This is different than I thought. Six different ways inside my heart and everyone I'll keep tonight. Six different ways to go deep inside.
- The Cure
Whether you were a foster kid abandoned before the age of three or a spoiled rich kid who grew up entitled but unnoticed his entire life, learning to love the right way could be a tricky thing. For the former, you often found yourself clinging to false relationships in hopes of just creating a sense of security for yourself. You were willing to believe anyone that attached an "I love you" to the end of a sentiment, even if it rang untrue from the jump. For the former, you knew that you were never going to be as important as the next big social event, the next big deal, the next big paycheck. You were a commodity to be had, paraded in front of business associates and flashing cameras when it was important to present a united family front. Either way, you were an inconvenience, never felt all that special and mostly just got in the way.
And perhaps that is what drew Ryan to Erin in the first place, this weird sense of kindred spirit he feels whenever he finds her sitting alone at lunch one day in the break room. He's been single for something like three years now, ever since Kelly met a nice Indian lawyer on a yoga retreat in Phildadelphia and moved to the West Coast to pursue her newfound dreams of becoming a Bollywood actress. She never talks to anyone from Dunder Mifflin anymore, not even Erin would had been her best friend. It was almost like she never existed most of the time, except for those occasional moments where he would find a random photograph or some other relic of their relationship.
On a whim, Ryan strikes up a conversation with Erin about her lunch – bagel chips, string cheese and a brownie. They end up eating lunch together every day for the next weeks before he finally asks her if they should try their conversation out in the dark. They have dinner the next evening and strike up a nice pattern of casual dates around Scranton. Ryan is hungry to take things to the next level, but Erin seems perfectly happy just to hang out and have fun with him. It's an easy relationship, a far cry from what he used to , and he finds that he is actually happy to have a girlfriend for the first time in his life.
Somewhere around the two-month mark, Ryan wakes up next to Erin after falling asleep on her couch watching a late-night movie on cable. He watches her doze lightly for a moment and feels an unfamiliar twist of something real in his stomach. This is what would have sent him running in the opposite direction in the old days but convinced him to stick around this time. When she wakes up and greets him with a kiss, Ryan is sure that Erin is something real for him and asks her to finally be his girlfriend exclusively. She agrees with a sweet smile before padding off to her kitchen to make them both pancakes. Erin is really good at making breakfast.
When they have officially been together for three months, Ryan takes her to a nice restaurant in Philadelphia to celebrate their anniversary. Erin confides that it's the nicest place she has ever eaten, even nicer than the fancy country club Andy took her to when they dated all those summers ago. She looks pretty in her olive green dress and they dance until the restaurant closes down and then spend the last hours before dawn walking around the city. Just as the sun peaked its head over the horizon, they settle down in Franklin Square with two cups of coffee and a muffin. Then Ryan takes her hand and tells her that he loves her, and it all seems too perfect.
It takes another few weeks before the reality of everything sets in for Ryan. He finds a few of her shirts in his laundry, a bottle of perfume in bathroom, a stack of books on his night stand. There are traces of her everywhere in his apartment. Then she starts buying groceries to keep there and doesn't ask before changing the radio in his car, and he feels like it's just too much at once. In her usual way, Erin is comfortable around Ryan. She is used to adapting to other people and their patterns, just glad to find some consistency in her otherwise turbulent life. The whole situation has the opposite effect on Ryan, causing him to ask her if maybe they should take a break. This sets of the warning bells in Erin's head, and her guards are instantly back up. Those are walls that no one can penetrate, not even the man who claimed to love her so much. They find themselves at an impasse.
"Erin, please just talked to me," he begs her one evening as they sit in the break room, her pretending not to notice him while she ate her yogurt over the comics page and Ryan staring at her pleadingly while consuming his fifth cup of java for the day. "We need to figure this out. I miss you."
"You were the one who wanted to take a break, Ryan," she reminds him carefully, never once lifting her eyes from the latest antics of Marmaduke. "I am just giving you the space you said you needed."
He wants to roll his eyes at the dramatics of the whole situation but thinks twice about it when she turns the page to read the wedding announcements. "Erin, please," he repeats, and he knows how pathetic his voice sounds. Erin looks up at and shakes her head sadly before placing her spoon carefully down on the table. Ryan considers it progress.
Erin gets up and closes the door to the room to give them a little bit of privacy, something that is still hard to come by at Dunder Mifflin. Once she is safely back in her seat, she rests her elbows on the tables and looks at him earnestly. "It took me a very long time to learn to trust people," she tells him. "My mom abandoned us when I was three, just in time for me to develop a chronic kidney disease and get shuttled off to a foster home. No one wants to adopt a sick kid, Ryan. I was undesirable. Do you know what that does to a person? It gives them issues a mile wide, things that have plagued me my entire life. I know I come off as naïve and innocent, but underneath that all, you know what I'm really like. You knew all that and you still told me that you loved me."
Ryan listens to her intently, taking each word and how hard it is for her to say these things. "I know," he relents, burying his face in his hands. "I do love you, Erin. I love you in the best way that I know how, but it always feels like it's not enough. I can't believe that you won't leave. People always leave. My parents never cared enough to stick around for long unless they needed something from me. Even when I was in recovery, my mom only showed up because it was the thing to do – to make an appearance of caring. She would never talk to me when she'd bring me to work. She'd only shake her head in sad disappointment when she left me at the curb."
"Are you kidding me, Ryan Howard?" she demands incredulously. She couldn't believe the audacity of his "poor me" attitude. He had no idea what it was like to be left behind. "At least you had a home! I had nothing, nada, zilch. I was on my own, in and out of hospitals where people never even bothered to learn my name. I was always 'that sick girl' or 'the skinny little redhead' or just 'hey you.' If I could overcome all of that and still trust you, I am pretty sure you can suck up your insecurities and just live up to your word."
No woman has ever challenged him to be more than the minimum before. Considering that most of his serious relationships consist of Kelly, it's safe to say that he has never held a girl in high enough esteem to worry about he loved her. With Kelly, he just knew that he loved her on some level and that was good enough for them both. Erin expects him to love her the right way, to know what that means and just how far that love goes.
"And if I say that I can do that? If I promise you that I am going to work on learning to love you fully, without condition, what happens then?" he asks. He needs concrete answers, a way to reassure himself that he's not just setting himself up for heartbreak. "Are you going to be able to trust me then?"
She shakes her head and smiles knowingly. "Even now, despite all this, I trust you. I know that it was fear talking to me that night, not honest emotions from your heart. I'm just waiting for you to figure out which voice you are going to listen to? I don't know if you can drown out those insecurities, Ryan. I hope…oh, do I hope. I'm just waiting for you to tell me."
"The hope," he promises. "Not the fear."
"Very good then," she replies before leaning across the table and kissing his cheek once, chastely. "There are rules to this, Ryan. You have to let me in. I won't fight for my place. I shouldn't have to, not anymore. If you are going to love me, just love me. Don't make me ask for it. I won't do it, not again."
"I do," he vows with a happy smile. "I will. Always, I will."