Chapter 26

"What do you mean she's not there, Seth?" Ryan asked after taking a phone call at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning.

"Hey man, I don't know what to tell you. We've been up since about 6. Summer went to check on Marissa a few minutes ago and take her some coffee and she's not there." Seth hadn't wanted to make this phone call.

"Well, did she leave a note or anything?" Ryan was frantic.

"No, no, nothing. But look, Summer said that she said she lives right around the corner from us, so maybe she just went home. I can go check if you want. I'll get the address from Directory Assistance." Seth offered.

"No, wait for me. I'm coming over now. I'll be there in fifteen minutes." Ryan hung up without saying goodbye and went upstairs to see Nate.

Ryan found Nate still fast asleep so he wrote a note telling him he was going out on some errands and instructions to call when he woke up. They'd had a great night the night before, but Ryan couldn't help feeling that he might not be ready to take on this kind of responsibility. He had to get his priorities straight, but for the moment all he could think about was Marissa.

Ryan made it to Seth's in just over ten minutes thanks mostly to hitting eighty miles an hour on the freeway. He had been calling Marissa's cell continually since he left but there was no answer. Seth and Summer were waiting on their driveway when he pulled up.

"Hey Ryan, maybe you should just give her some time" said Summer as Ryan got out of the car. "She was pretty freaked out about last night and you and remembering."

"What did she say, Summer?" Ryan was speaking in the breathless voice he always used when he was worried.

"Um, well, that it was all so intense, that she felt a connection with you before she knew who you or she was. That she worried that you've only been broken up with Taylor for like five minutes. That you guys would end up being on again, off again, on again…you know like in high school. She was really worried that you would want the Marissa from back then, and she wasn't that person anymore…and"

"What's the address?" Ryan cut Summer off.

"Ryan, man, she may not even be there. She's not answering her phone. I'd say that's a pretty good indication that she doesn't want to talk to anyone right now." Seth put a hand on Ryan's shoulder to calm him.

"Seth, I'm not waiting. I need to talk to her. Now, please, give me the address. I at least want to see if she's there."

"275 Piedmont Place. Up Washington, 2 lefts and a right and you're there." Seth said in resignation. He knew there was no way to stop Ryan.

"Thanks" Ryan was back in the car in a flash and on his way. Seth put a comforting arm around Summer as they watched him go.

Ryan pulled into Marissa's driveway a minute later. Her car was still at his house, so that was no indication of whether she was home. He walked around looking in any of the windows he could and saw no sign of her. He went back to the front door and rang the doorbell, then banged on the door, then rang the doorbell again. Nothing.

An elderly lady appeared on the doorstep of the house next door and stared as Ryan continued banging on the door.

"If you're looking for Melissa, she's gone, dearie" the lady said with a kind smile.

"Gone? Did she say where she was going? How could she go, she doesn't have her car." Ryan was firing questions quickly.

"Oh, I know dearie, she told me about her car breaking down. She borrowed mine. I never use it anymore, and of course I've got my friend Eleanor who comes to take me to the store on Mondays and…"

"Did she say where she was going?" Ryan interrupted rudely.

"Oh, uh, no not really, just that she was going south. She just said she would be gone a few days and to expect her back Tuesday or Wednesday. Ooh, perhaps I shouldn't be telling you all this. She deals with some not-very-nice people in her job. You're not one of them are you?" the old lady suddenly became very guarded.

"No, no, well, it's complicated. Look, here's my card. If you hear from her, please call me. She's not picking up on her cell right now. I'm an old friend. I just wanted to …talk…to…her." Ryan had put his hands on his hips and hung his head. "Thank you for letting me know" he added turning back to his car.

Ryan did not want to go back to Seth and Summer's and face a myriad of questions. Instead, he left Marissa's and got right back on the freeway to go home to Nate. On the way back he called Seth's cell phone.

"Hey, where are you?" Seth answered with concern.

"I'm heading back home, she's not there. I'll talk to you later." Ryan closed his phone as soon as he'd said what he needed to say.

"Wow, yeah…..oooooo……k" was all Seth could say to the beeps that indicated Ryan had hung up.

It was still only 9:30 by the time Ryan got back home. Nate was just coming down the stairs.

"Hey" said Ryan. "Just getting up?"

"Hey, uh, yeah, I just got your note, where'd you go?" Nate was still kind of drowsy.

"Oh, I, er just had to run some errands" he lied. "So, what do you want to do today? You wanna maybe go burn my credit card a bit, since apparently Kirsten set hers on fire yesterday". A diversion, that's what he needed.

Single Ryan with no responsibilities would have gassed up the car and started the 7 hour drive to Southern California by now, not even knowing where to look for her. Single Ryan responsible for a fourteen year old boy needed to realign his priorities and leave Marissa to do whatever it was she needed to do, but it was killing him.

"Nah, we don't have to, I mean Mrs. Cohen really went nuts. I didn't get a chance to show you what she got me. There's like jeans and shirts and sneakers, she even bought me a suit and dress shoes and stuff. She said something about it being 'required attire in the Cohen-Atwood clan'." Ryan smiled remembering the endless formal events he attended with the Cohens as a teenager. "Oh yeah, and she bought me an iPod, but Mr. Cohen's not allowed to know about that. She even let me use her computer to load some songs onto it. Anyways, I figured since I got pretty much what I needed that we could just hang out again today. I kinda thought that Ms. Hoop…I mean Marissa would be coming over today. You guys seem to get along really well." So much for the diversion, Ryan thought.

"Yeah, well, Marissa's gone away for a few days, so it's just you and me kid. Rematch?" he said, pointing to the Playstation.

"Sure, but you don't sound like you're really into doing much at all. You really like her, huh? Nate had caught Ryan's tone of disappointment when he'd said Marissa had gone away.

"Yeah, I really like her, but it's complicated. I mean with her not really remembering everything, just bits and pieces and…" he stopped realizing he was about to get into a heavy duty discussion about his relationship with Marissa with a teenage boy. "It's just complicated, let's leave it at that."

"I know what it's like to have someone you really like leave you, it sucks" said Nate making Ryan chuckle at the simplicity of the truth.

"From the mouths of babes…" Ryan mumbled. "You an expert on girls are you" he said smirking at Nate.

"Well, no not really. I mean there was this one girl, Christina, she lived in the apartment next door to us. She was the same age as me and we were in the same classes in middle school in eighth grade. She was really cute and we hung out all the time, and I loved spending time with her."

"Sounds like it was pretty serious" said Ryan inviting Nate to open up more.

"Yeah, it was. I mean, oh man, I can't believe I'm telling you this…we actually spent the night together a few times and …you know. Her mom was gone all night a lot so I'd stay with her so she wasn't scared. It worked when my mom locked me out, 'cos I had somewhere to stay." Nate was blushing a little from his little confession.

"That's cool that you found someone that important to you. I was about your age too, and it was the girl next door. Her name was Theresa, but I didn't stick with just her. I was a bit of a stud in my day" he pulled the collar on his shirt up in mockery of himself. "But that doesn't mean I wasn't careful…well most of the time…, and I hope you were too ALL of the time."

Nate laughed. "Yeah we were, and no, I couldn't do that to Christina. I loved her and I told her that, and she said she loved me too."

"Wow, love's a pretty strong emotion for someone so young" Ryan thought about his own issues with that particular emotion and even saying the word.

"Yeah, maybe, but I knew that I didn't want to be with anyone else and I could only see myself with her, and we even talked about running away together and getting married as soon as we were old enough. We figured anything was better than what we were dealing with at home and at least we'd have each other."

Ryan was in awe of the wisdom and maturity in such a young boy. He had a better handle on his emotions than Ryan did at almost twice his age.

"So what happened to Christina? You're talking like it's all in the past tense."

"Her mom OD'd about three months ago and she was taken into foster care. I haven't heard from her since and I don't know where she is. I was kinda working up to asking Ms. Hoop…shit…sorry…shoot…I can't get used to calling her Marissa, anyway I wanted her to go through the system and help me find her, but I guess that won't be happening now either." Nate was fidgeting with the controller even though they weren't actually playing a game.

"Well, I'm sure Marissa will be back soon, and even though she can't work on your case any more because of me, she could probably still help you find Christina." Ryan placed a hand on Nate's shoulder and squeezed in consolation, they were more alike than he would care to admit.

"I hope so, so what's the real deal with you two anyway? I mean, I got the Reader's Digest version from Mr. & Mrs. C. before the party. What happened?" Ryan laughed again. He really liked this kid.

"First of all, you know about Reader's Digest? Second of all, it's a long and sordid tale that you really don't want to hear." Ryan picked up the other controller and began to start the game.

"First of all, just 'cos I'm poor, doesn't mean I'm dumb."

"Touche" smirked Ryan.

"Second of all, I can do sordid, and I wanna know. I can tell you've got it bad for her, and she looked pretty into you last night, so tell me." Nate pushed the pause button on the game. Ryan was unable to avoid the issue.

"Well, I met her at the end of the Cohen's driveway my first night in Newport Beach. Sandy had to clear it with Kirsten before I could go in the house. Remember I told you about stealing the car and Sandy getting me out of juvy?"

Nate nodded. "So what happened?"

"Well, we had this real James Dean moment, kinda cheesy really. She said 'Who are you?' I guess meaning what was I doing there, and me being the smartass I am said 'whoever you want me to be'. I guess we just connected right there, it was weird." Ryan paused to look off into space. It made him smile just to remember that first night.

"She was so beautiful, and she asked me for a cigarette, and then…" Ryan paused.

"And then you totally made out with her, didn't you?" Nate was enjoying this.

"And then her boyfriend showed up to pick her up." Ryan replied rolling his eyes. "That pretty much set the stage for our whole relationship. The promise of something really special, only to be ruined by something, usually someone coming between us. We never really got it together enough to talk to each other about our problems, but we knew we loved each other even when we weren't together. It kinda ruined all our other relationships because the other one was always there in the back on our minds. I'm not gonna bore you with all the problems we had, but the biggest one was communication. You know what I said to her the first time she said 'I love you'….'thank you'."

"Wow, man, that's bad, even I know that!"

"Yeah, but I said it in the end, but never when I really should have, including when she supposedly died. I went through a really hard time because we were just becoming real friends after all the problems we'd had, and then she died in my arms ( I thought), and I didn't tell her that I loved her. The one time, I really should have, I didn't, and I blamed myself for everything. It took me months, and Taylor, to get over it, although, I guess I never really did. Taylor knew it. I knew it. We just never really spoke about it. You seeing a pattern here? If Seth could see me now, he'd ask if I'd swallowed another dictionary. I never talk this much."

"That's cool. I'm glad you can talk to me. It's my payback for you helping me. So where do you guys stand now she's alive again?"

"That's just it, I don't know. I mean, I thought we were connecting again. I mean, I think we were even before she knew who she was, but I'm not sure if I was imagining it because I wanted it so badly. Now she's gone, I don't know where or if she is coming back and it's all my fault again. Maybe I pushed to hard for her to remember more, maybe I should have nixed the hair brained scheme for confronting Julie. It was doomed to fail before it got off the ground. The one mistake I didn't want to make again was not telling her how I feel, and it looks like I blew that one too! Now she's gone. I went to her house this morning not on errands, and I spoke to one of her neighbors". Ryan had become quite animated in his analysis and it startled Nate at first. He paused thinking for a moment.

"Did you find out ANYTHING about where she went?" If he couldn't find Christina, Ryan should at least be able to find Marissa.

"I only know she went south." Ryan replied dejectedly.

"Well, what are her options south? Like Mexico?"

"I doubt it, one thing she did remember was the last time she was in Tijuana. Not pretty."

"Ok, so where else? Look at it from her point of view. If you had just found out you were missing a large chunk of your life, where would you go? Would you run away from everything, or run to it?" Nate had already thought where she might go, but wanted Ryan to say it.

"Nate, you're a genius. You should be a detective or something. I think I know where she is, but I can't go after her. What about you? And I don't know for sure where she is."

"Where else would she go but back to Newport to find her past? Oh yeah, and do you think Mrs. C. will let me put more tunes on my iPod when I go stay with them?" He smiled knowingly at Ryan.

"Kid, I cannot believe how wise you are for your age. If you're sure, I'll call Kirsten right now."

"Well, I've been pretty much taking care of myself since I was eight. I kinda had to grow up fast. Go get you lady, so she can help me find mine!" Nate laughed.

"Ulterior motives too? You're full of surprises." Ryan ran upstairs to pack a few things for him and Nate. Within an hour the situation had been explained to Sandy and Kirsten who willingly agreed to have Nate stay, and Kirsten had even agreed to arrange school for Nate on Monday if Ryan wasn't back.

With a ridiculously large packed lunch provided by Kirsten, Ryan was on his way back to Newport Beach.