryan was surprised that he wasn't feeling angry which was his natural state when confronted by hypocrisy. His voice very even.

" You could have died Ryan. You OD'd on coke, there is a big difference and you know it." Sandy knew that smoking pot was one day going to come back and bite him on the ass.

Kirsten stepped in.

"Ryan, we know that the last few days have been worse than bad for you but if you have a problem with drugs we just want you to tell us."

Sandy sat down next to Ryan.

"Kid, we are just trying to keep you in one piece, that's why I don't think you should see Melissa again."

"What!" Ryan swung his head round to Sandy.

"Ryan, she's a bad influence on you. That house and those people aren't you, don't go down that route just because things are hard now."

"She didn't influence me Sandy. She didn't make me do anything I didn't want to. This was my fault not hers. You forget Sandy, that house and those people were me until a few months ago."

Ryan swept his arm around the kitchen.

"This isn't me. You don't get that do you Sandy?"

All three stared at each other. Ryan suddenly felt defeated. Where the hell did he belong if he didn't belong here? As his mom had pointed out, Chino wasn't his home anymore. Just where the fuck did he belong now?

He saw the look of concern on their faces that he was once again bringing up his place in the family. He was tired of this shit. He was fucking tired of everything.

"Look, I'll do whatever you want. You don't want me to see Missy, I won't. I just want to put this all behind me. Can we just start again please? I'm sorry for being a pain, and I'm sorry about punching Caleb, I'm pretty much sorry for everything I've done the last few days. So can we just do the test and I'll get out of your hair O.K? I've got some school work I need to catch up on."

"We still want you to see the therapist." Kirsten was afraid to bring that up.

"Fine. I won't jerk him around this time." Ryan replied. "Look you won't have any more trouble with me, I promise."

Sandy looked at Ryan as if he was appraising him, and then nodded.

"O.K kid, but you're on your second strike."

Ryan watched Sandy get up and disappear out of the room, probably to get the fucking test. Kirsten was looking at him intently.

"Ryan, did anything else happen? You don't seem yourself today."

"Nope, I'm cool... just tired and I've got a lot of schoolwork to catch up on. I'm going back tomorrow right?"

"I think you should take a few more days off and if…"

"No, I'm good. No point in getting further behind." Ryan gave her a smile.

Sandy returned with a grim face holding a box. Ryan swabbed his mouth knowing full well what the results would be. He didn't wait around to gloat. What was the point? They already had him down as an addict. One clear test wasn't going to change their minds so quickly. He retreated to the pool house.

Sandy and Kirsten both let out the breath they had been collectively holding.

"Thank God for that, at least he did one thing right last night." Sandy opened the bin and threw the test and packaging in the trash.

Sandy turned to find his wife glaring at him with the 'look' usually only reserved for forgotten anniversaries.

"Sandy, I think you were wrong in telling him not to see Melissa."

Kirsten was annoyed that her normally perceptive husband couldn't see that Ryan had reached out to Melissa. Ryan, master of coping with things himself had actually contacted this girl. That was a big step forward for Ryan and Sandy had just quashed that.

"Ohhh you've got to be kidding me Kirsten. You saw what she's like, what is a girl like that doing with a kid like Ryan? They weren't just having a sleepover last night you can bet your bottom dollar on that. He should be going out with girls his own age… not some hot twenty-something. If this was Seth we wouldn't even be having this conversation."

"I know Sandy…. And I hate to admit it but I don't think we can treat the boys the same. Ryan is different. You heard him; he grew up in a whole world that I can't even begin to imagine. Seth's sixteen and Summer is his first girlfriend. Who knows how many girlfriends Ryan's had. I'm not saying I'm happy with him having sex Sandy. You know how I feel about that but the bottom line is that he's going to no matter what we tell him. She seems like a good kid underneath it all. Ryan went to her and she brought him back. She was so worried about him that night Sandy, I talked with her, she cares and she knows his family. That gives her a connection to him that we can never have. When was the last time he had a girl that worried about him? His last attempt at a relationship was with Marissa. I know she's Jimmy's daughter but she was hardly the best thing for Ryan. Did you forget the shoplifting, the drinking, overdosing in Tijuana and I'm not going to mention the whole Oliver thing. Maybe he needs someone older with less teen angst, especially now with all that's going on. If we make sure they meet here and if they're in the pool house we evoke the one-foot on the floor at all times rule. It's just that I think he might need her now."

Sandy remembered why he married this woman now; she talked sense into him on occasion. Putting it like that it didn't seem so wrong. Marissa was not the best thing to happen to Ryan these past few months; in fact most of the trouble Ryan had gotten into was down to her. Kirsten was right, Ryan had gone to Melissa and she had made sure that they knew he was O.K with the text message last night. Something Ryan seemed incapable of doing.

" Honey, I think I might have really screwed up there."

Sandy suddenly felt bad for his earlier outburst as he recalled Missy's face when he'd bawled her out.

"What did you do Sandy?"

Sandy ran his hand through his hair and looked at his wife with an expression that said 'go easy on me, I wasn't thinking straight'.

"I was mad and worried. When I saw her hugging Ryan I went off at the deep end. I told her I'd report her to the police."

"Ohh Sandy."

"That's not the worst of it…. I basically called her a paedophile and told her to leave him alone."

"Sandy she's a kid still herself, how could you? I know she's a bit older and not quite what I'd hope for Ryan but…."

Kirsten sighed.

"We'll sort this out somehow. Come here."

Kirsten hugged Sandy. He was usually so good at this stuff but she'd seen how the whole abuse angle had really thrown him for a loop. It was like he blamed himself, this kid who had only been with them a matter of months had totally ingrained himself into their lives that it seemed natural to feel responsible for what had gone on before.

She also knew they were in over their heads with this, this was so beyond the problems that she had foreseen on that first day when Sandy had brought him home. She had seen then, she was ashamed to say, just a cold-eyed street thug. That image of Ryan stood in the pool house that first day had a different meaning now, the cold expression she saw back then was one she now recognised as sadness. It was the look that she had just seen in the kitchen and it had broken her heart to see that they had come full circle again. Ryan belonged with them even if he couldn't see that yet himself. She just hoped with time they could make a difference.

Ryan closed all the blinds and was tempted to jam a chair under the door handle to keep people out. He just wanted peace. He didn't want Seth questioning him on where he'd been last night or have to listen to his inane chatter about Summer.

Ryan lay on his bed and let his mind drift. He couldn't believe that he'd let his mom get to him again. Shit his family was fucked up that was for sure. In his sixteen years though there were some good memories. His mom wasn't always drunk and there were weeks where his dad was just his dad. He loved those times because he could fool himself that the bad stuff hadn't happened, that it was all in his head.

They'd have fun together, like the time his dad took him out on a motorbike for the first time when he was seven. Ryan could remember the feeling of speed and the dangerous uncertainty of having to lean into the corner when all your body wanted to do was go the opposite way to stop the bike toppling or when dad taken them to a baseball match, they had all eaten so much junk food that dad had had to stop the car on the way home for Trey to be sick. Trey hadn't opened the door in time and had thrown up over himself and the interior of the car. Ryan remembered feeling smug that it hadn't been him that had barfed. Dad was totally cool about it, they had stopped off at a service station to get Trey cleaned off and they had all goofed around in the men's room throwing wet paper towels at each other. They had all gotten home really late and his mom had laughed at their tales of how much they had eaten. Dawn, when she was straight, was a great mom. It was just unfortunate that those times had been fewer and far between as the years went on.

Ryan loved and hated those times because they always lulled him into a false sense of security. It made his dad's transition back into the man he feared worse somehow. He hadn't known how to deal with his fathers Jekyll and Hyde personality. His mind wandered onto darker times.

Shit, why was he thinking of this now, as if he wasn't down enough? The last thing he wanted to do was think about stuff he had no control over ever changing but this shit seemed to be in a continual loop in his head and he couldn't turn it off. The more he tried to push it away the more it came into focus. He had opened a physics book and tried to concentrate but images of his dad kept fogging his mind. He had never had a problem before locking this stuff away. He shut the book and went into the bathroom to splash some water onto his face. He knew what he needed. He had said he wouldn't see Missy, he hadn't said anything about not speaking to her. He needed to hear her voice.

He picked up his phone and dialled Chino. The phone rang for an age before it picked up.

"Hi Chris is Missy back yet…I need to speak to her." Ryan chewed his thumbnail.

"Hey Ryan, how ya doin' man?" Chris drawled.

"Fine, fine. Look is Missy there or not?"

"Sorry man, she said to tell you not to call her, she was really bummed out when she got back. You two have a fight or something?"

Ryan hung up on Chris.

Great, another one bites the dust. And he thought she was different. What the fuck was wrong with him? He'd thought that they had something. Obviously not. Why did he even think that? Why the hell would a girl like Melissa want to be with a fuck up like him?

He got into bed fully dressed and pulled the covers over his head.

tbc