Blast From The Past Chapter Five

A/N: This isn't AS in depth as it could be, partially because it's ground I'll cover in Reading Between The Lines and partially because I have a vague idea for another fic specifically designed to deal with the attempted rape. This just covers what needs to be covered in terms of this fic.

"Marissa, we've got to talk."

A vaguely unsettling feeling came to rest at the pit of Marissa's stomach. "Talk about what?" she inquired in an all-too-casual tone of voice; she winced at how fake it sounded. Studiously avoiding Ryan's eyes, she moved around the kitchen pouring the fudge into a pan.

Ryan rubbed his hand over his jaw, unsure how to start. "I remembered a little about what I told you last night. About Trey."

Marissa tensed at the sound of the name. She'd been afraid it would be something like that. "It's okay, we don't have to talk about it," she said hastily. "I never should have brought it up in the first place; it's a low blow. I didn't know you had seen him that night, that's all. I get it now."

Ryan frowned. "Marissa…" he made an attempt to catch her eyes and failed. Sighing deeply and fighting back a faint flicker of irritation, he momentarily wondered if this was worth it. Did she think this was easy for him? He didn't want to talk about this or re-live this, either. Still, Summer's voice from the previous night kept ringing in his head. If Marissa thought this was her fault, she was a long way from even being able to cope with this. He couldn't sit back and do nothing. "Marissa," he tried again. "No one's saying you did anything wrong or should have known any better. I'm not trying to slam you here; I just think we should talk about this."

"I don't understand why," Marissa protested, feeling the agitation and the sense of walls closing around her the way she always did when someone approached the topic of how Trey tried to rape her. She could talk about Trey as Ryan's brother easily enough. It was harder for her to talk about Trey as the man she shot, but she could do it if she had to. But Trey the man who tried to rape her? Every time it came up, she felt sick. Every time she thought about talking it over with Ryan, it was even worse. She knew what any details of that night would do to him on top of what talking about them did to her. "I've already said I was wrong and I understand now. What is there to go over?"

Ryan raised his brows. "A lot if you can't even look at me when I bring it up," he said bluntly.

"Will you just drop this?" Marissa erupted all of the sudden, her emotions getting the best of her. She almost felt like she couldn't breathe. "I said I didn't want to talk about this. Just leave it alone!"

Ryan recoiled at her suddenly violent reaction, too shocked to protest when she whirled and bolted out of the room. He'd had no idea she was going to respond THAT badly. Part of him wanted to throw up his hands and call it a day; he didn't want to pressure her into doing something that would further traumatize her. The other part knew something must be very, very wrong for her to react like that and if he let it go, it might only get worse. He'd long since accepted he was one of the very few- sometimes he felt like the only one- who would notice when something was wrong with Marissa and take steps to help her. He hadn't needed to do that the way he did when they first started dating in a long time. Marissa had grown up and gotten stronger. Still, no matter how strong she'd become, she obviously wasn't strong enough to get through this like she had been. Sighing deeply, he got up off the stool and hesitantly went to search for her in the house. It didn't take long. She was sitting curled up on the couch in the den that was somewhat tucked away from the rest of the house; they'd cuddled and watched TV there on the rare occasions they were at Summer's house because they generally went uninterrupted. She didn't look up as he came in, but didn't protest as he came to sit beside her, either. After a long moment of silence, she finally spoke up.

"I'm sorry I freaked out on you," she mumbled. "I know you're asking me about this because you care."

Ryan ached to reach out and touch her, but he couldn't be sure that's what she wanted or needed. Biting his lip, he chose his words carefully, "If this is too hard for you…if it's something you don't think you can talk about with me, that's okay. I understand that. But Marissa, if it's THIS hard, something's wrong and you need to talk to somebody."

Marissa rubbed her hands tiredly over her face. God, it was still morning and she was exhausted. "No," she said wearily. "If you don't understand this, it'll eat at you the way not understanding about Theresa did for me."

Ryan frowned. "Marissa, don't do this for me," he said, his voice low and intense.

Marissa shrugged listlessly. "I need to do this. So I need to have a reason." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "So that night of prom…you went to see Trey."

Ryan stared at her for a long minute, unsure of whether or not he should continue if she had this line of thinking. Unable to figure out a better option, he relented. "Yeah, I did," he confirmed. "After I asked you to prom, that girl Jess that he'd been spending time with came up to me at school. She…basically she said you and Trey hooked up, and she told me Trey was in Chino. So I went to find him at a bar…"

"And he blamed everything on me," she finished for him. Even as she said them, the words brought up feelings so deep in her she couldn't even place them. There was a horrified empathy for Ryan, unadulterated rage aimed at Trey, and shame aimed at herself. How could Trey do that to Ryan? How could he blame everything on her after what he did?

Should she take some of the responsibility?

Knowing what he knew now, the thought of that conversation was even more repulsive and incomprehensible to Ryan than it had been when he was in the middle of it. He had been absolutely crushed when Trey told him Marissa came onto him; he felt like he'd been ripped to pieces. He didn't know anything could feel worse- until he'd learned what really happened that night.

More than one furious punch had been aimed at Trey with that conversation running through his head.

"Yeah, he did," Ryan said out loud, uncertain how to put any of this. He didn't want to hurt her or traumatize her any more than she'd already been. "I didn't…" he rubbed tiredly at his forehead. "I shouldn't have believed him at first. I didn't believe him when he first said it; I didn't want to believe him-"

"I feel like I said you up for that somehow," Marissa blurted out in an emotional whisper. Ryan's head snapped up and he looked at her in surprise, but she kept painfully forging ahead. "If I hadn't…I don't know. Acted the way I did and didn't tell you why…I mean, I told you to ask Trey. Did I think he was going to be honest?" She shook her head, tears filling her eyes. "I should have seen that coming."

"Marissa.." Ryan said softly, helplessly. "You couldn't have done anything any better; nobody could have expected you to. I wish you'd told someone, for your own sake. But that's not a time when I would expect you- or want you- to be focused on how everything affects me. It was Trey's fault, not yours." He saw the shadows in her eyes as he said that sentence and flinched, knowing Summer must be right. How the hell was he supposed to touch that without sending one of them or both of them over the edge? "Look.." he said hesitantly. "I can't know how you feel about this whole thing. And this is something I'm really not sure you should talk about with me. But I just want to let you know…you didn't cause this in any way. If you think you led Trey to believe something…you didn't. I was there practically the entire time you got to know Trey. Whatever went wrong…it was in his head, not because of you. It doesn't even matter, because as soon as you told him not to touch you…" he gritted his teeth against the very image of that and struggled on "…as soon as you told him that, he had no right. But at any rate, you didn't do anything to make him think you felt some other way. You just didn't."

The dam broke and Marissa started to cry. No one had ever told her that. No one had ever asked or gone near that subject, so it just stayed at the back of her mind, haunting her day and night. Had she done something without noticing it? Had she been TOO nice? Had she given Trey false hope? Could she have done anything differently to make any other outcome? Hearing for the first time someone tell her that wasn't true, and hearing it from Ryan, no less…it was overwhelming.

At first, Ryan was horrified, thinking he'd profoundly screwed that up and made it even worse for her. He was somehow even more taken aback when she suddenly leaned her head into his lap. Slowly, somewhat helplessly, he lifted his hand to her hair and stroked it as she cried. Maybe she just needed some kind of release. They stayed like that for a long minute, as she cried and he stroked her hair. Finally, she lifted her head up. "The same thing applies to you too, you know," she said shakily, wiping at her face with the back of her arm.

"What does?" he asked, gently reaching out to wipe her face more thoroughly.

She caught his hand in hers and held it, looking intently into his eyes. "This is Trey's fault. Not mine…not yours, either. I didn't see it. You weren't going to see it, either."

Ryan closed his eyes, more to regain control of his own emotions than anything. For the times he'd felt like she didn't understand him, in moments like these he thought she knew him all too well. At length, he nodded and leaned his head against hers. "Thank you," he whispered huskily.

Marissa curved her hands around his neck in that way that was uniquely hers. "Thank you," she whispered back. "Can we…I mean, I'm okay now. Well, not OKAY, but I know I need to face this. But can we just…leave it here for now?"

"Of course," Ryan readily agreed. He knew he wasn't solely capable of taking care of this situation and truth be told, he'd rather change the subject now himself. He'd said what he needed to say, they'd both had some kind of release, and they'd both reassured each other. It was enough for one day.

"So what happened with Theresa?" Marissa changed the subject, finally re-entering their normal state of ease when it came to touching each other and leaning into him as he wrapped an arm around her.

Ryan shrugged. "Really, it wasn't that dramatic. I ran into her right after I called you, helped her take her groceries home, and on the way the story about Trey and you- well, what Trey had told me, anyway- came out. She…she told me to trust you. She told me you were the one out of the two of you who loved me better. And really, I KNEW that deep down. I guess I just needed a push in the right direction."

"I hate how much I like her sometimes," Marissa muttered, then blushed as she realized she'd said that out loud. "I mean…" she said hastily.

Ryan started laughing. THERE was his girlfriend. "I know what you mean," he assured her. "Truth be told, I hated that I liked Alex at one point." He kissed the side of her head and she smiled. "So…that was it. I dropped her off and came straight to prom. You know the rest."

Marissa smiled dreamily. "In the middle of that mess, I SO loved that moment," she recalled. "It was so romantic."

"You have an interesting standard of romantic," Ryan said wryly, then laughed as she elbowed him playfully.

"Shut up! You aren't going to ruin it. It was a moment." She leaned against him again, remembering that night all those months ago, where for one moment she'd forgotten her troubles and danced with the boy she loved under the stars.

Ryan lifted a hand to her hair. "So…is this a moment? I mean, we're okay now, right?"

Marissa smiled a little. "Seriously, Ryan. We were okay last night." She poked him teasingly. "Honestly, what girl could resist a Journey serenade?" She started giggling as he shot her one of his famous Looks. "You're going to look back at this and laugh," she promised through her giggles.
Ryan rolled his eyes even as he smiled and wrestled her playfully onto his lap, pulling her into a kiss. It hadn't been such a big price to pay in the grand scheme of things. He and the girl he loved were back on an even keel. Was one drunken, embarrassing night such a huge price to pay?

Oh yeah. I'm still going to kick that kid's ass.

The End