Chapter 31
Marissa and Ryan walked in comfortable silence down the boardwalk after they finished their pancakes. Ryan occasionally glanced over to look at her. He had found during breakfast that he couldn't look down at his food for long before he had to look up again to make sure she was still sitting opposite him. He was still doing it as they were walking. The feel of her hand in his was so warm and familiar, but he still kept looking at her every few paces to confirm that he wasn't dreaming.
Every now and then, Marissa would catch him as she would look at him and they would steal a kiss as they walked and Marissa would squeeze his hand and lean her head on his shoulder. To anyone passing by, they looked like a couple, a real couple, head over heels for each other, and oblivious to everything else around them.
"So where do you recommend we start?" asked Marissa after a few minutes.
"Um, well the Bait Shop's just over there and Alex's old apartment is just beyond that. Both featured prominently in our junior year" replied Ryan. He deliberately called it Alex's old apartment instead of Trey's, but second guessed himself for mentioning it at all.
Did he really want her to remember that she had once shot his brother? Did he want her to remember that Ryan had gone to Trey's to kill him for attacking Marissa while he had been in Miami with Seth and Sandy? The answer to all of these was most definitely, no. But on the other hand, Trey's shooting had been a major source of problems for them because they never talked about it. Maybe this was the time to finally heal all the old wounds.
"I remember Alex" she blushed at the thought of her in a lesbian relationship. "I remembered having a fight with you about Lindsey getting drunk. You were pretty mad at me as I recall, and I ended up staying at Alex's. I guess she was there when you weren't. I've never had the urge since to date a woman. Alex was special in her own way, I guess. Let's do the Bait Shop first and then her apartment." Marissa smiled at Ryan and pecked his lips. "I guess you thought your ex dating a woman was pretty hot, huh?" she teased.
"Uh, well, I can't say I didn't picture what it would be like being the meat in a sandwich of you two" he smirked "but mostly I just stayed away until Seth forced me to work on the pep rally bonfire with you. Alex didn't like me very much. She kinda felt threatened by me." Ryan squeezed her hand as they walked towards the Bait Shop.
"She must have known that I was still in love with you." Marissa stated bluntly.
"Hmm" replied Ryan "but how did you know you were still in love with me?"
"It's weird, or not since I've spent the most time with you, but I remember pretty much everything about our time together. Good and bad. I know what you meant when we were standing in the driveway the other day. We fight, we break up, we make up, and we fight again." Marissa pulled on Ryan's hand to stop him from walking and turned to face him. "I want you to know. I don't want it to be like that again. I want us to talk about everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. No secrets. If you really want me as a part of your life again, we have to be sure not to repeat the past, and that is on your shoulders because I don't remember all of it. 'Those who do not learn from the past', remember?"
Marissa gazed into his ice blue eyes trying to read him. Would he understand what she was trying to say? She needed to know that he was really as vocal as he had demonstrated in the last couple of days. That he really was more open than the Ryan she had in her memories. That he would be honest with her and tell her straight out that his brother had also lived in Alex's apartment and that he wanted her to remember everything so they could move on together.
Ryan did sense something in Marissa's voice and in the way she was looking at him. She was telling him something, trying to read behind his eyes. If she remembered everything as she claimed, there was only one thing she could be referring to. Oh man, he thought. This was it, make or break before they even really got started. They were now leaning up against the railing outside the Bait Shop, Marissa with her back to the ocean and Ryan facing her with his arms holding the railing either side of her. There was no escape for her and no escape for him in facing the biggest issue they ever had between them.
"Ok" he said quietly looking down at the ground "I know what your asking and I know you want me to say it rather than you tell me you've remembered. I get that. I couldn't talk about it then, but I have to now." He took a deep breath. "My brother attacked you, and instead of sensing something was really wrong, I pretty much accused you of hooking up with him. When I think about it now, you gave me all the signs. You were jumpy and afraid of being touched. You wouldn't let me see you without a shirt on and you avoided Trey like the plague. If I'd taken just a second to think that you were hurting instead of thinking that you were trying to hurt me, things could have been very different."
Marissa lifted her arms up to run both her hands through his hair and caress his cheeks stopping to cup his chin in her hands and kissed him tenderly on the lips.
"Thank you" she said sincerely
Ryan smiled meekly. "Do I need to go on?"
"I think it will be good for both of us if you do." She replied.
"Well, I guess, you finally decided I had to know, and used a foolproof method of communication when you didn't want to tell me something directly." He laughed half-heartedly and continued. "You told Summer, Summer told Seth, and Seth told me. All I can remember feeling at that precise moment was rage. More rage than I had felt in my entire life towards anybody, but it wasn't only rage towards Trey for what he had done to you, it was rage against me for letting it happen to you in the first place, not protecting you, and most of all not sensing that there was something very wrong that you weren't telling me. In that split second I decided I was going to kill him. Seth knew as soon as I told him I was going to settle things with Trey once and for all. Do you want to fill in the next part?" Marissa nodded.
"I remember the phone call from Seth. I can't exactly remember where I was, but I think I was with Julie. I remember him saying 'Ryan knows' and 'you're closer'. The next memory I have is walking into Trey's apartment and seeing him on top of you choking you. I was screaming at him to get off you and then he yanked the phone out of the wall and he was about to hit you. I saw the gun and I picked it up and shot him." Ryan wiped a tear from her cheek as she recalled this most painful memory.
"I'm glad you remember it." He said warmly. "I don't want this to be a barrier between us again."
"It's ironic you should say that, because far from being a barrier, it was this memory that allowed me to realize just what you had meant to me, and it opened the door to so many other good memories. Standing in the doorway of that apartment watching Trey almost kill you was the worst moment of my life. I felt that my life would be over if you weren't in it and I would do anything to protect you and to protect me from that." Marissa paused and looked at her hands now resting on Ryan's chest.
"When did you remember this?" Ryan asked
"When I fell asleep at Cindy's before I came here" she replied.
"I can't believe you didn't say anything to me. This is huge."
"Well, first of all, we were kinda busy last night" she blushed "and secondly, I remembered a lot of our trouble around this and I wanted YOU to tell ME about it. It was the only way I could get you to talk about it. Remember what I said. No secrets. Which brings me to something else that we kind of skirted over yesterday." She bit her lip.
Ryan nodded. "I know. I understood. You can't have kids. It doesn't change anything for me. If that's where we're headed, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, but it's not going to stop ME from loving YOU."
"Oh my god," Marissa breathed a sigh of relief. "I love you, Ryan. I wanted to say it, I did, but I wasn't sure and we still had so much to talk about, and I think we just covered the two biggies and ..." Marissa was interrupted by Ryan's lips making forceful contact with hers, his hands coming up to pull her face as close to him as possible as his tongue teased her lips apart. When she pulled away for air she continued. "I want to tell you about it." She kissed him softly. "I want you to know. I have never had unprotected sex with anyone…except you, and there have only been four in eight years. I don't want you to think there was anything else at stake besides me getting pregnant."
"I trust you. It never crossed my mind. Do you want to tell me why you can't…?" He gestured with his eyes to her stomach.
"Are you sure you want all the details about the girl stuff?"
"No secrets, right?" he repeated her own words as he took her hands.
"Ok. I had severe internal injuries as well as the head injury. Part of my spleen was removed as well as one of my ovaries as they were crushed beyond repair and I could have bled to death. There was also blunt trauma to my uterus, but the doctors did not want to remove it because a hysterectomy in someone so young can be very traumatic and cause a horrible hormone imbalance."
"Yeah, I can't really picture you with a moustache" Ryan joked. "Sorry. Not funny. Continue."
"So, the result is, I have very irregular periods like maybe 4 or 5 a year, and the doctors said that it was highly unlikely that I would ever have children because my uterus would likely reject any embryo because of the damage done." She looked at Ryan waiting for his reaction.
"Ok, so, I'm not trying to make light of this, because I know it's serious, but I'm going to look at the positive. I can live without having you four or five weeks out of a year, that still leaves me three hundred and thirty days of unimpeded love-making with you." Marissa blushed as he continued. "Lastly, last night you said you can't, but just now you said the doctors said it was 'unlikely', and you admitted you had never had unprotected sex with anyone but me, so no chance to test the theory. So, if we're headed where I think we are, I intend to use every single one of those remaining three hundred and thirty days to try and prove the doctors wrong." He gave a mischievous grin as he kissed her cheek.
Marissa was dumbfounded by what he was suggesting, but was stopped from making any comment to Ryan's sideways proposal by his cell phone ringing. Ryan pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID.
"It's Sandy. I'd better answer in case it's about Nate." Marissa nodded and he flipped the phone open. "Hey, what's up?"
"Hey! Ryan! How are things going? Have you guys done a grand tour yet? Where are you headed next?" Sandy was trying to sound as up beat as possible, but the bombarding of questions without allowing time for an answer only served to let Ryan know that something was wrong.
"Sandy? What's wrong? Is Nate, ok?" he avoided answering all questions and looked at Marissa as she searched his eyes for an indication of what Sandy was saying.
"Aw jeez. I'm lousy at this. Nate is fine. He's been having fun with Sophie playing board games…and with Jamie too." Sandy paused, knowing that Ryan would quickly process the meaning of Nate playing Ryan's little brother. Julie's son.
"You've had Julie at the house." Ryan stated dejectedly. Marissa's eyes widened with surprise and she reached for Ryan's hand.
"We have. Kirsten talked to her for a long time this morning while I took the kids out for pancakes." Sandy explained.
"Kirsten too?" Ryan questioned. He couldn't believe those closest to him were betraying him by talking to Julie, forgiving her for what she'd done.
"Ryan, she's devastated…" Sandy started.
"She's devastated?" Ryan could hardly believe his ears. "It's always about Julie, Sandy. Even when it's not about her, it is. I'm sick of it and I'm done with her. I can't speak for Marissa."
"Well, I can understand that, but what I was going to say is that she is devastated by what she has done to you and Marissa. She regrets everything and wants nothing more than to talk to you and Marissa and at least make an attempt at an explanation. Ryan there is way more at stake here than just whether or not Julie will ever approve of you and Marissa being together or whether you can forgive what she's done. Both very important issues but think of the bigger picture as well. Your business and more importantly your little brother, who, by the way, is also Marissa's little brother. That little boy idolizes you, and don't you think he should know his sister too? How are you going to deal with Jamie if you're not speaking to Julie? Kirsten and I will not play the go-between for a seven year old." Ryan looked at his feet and kicked at the railing post. Sandy had played the one card that could get him. He adored Jamie and could not imagine not seeing him, or having Marissa get to know him. It brought a lump to his throat and made it nearly impossible for him to say anything else.
Marissa had now got the general vein of the conversation and was trying to get Ryan to look at her. She lifted his chin with her hand so he looked at her. She immediately saw the strain in his face and the tears coming to his eyes, and she held out her other hand to ask for the phone. Ryan accepted the invitation and passed the phone over without saying anything else to Sandy.
"Sandy?" Marissa spoke assertively. "Ryan can't talk anymore. It's upsetting for him."
"Marissa, hey kiddo. I know it is, and it must be for you too on top of everything else. Listen, your mom, Julie. She feels terrible. She wants things to be right again and she knows that part of that is letting you two be together. She's over that now and she realizes she was wrong. She just wants to talk to you."
"Sandy. I'm not saying I will never talk to my so-called mother again, but I think I have some things to get straight with me and with Ryan before we deal with the person who caused all this in the first place." Marissa was speaking coldly and clearly. "I don't know what you said to Ryan, but it clearly upset him, so I have to go. We'll call when we're on our way home. Please don't call again unless it's about Nate."
Marissa closed the phone and held Ryan in a tight hug, and she could feel him start to convulse as he tried to control his sobs. This was new territory for her. The Ryan Atwood she was remembering did not cry. He only came close to crying when it was about…, she tried to recall what she could…ah, family; blood-family to be specific. The only time she could remember any emotion like this it involved his mother, Dawn or his brother, Trey.
"He brought up Jamie, didn't he?" she whispered.
Ryan nodded and sniffed as he tried to wipe the tears away. "How did you know?"
"I told you, where your concerned, I'm pretty much up to speed." She smiled. "Family is everything to you, I know, and you've been let down your fair share of times by yours. The last thing you want to do is let Jamie down by severing the ties. I want to know Jamie too, but that's a completely different issue for me. I'm telling you now that you cannot base whether or not you talk to Julie and see Jamie on what she did to me. This is about you and what you've been through, and I think you should talk to her regardless of whether I intend to or not."
Ryan looked at Marissa with shock and awe. Shocked that she was suggesting he rebuild a relationship with her mother, and awe that she would be so unselfish in putting him first, and that she could read him so completely without him saying a word.
Ryan forced a smile as he stroked her cheek. "I'll talk to Julie when we get back." he offered. "Have I told you lately that I love you?" He added as he held her chin with his thumb and forefinger and kissed her lightly.
"Kinda cheesy, but the closest you came in the recent past was telling me how you would like to do your best to prove the doctors wrong about my…er…condition. I'm thinking we've made a lot of progress on my memory without actually seeing too much of Newport. Perhaps we could get a head start on the practical part of your thesis." She batted her eyelids flirtatiously and pulled him back up the boardwalk to the motel. "I'm thinking that we can cover the sights in a quick drive around tour before we leave tomorrow?" She giggled as she let go of Ryan's hand and started running to the motel.
Ryan followed quickly behind and soon caught up with her. He lifted her over his shoulder into a fireman's carry and continued running to the motel, both of them laughing all the way. When he finally put her down at the door to what was now their room, he once again stood looking at her in awe. It was at that moment, he realized they were going to be ok this time. Not only were they going to spend the rest of afternoon completely entangled in each other making love, but they had just covered some of the major issues in their relationship both past and present without either one getting angry, shutting down or walking away. Sex was not the avoidance tactic; it was the reward from coming out the other side. They had each helped the other deal with the issue at hand. He had only seen that kind of team work once, maybe twice before, he thought. As it happened, both of his examples were Cohen's, and they were married…hmmm.