Moving In With R5
~Chapter Thirteen~
It was as if the entire world had exploded. Time had frozen. The world ceased to move.
Laura could feel every single pair of eyes on her in that moment. But she ignored her audience, choosing to revel at her own stupidity instead.
Why would she do that? Why?! Why couldn't she have just shut up before she went and blurted it out like that?
I know about your cancer.
I know you have leukemia.
She shakes her head. And she'd sold out poor Ratliff too. She looks over to the poor boy. He looks as pale as a sheet, his eyes still bugging out of his head as he stares in the direction Ross had disappeared.
Laura finally finds her feet. After feeling like she couldn't move for awhile she finally picked up her feet and made her way to the dinning room.
"Ratliff," she says, but no words follow. She doesn't know what to say. She has no explanation for herself or what just transpired between her and Ross. She places her hand on his arm tentatively.
He stares back up at her with cold eyes. His face is etched in shock, his mouth still hung open.
"How... How could you just...?" He sighs, feeling very frustrated an finally closing his mouth. "How?"
She ducks her head low, avoiding the older boy's gaze. "I'm sorry." She shakes her head. "I'm sorry, okay?"
"You promised me, Laur! You promised you wouldn't say anything!"
She bites her lip. "I know. I'm sorry, but it was harder to keep than you understand! It was killing me! I couldn't lie to him anymore, alright?" Her chocolate brown eyes snap up to meet his and she just looks at him, pleading for him to understand, to give her some kind of credit. He couldn't keep the secret either. And if he was gonna stand there and tell Laura she should have been able to keep that secret easier than she had then he was just being a hypocrite.
Ratliff pulls away from her grip and slowly her hand makes its way back to her side. He runs his fingers through his hair and let's out another deep sigh.
Determinedly, Rydel makes her way over to the two. She doesn't say anything, just observes the tension shared between the two. Her gaze keeps jumping, looking from Laura to Ratliff and back to Laura to Ratliff again. Until finally she settles on one of them.
She grabs her boyfriends arm, shifting his attention from Laura to herself. "Hey, can I talk to you?" She asks.
Her nods affirmation and they make their way to kitchen for some privacy.
Rocky, with his chest puffed out and his arms folded over his chest, offers the desperate brunette a cocky smirk. "Well, you certainly know how to ruin a nice dinner."
Laura doesn't bother to look at him. Tears threaten to fall over her lashes. She blinks them back. "Go to hell, Rocky." Her voice trembles a the words escape from her lips.
"So what? You know our dirty little secret. You know Ross's dirty little secret," Rocky wraps an arm around the girl that she wasn't prepared for. She buckled under the unsuspected weight. "He would have told you sooner or later anyhow."
"You don't know that," she says. And she still refuses to make eye contact with him.
"But I do," he looks down at the brunette, even if she's not looking at him. "I know my little brother and I know that he's terrible at keeping secrets." Rocky twirls a piece of Laura's hair around his index finger. She still doesn't budge. She fidgets, but she doesn't budge. "That's why he pushes people away. That's his only defense mechanism. He can keep people at a distance, but as soon as he lets them in, he becomes more transparent than a piece of glass." Rocky chuckles.
Laura stays quiet.
He takes this as his cue to continue. "But, sooner or later, he was gonna fall prey to your charm, Laura."
She rolls her glassy eyes at him and turns to face him. "What the hell are you talking about, Lynch?"
He laughs and shakes his head. His long hair gets in his face, and he has to push it out of his way.
"Let's just say he's not the first Lynch to fall in love with you Laura."
"Ross is not in love with me."
Rocky steps away from the girl, backing up from her. "Not yet he isn't." Then the middle child gives her a wink and tackles the stairs.
Halfway through them, having finally found her voice, Laura remarks, "Hey, Rocky," he turns his head to look at her. She smirks. "Watch your step."
Rocky gives her a lopsided grin, then climbs up the rest of the way. He does a little hop and skip when he reaches the top, and making sure to impress his one-woman audience.
…
Ratliff scrambles closely behind his girlfriend who is dragging his ass all the way to the back of the kitchen, as far away from prying ears as she possibly could.
Rydel unlocked the sliding glass door, opening it up and stepping outside. The cool air around them forms goosebumps on the Rydel's exposed arms and legs.
Ratliff, noticing his girlfriend's reaction to the change in temperature, begins to strip his jacket off, but she quickly refuses.
"I don't want your jacket!" She snaps rather harshly.
He gives Rydel a look and then puts his jacket back on. "Okay then."
Rydel's lips form into a thin line. She chews on the inside of her cheek nervously. Her foot taps against the concrete patio. "Ell, what was that in there?!"
Ratliff opens his mouth to answer, but no answer comes to his mind for him verbalize. He just shrugs, giving a flatten look inside the house. "I don't know."
"You told her?"
He sighs. "Yes, I told her."
"Why?!"
"Della, it just kinda slipped out, okay?"
She looks at him, offended by his excuse. "Really? So my family entrusted you with this huge secret -one my brother was even reluctant to tell you- and you just let it "slip out" like it's no big deal?! Does Ross really mean nothing to you, Ell?!"
"I'm fucking sorry, okay? For fucks sake Rydel, I was defending you stupid brother. Laura was talking about how horrible of a person he was and I told her not to be so hard on him!" He yells at her.
"So you wanted to guilt Laura into feeling sorry for my brother by spilling the beans about his leukemia?" She crosses her arms over her chest and blinks back tears. She was honestly hurt, not just by the fact that Ratliff had told Laura Ross's secret, but also that he had just yelled and cussed at her. He had never done that to her -or anyone for that matter- before. Ell was always the calm and rational one. He almost never resorted to harsh language.
"She asked me why I was defending him, and I kind of had to give her an answer. He was a huge asshole to her, cancer or no cancer, you can't just treat people like that. I know that that's not really an excuse, but it was an impulsive decision that I didn't really think about before I did." A beat of silence passes with both of them just looking at each other. "What's the big deal anyway? Laura's your best friend. Don't you trust her?"
"It doesn't matter if I trust her or not, Ell!" She screams, throwing her hands up in the air. "The point is, it wasn't my secret, and it wasn't your secret either, it was Ross's secret and obviously he didn't trust Laura enough to tell her himself."
Ratliff opens his mouth to speak, but he closes it after a pregnant pause when he realizes he has nothing to say. He shakes his head, staring at the ground. "I'm sorry, Della. I'm rally sorry," he mumbles.
The blond catches his words, but she doesn't respond. She sighs and runs her hands over her face. This day had been the most stressful day she'd ever had and it was finally starting to take its toll on her. She rubs her temples and pushes her way past her boyfriend. She grips the handle of the sliding glass door and then glances at Ell over her shoulder.
"I- I think I'm gonna go to bed. I'm really tired."
"Wait," he grabs her shoulder gently, "are we... are we okay."
Rydel shrugs, a small tear slips down her cheek. Ratliff, feeling defeated, lets her go and she opens the door, steps inside and then closes it promptly.
Ratliff hears the resounding click. He sits down on the patio, staring up into the starless night sky.
"I'm such an idiot."
…
"Ross please open up!"
"I don't want to talk to you, Laura."
"Please just give me two seconds."
"Go away!"
"Ross, please-"
"I don't have anything to say to, Marano!"
She sighs and combs her fingers through her hair. Her small fist, which had been pounding away at his door, fell back down to her side. She rests her forehead against his door and closes her eyes, feeling the tears well up behind her closed lids.
"Ross, please, just... just listen... okay?"
He doesn't say anything. She takes his silence as a cue to go on.
"Don't be mad at Ratliff, alright? Be mad at me all you want, but don't be mad at him. He didn't mean to blab your secret to me, and as soon as he did he regretted it. He made me swear that I wouldn't tell you I knew about it, but... well, obviously I'm not a very good secret keeper..." She takes in a deep breath. "Just don't be mad at Ell. I'm the person to blame here. Be mad at me, not him."
"How about," Ross opens up his door, finally revealing himself to the brunette, "I be pissed at both of you."
Laura stares up at him. He looks so hurt. For once in his life, Ross Lynch is actually wearing his heart on his sleeve. Laura's heart aches. She caused this. She's the cause of this. If she could just keep her mouth shut, things would be fine.
"I don't understand what you're so upset about anyways!"
That set off a bomb.
"You don't understand what I'm so upset about? You don't under-" Ross stops himself right there. He shakes his head and laughs. "No, I don't suppose you would understand what I'm talking about would you? Because everyone is sincere to you aren't they Laura? Everyone just loves you! No one bullshits you, do they?"
She lets a few stray tears fall. "I don't know what you're talking about," she chokes out, her voice sounding broken.
"My whole life has been people treating me differently because of my cancer. You don't know what that's like, okay?! Either people pitied me to the point of straight up lying to my face and feeling like they had to sugarcoat everything for me, or they judge and ridiculed me for something I couldn't help. Would you believe that I had a terminal disease, and some people would laugh when they found that out?" Ross has to pause to compose himself. The demons of his past -all those repressed memories- are all coming back to haunt him. "The point is, is that I've always been an outcast. I was so sick of people treating me like a charity case that I just stopped telling people I ha cancer altogether with. Only a few people knew, and I was fine with that because those people never treated me weirdly.
"But then you came along. From the moment I met you when we were ten years old, I felt the need to put my guard up around you. Don't ask me why because I honestly have no idea. I pushed you away, Laura, and three years ago, I thought I'd finally pushed hard enough. But then you came to live with us this summer and I knew I had to be careful."
Ross glares at the girl in front of him. It's as if he wants her to feel all the pain she's caused him. "But then you started being nice to me, and I thought that maybe -just maybe- there was a person out there who didn't know my story and just saw me as human being. Someone who was nice to me because they genuinely liked me, not because they felt sorry I had cancer.
"But I was wrong. I was wrong about our "friendship" and I was wrong about you."
"No you weren't!"
"Yes I was!" He screams right back in her face. "What was the first thing you thought when you found out I had cancer?"
She shakes her head, swallowing down sobs. "I don't- I don't know."
He grabs her by the arms and shakes her. "Don't lie to me Laura! You felt sorry for me, that's what you felt!"
"Okay, yes! Yes! I felt sorry for you!"
He lets go of her and she steps back in fear; genuinely afraid of the boy in front of her. Tears taint her porcelain cheeks. "Ross, you're scaring me."
"You felt sorry for me, and then you felt sorry for how you treated me when we were younger, even though I deserved everything that got thrown my way. I was such an asshole to you, and yet you still felt like the bad person, all because I had cancer. You instantly felt the need to clear your conscious. You couldn't be known as the girl who hated a guy with cancer. Am I right?"
"Ross-"
"Am I right?!"
She sighs, ducking her head and sobbing into the palms of her hands. "Yes," she mumbles, sobs racking her body. "Yes, yes you were right. About all of it."
A silence falls over them. He just watches her cry into her hands, keeping his own tears at bay.
"That's what I thought." Ross closes the door, but it doesn't close shut. He furrows his eyebrows together and then notices Laura's sneaker blocking it from shutting.
She throws the door back open, eyes angry and smudged with black mascara.
"I was your friend, Ross. I wasn't bullshitting you. Nothing about our friendship was fake, and if you won't believe that then I can't help you think otherwise, but it's the truth. Yes, I pitied you in the beginning. That's the normal, human thing to do when you learn that someone you've known for years has cancer; when you realize that this person you thought you knew very well, you learn you knew nothing about them at all. Your entire perspective on them changes. I pitied you, but when you actually opened up and showed me who you really are, I realized that I was wrong about you. That was genuine friendship Ross. Taking you to the mall to buy your sister a present, going along with your stupid nicknames, at the campsite when you taught me how to make s'mores and roast hot dogs, the conversation we had in your bedroom when you caught me listening to you play guitar. That was all real, dammit! Don't think for a second that wasn't real!"
Ross blinks a few times, unsure of what to say in response to the fuming brunette.
He just shakes his head. "Nothing can ever be the same between us, Laura. Not that I know you know. You'll always be different around me now. You'll censor yourself, making sure you don't offend me. You'll monitor your conversations with me. Everything will be guarded from now on, and as much as you'd like to pretend its not true, I know it is. Don't you see? We're stuck in a troupe. I'm a "cancer kid", that's my label. I've now been categorized in your files. You'll be thinking of topics never to talk about around me: death, hospitals, my health. Nothing can be normal between us. Everything will be bullshitted. You'll think you have to protect me from something that you can't. You'll blame yourself for this. You'll cry at random times. You'll worry about me when I go in for treatments. I've exposed you to something that I can't keep you away from now. This is exactly what I was trying to stop from happening!" By now his hazel eyes are brimming with tears. His face is red with anger and frustration. Laura had never seen this side of him, and she'd be happy of she never have to witness it again. This was the worst possible thing she'd ever witnessed in her entire life. It was so heartbreaking. And the only thing making it worse was the little voice in the back of her head telling her over and over again that this was all her own fault.
"If being a jerk to you is what keeps you away, then that's what I'll do. Forget the Ross you thought you knew, he doesn't exist Laura! He's dead and gone! I hate you, you fucking bitch! I hate you!"
"That's not true," she cries.
"I hate you!"
"No! I don't believe it!"
"Goodbye, Laura."
Then he slams the door in her face while he slowly breaks done inside the privacy of his bedroom.
…
"Are you ready to go?" George Ratliff asks his wife after the chaos had settled down.
Cheryl nods. "Yes, I believe so."
"I'll go get Ellington," George informs his wife.
"Okay," she says, her lips are formed into a thin line, her eyes sparkle with secrecy. "I'll meet you at the car... there's something I have to do."
George spins around to face his wife, his brows knitted in confusion at her suspicious behavior. "Oh, and what is it that you have to do?"
She gasps, giving her husband a stern glare. "I have to use the bathroom. That is if I have your permission."
"Oh," George replies quietly. "Well, that's fine. Just hurry up, alright?"
She nods and waits for her husband to wrangle up their son before departing.
But Cheryl Ratliff doesn't go to the bathroom. Instead, she makes her way up to Rydel's bedroom where said girl happens to be peacefully slumbering.
Cheryl smiles softly down at the girl she'd always considered a daughter. The girl looked so tired, but she looked more calm sleeping than she had all day.
She doesn't observe the girl for long though. She doesn't have much time to do this before her family will start to get suspicious.
She materializes a bottle of pills from her coat pocket as sets them down on Rydel's dresser. Cheryl carefully examines the sleeping girl over her shoulder, making sure she really is still asleep.
Along with the pills, Cheryl leaves a note.
In my experience, I've found that anxiety is easier to combat with prescription drugs.
These can be our little secret.
Hope they help :)
- C. R.
Cheryl quickly and quietly leaves the room, leaving the pills on the dresser for Rydel to find in the morning.
…
Stormie made her way up to her second youngest son's bedroom. She held the house phone in her hand and her face was as pale as a sheet.
Her shaky hands knock against the wood of his door.
She hears shuffling from behind the door. Her son sighs. "Go way, I don't want to talk."
"Ross, it's me," his mother tells him.
"I don't care who it is-"
"Ross Shor Lynch open up this door right now!" She yells.
Ross does as he's told. "What do you-" he's cut short by the look on his mother's face. "Mom, w-what's wrong?"
"It... It's..." she wipes her mouth and swallows hard. "Ross, it's about Kiersey."
The boys eyes grow wide in fear, he grabs his mothers forearms as his stomach plummets inside of him. "What about her, mom?! What about Kiersey?!"
"She- she's in the hospital."
A/N
Eh, don't give me that look. I know, I know. It got a little weak toward the end. It's like 10:30 right now and all I wanna do is go to bed. TODAY HAS BEEN EXHAUSTING! It was my last day of school (thank The Lord) and afterward I had to go to work with my mom to her work and then once I got home I had to mow the grass, so I'm just really tired alright? But, I willed myself to finish up the last few parts before I dozed off to sleepy land because I really wanted to update this story this week and I was kinda lazy and I decided that I couldn't be last anymore so yeah..
Sorry it's kind of rubbish. Next one will be better (whenever I decided to update :P)
Um, please review if you liked... If you didn't then well sorry about your luck :/
Also, I wrote a three-shot last week and published the first chapter. It's kind of dark so I don't know if you'll like it or not, but if you're interested you can check that out.
Alright guys that's all for now ;)
Kthanxbai
Morgan :)