Chapter Four

disclaimer: This is the first of a few "in between" chapters I have planned. It's entirely made up, flashbacks to events that will have happened over the summer. This one is more from Marissa's POV, so the next will be from Ryan's. Don't worry, all the issues covered here will be talked about even more thoroughly when I finally reach the Trey episodes

Ryan glanced up at the clock and realized with a start how late it was; they'd ended up talking until almost two in the morning. "It's late," he sighed, rubbing his eyes. "How about we keep this stuff until the morning; it's going to be hard to hash over." He saw the protest in her eyes and knew she thought he was going to try to get out of it. "Hey, hey," he said soothingly, stroking her hair. "If you want, you can stay here tonight and we can spend the whole day tomorrow doing this. That way you might even be able to guilt me into getting some sleep and having three meals."

Marissa arched a brow playfully, easily seeing the appeal of spending the entire day with her boyfriend and keeping her eye on his sleeping and eating habits at the same time. "If Sandy's cool with me staying here, why didn't I find out earlier?" she teased.

"You know, we never had that talk?" Ryan commented, laughing a little. "Anyway, I think he's long beyond caring about whether or not we share a bed."

He had a point there. "Okay," Marissa readily agreed. "So we pick up where we left off tomorrow morning over breakfast?"

"Sounds like a plan." Ryan leaned in to give her a long, lingering kiss before turning out the lights, then turning back to engulf her in his arms. Marissa snuggled inside them, positioning it so they were spooning the way they had been almost two years ago, in one of the moments that was bound to come up soon in their conversation.

"I love you," Ryan whispered in her hair. A sweet, somewhat sad smile crossed Marissa's lips as she remembered the first time, about a month ago, they'd actually exchanged the words.

Marissa wearily entered her bedroom. She had spent hours being questioned by the police about Trey's shooting, but she'd been perversely somewhat sorry they let her go. Now she had to spend hour upon silent hour reflecting on the events of the night. She could still feel the cold metal of the gun in her hand, still see the look in Trey's eyes as he turned to confront her before collapsing. More than anything, she could still see the horror on Ryan's face when it sank in what had happened to Trey. Time might fade some of the memories, but she doubted it would do much good on that one.

She absently glanced up as she went to put her keys on her dresser- and froze. Ryan was sitting on her bed, silently watching her. He rose when their eyes met, moving somewhat slowly and painfully due to his obvious injuries. For a long moment, they simply stared at each other. Ryan had a haunted look in his eyes, one she had no doubt she'd see on her own face if she looked in the mirror. Marissa was paralyzed temporarily, unsure if Ryan wanted her to move any closer or if he was here to tell her he never wanted her to touch him again. All of the sudden, she caught a flash of vulnerability in Ryan's eyes and realized he had the same fear she did. As if reading each other's minds, they moved towards each other. Marissa wasn't sure who began the embrace; she supposed it didn't matter. Within seconds, they were so tightly entwined it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended.

"I was so worried about you," Ryan murmured into her neck. "I'd barely said anything to you on the way to the hospital and next thing I knew, the cops had taken you off. I was worried they were going to arrest you or something."

"Sandy got them to release me; said it's a clear cut case of defense of others," Marissa explained, her tone making it clear she didn't particularly want to go further than that. She pulled away enough to see his face, running a gentle hand over the bruises. "God, you should still be in the hospital," she said in distress. "Look at you. Let me at least try to clean you up a little." She turned and went into the bathroom, ignoring Ryan's weak protests. The truth was, she wasn't entirely sure she was ready for the conversation that was about to come and she needed at least a second to gather her thoughts.

She ran a hand cloth under some cool water and grabbed a package of band-aids from under the sink. She glanced absently at herself in the mirror. Sudden nausea rose, hot and fierce, as she saw faint discolored patches on her shirt. Vaguely, she recalled trying to see if Trey was alive.

Trey's blood.

She ripped off the clothes as quickly as she could, grabbing the robe that hung on the back of her door and tying it on. Breathing deeply to calm her stomach, she leaned her head against the cool tile of the walls for a long moment before she was steady enough to go back into the room. She grabbed the cloth and opened the door, smiling weakly at Ryan who had resumed sitting on her bed.

He watched her with his quiet, observant eyes. "You okay?" he asked softly as she rounded the bed and came to stand in front of him. Unable to lie outright, she simply shrugged. Gently, she took his face in one hand and ran the cloth over the worst of the cuts and bruises on his face, trying to wipe some of the blood and grit away. Ryan closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. "That feels good, thanks," he said huskily.

"How did you not get this taken care of in the hospital?" Marissa lightly scolded him. "What if you have broken ribs or something?"

"I don't; I'd know." Marissa didn't dare touch that; he was upset enough as it was. "Honestly, I barely even noticed until I left the hospital. I was running on adrenaline." Opening his eyes, he attempted to smile faintly at her, but his gaze caught on her chest. Frowning, slightly, he went to push her robe aside. Too late, Marissa realized her mistake. In her desperate attempt to get the bloody clothes off, she'd forgotten to make any attempt to hide her fading but still very visible bruises.

Ryan stared as if transfixed for a moment, unable to tear his eyes away from the ugly marks marring her otherwise flawless skin. His breathing got heavier; Marissa recognized the now familiar signs that he was quickly losing control. Marissa opened her mouth to say something, but was overwhelmed by flashes of the brutal attack on the beach that she'd somehow believed wouldn't be quite so painful or terrifying by now. Wordlessly, she moved to sink into a chair that was close by her bed, unable to figure out how to begin the conversation she'd dreaded since the attack. She closed her eyes as tears slipped silently down her face.

"God," Ryan muttered at length, burying his face in his hands. "How could I have not known? The signs-" he laughed in a way that was so harsh and bitter, it almost sounded like he was crying "the signs were there. And I know all of them. The way you flinched when I went to touch you…" his voice was shaking, raw with grief and pain. Part of Marissa ached to hold him; the other part was too traumatized to know how. Dully she wondered, as she had a thousand times since the attack, if she'd ever feel completely at ease again.

"Oh God, I accused you of cheating on me," Ryan whispered. This time there were tears in his eyes and Marissa found her voice at last.

"You couldn't have known," Marissa said shakily. "I didn't tell you. It must have looked suspicious."

"I SHOULD have known!" Ryan raised his voice abruptly. "It isn't anything I haven't seen a thousand times before, coming from where I come from. How did I not see it in the girl I love?"

Somewhere deep inside, underneath the pain, shame, and misery, Marissa's heart responded to the impulsive declaration of love. Aloud, she said simply "You weren't looking. How could you have imagined this?"

Ryan shook his head, seeming even closer to tears than before. "What happened?" he finally burst out. He seemed to almost immediately want to retract the question, but it was out there and Marissa knew she had to answer.

"We were on the beach," Marissa said lifelessly, trying to distance herself from the memory. Trying to be an outsider in her own mind. "We'd had some margs, but I felt…strange. Alcohol doesn't usually affect me that much. Anyway, I wanted to clear my head so I suggested going for a walk. Trey stayed behind; he said he needed a jacket. I guess that's when he took the coke. In the back of my head, I knew he'd taken something when he caught up with me. He was acting so off…howling at the moon and talking so fast I could barely understand him. I decided to make up an excuse to leave…but then he focused on me." She swallowed hard; this part wasn't so easy to distance herself from. "He kept talking about how we weren't so different and he'd seen the way I looked at him, how no one had been this nice to him." She raised tearful, pleading eyes to Ryan's tormented ones. "I tried to tell him it was that he was your brother. I didn't look at him ANY way. He was your brother."

Ryan opened his mouth to speak. Instead, for the first time that Marissa could remember, the tears in his eyes started to fall down his face. Wordlessly, he got up off the bed and came to kneel in front of her.

Marissa shook her head to clear it somewhat, the tears falling faster and her breathing coming harder. "No matter what I said, he wouldn't listen to me. When I brought you up, he got angry, like he thought I was saying he wasn't as good as you are. I tried to walk away, but he was holding onto me so tightly…" Ryan took a deep, shuddering breath. "The rest of it happened so fast, it's all a blur. I fell…he was on top of me…I thought I wasn't going to be able to get away, but I saw a branch and I managed to hit him over the head with it. He grabbed me again, but I got away and ran off." She couldn't bring herself to mention Trey's crazed ramblings or the way he'd literally tried to scratch her clothes off. It was too humiliating, too cruel to say to Ryan. He didn't need to live with that much.

In a sudden move, Ryan startled her by burying his face in her lap. Marissa opened her mouth, but words wouldn't come as tears slid silently down her face. Hesitantly, she placed her hands over his head and they silently grieved together for the last bit of innocence that had been taken from them.

"It wasn't your fault," Ryan said raggedly, raising his face to meet her eyes. "I tried to say that before…it wasn't your fault. You didn't do anything to encourage him."

Marissa shrugged wearily. "I don't even know anymore. Everything is so mixed up inside my head, I don't know what's true from what's not."

Ryan closed his eyes. "That's why you freaked out," he mumbled, more to himself than anything. "I ended up on top of you and you freaked out." He groaned.

Marissa couldn't bring herself to talk about that night; she was too worn out. "I wish I would have told you myself," she said dully. "I wish something would have happened to prevent tonight."

"Tonight, you saved my life," Ryan said fiercely. Marissa was almost startled by the vehemence in his voice. "I know we're going to have to go over it more later, but you…you just saved my life." Marissa almost collapsed in relief; he didn't blame her for tonight.

"Thank you," she said so softly, it was almost a whisper. "I needed to hear that."

"I love you." He spoke the words so quietly, so quickly, Marissa almost thought she imagined them until she looked in his eyes and saw the truth of the emotion in them. He'd only said them once before; they hadn't lost any of their power. If anything, they'd gained some. She almost joked that it was supposed to go the other way around for them, but they'd had enough joking about this. They'd each brushed it off enough times.

"I love you, too," she responded, her voice clear and without doubt for the first time all night. Simply, sweetly, they kissed. And for the first time in a long time, Trey wasn't there. It was only Ryan.

"I love you, too." Ryan smiled at her words, remembering the same night she did. Remembering how desperate he'd been to see her, how gently she'd tried to take care of him. Remembering the horror of seeing her bruises and the pain as she heartbreakingly told her story, as brutal and overwhelming as any pain he'd ever felt in his life. He remembered how helpless he'd felt, how he'd wanted to throw up as she described his brother brutalizing her. But thankfully, most of all, he was able to remember that she loved him. With that thought, he drifted off to the best sleep he'd had in weeks.

(The Next Morning)

Marissa groggily awoke to the smell of blueberry bagels and fresh coffee. "Mmmmm," she murmured, burying her face in the pillow that so wonderfully smelled like Ryan. "Someone's found a way to get on my good side."

"Good morning," Ryan chuckled, waving the coffee in front of her until she was forced to sit up and grab it. "I decided if we're going to start heavy on the conversation topics, we might as well get off to a good start."

"My hero," Marissa sighed playfully, grabbing a bagel. "But it's not going to detract me. Where did we leave off?"

Ryan laughed and sat cross legged across from her, then turned more serious as he answered.

"We left off around the time you were deciding to go back to Luke."