Ryan lies in the dark, his bed surrounded by unlit candles, arranged just right, just how Sadie arranged them only three months ago. He doesn't know why he put them out, retrieved them from the main house. He hasn't lit them yet, he picks one up, fingering the crumbled wax by the wick, the collapsed pattern that ruins the otherwise perfect form and thinks about her. He wants her here, needs her here tonight. He loosens his black tie and tries not to laugh or cry or think. If he were religious he'd see it as sign or something, but Ryan knows the futility of believing, so instead he plays with the wax and waits for Sadie to call or to come, with her sex and salvation and kisses like bourbon, warm and soothing. He thinks about the first time they made love, they way her hands wandered and caressed his body as though she has known him for years, giving him everything he wanted, the memory of their hot flesh slapping together stirring a brief moment of desire. He smiles involuntarily, the way Seth's been teasing him about ever since Sadie, and he remembers the way the candle light cast their shadows, covering all, enveloping the room in them, as thought they were the only two people on earth. And he feels guilty and disappointed and all kinds of inappropriate.
He knows that lighting the candle would be ironic some how. He remembers candles he lit and shadows he cast three long years ago on a balmy August evening in a half built house and wonders how one flicker, one flame, can change everything. He thinks about big blue eyes and an untainted girl, a porcelain doll waiting for him to drop and break her. He recalls the first song on a mix CD she made, fragments of words lost and twisted in his brain, something about love and victory, some brief words of praise are all he can remember now, some soft lamentation. He knows he should cry or scream or stoically punch his punching bag until his knuckles are bare or drink himself into oblivion, something tragic and poetic that she'd be proud of - but he can't make himself feel, it seems to unreal, a twisted joke, made to test him. He can not fathom that today, Marissa Cooper, his first official 'girlfriend' was committed to the ground, aged just eighteen and three days. He can't think about her trying to fight the instinct to gasp for breath, sequestered amid the building material and debris as she lit the final match in the house that was just never meant to be. He thinks about the funeral procession, Julie's vast dark glasses, Kaitlin with her eyes glued firmly to the ground, Jimmy hovering and lost, the way that Seth held Summer's hand as thought he could bridge some invisible gap, as thought he could make up for her absence. Dr. Roberts holding desperately onto his wife and daughter to stop them both from sinking. And himself, standing, numb. The unbearable weight of the coffin as he took up his role as a pallbearer and the aching imprint that he still feels on his right shoulder. He wonders if he ought to feel angry, but the best he can manage is redundant. He is no one's hero anymore.
He puts the candle back down. He knows he shouldn't be thinking about Sadie now. He knows he shouldn't be wishing for his own happiness. He remembers when Theresa's mom's sister died, Theresa said something about going to church and lighting candles for her, for God to keep her safe or something like that. Ryan's smiles wryly at the candle display, the defiant fort and its desperate claim for an existence in his life beyond Marissa, how it means something so apart from her, so different. But somehow he can't separate the two, he supposes he should be thankful, in a way Marissa led him to Sadie, prepared him, he supposes. He removes a pack of matches from his back pocket and strikes one solemnly, he lights the candle he has just replaced, burning it for her, for remembrance, not a prayer. The wax around the top of the candle melts, reconfiguring itself again and again. Maybe this is the way it was meant to end, he thinks bleakly. Maybe there is something symbolic or ironic here.
He watches the way the light from the main house reflects onto the soft carpet of the poolhouse. He wonders about the people inside. The Cohens. His family. He knows that nothing is ok, but that Marissa's death has cast a shadow too, a shadow that eclipses all the cracks, the broken seems in the picture of the perfect couple and their two perfect 'sons' that grins out at him from the old Chrismukkah card on his night stand. In a way he's thankful, that Marissa's tragedy, her self-orchestrated end, means he doesn't have to think about watching another family fall apart, his home disintegrate again. It amuses him in a way, the difference between then and now, between sun and shade, between salvation and sadness.
There is an impatient knocking on the pool house door. Seth, looking like a child playing dress up in his funeral attire.
'Its unlocked' Ryan states quietly.
Seth meanders in.
'err Dude ..I really think we should have learnt by now, that playing with fire ? Not such a good idea' Seth states. Ryan doesn't bother to look up or glare at him as he ordinarily would. Seth sits down on the end of the bed.
'So…whatcha doing ?' Seth enquires.
'Exorcism' Ryan deadpans.
'Ah. I see' Seth replies.
Ryan doesn't speak, and for once, neither does Seth. They sit in the darkness watching the wax drip. Ryan doesn't say that the funeral is the first time he's seen Sandy in a week. Seth doesn't mention that there's a bottle of Chardonnay chilling in the fridge. Ryan doesn't point out that he'd seen Kirsten 'comforting' Jimmy at the wake. Seth doesn't bother to explain that he's seen police cars outside the Newport group offices. And Ryan doesn't comment on the pungent smell of weed that's emanating from Seth's clothes, and Seth doesn't remark that there a packed back by the door of the poolhouse with bus ticket to Vegas on top.
And the candle burns out.