A/N Sorry I haven't updated; I've been on vacation for the last two weeks and my dad's laptop isn't presently hooked up to the Internet, so all I could do was write. Finally, I get to see what happened way back when in Chino. I've been looking forward to seeing how this chapter will play out. Enjoy and please R/R!!! By the way, I realize that it's pretty unrealistic that neither Ryan nor Theresa were aware of what was going on with Janine, but just go along with it; this was a hard chapter for me to write because I couldn't seem to make it emotional enough...

'Beautiful, twisted and beautiful. I'm wasted and miserable, take it away!' –Lucky Boys Confusion (Atari)

Seth awkwardly laid a hand on Ryan's shoulder, trying in vain to comfort the shorter boy. A quiet, brooding, angry Ryan Atwood, he could deal with, but a sobbing Ryan? What the world needed was a book called 'Comforting a Crying Guy, For Dummies.' Seth didn't really expect any sort of response from Ryan, so when the guy's face instantly became expressionless and the tears stopped falling, Seth recognized and accepted the mask. (A/N I'd like to say that I am very proud of myself for the last part of that last sentence... lol)

It had been a long time since Ryan had willingly thought of Janine, but when the tears stopped, the words simply spilled from his lips as he began to tell Seth the story, which he'd been trying desperately to forgot for two years...

A/N I'm not writing this next part like Ryan's speaking because that would be too hard for me, so...

They say that when you're in your first years of school, you switch 'best friends' at least once a week; this may have been true for other little kids, but for Ryan Atwood, Theresa Ramirez, and Janine Fisher, it wasn't. They met exactly three weeks and five days before the first day of the first grade at Chino Elementary and from then on, they were inseparable. Theresa lived two doors down from the corner on North Elm Street, Ryan's house was the next one, and Janine's was the following one, the last on the street. Ryan had just moved from Frenso where his father had been arrested, so when the three of them met, Ryan, desperate for friends, ignored his older brother's teasing about the girls and hung out with Janine and Theresa. They were unlikely friends, being so different, but for some reason, it simply worked for them.

Theresa was the tallest, loudest, and most social with her doe brown eyes and long raven hair. Janine, much quieter than her best girlfriend, had jade green eyes, which always expressed her emotions, and her beautiful, thick brown hair was a source of jealousy among all the girls at school. Ryan had always been a quiet kid, fiercely loyal with a bad, easily triggered temper, he was way too smart for his own good, and had deep, ocean blue eyes that made girls swoon, even when he was six-years-old. (Ryan had received his first kiss in the second grade because a girl in his class, Monica, had loved his 'pretty eyes' so much that she'd asked his to stand still, so she could 'look at them closer.' Sure she'd practically examined his eyes, but she'd also kissed him and run off giggling. Even though he'd wiped his lips frantically then, Ryan ended up fucking her a few times when he was fifteen, shortly after Janine's death.)

Somehow, the trio stayed best friends all thorough grade school; it was only in the 7th grade when things changed. It was in the 7th grade that Ryan caught two stray bullets from a drive-by shooting. Defying the usual Atwood luck, he was okay. The paramedics hadn't shown up for at least 45 minutes, but the damage had been so minor, that he'd still been conscious when they'd brought him to the hospital and stitched him up. He would carry the small scars all his life and he would always have that memory of the fear he'd felt, but he was okay. Janine and Theresa, whom he'd been walking to meet, were even more worried about him than he himself had been. They'd been only a block or two away when they'd heard the guns and dropped to the ground like they'd been taught; from their position there, they'd seen Ryan jerk back and fall to the ground when the bullets had hit him. Ryan had immediately stopped moving, despite the pain, until he was sure the shooters were gone, but what he hadn't counted on was that his two friends would see him laying there, not moving, and that they would think he was dead. They'd been so afraid for him, that after he was released from the hospital, they'd both refused to leave his side until he was safely home and even then, Janine didn't leave. She crawled in through his bedroom window as he went in the front door and they'd slipped into the bed with him. They'd lost their virginity to each other on that night and from then on, they were a couple. He'd kissed a few girls before Janine, but it's usually been on a dare or something like that; he'd never before felt how he'd felt in bed that night with Janine. Sure it'd been pretty awkward, but that was only natural. Ryan didn't realize it then, but that was love. He loved her and he knew for a fact that he was loved in return; they didn't need to say it, but they both knew it was mutual. Things were slightly different with Theresa from then on, but all in all, she was fine with them being together, as long as they didn't exclude her too often. The two years from the 7th grade to the 9th grade were best ones on Ryan's life; he could escape his horrible home life and hang out with his best friend and his girlfriend.

When they were in the 9th grade, Ryan and Theresa found out that things weren't going so well for Janine at home. Her mother had died in a car accident when she was four, so, being an only child, she lived alone with her alcoholic father. One night, Ryan and Theresa went to her house to pick her up because they were going to a movie and they saw, through the window, Mr. Fisher beating Janine in a drunken rage. Ryan felt the anger well up inside of him and he would have broken down the door to get to her, but luckily, it wasn't locked. The two fifteen-year-olds had rushed in to find Janine lying in the middle of the floor crying, her father had stormed out the back door. She'd tearfully admitted to a fuming Ryan and a shocked Theresa that her father had been frequently hitting her ever since he'd gotten hooked on heroin among other drugs. Ryan was angry for several reasons at that moment, and one of those reasons was that she hadn't told him about what was happening to her. When Ryan expressed his anger, Janine retaliated unexpectedly.

"Ry you dumbass! I can't believe you could possibly be mad at ME for not telling you about this, when YOU'RE getting your ass kicked at home every single day and you STILL won't say anything!" She screamed at him, tears still streaming down her cheeks. "We both know what goes in your house, but you're too fucking proud to confide in your best friends!" Ryan felt like he'd been punched in the gut and he didn't know if the feelings swirling around inside of him were of anger, shame, or both. Ryan was aware of the fact that Janine and Theresa knew how bad his home life was; his mom and her boyfriends had always hit him if they hadn't been gone on one of their two-week drug binges. Granted, ever since AJ had moved in, things had gone from bad to considerably worse, but of course Ryan wasn't going to go around and talk about it. He'd never been a talkative person. Afraid that his feelings would overtake him, Ryan didn't say anything in response to Janine's outburst. Instead, he turned on his heel and stalked out the front door, which was still swinging on its rusty hinges from his entrance. Janine and Theresa watched silently as Ryan vanished into the night.

Theresa helped Janine get clean up before she convinced the smaller girl to leave her house and spend the night in Theresa's bed. After tucking Janine in, Theresa sighed and spoke for the first time.

"I'm going after him, okay J? I'll be back in two seconds, but I have to make sure the asshole doesn't do anything stupid and hurt himself or someone else" Janine nodded and closed her eyes. Taking that as an okay, Theresa slipped out the window and into the growing darkness to search for Ryan.

When Theresa left, Janine immediately climbed out of the bed. There was no point anymore. After tonight, there was nothing left to do; Ryan and Theresa had found out about the physical abuse, so it wouldn't be long before they found out about how her father touched her. She tried to stop him, but there was nothing she could do. He said that if anyone found out, they would think that she was a slut and they would hate her. She couldn't take it if her two best friends found out and they hated her, so she had to end it before they found out. (Her father never actually raped her, he just touched her, so the baby is Ryan's) There was also the baby, which she could tell anyone about; if Ryan was going to break up with her, there was no way she could raise the baby on her own. She didn't know how she'd been able to hide her pregnancy for the last five months, but Janine was good at hiding things; she had also been able to hide the bruises that frequently marred her skin from Ryan and Theresa. She was already dead, no one cared, and there was no point in living anymore... If she were dead, people could find out about how her father hurt her and the fact that they all thought she was a slut wouldn't effect her. Would anyone notice her absence? She wasn't even sure anymore. She might have done it then and there, with no note or explanation, just killed herself, but in fact, it wasn't only herself whom she'd be killing. Janine had never been as smart as Ryan was, but even she knew that an unborn baby couldn't live if its mother killed herself. The baby, whom she'd already named, deserved recognition; Ryan, even though she was sure he hated her, deserved to know that he had a daughter. It was difficult for her to clamber out of Theresa's window because she was hurt, but she accepted the pain, she deserved it because soon, very soon, she was going to kill an innocent child along with herself. It was the baby, Victoria or Tory, which Janine felt most guilty about because the tiny human being would never get a chance to live, but maybe that was better; Chino wasn't a very nice place to grow up anyway...

When she slipped into her house via the unlocked front door, Janine made directly for the loose floorboard in her father's bedroom. Janine knew exactly where he kept his heroin stash and she'd never touch it before because she was against almost all drugs, but tonight was different. Janine filled a syringe with as much of the drug as it could hold, a lethal dosage, before she set it down and picked up her favorite purple pen to write her final note, to Ryan. When she finished a few minutes later, she sealed the letter, pressed her lips to it in one last kiss, and limped back out the door towards Ryan's house. It hurt to slip in his window too, but she kept reminding herself that she deserved the pain for what she was about to do. She didn't waste any time in Ryan's bedroom, she simply set the note on his unmade bed and climbed right back out the window. (He had the room to himself for the next month, until Trey got out of juvie for the second time.) She didn't deserve to be in this room, she didn't deserve to breathe in his scent any longer, she didn't deserve him because she was about to kill what he'd helped to create, their baby.

It didn't take long for Theresa to find Ryan; he was at the park, where else would he go. He was sitting on a low branch in the tree where they'd all carved their initials when they'd been ten. Ryan was smoking a cigarette from the pack he'd swiped from a gas station earlier that day. She didn't say anything, but swung up onto the sturdy branch and settled down next to him. He passed her a cigarette and his lighter without saying a word, or even looking at her. She could tell by the way his blue eyes were glazed over that he was in deep thought. (Picture Matt Damon looking at the ceiling in that once scene from Good Will Hunting... Definitely in deep thought...). The only light was coming from a flickering street lamp, the last of a dying breed in Chino because guys like Trey Atwood enjoyed breaking them. Observing his rigid frame, Theresa noticed the tension in Ryan's shoulders and the fact that the knuckles on both of his hands were split from where he'd probably punched a wall or the tree. She also noticed the burn marks on his forearms, which were only fading because his mother and AJ had left him alone at home and gone on a drug binge; if they'd been home, the burns would be fresh. Holding lit cigarettes against Ryan's skin seemed to be one of his mother's favorite pastimes lately. Damn it, Chino was a fucked up place to live. She let him sit there in silence for almost five minutes before she spoke.

"Ry, you hurt her... She's upset and I'm pretty sure she thinks that you're going to break up with her."

"I didn't mean it, I... I just... I dunno. I just thought that she would tell us if something like that was going on with her... It makes me feel that... that she doesn't... that she doesn't trust me or something..." He stuttered. Theresa knew how hard it must be for him. Being the strong and silent type, Ryan hardly spoke more than a few words at a time unless he was drunk or high and even then, he was quieter than most. "I wasn't even mad at her... I... I... other than her dad, I'm mostly mad at myself. I should have realized... I mean, I just never thought of it. Now that I am thinking about it, I can remember tons of times that she had explanations that seemed logical. She fell down the stairs; she tripped; she hit her eye on that high bedpost... I can't believe that I didn't know..."

"Ry, this is hard for me too. You're not the only person who's angry because they accepted the explanations without realizing that they were lies. I just handle my anger better than you do." Theresa explained. Then, trying to lighten the mood, she nodded at his knuckles. "It looks like you took a bit of your anger out on a wall or something." When she noticed the small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, she allowed herself to grin despite the situation.

"I cleaned her up and took her over to my house. It's been a long night for all of us; we should go home." Theresa suggested, hoping that her friend would agree with her. She was relieved when he nodded slowly.

"Yeah, of course. I should go and apologize first though." He said quietly.

"That would mean a lot to her; just no make-up fuck in my bed though. You two can do that at your house when I'm not around." Theresa warned and Ryan almost laughed.

"Okay, okay." He nearly smiled.

"Come on Ry, let's go check on her." Theresa changed the subject. Ryan turned his fierce blue eyes on her for a moment before he nodded and jumped down from the tree. Theresa followed a second later and they walked the four blocks back to Theresa's house together.

Ryan knew something was wrong when Janine wasn't in Theresa's bed because there was absolutely no logical reason for her to be gone. Afraid that her father had come back and found her, Ryan scrambled back out of Theresa's window and began to run over to Janine's house; Theresa was right behind him. As he passed his own bedroom widow, Ryan stopped short; he hadn't left it open that far, only the tiniest bit. Relief flooded through him; Janine was probably in his bedroom waiting for him to come and apologize. Ryan clambered through his own window and making his way in the dark towards the door, he flicked on the dull light only to find his bedroom empty. Surprised, he quickly scanned the room for any sign of Janine and noticed the letter on his bed. He tore it open and only read the first few lines before he gasped, terrified, and practically knocked Theresa over as he threw himself out the window once again. He had to get to her; he had to stop her. Ryan was thinking of nothing but Janine as he, his adrenaline pumping and blood pounding in his ears, raced the short distance to Janine's house.

With Theresa on his heels, Ryan burst through Janine's front door, screaming her name frantically and began desperately searching the house. Seeing a sliver of light coming from under the door in her father's room, Ryan threw open the door and froze when he found Janine, no, Janine's body, on the floor in the middle of the room. An empty syringe lay at her side. Ryan was oblivious to the sound of Theresa falling to her knees on the ground beside him; the only sound he could hear was someone choking out the word 'no' over and over again; he didn't even realize that he was the person speaking. Suddenly, Theresa came to her senses and yelled for him to do CPR while she called an ambulance. Obeying his friend's command, Ryan brushed Janine's thick hair back from her pretty face and made use of the CPR skills he'd acquired one of the few days he hadn't skipped health class. Still, Janine didn't move; her lips were blue and her skin was cold and deathly pale. Ryan was getting more and more desperate with every passing moment. He tried to take her pulse and discovered that she had none. Ryan didn't know how long he sat there, doing CPR and looking for a pulse, but nothing was working, it wasn't working, it wasn't working, it wasn't working. Nothing he was doing made her sit up and smile that beautiful smile at him. In his heart, he knew that she was dead, but his head was still in denial, still forcing him to try to wake her up. It was his fault. If he hadn't yelled at her, if he hadn't walked out, if, if, if... There were a million reasons that it was his fault.

Dr. Chase McNab had been on ambulance duty for ten years, but it still hurt him every time he was called to the scene of a suicide, especially if it was a young person. After the medics had loaded up the body of the teenage girl, it was McNab's job to get information out of the boy and girl who'd found their friend dead on the floor. He laid a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder, but it was as if he was made of stone. The kid's face was frozen and his bright blue eyes glazed over; if McNab hadn't seen the unsteady rise and fall of his chest, he would have wondered if the kid was dead himself. After a moment, McNab decided that he'd better talk to the girl. She was sobbing uncontrollably, but managed to relay details of the night to him. They'd come to the door, found her father beating her, the boy, Ryan, had gotten mad, walked out, she'd brought the dead girl, Janine, to her house, put her in bed, left to find Ryan because he had a bad temper and she was afraid of how he might have vented his anger, she'd found him, they'd come back, Janine was gone, they'd looked at Ryan's house, found the note, rushed to Janine's, and found her on the floor.

"Theresa, why won't he talk?" McNab asked the girl, worried about her blue-eyed companion.

"They were... together... He loved her." Was her only response before she went back to sobbing. McNab, knowing that he had to leave with the ambulance, walked out, leaving the two teenagers alone. It was only back in the ambulance when McNab was informed that there were in fact two dead girls, Janine had been five months pregnant.

Dr. Chase McNab had always hated getting suicide calls. It was 11:27 pm when the ambulance left and Theresa and Ryan were completely and utterly alone.

A/N I would like to point out that there has been a lot of jumping in and out of windows in the last little bit and I have two explanations for this: number one is that they want to avoid Theresa's mother and number two is that sometimes, it's faster. Well, that wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but I think it was okay; these things work out in the weirdest ways sometimes... Anyway, did you like it? R/R please!!!!!!!!