CarebearStare: You think I should make it darker? Alright, there's not that much fluff in this section, so that's good. People were making jokes to kind of make things seem normal, because they want things to actually be normal. Hah. Like that's going to happen.
To everyone who wants to know what I'm going to do with Marissa's trial: I'm actually not sure how to write it, because I've never been tried for murder. Or manslaughter. Or anything involved with killing. My dad is a lawyer, which you'd think would help me write this, but he's not a criminal lawyer so I'm still totally in the dark on this. I'll try my best, though.
They ate their bagels in silence for a while. After about four minutes of no one talking, Seth cleared his throat.
"Well, I'm, uh, going to go back head on over to Summer's now," he said, unable to bear the quietness any longer.
Sandy glanced at him. "In your pajamas?"
Seth snapped his fingers. "Right. I knew that. I'm gonna change and then go over to Summer's." He stood up and beat the world record for fastest time to clear his dishes and get upstairs.
Sandy left to go change, too, muttering something about visiting the D.A's office today.
The reminder of the legal system brought Marissa and Ryan back to reality. They had avoiding the issue, and Marissa couldn't take it any longer.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked quietly.
Ryan got up and took his plate to the sink. "No."
"Ryan, we're going to have to discuss it sooner or later." Marissa picked up her plate and brushed the crumbs into the garbage.
He loaded his plate into the dishwasher. "Later, then."
She followed suit, tossing her plate next to his. "You're avoiding it. Ryan, if we don't talk about it now, we never will. And you know it. So let's make this easier on ourselves and get it over with!"
He slammed the dishwasher door shut and faced her. "Why do we need to talk about it, huh? We already know what happened, so why do we need to go over it again? It already happened, Marissa, so let's just forget about it."
"Forget about it? Ryan, this is going to follow us for the rest of our lives. I killed someone, Ryan. Not just anyone, but/ your brother." She was close to sobbing now. "What are you going to do if I go to jail? What's going to happen to us?" She fell into his arms, tears running down her face.
He had been all set to give her a short, snappy answer back, but one look at her and he couldn't. She was destroyed by what had happened, he knew it. He could have blamed her for Trey's death, he could have pointed his finger and told her off.
But he didn't. He knew he never could. If he did that, it would weigh him down forever. Here was a girl that loved him enough to kill someone to save his life, and what was he doing? Standing there, patting her back. He was in eternal debt to her, and he had to do something about it.
He stroked her hair. "Shh, it's going to be all right," he said. He felt rather odd; it was completely unlike him to do that. But maybe it wasn't. Things had changed in that short while since last night, and he was sure they'd never be the same again.
He stroked her hair again. "It'll be okay, I promise." he whispered. "I love you."
She took her head out of his shoulder, and looked him in the eye. "You mean it?"
He nodded.
"I love you, too," she whispered back, and kissed him.
At that exact moment, the kitchen door opened, and in strolled none other but Julie Cooper, clad in a black and beige suit with matching sunglasses.
"There you are, Marissa!" she exclaimed. "I've been looking all over for you. Where have you been all night? What have you been up to?"
"Since when do you care?" Marissa asked, unintentionally crossing her arms defiantly.
"Marissa, you know I care what goes on in your life."
"Uh huh. You don't give a damn what happens to me! All you care about is yourself. You never have time for anything or anyone except you!" Marissa screamed.
"Well, excuse me if now I want to be involved with my daughter's life and she won't bother to tell me anything."
"Fine. You want to know what's going on with my life?" Marissa stepped closer to her mother. "Last night, I shot Ryan's brother, saving Ryan's life, went to jail, got bailed out by the Cohen's, slept over at their place and had sex with Ryan.
Julie laughed. "Honestly, Marissa, you could have just said that you didn't do anything instead of making up a ridiculous story like that."
Marissa glared at her mother for about three minutes until the realization sunk into Julie.
"Oh, my God." Julie said slowly. "You're not lying, are you? I don't believe it. You slept with him?" She pointed a perfectly manicured finger at Ryan.
"I'm not good enough for your daughter, is that it?" Ryan took a menacing step towards Julie.
"Well, at least he's not stupid as I thought." Julie sniffed.
"Listen, I don't know who-" Ryan began, taking another step closer.
"Don't you come near me!" Julie exclaimed, moving towards the door.
"I don't know why you have a problem with Marissa having a boyfriend, you seemed to like Luke well enough."
Julie sighed. "You know what, I don't have time for this. Marissa- you were right. I don't care what happens to you anymore. From now on, you're on your own. Get your stuff out of my house."
"So you're kicking me out?" Marissa said, trying to comprehend it all.
Julie curtly nodded.
"I want everything out of your room by tonight, or else it's all
going in the trash."
She turned on her heel, and left the
Cohen residence.
"Where am I supposed to go?" Marissa asked herself out loud. "I don't have enough money to rent a place. I can't-"
Ryan interrupted her. "You could stay here."
Marissa turned around to face him. "Huh?"
"We've got a guest room. Sandy won't mind; you're already practically one of the family." he said.
She hugged him. "Really? That would be great!" She let go and took his hand. "Come on, Sandy's upstairs, let's go ask him."
As they trekked up the stairs to go find Sandy, Marissa kept acting happy. But on the inside, she was falling apart. How could her own mother do that to her? She was almost a senior in high school; her mom had no right to tell her whom she could date. She always knew Julie Cooper was a coldhearted bitch, but she never thought Julie would stoop that low. Marissa got angrier as she thought about it. Marissa would have her revenge.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Sandy, who they collided with in the upstairs hallway.
"Hey, you two. What's going on?" he asked, checking his watch.
"Um, I have a favor to ask." Marissa said shyly. "My mom was just here and she kind of kicked me out of my house, and now I have nowhere to stay, so, um-"
"You want to stay in the guest room? It's fine by me. You're already practically a Cohen. You can get your stuff and move it in anytime." Sandy assured her.
"Thank you so much!" Marissa said, using her happy façade again. "I'm just going to go run over to my house and pack my stuff up."
"I'll drive you." Sandy said. "I've got to leave anyways."
Ten minutes later, Marissa was standing in front of the giant Cooper-that-used-to-be-Cooper-Nicol mansion. She sighed, and pulled her keys out of her pocket. Last time I'll ever need those, she thought.
She unlocked the door and went downstairs to the basement to find some boxes. There were quite a few left over from the last move, and she lugged them up to her room.
She began throwing loose objects into a box. A hairbrush, some makeup, her pillows and sheets all went flying in.
"It never really felt like home, anyways," she muttered under her breath as she tossed her some designer purses into a box.
A half-hour later, all that was left in the room was the furniture and the ceiling fan. She picked up one of the many boxes and tried to carry it. It was way too heavy. She dropped it, and quickly moved her foot so it wouldn't crush her toes. She snapped her cell phone open, and dialed the Cohen's.
Ryan picked up. "Hello?"
"Hey, it's me. Um, I'm having some trouble moving all my stuff. Think you could help me?" she asked.
"Yeah, sure. Uh, I'll be over any minute." He hung up.
True to his word, the doorbell rang seven minutes later. She ran down the stairs and opened the door for him.
"Hey." she said, kissing him on the cheek.
"Hey."
He followed her to her room, where he stared in amazement at all the boxes. "How many are there?"
"Oh, about eighteen, I think." she replied. "I'll take these." She pointed to three small boxes.
"Alright," he said, picking up one of the heavier ones and effortlessly carried it outside to her car.
Eighteen minutes and boxes later, Marissa squeezed in to the drivers seat of her car, pushing the box on the stick shift back.
She drove back to the Cohen's, and pulled into their driveway with a box this/close to falling out of the open window.
"Alright," she said, as Ryan pulled up behind her and got out of his car, "can you help me carry them all in, now, please?"
He rolled his eyes. "Okay."
They brought all of her stuff in, and dropped them off in her new room.
"Alright, well, I'm hungry, so I'm going to go see what we've got for lunch," Ryan said, disappearing off to the kitchen.
Marissa was left standing alone in the Cohen's guest bedroom, amongst what seemed like millions of boxes. She sighed and kneeled down to start unpacking.
The first box she came upon was the one she had shoved her pictures in. She pulled out an old picture, taken when she was about seven. She was missing her front two teeth, and wearing blue jean shorts overalls. She was holding her mom's hand, while Jimmy stood in back of her with his hands on her shoulders. She looked at it again and tore the photo up. That was then. This is now.