Chapter Two

For Ryan Atwood everyday was the same routine, up at 4:30 am for a five mile run, go home shower, change clothes and at work by 6. From 6 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon he was a construction worker, mostly clean up and salvage. As soon as work was over it was time for another run, then be at the gym for 5. From 5 in the afternoon to 8 at night he trained. It was in those hours at the gym when he felt alive. There he wasn't a normal man anymore, he was a boxer even more so he was a good boxer, and that meant respect. Respect was something important in Chino; most guys got their respect through gangs, or by boosting cars. Ryan earned his in the ring.

"Come kid that's it," Joey yelled from ringside as he watched his best boy demolish his sparring partner. He'd been training Ryan for just over four years now and couldn't have loved him more if they'd been blood.

Ryan heard the belt ring, and stopped. Joey jumped into the ring and removed his headgear, "Good job kid, 110 percent just like I like it. You keep this up and the middleweight division as it stands won't know what hit them."

Ryan smiled, middleweight guys were smaller and quick like the featherweight guys, but the could pack a punch like heavyweights sometime. Ryan at 160, stood right at the middleweight cut off but he liked it that way. When he first started training with Joey, he was a muscular 175, which would have put him in the light heavyweight division. Joey having seen the boxing game for many years knew that Ryan was too small in size to stay at that weight, so he had him trim down, knowing that his speed and grace were perfect for a strong middleweight fighter.

The first time Ryan meet Joey, was in juvie where Ryan spent a year and three months for being the possession of a stolen car. He hadn't actually stole the car, his brother Trey had taken care of that, Ryan was just in the car when they got caught. Six months was his original sentence and even that harsh punishment for a first time offender, Ryan's public defender thought so, but it's not like he had been any help to Ryan anyway. Ryan had always felt like it was his defender's lack of effort that landed him there in the first place. Most guys got probation or community service on a first offense. The judge made an example of Ryan, not that anyone was paying any attention. Fighting had been how he survived Chino and what had been getting him by in juvie. Eventually the fighting led to extra time on his sentence and for a while it felt like he was never going to get out.

It was in Ryan's last six month there that he met Joey, everyday the boys were required to attend classes, just like regular school. Most of the boys didn't give a damn but Ryan thought that maybe if he did good in the classes he could get his extra time reduced a bit. When one of the boys attacked the regular English teacher, Joey stepped in as their sub. His first few weeks Joey kept quite and didn't say much outside of the class lectures, he figured saying as little as possible it would help him maintain some amount of control. He knew Ryan was one of the different boys in there, for one he actually paid attention in class and did the work. Even when Joey looked out on the courtyard and saw the fights he saw something different. Most of the most punch to hurt and just threw their shots wildly with intent to punish. Not Ryan, when Ryan fought he timed his shots and they were well placed usually putting his opponent down within a couple of shots. He was a smart kid, both in the books and on the streets and Joey knew that that could be something.

"Atwood, hang after for a second," Joey called to him as the boys began to file out of the classroom.

"Yes sir," Ryan stood a few feet back from his desk.

"I finished your paper, graded it and all. Good work kid very thought out, I gave you an A."

"Thanks, can I go now?"

Joey leaned back in his chair and sized the kid up. He was probably close to 180, but some running and a better diet could fix that, and he was already in good shape.

"When's your time up?"

"Five months or so. Maybe less if I'm lucky, why?"

"I watch you boys when you're outside. Most of those kids are like animals and most of them aren't going to do anything but end up in San Quentin State, but every now and then there's smart one out there. You you're a smart one and you're a good kid too… Let me guess this is your first time here?" He watched as Ryan nodded. "You don't want to end up back here or worse either do you?"

"No sir. But where I'm from, that's where most guys go."

"Where you from?"

"Chino."

"No shit," Joey's eyes lit up, not only was this smart kid, but this smart kid was from his side of the tracks maybe he could get there to this one. "You know it is possible for guys from Chino to make something of themselves."

"Yea funny I can't name one."

"You're looking at one…. I'm a regular substitute teacher right, but I'm the guy they call in for crappy jobs like this. Dangerous ones that no regular sub in there right mind would take, and you want to know why…"

"Why?" Ryan tried to keep his voice gruff but was in fact actually interested in what Joey had to say.

"Because any one of these kids could come at me and I could drop them in a second, with a simple punch to the ass. You just hit them in the sciatic nerve, it's one of the dirtiest shots in boxing and once of the least noticed and it makes your opponent's legs go, once someone's legs aren't a factor their butter."

"Did you say boxing?"

"Yea boxing, see the nose?" He pointed to a large indentation in his sizable Italian nose. "See the eyes?" He pointed to large bag under his eyes caused by years of scar tissue build up. "I did it myself for about ten years, now when I'm not taking crappy subbing jobs, I train guys. Most of my guys started off just like you. Didn't think they had anywhere to go in life, so they fought and didn't know what for. I give kids like you something to fight for. And if you're interested, I want to give you something to fight for."

With that a relationship was form, as soon as Ryan got out of juvie he started training with Joey seven days a week. Joey never charged him anything, but the deal was Ryan had to go to school, keep his grades up and graduate. If Ryan could manage that, then Joey would train him for free, put up the cash for him to fight in the amateurs and after graduation take him to the pros. Now four years later Ryan had been pro for two years with a perfect record 7-0 with 4 kayos.

"Oh my God Cooper could you move any slower? I am so ready to go home." Summer Roberts waved her hands in a violent motion for her best friend to pick up the pace. Marissa simply smiled at her and called back, "Chill I'm coming."

At twenty years old Marissa Cooper lived much the same privileged life of her Newport peers. Designer clothes, parties, and endless shopping sprees. And for the most part she was a normal Newport girl. That is if you don't count the fact that she spend much of her teen years in and out of psychiatric hospitals, therapy sessions and rehab clinics. She had two suicide attempts one at sixteen, the next a year later at seventeen. Both of them came after traumatic incidents involving her boyfriend at the time, well it was a different boyfriend each time and one was more traumatic that the other but either way the results were the same a stay in a hospital and therapy afterwards. All at the insistence of her mother. A mother she couldn't stand but still footed the bill for the shopping and drinking of her teen years. It was also when she was seventeen that she embarked on her first healthy relationship, a relationship that just happened to be with another girl, and when that ended Marissa found herself in a rehab clinic in San Francisco. Which was the further away from Newport that her father would let her mother send her.

Life had been turbulent for Marissa but with a little willpower and the help of her best friend Summer, and her neighbors the Cohen, who were in fact the only sane people in Newport as far as she was concerned, Marissa managed to pull through. She had been sober for almost three years, and was on the dean's list at USC, where she was a psychology major after rehab she had made the decision to become an youth addiction specialties counselor. The commute had been rough but rather than simply move to LA in order to be close to school, she remained living in Newport sharing a nice beach apartment that had once belonged to her dad, with Summer. At one point she thought she needed to be, as far away from Newport as possibly to conquer her demons, now she knew that she needed to be in Newport in order to continue to face them.

"Hey Sum, where you still at the hospital last night when they brought that guy who'd been hit in the head in?"

"The boxer?" Summer's eyes lit up, "Oh yea, I would have loved to have been the one who had to give him a sponge bath." They girls both laughed. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason, I was just in his room when he woke up."

"And?"

"And… nothing I was just there when he woke up."

"Yeah so sure of that. You wouldn't have even brought it up if there weren't some reason."

"I don't know… We kinda had a moment… but it's nothing I guess I mean it's not like I'm ever going to see him again."

"You like him… well why don't you pull his file when no one's looking and find him."

"Summer that is so against the patient confidentiality laws."

"So if no one see you do it, then you didn't do anything wrong."

Marissa let out a huge laugh, "I love your moral flexibility, but how desperate does that make me look?"

"Well aren't you? I mean Coop; it's been what two years since you've had a date? And beside for a man like that you're allowed to look desperate." Summer joked as she pulled the car into the driveway.

"Yeah right, besides he's probably already got a girlfriend, and it's not like he would even have a reason to remember me." The girls continued to laugh as they made their way to the front door, when Summer noticed something at her feet.

"Oh flowers! I wonder who their from." Summer jumped with glee

"Probably you're dad as usual."

"No," Summer responded with a sly smile and handed Marissa the card; "Apparently someone has you on his mind as well."

Marissa looked down at the card and read "Marissa Cooper, guess I proved your dad right. How about you call me or else I'll take another hook to the temple to see you again, Ryan Atwood." Under his name he listed a 909-phone number. Marissa clutched the card between her fingers and tried to contain a broad smile.