Summer was glad that she'd left the radio on, because other than that short conversation, Ryan had yet to say another word. He watched out the window as they left the quiet, cool streets of Newport for the Inland Empire, and traveled over miles of highway, shifting occasionally, running his left hand back and forth, absently, over his right wrist.

She was happy to have the music in the background, to let it form an invisible barrier as they sat in not-entirely-uncomfortable silence. Unlike Seth, Ryan didn't feel the need to fill every corner of the quiet with noise, and she couldn't help but be a little glad for that.

She was no slouch in the chatter department herself, but every conversation she could think of somehow started out with, "So, your mom, hunh?" and she was pretty sure that Ryan wouldn't have appreciated it. Ryan wasn't a particularly easy guy to get to know, and she wasn't entirely sure that his reticence wasn't a good thing for them all. Still, it was easy enough to pick up that he wasn't exactly in the mood for idle chit-chat.

She kept a surreptitious eye on him as she drove, surprised by his uncharacteristic fidgeting.

For a moment, watching him as he fiddled where the wristcuff used to be, she was sharply reminded of an afternoon not long after Seth returned from Portland, when he had joined Zach and her for the first time at Saturday brunch.

Sitting in one of the battered old booths at the Pier, they'd watched as Seth pressed his forearm over and over again into one of the old burns that scarred the table, then absently rubbed the mark away. She had finally grabbed his arm, and was about to ask whether he'd picked up a nice case of autism in Portland along with a venereal disease or two, when he'd looked up at her with hooded eyes.

"Do you think that's from a cigarette?" he asked vacantly, "That mark? Is that about the right size?"

Something about the way he asked made her want to change the subject, and quickly, so she'd let go of his arm and started talking about the latest e-mail from Anna as soon as she could.

"What happened to your wristcuff?" she asked suddenly, as she followed the soft instructions of the navigator and turned off the 405. Well, it least it wasn't about his mother.

Ryan jumped, cradling his arm against his chest in an involuntary protective gesture. He caught himself, and glanced at her, sideways, with a rueful smile on his face. As he released his arm and stretched out, she saw, even in the dark, the irregular white scar on his inner wrist, between two faint blue veins, against his pale skin.

"I think Theresa has it. It never came back with everything else," he said.

"Don't you miss it? You always used to wear it."

He shrugged, and half-smiled again.

"I kind of hope she kept it. You know, to remember me by."

Summer hadn't been talking to Cohen when it happened, but she found out later that by the time the boys had returned to from Portland last summer, all of Ryan's stuff had been shipped back to Newport, and Theresa and her mother had disappeared from Chino. She wondered, sometimes, what that must have felt like. After all, Coop had said that Theresa's family was practically Ryan's family, growing up. Was there a limit on how many times you could be left by a mother?

Jesus. And now she was reminding him of it again, even as they drove across the entire state of California on a quest, she thought, to find Dawn Atwood.

"Sorry," she mumbled, but Ryan didn't seem very upset.

"'S'okay. I got a letter from her, you know," he added, resuming his restless fidgeting.

"You did?"

She couldn't believe no one had let that slip. Between chatty Coop and chattier Cohen, she usually had the inside scoop on all things Ryan Atwood. If he hadn't been such a nice guy, and, more importantly, if she hadn't seen with her own eyes his absolute indifference to their blind hero-worship, she would almost have found him insufferable.

"Yeah. I kind of -- didn't say anything -- to anyone except Sandy. He was helping me look for them," he added as an explanation.

Summer supposed she knew as much about Ryan's past as anyone, not that she would ever tell him that. In Seth's rare, quiet moments, he sometimes let slip things, which she knew Ryan would never want her to know, so she just tucked them conveniently into the part of her brain where she held Marissa's drinking and her mother's abandonment and the thoughts of Julie Cooper and Luke Ward together in bed; that is, she never thought of them at all.

"So, everything's okay?"

He shrugged again, before Summer had to turn her attention back and concentrate on the roads, navigating through the quiet, slightly rundown, Inland streets to an all-night Circle-K.

"I guess so. She's in Atlanta, staying with family. Theresa's going back to school. She wants to be a nurse. I guess, after everything, she was interested . . . " he trailed off as Summer pulled into the well-lit parking lot. There were a few other cars around, but nothing too scary. They apparently hadn't hit Ryan's old neighborhood yet.

"Why are we stopping here?" he asked sharply, realizing for the first time where they were.

Summer put the car into park by a pump, and clambered out of the seat with a stretch and a pop.

"We're filling up the tank, so we don't have to stop in the desert. Also, I don't do all-nighters. I need caffeine -- coffee -- and snacks. No Kudos. No Goldfish."

She handed him sixty dollars out of the stash in her front pocket. He made a gesture to refuse, but she pushed it on him impatiently. He headed inside to pay, but she stopped him before he got to the door.

"Hey, Chino. One-time-only offer. Tonight, my car is a smoking zone, if you need it." He nodded his thanks and disappeared inside.

She waited until the pumps turned on, then gingerly thrust the nozzle into her gas tank. Her father had made sure that she could do all the important things -- like pump gas and dial AAA -- before she got her license, but she hadn't imagined that she would ever need to use them. Still, she knew for whatever reason, Ryan never looked at her as a helpless princess -- not the way he looked at Marissa, at least -- and she didn't want this night, of all nights, to change his opinion.

She shrugged out of her sweater as she waited impatiently for the pump, amazed at the increase in temperature as soon as they emerged from her climate-controlled car. Without the ocean breezes, California was a lot hotter than she really liked. Even in the middle of the night. She wondered what it was like to live so far away from the sea, to live in a coastal state and never see the ocean. She wondered if Ryan had visited the ocean at all before coming to live with the Cohens, or if he'd lived his entire life in this dusty, sticky interior. She couldn't think of a good way to ask him, however, without sounding like everyone did whenever they talked about Chino -- wide-eyed and a little dim.

By the time she figured out how to top off the tank and replace the gas cap, Ryan had emerged from the mini-mart with two large coffees and a substantial brown bag under his arm.

"Hey, you pump your own gas?" he said, handing over one of the insulated cups with a grin. It already had cream and sugar in it, exactly how she liked it. She wasn't sure when or how Ryan had acquired the knowledge -- probably the same way she knew all of his favorite comic heroes and snack foods -- a Seth rant -- but she was glad he'd paid attention. "I would have done it for you."

"I am a woman of many mysteries," she announced proudly, and was pleased to see him smile.

"You want me to drive for awhile?" he asked, as Summer started to climb back into the driver's seat.

"No, I'm okay for now. Next time we stop for gas, maybe. You seem like you're still pretty wired, and I'll be ready to nap by then."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It took twice as long to get back onto the freeway as it had to get to the gas station, even following the directions of the GPS lady. Summer was starting to think that someone was playing a trick on her, replacing regular road signs with one-way streets, but unlike Seth, Ryan seemed basically unperturbed.

"I think if you just swing around at the next corner, we can get the on-ramp from the other direction," he finally volunteered as she passed the entrance going the wrong way for the third time.

He was being way more patient with her than she would have been, considering how urgent he'd been on the phone with her hours ago.

She followed his directions, GPS lady be damned, and they were soon headed back in the right direction.

She sipped her coffee carefully as she drove down the nearly-deserted highway; once they'd gotten through the snarl of Los Angeles, the roads emptied out, and they were passing by mile after mile of small, dusty farms.

With a glance over at her, Ryan cracked his window and pulled a pack of Marlboro Lights out of the brown bag on the floor by his feet. He gestured vaguely at her, but she shook her head, and he leaned over to push in the dashboard lighter with a guilty smile, tapping the pack expertly, before extracting a cigarette with his teeth.

The lighter popped quietly, and Ryan lit up with an unconscious flourish. He took a deep drag, bracing a moment before blowing smoke out of the window in a concentrated stream, and Summer watched as he relaxed, physically at least, for the first time since he'd entered the car.

"Never really quit all the way, did you?" she accused good-naturedly, but he didn't bother to answer. Instead, he shot her another half-smile and leaned back against the leather headrest, briefly closing his eyes.

"My mother -- Dawn -- called tonight," Ryan said abruptly, even as Summer thought they were going to settle back into companionable silence. He didn't re-open his eyes, but he hit the open window unerringly with every exhale of smoke.

"Hmmh?"

She made her best non-committal sound, hoping to encourage him to go on.

"She, uh, she called from jail. She needs someone to bail her out. I don't know how she got the Cohens' number; I didn't think she had it."

His voice was so low that Summer was tempted to reach over and switch off the radio, but she was afraid that any movement would startle him out of his quiet confession. She wanted to find out what had happened, but she was afraid of scaring him off with questions.

"She probably had it from, you know, before," she risked.

Ryan snorted, and took a final deep drag on the cigarette before flicking it out the window into the passing night.

"She never called before."

Summer wasn't sure how to answer that. 'Well, no, that's because she hasn't needed bail money since she left' didn't seem like the compassionate response. Ryan was a pretty realistic guy, but he wouldn't be the first to have a soft spot in his heart for a less-than-perfect parent.

"Did you tell Trey?" she finally ventured. Another snort.

"No way. Him and Dawn aren't exactly on speaking terms. Besides, he can't leave California. It's part of his parole," he explained.

Summer marveled at the various ways the extended Atwood family enjoyed the attentions of the long arm of the law.

"Anyway," he continued, "I didn't want her to have to stay there too long. So, thanks for the ride, again. I . . . it would have been Sunday morning if I'd taken the bus."

She waved off his thanks, gesturing with her coffee cup.

"No big. I'm always up for a road trip. Just think of me as Cohen-lite," she said gamely. She saw him smile, then turn away quickly, but not before she saw the shadow pass across his face.

She knew, as far as he was concerned, that she was no Cohen, period. In the best of all possible worlds, at least, in the best of all possible worlds where Ryan's family was still a train wreck, Summer knew she fell pretty far down the scale of Preferred Atwood Road Buddies. She thought alone would have been his first choice, maybe Sandy his second. She amused herself momentarily by imagining Seth and Trey duking it out for third, but in the end she was willing to admit that Seth would probably emerge the winner. Even if Trey did fight dirty.

She didn't understand it, the connection that Seth and Ryan shared, but she'd seen it, and she didn't doubt it. At first, she thought that Ryan was putting up with Seth out of obligation, or duty. A thank-you to the Cohens for all they'd done for him. She couldn't imagine what a hot thug like Chino and a big dork like Seth could possibly have in common. She still didn't.

But she had to admit -- watching them now for almost two years -- Ryan really did need Seth. He used Seth like a canary in a coal mine, to feel out the edges of Orange County, where danger might still lurk. He depended on Seth, like his own personal Prozac, to measure his moods and take him out of his own head. She recognized that in Ryan, because she used Seth the same way herself.

She was pretty sure that he loved Seth nearly as much as Seth loved him, nearly as much as she loved Seth. And that was really saying something.

By the time they next stopped for gas, Summer was starting to weave back and forth across the highway.

This time, she allowed Ryan to handle the gross pumping of the gas while she used the far grosser restrooms. She splashed some cold water on her face carefully, and glanced at her watch. It was nearly four o'clock in the morning, and they were nearly halfway there. She could handle it.

When she returned, the car was locked and empty, but she saw Ryan walking across the parking lot from his own pit stop. She started to climb back into the driver's seat, but Ryan stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm.

"How about we switch for awhile here, Speed Racer? Before we re-create Jayne Mansfield's last day?"

"Chino, sometimes you sound like Cohen, and that's not always a good thing. What are you talking about?"

He smiled at her, and nudged her around the hood of the car to the passenger seat.

"Nothing. Nevermind. She's an old movie star. My mom used to like to watch those star biographies on cable, I picked up a lot of random stuff. She died in a car accident -- there was beheading --."

"Ew. You couldn't just say, 'Hey Summer, why don't I drive for awhile?"

He climbed into the driver's seat as they talked, carefully checking the mirrors and adjusting the seat. He glanced over at her and smiled again, almost a real one.

"Hey, Summer, why don't I drive for awhile?" he repeated.

"Fine. You have, like, a driver's license, right?" she asked, and he nodded as he started the engine again.

"Yes, I have a driver's license. Sandy fixed it all up for me last year."

Ryan pulled back out onto the highway with far less trouble than she'd had earlier, and the hum of the tires against the still-deserted road was lulling her to sleep.

"Wait," she muttered sleepily. "Weren't you a car thief?"

To her surprise, she heard him laugh.

"Yeah, that was my big problem -- driving without a license. Actually, I was more the car thief's passenger, so it was okay."

"I thought you could drive, though? Or did Mr. Cohen teach you?"

"Sandy? Oh, no. You've seen Seth drive, right?"

Summer tried to picture Ryan, currently flying down the highway at over eighty miles an hour, passed by a car full of nuns.

"I totally take that back," she said.

"I could drive -- I did -- in Chino, but I'd just turned 16 the week before I came to the Cohens, so no license. Sandy made me get one just in case."

She opened one eye to watch him staring intently at the road. At some point they'd picked up a classic-rock station, and an old song she vaguely recognized was playing in the background. Ryan was drumming his fingers unconsciously against the steering wheel to its rhythm.

"Chino! That means you're almost as young as me, and I'm the baby in the class. I didn't think they let boys start that late. Does Dr. Kim know?" she demanded.

"Yes, Dr. Kim knows. I started school a year early. It was cheaper than day care," he added.

"Was that here?" she asked, watching the signs for Fresno and Sacramento converge into one in front of her tired eyes. Why did she know that Ryan had lived in Fresno? Had Seth told her, or Marissa?

"You mean in Fresno? Yeah. We didn't move to Chino until I was about eight," he answered.

Summer wondered what that must have been like, to be the youngest, the smallest, in these dry, inland cities. Her own mother had been ecstatic when she had just made the cut-off for the year's kindergarten class, thrilled that Summer would no longer "be underfoot" all day, although she was under the feet of the nanny or the housekeeper far more often than she saw her glamorous, distant mother.

She drifted off to sleep wondering if Ryan had ever felt that, too, that feeling of relief and revulsion from his mother, the woman who was supposed to love him. If he'd ever hidden out in back rooms or under the kitchen table, so no one would notice him, so no one could complain that he was in the way. School hadn't helped, in the end. Summer's mother was gone before she started the first grade.

When she awoke, it was hours later, the sky pinking up with a hint of the coming dawn.

They had lost the rock station at some point, and a soft, Spanish ballad was playing over the radio. After a minute, Summer realized that Ryan was singing along, absently, under his breath.

She turned her head silently to watch him for a moment. He was slumped down in the seat, his left hand propped against the window, his right draped over the steering wheel. He looked exhausted, but far more relaxed than he had the night before.

The singing stopped abruptly as he glanced in her direction.

"Hey," he said, "You're awake."

"Don't stop on my account," she murmured. "You have a nice voice, Chino. What's up with the TJ music fest, though? Where are we?"

"We just turned onto the I-80 a while ago. It's a little before six."

She nodded and stretched, then reached down to rummage in the brown bag at her feet as Ryan turned off the radio.

"So, we have pretzels or Snoballs," she announced, "Plus, some warm water. Any preferences?"

"Water'd be good. I'm not too hungry."

She opened a bottle of the lukewarm water, then passed it over to him.

"Ew. That's pretty nasty. You can turn the music back on, you know," she added.

Ryan shook his head.

"No, I just liked that one song is all," he said.

"Do you listen to Mexican radio a lot?" she asked, honestly curious. Seth was always making fun of him for not really liking music, but maybe he'd harbored a secret jones for Selena all this time.

"Not really. We used to listen to it a lot when we worked with Theresa's father. You pick some stuff up."

"Theresa's father?"

"He had a landscaping business. Trey and 'Turo and I used to help out when we could, after school and in summers."

"I mean, I guess I just thought that, you know . . ."

"Not everyone in Chino is like my family," he said softly. "Theresa's parents were married. They were happy."

"What happened?"

"Heart attack. He thought it was indigestion, at first, and by the time he went to the clinica it was too late."

Summer found it amusing that Ryan occasionally slipped into Spanish, apparently unconsciously. He seemed to measure all his words so carefully that it was always a surprise, but she had learned that he only did it for things that had no Newport equivalent, as if he'd had to learn a whole new language too quickly, so that gaps still remained. The clinica, the bodega, the chincheria. That last one she knew only because Seth had pestered her about it until she'd finally Googled it.

Watching him as he drove, she began to understand, just a little, the impulse that Seth always seemed to have to leave well enough alone. The Cohens seemed to treat Ryan as if he had arrived in Newport as a blank slate, without a past.

It was hard to imagine him as a kid, with someone else, not Sandy Cohen, acting as his father figure, with friends and parents and memories that no one in Orange County could ever share. It was harder, still, to remember that in some ways, Ryan Atwood was as much an outsider in Newport as Lupe, their downstairs maid, or DJ the lawn boy. He looked like the all-American boy, but the truth was that Chino was a lot closer to Playa del Carmen than it was to Peoria.

The boy she was seeing on this ride seemed suspended somewhere between those two worlds -- the Newport Ryan who punched people, but also was Seth's best friend, the one who had saved Marissa from herself -- and the Chino Ryan she had never met. Marissa had said that Ryan was different, now that Trey was there, more relaxed about some things, but Summer was starting to see that he wasn't relaxed so much as resigned. Trey must know this in-between Ryan, at least a little, so there was no need for Ryan to hide behind the intimidating persona he'd developed. Of course, there was no way for him to take cover behind it, either.