Chapter 13
Ryan sat down at his desk and stared at his computer screen thinking about everything Seth had said and everything Taylor had said to him last night and this morning. He also thought about something else that he had never told anyone, but had tried to deal with on his own. He was still in love with Marissa. She was dead, yes, but it was always her.
His proposal speech to Taylor has been true to a point. There had been someone he had pictured after Taylor, but it was impossible, so he'd concluded Taylor was the one. The one he pictured after Taylor was Marissa. Ryan still dreamt about her as well. There were two versions of the dream. The first was his nightmare of not telling her he loved her. The second was a rather raunchy fantasy that seemed to get stuck in the tiki hut where he and Marissa had made love for the first time. If he really thought about it, the times when he really wanted sex with Taylor were after having the fantasy dream. 'How twisted is that?' he thought to himself.
Everything Seth said was true. He didn't want to hang in the foursome. That only highlighted how perfect Seth and Summer were for each other and how totally different he and Taylor were. Ryan didn't want to plan his bachelor party because that would mean acknowledging that he was actually getting married. That thought now absolutely terrified him. Nate he should have discussed with Taylor, but he felt it was HIS decision. If they were going to be married, it should have been THEIR decision, and no, he had never actually shared his Pay It Forward theory with Taylor.
Lastly, he couldn't just say 'I love you'. That he would always reserve for one person. Marissa. He did love Taylor, he thought, but in the way he loved his other friends. He cared for her more deeply than he had cared for anyone…except Marissa.
Ryan began to realize that he had been most unfair to Taylor about a lot of things, the very least of which was not discussing Nate with her. He knew he needed to talk to her, but she was probably still mad and he had the social worker meeting in less than two hours now.