It was raining pretty hard, Ryan shook his head like a shaggy dog when he arrived at the bar. Seth had been right, she was at the dive Marissa used to come to, to get totally wasted with….him. He saw her sitting on a bar stool. She had her back to him, but already he knew what the look on her face would be. It would be the same as it had been since the night she found out Marissa had never made it to the airport. Dead. Her face would be dead. Where there were once vibrant eyes shining with mischief and vitality, there would now be two chocolate pools of nothingness. He knew, because that's what he felt too. Anger, misery, frustration and pain. He knew everything she felt because he felt it too.
She didn't know why, but she knew he was there, behind her, she could sense it. She turned around slowly. Ryan said nothing. What's new? If this had of been anyone else there would have been reams of meaningless dialogue, where have you been? We're so worried about you Summer, this has to stop, we know your hurting, blah blah blah. But not Ryan. He pulled a stool across the filthy bar floor strewn with cigarette butts and sat down next to her. Close enough so that people probably could tell they knew each other, but not so close he was invading her space.
A whole minute must have passed before one of them spoke.
"You know, when you told me, I blamed you." Summer said this quietly and evenly. Ryan nodded. "I blame me too." He added.
"No, you're wrong to. You see, I blamed you because ever since you arrived in Newport, that's when all Riss's big problems started, the drugs, the drinking, the getting expelled. You were always around and always a part of things. But then I realised, you were always the one trying to get her out of her messes, helping her, not the one who put her in them." Summer laughed a little. "I'm sorry Ryan. Sorry for blaming you."
Ryan shrugged. "Like I said, I blame me too, so don't beat yourself up about it." He smiled a weak smile at her.
"Can we sit here for a while? Get a drink, talk?" This was the first time since Marissa's death that Summer had wanted to talk to anyone. And Ryan, who hated talking about his feelings more than most things in hell, felt a little uneasy as the idea actually appealed to him.
"Sure."