When You Least Expect It Chapter Seven
"Shit!" Ryan cursed vividly. He'd been wanting to go back to school and resume a normal life as quickly as possible; now he was starting to regret it. It was his second day back and he was feeling completely overwhelmed, out of place, and generally useless. Right now he was having trouble standing straight on his crutches and even opening his damn locker door.
"Need some help?" He jumped in surprise at the sudden sound of his girlfriend behind him.
"Jesus, you scared me," he sighed, leaning his head against the lockers.
"Sorry," she blushed. "I'll try to make more noise next time. Here, let me get that." Before he could protest, she had deftly scooted in and unlocked his locker. He hid an exasperated sigh; he wanted to figure out how to do these things on his own, but she was just trying to be nice and he'd basically snapped at her for saying hi, so he figured he'd keep his mouth shut this time.
"Thanks," he smiled weakly instead.
"What book do you need?" she asked. Again, he swallowed his irritation; she looked so innocently sweet and helpful. He felt like such an ass for constantly being of the verge of yelling at her.
"Calculus," he answered. "Last class of the day, thankfully."
"Ooooh, that's right!" Marissa remembered. "No history because the teacher's out." She tossed him a playful smile over her shoulder as she searched for his book. "Wanna play hooky?"
Ryan smiled genuinely this time. "Can't resist an offer like that. Unfortunately I don't have too much free time; I'm still a little swamped with school work. I can always swing a couple hours for you, though."
"I could help with school work," Marissa offered immediately. "I feel like I just did your homework and didn't really help explain it to you or anything."
Ryan clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. "I can at least do my own homework, Marissa," he said evenly.
Marissa inwardly flinched. God, you are such an idiot, she scolded herself, mentally running through the last minute in her mind. Overeager puppy much? No wonder he was annoyed with her half the time. "Sorry," she said quietly, finally finding his Calculus book and shutting his locker, handing him the book. Even then, it was hard to watch him struggle to put it in his book bag and his book bag on his shoulders without trying to help, but she'd pissed him off enough.
"Thanks," Ryan muttered, not quite able to look her in the eye. He hated this. They hadn't been quite this awkward and unsure of each other since before they got back together, and he felt like it was like 99 his attitude causing it. "Do you want to meet in the quad after this class?" he asked awkwardly, trying to go back to the conversation they'd been having as he maneuvered his way through the halls as she slowly walked by his side.
"Sure," she agreed, as eager as he was to pretend there wasn't any tension between them. "I didn't get to eat much lunch today; maybe we could pick up some cheeseburgers and milkshakes and watch a movie at your place?"
Ryan relaxed; that almost sounded like a normal day for them. "Sounds like a pla-" he was abruptly cut off as a door swung open directly to his right- and slammed right into his injured leg. He sucked in his breath at the sudden blinding pain, almost doubling over as the wind got knocked out of him. He was too dazed to be anything but grateful this time when Marissa's slender arms wrapped around his waist to keep him steady.
"Don't you pay any attention to where you're going?" he heard her snap at who, from his brief glimpse before he hadn't been able to look at anything anymore, had seemed to be some unsuspecting freshman boy. He would have laughed had bolts of pain not still been shooting through his leg. Knowing how most freshman boys looked at his girlfriend, the kid had probably been drooling over her all year. Nothing quite like finally registering on the untouchable Marissa Cooper's radar- when she bit your head off for opening a door.
"Come on," he heard her urge him. At least he figured she must be talking to him; her voice was suddenly gentle and coaxing. He felt her lead him somewhere- he didn't particularly care where, and ease him into some kind of seat. Once the blinding pain had ceased a little, he opened his eyes and realized they were in an empty classroom.
"Thanks," he said tiredly, giving her a weak smile as she knelt down beside him.
"Are you okay?" she asked gently, stroking his hair.
"I'll be fine," he mumbled in a voice that even sounded unconvincing to him.
Marissa bit her lip. He obviously wasn't fine; he needed to go home and take some pain killers and sleep it off. She didn't want to further piss him off, but maybe it was better that he was pissed off at her than hurting himself. "Why don't we just skip this last period?" she suggested hesitantly. "Who really needs Calculus and creative writing, anyway?"
Ryan sighed. "You can just say that I probably won't make it through the rest of the day and I need to go home," he said shortly. "You'd be right, anyway."
Marissa forced herself not to wince at the return of the cool distance. They'd been so freaking close to a normal date together, she remembered sadly. Quietly, she helped him up and they slowly made their way to her car. The ride back to his house was mostly made in silence; she tried to talk a couple times but after only receiving grunts, she unhappily gave up. Still, nothing could have prepared her for what would happen when she was in his driveway.
She made a move to get out of the car to help him get his stuff and himself out, but he stopped her with a single forceful "No." The look of surprise and hurt she gave him hit him like a fist of guilt in the stomach, which only made him all the more aggravated. Irrationally, he just wanted her to get angry at him so he wouldn't feel so guilty about being angry himself.
"Ryan…" she said helplessly. "I'm just trying to…"
"Help, I know," he snapped, staring straight ahead. "But you know what? I'm going to be like this for awhile. This isn't something that's going to come off in a couple of weeks; at best I'll need physical therapy and at worst I'll need surgery. I need to figure this out on my own, and I can't do it with you hovering over me all the time!" By the time he'd finished, his voice had risen to a shout.
It took Marissa a second to identify the feeling inside of her; it hadn't been familiar territory for awhile. She wanted to cry, but she didn't want to humiliate herself by doing it in front of Ryan. "Okay," she said evenly. "I can understand that. Can you understand that I can't read your mind? One minute you're either yelling at me or giving me the cold shoulder and the next you're telling me you miss me when I'm not around. Which is it? So today, you want me to leave you alone?"
"Yeah," he bit off harshly. "Yeah, I do." With that, he swung open the car door and awkwardly climbed out. Marissa didn't dare move a muscle as he struggled to get the crutches and his bag out of the back seat. She jumped as he violently slammed both doors. Her own frustration won out then and she hopped out of the car.
Ryan turned around on the stairs of the house, his aggravation with her and the world in general going through the roof. "I told you-"
"I can get out of my damn car if I want to," she fired back as she stomped up the stairs after him, some part of her groaning at how childish she sounded.
"To do what, Marissa?" he shouted, his voice actually closer to a scream. "Don't you get it? I don't want you here right now!"
The words echoed off the porch and bounced around the front yard as Marissa and Ryan stared at each other in silence for a long moment. His words had stricken the fight right out of Marissa; Ryan could tell. She simply stood there, still as a statue, staring at him with those beautiful blue/green/gray eyes that could conjure up every conceivable emotion within him, sometimes all at once. Somewhere inside him he could feel the sickened reaction to the pain he'd just caused to appear in those eyes, but he had too many layers of his own anger and pain to address it. So instead, he simply went inside and slammed the door.
Well. If he'd wanted her to get the message, telling her he didn't want her around him and slamming the door in her face was an effective way to go about it. Marissa wanted to turn around and get back in her car, but she found her legs were too shaky to take her there; she sank down on his stoop and buried her face in her hands. She didn't know how long she sat there; barely even realized she'd started crying so hard her shoulders were shaking with sobs. The next thing she knew, a gentle hand was touching her shoulder. She jumped in surprise, some ridiculous part of her hoping to see Ryan when she looked up. Instead, Sandy was staring down at her with her kind, gentle, concerned eyes.
"Are you okay?" he asked quietly. His simple concern- a father's concern, which was something she hadn't had in quite some time, long before her own father left- made her want to cry all the harder.
"I'm great," she tried to laugh; as always when she tried to do that when she was upset, it came out as more of a sob. Part of her wished she was better at hiding how she was feeling. "Can't you tell?"
"Aw, honey," Sandy said sympathetically, sitting down next to her and wrapping an arm around her shoulder. His kindness was her complete undoing; she cried on his shoulder for several long minutes.
"I'm sorry," she gasped out at length, mortified with herself. "I'm sure you didn't come home to get cried on by some girl sitting on your stairs."
"Hey, when that 'some girl' is Marissa Cooper, I don't mind any day of the week," he teased softly, rubbing her shoulder comfortingly. "Besides, I have a sneaking suspicion this probably has something to do with Ryan."
The words came spilling out of Marissa as if they had a will of their own. "I'm not doing ANYTHING right," she said miserably. "Which really shouldn't be a surprise given my history with Ryan; that's more of a given. It's just…" she lifted her shoulders helplessly. "Everything I do feels wrong. If I help, he just gets more and more angry at me. If I don't help, I'm worried he'll think I don't care or he's not worth it, but I don't know if that's true or if it's just my own need to be around him and be needed by him speaking. I mean, he just slammed three doors in my face; two car doors and the actual house door. If that isn't a sign, I don't know what is."
"What happened?" Sandy asked in concern.
Marissa shrugged listlessly. "Nothing. Everything. I was trying too hard to help him in school and he got frustrated, so I tried to back off a little but someone opened a door on his bad leg- he's okay, he just needs a painkiller- so I said he probably needed to go home and it was all over from there. He told me he was going to be like this for awhile and I was keeping him from figuring out how to do anything on his own by hovering over him all the time, then he told me he didn't want me around and slammed the door in my face." The last part brought fresh pain all up again and more tears spilled down her face. "I don't know what to do. He's mad at me all the time; I feel like I'm just making his life harder somehow. The only time he ever seems to be enjoying himself around me…" she cut herself off and suddenly flushed, remembering who she was talking to.
Sandy bit back a laugh; poor kid. "I was a teenager once too, Marissa," he said wryly. "I get your point; let's leave it at that." He sighed. "I almost feel selfish for telling you this, but keep trying. I don't think you see the way that kid looks at you when he thinks you're not watching; it's like you're his whole world. Trust me when I tell you, it's his aggravation with life in general that's making him lash out, not a real desire to make you want to disappear. And he definitely doesn't only want you around for…that," he finished awkwardly.
Marissa eyed him warily. "You know, the last time you told me to keep trying I came over here and he broke up with me."
Sandy winced. Ooops. "Well, this is different," he defended himself lamely. "And anyway, my advice worked in the long run. I hope."
Marissa smiled in spite of herself. "That's true," she admitted.
Sandy ruffled her hair affectionately. "You really are a good kid. Just…just try to remember that he's never been in a situation like this before. He's never had to depend on people so much. More importantly, he's never been able to depend on people so much. He was in a horrible accident; he's scared and confused and angry at the world, but the last thing he wants is for you to leave. He just expects you to."
Marissa leaned her head against his shoulder. "I think some part of me knows that, but thank you for telling me so I can know it's not all in my head." She sighed. "Should I try now, or give him more time to cool off?"
"If you were anyone else, I'd say give him some cool off time, but considering it's you he just unleashed all that anger on? I'd bet money he's in the pool house hating himself right now," Sandy responded.
Marissa made a move to get up, then all of the sudden paused and turned back. "Sometimes…all the time nowadays, really…I wish my father were more like you."
Sandy opened his mouth- and found he didn't really know what to say to that, said with such childlike innocence mixed in with adult sadness, a combination he'd always found striking in Marissa. Instead, he simply leaned forward to kiss her forehead. Marissa smiled silently at him, then got up to go seek out Ryan.
"Don't you get it? I don't want you here right now!"
The words echoed over and over again in Ryan's head as he sat on his bed staring at the wall. He hadn't even made it to the pool house before shame and regret had seeped in through the anger. He was really gifted at fucking up his own life. He hadn't taken the pain killers; some part of him didn't feel he deserved to take them and drift off when he should sit here and remember how he hurt someone he loved for no good reason. He couldn't get the picture of Marissa's face as he screamed at her out of his head; he felt like he was back where he'd been a year ago, sitting in his room staring at the walls and remembering her stricken face. At least back then there had been SOME reason specific to things she'd done wrong for his aggravation, even if he'd ended up totally out of line. This time, he'd ripped her apart for standing by him after he'd gotten in a severe car accident and trying to help him in the aftermath. That might not be the biggest deal to say to anyone else, but he knew all the problems he and Marissa had had in their relationship combined with all her general family problems made her extremely susceptible to feelings of self doubt about whether or not she was really wanted in her relationships. It was one of the lowest places to hit her, and he knew it.
He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the pillows. Part of him wanted to pick up the phone and call Marissa right now, beg her for the chance to apologize. The other part didn't want to do that to her. If she kept sticking around, he was just going to keep hurting her. He hadn't kept any promise he'd made to himself yet about how he'd stop taking out all his anger on her. Still another thought was plain cowardly afraid she'd hang up on him. Maybe it was easier for them both if he just…left her alone. The thought brought an agonizing pain to his chest that for once had nothing to do with any physical problem.
"Sandy thought I might find you here." Even though the voice was quiet, the force of hearing it felt like being struck by lightning. He jerked his head up and momentarily thought he'd fallen asleep when he saw Marissa lingering in his doorway, but the stabbing pain persisting in his leg made that theory doubtful. They simply stared at each other for a long moment, neither knowing what to say. Ryan was too stunned she'd showed up at his doorway- seemingly never left in the first place- to formulate too many words at all. At length, Marissa was the first to speak.
"I just wanted to apologize for earlier," she murmured, so softly Ryan could barely hear her as she turned her gaze down to stare fixedly at the floor.
"Marissa…" he croaked out helplessly. Why the hell was she apologizing?
"No, really." She held up her hand. "You went through something horrible. I shouldn't have risen to the bait; it's only natural that you're frustrated."
Ryan just sat there, looking at her helplessly. He had absolutely NO idea what to say to her. "You've…you've put up with a lot from me," he muttered awkwardly. "Everyone has a breaking point."
Marissa lifted her shoulders helplessly. "I'm stumbling blind here, Ryan. I'm clearly not very good at this. I don't MEAN to upset you, or overcrowd you. I'm always so worried I'll fall back onto old habits of being self absorbed and not making it clear how much you mean to me that maybe I take it too far in the other direction. If I'm really making it worse for you, I'll go." Hesitantly, she took a step further in the room. "But Sandy…Sandy thinks it's something else. Sandy thinks you DO want me here, but you're too pissed off at the world for putting you in this situation and too determined that I'll turn around and walk away if you really let me take care of you to let me see that most of the time." She spread out her hands. "I'm not going anywhere, Ryan. If you need me, I'm here no matter what. You're not a burden to me. I just need some indication from you that this is what you want, and not me putting my feelings on you."
Ryan opened his mouth to speak, still couldn't figure out what to say. He and Marissa stared at each other in silence for a lengthy period; the feeling in the room as if there was a great canyon between them instead of just a few feet.
Marissa felt her shoulders slump further and further with each second of silence. What was she supposed to do? She couldn't make him say he wanted her by him during all this. "When you have an answer to that question, I'll be around," she said quietly, and turned to leave.
"Don't go."
Marissa stopped dead in the doorway. Had she really just heard that? "What?" she asked warily, turning back around.
Ryan looked up at her, his eyes more open to her than they had been since he'd first woken up in the hospital, naked with longing and shame and pain. "Don't go," he repeated, the tone of his voice making it more of a husky plea than a command.
It was all Marissa needed. She was across the room so fast it could barely register in either of their minds, crawling into the bed, climbing over him carefully positioned so she wasn't putting her weight anywhere where it would hurt him, taking his mouth in hers.
Ryan drank in the taste and feel of her greedily, running his hands over her back, tangling them in her hair, finally settling to cup her face. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he whispered raggedly. "God, I'm so sorry. I don't want to keep doing this. I don't want to keep pushing you away. I swear I don't."
"It's okay," she assured him, close to tears herself. "Like I said, you went through something terrible. At the end of the day, this is just a really, really scary situation. It's okay if it takes you awhile to get a handle on things."
"It's not okay to keep taking everything out on you," Ryan protested unhappily. "I don't know why I keep testing you. You've already stayed through more than most people would."
"That's not true," Marissa said simply. "You stay for people you love. I love you." She kissed his forehead. "Besides. I would have annoyed me today too. I'm sorry; that was a little over the top."
Ryan smiled faintly. "Your heart was in the right place," he said, rubbing her side. "And I appreciated you traumatizing that freshman kid for life on my behalf."
Marissa blushed. "Was I mean? I don't remember."
Ryan smiled a little, pulling her head down so their foreheads rested together. "I know I keep saying this, and I know I keep confusing you when I act another way entirely the next day, but you sticking by me through this, especially through how I treated you today…I can't tell you how much that means to me."
Marissa just stroked his face gently, smiling at the return of the familiar warmth in his blue eyes. She frowned as she noticed something behind the warmth and gratitude. "Okay, not to fall back into old habits, but did you take a painkiller?"
Ryan flushed a little. "I…forgot?" he attempted.
Marissa rolled her eyes. "Ryan, that's just not necessary," she scolded him lightly, getting off the bed and going to get his meds. "Masochism is not the way to go here." She came back with his painkillers and a bottle of water in hand.
"Thanks," he said somewhat meekly, too embarrassed that he'd been caught in a somewhat ridiculous form of self punishment to particularly even consider frustration at not being able to do that himself. He quickly knocked back the pills and settled back into his bed with a sigh. Marissa re-joined him and he murmured his contentment, draping an arm across her waist. It didn't take him long to drift off; he was exhausted by the drama of the day. Marissa stayed awake to watch him for a long time. She still wasn't sure how good she was at this. She didn't even feel like a very good girlfriend at least seven days out of ten. But for the time being, she seemed to have made him feel better, not just about today but about himself in general. And that was a feeling she could definitely get used to.