A/N: This was not what I had planed for this chapter at all...the words just sort of came out in a rush. I am still not sure if it works. Please tell me what you think!

The Weight

Ryan drove away from Chino more confused then when he had arrived. Trey had told him that Marissa had betrayed him, Marissa denyed everything. As he entered the highway, he drove by the sign near the prison in Chino where it read in large graffiti, "You shall be freed", showing hands breaking chains with pure force. Ryan wished that he could be freed by that sort of force. As if mere determination could make things better. The truth was that even after his discussion with Theresa, he didn't know who to believe.

Going back to Chino always made him think. It made him reflect on who he was, who he could have been, who he was going to be. He wasn't the same person now that he was when he left Chino with Sandy that July day. When the Cohen's had taken him in he had been just an another piece of white trash, headed for life of petty crime. He went out every night and partied hard with kids like himself that had long ago lost the ability to feel anything.

He treated girls differently too. You met at a party, you got drunk, you hooked up. Maybe if you liked the person you hooked up more then once. Theresa had sort of been like that. They were friends one day, and sort of randomly they started making out and then…without really thinking…he wasn't a virgin anymore. He and Theresa had never really dated, there were no words, no promises, just good sex in the back of a car, breath smelling of whiskey.

He loved her though. She was incredibly strong and caring. And she understood him. Understood what he did and why he did it. And they had almost had a baby together. If Theresa hadn't miscarried then he would have been a father right about now and he probably would have married her for the baby's sake.

The baby.

"Theresa's pregnant. And it might not be Eddy's." Even almost a year latter Marissa' voice saying those 6 little words rang through his head. In less then ten seconds it felt like a millions of worries had fallen on top of him. Theresa might go back to Eddie. He might be a father. He had betrayed Marissa.

"It's not like we haven't done this before," Theresa's voice echoed in his head. Yes, but always with a condom. They had always been prepared. Always. Why hadn't he been that night?

But Theresa had made a decision before he could even process the reality of the situation. "You're not ready for this, I'm not ready for this. I can't do this. I not going to do it. I'm not going to have it, the baby." Ryan would support Theresa no matter what but at the same time he still felt, "Relieved, sad, disappointed..." Relieved that there wouldn't be a baby, but sad at the loss of what could have been, disappointed that he had some how failed a test, of what he wasn't sure.

And then Theresa had decided to have the baby.

"Remember that part last night about me not having the baby?" Ryan knew what she was going to say before she even finished her thought that night in the pool house, "As hard as it is to imagine having a baby, I can't really imagine not having it." Ryan had been in some pretty tough situations in his life, he had stared down gun barrels twice, he had been in jail and entered a whole new social world but never had he been as scared as he was when Theresa told him that. Before, there had been other options, other possibilities. But now she had made up the mind. He was a father.

As she hugged him, the only thought running through his head was what his mom had said when she had come to see him at the Cohen's. "I didn't know what I was doing when I married your dad, I was too young when I had you brother…" If Theresa had the baby she would go back to Chino, she would marry Eddie, convince herself that it was for the best. His child would be sentenced to that life of hell that he had grown up in.

So when Theresa had told him that she was going back for sure and said, "So come with me," Ryan knew he had no choice. He willingly given up his future, everything he had for the baby.

He said goodbye to everyone and Theresa had picked him up in her yellow car and driven him out of the gated community back to a reality he thought he had left behind. He had thought that he would stay in Auritro's room but Theresa had dropped his bags in hers. He held her head through the bouts of morning sickness and gone to every doctor's appointment. Within in a few days of arriving he had found a job working construction that paid pretty well, with Aurito in jail and Theresa's mom out of work he had become the sole earner. He construction pay check had to cover everything: the food, the electricity, the mortgage. In felt like within the span of a mere 40 minute drive he had become an adult. The only time he hadn't felt like he was drowning was when they had seen the baby's heartbeat for the first time on the ultra-sound. It became the baby. A real person.

Which meant that he was a real father.

Turning out of Chino, Ryan headed back into Newport. He should call Seth to find out how the meeting with George Lucas was going….

He hadn't thought about what it would be like to be a father for a long time. He used to think about it all the time, that summer it felt like he thought about it every freaking minute. He used to lay awake at night wondering about how he was going to raise a child. He used to stare at the mirror and see his reflection disappear and merge with a man that he only remembered as a monster, his father. He was scared that he was going to become his father, become the drinking, swearing, womanizing, abusive criminal that his father was. He hoped that he could be there for his baby the way his father never was for him, he hoped that by some miracle he could become the sort of man that Sandy was.

Then in an instant it was gone. He had been enjoying his visit with Seth and Luke, enjoying being a teenager again, but Ryan knew the moment that he heard Theresa's voice that something was wrong, "They didn't find a heartbeat. I lost the baby, Ryan. I guess in the first couple months this can happen." He had tried to back and help her, but she hadn't wanted his help, "You're don't want me to come home." Yet another woman in his life was kicking him out.

He remembered hanging up the phone in a daze and walking to the guest room of the Ward's house. Sitting on the bed, and just shaking. That heartbeat that he'd seen was gone. The baby was gone.

When Ryan wrote letters to Theresa he had also written letters to the baby. Letters explaining who he was, who Theresa was. Letters that voiced the love that Ryan had for the baby, that son or daughter that he would never know, that never got the chance to be known. He was glad that he had got a second chance, but parts of him still wondered what could have been.

Seeing Theresa tonight had been the final step to lifting that weight that he had carried around that whole summer. He need to let himself know that she didn't think that he had abandoned her. That she didn't resent him going back to Newport.

She had asked told him to make things right with Marrissa. Taking a deep breath Ryan pulled off of the road and into the school parking lot. It was like he had driven here on instinct, like his body had known what was right even when his mind wasn't sure. Just like he had to leave Newport to help Theresa, he had to believe Marissa tonight. And what the future would hold? Well if that summer had taught him anything it was that sometimes you had to play with the cards that life deals you and just let the future come.