A/N: I am really awfully sorry for this delay. A huge THANKS to my beta-reader 6 footer =)
23 Maths– it's the art of perfection, but the tiniest omission leads to wrong results
S.
It wasn't difficult to find him. He has no strength for a survival trip. Now we're in Boston. I've never been to the east coast before and I have to say: it's cold. It's awfully cold. I rub my hands against each other to get them warm. The building we – Mom, Dad and I – enter doesn't seem to be heated. I can see my breath. We have to take the stairs. There's no lift. We reach the door. Mom knocks firmly at the door and a man opens it. He steps out when he sees us and closes the door. This must be Trey. I've never seen Ryan's brother before. He always had been some kind of myth. I never really had thought about a name being a brother, but now he's standing in front of us, presenting his existence and proving that he's not only a mere myth.
"Sorry, but he's not really up to visitors. The new treatment and the meds pretty much knock him out." He tells us. Who the fuck is he that he can tell us that we can't go and visit Ryan? The whole time Ryan had been living with us he hadn't even tried to make us aware of his existence, why now? This is hypocrisy deluxe.
"Trey, let her in!" We can hear Ryan's voice from inside. I always thought it was me eavesdropping, never thought that Ryan was practicing it as well.
"There are three!" Trey calls back. We can hear a loud sigh.
"Yeah, whatever." He calls back from inside.
"On your own risk." Trey says and lets us pass. He grabs a jacket from a hook in the wall.
"Okay, I'm off then." Trey calls to his brother. "Don't wear him out." He directs challenging to us. We hesitatingly step further into the room. It's small and dark and cold.
"What's this supposed to mean?" Ryan asks us. He's standing in the kitchen. My glance falls onto a mattress on the floor, covered with a bunch of rumbled sheets and covers. This is even worse than I'd ever imagined. Ryan carries three mugs of tea and places them on a small table. He motions us to sit down.
"Don't you want to sit down?" I ask him.
"No, I better remain standing." He answers clenching his own mug in his hands. He looks even worse than when he had still been staying with us. His eyes are bloodshot and dark circles surrender them.
"So what is all this about?" He asks us.
"We…want to apologize. We all made mistakes and we've realized it now, but no matter how bad these mistakes have been, we don't want to lose you." I take over the conversation, still not sure how he feels about us being there – especially about my husband being there as well.
R.
"Yeah, we had that already." I have no fucking clue why they can't understand that I don't want them around…or well, that I want them around, but can't have them around or…things are just too twisted as if I could understand them.
"We want to take care of you." Kirsten starts pleading again.
"What are the doctors here for? It's not like you could do anything for me." A wave of dizziness hits me and forces me to sit down. I don't need to pass out in front of them, only to prove their theory…of whatever.
S.
"Does the doctor know what you can eat when you're that miserable and unable to keep anything? Can a doctor decode your brooding degree and distinguish the everyday-brooding from dangerous-need-to-punch-someone-into-the-face brooding? Does a doctor kick your ass when you give up?" I ask the questions my parents are too polite to ask. This is not the right time for being polite. Someone has to kick the guy's ass to make him realise that his loner-show is nothing else but an attempt to circumvent his emotions, which is deemed to failure.
"Seth, what's this shit about?"
"Maybe you tell me – us – what has triggered your permanent moodiness." I ask him. We lock eyes. I don't break the contact. He doesn't either. It's like a battle of wills. Even I can feel the tension that's in the atmosphere, I won't give in. Finally Ryan breaks the contact. He gets up.
"What?" I ask him. He doesn't answer me. He grabs a jacket.
"Oh no, you're not running away again." I yell at him. I've never yelled at him before, but right now I have to.
"You can't always run away, without giving us a proper explanation!" I scream at him. He turns around and only glares at me.
R.
He's right, in some way. I only haven't figured out in what way. Running just seems to be the easiest solution. I don't actually have to explain anything, and I don't have to face…whatever is bothering me.
"Since when, is Ryan Atwood the man for the easy way of the cowards, huh? Chucked the hoodie?"
I don't know why but he's so damn fucking right and he's making all these memories coming back again and I don't like this.
"Where's the Ryan Atwood who came to Newport and started a fight with the water polo team, where's…"
"Shut up Seth, I'm thinking." I growl. I look at Sandy who hasn't said a word. This is totally uncharacteristic for him. He usually is the one who starts and ends a conversation, why not this time? But I don't miss it right now. It's not like all three of them showing up is intimidating enough for me.
S.
"Ryan, may I ask you one serious question? If we didn't care about you, do you really think we would try so hard to get you back? I mean did your family in blood try to make up for the crap they've done to you? Don't you think Mom and Dad and I deserve a chance?" I ask Ryan. He needs to know that what happened had been an accident and that no one really meant anything of it. He has to realise that we aren't the bad ones, but the ones who try to correct their mistakes and fight for him.
"And though you're so similar." He replies.
"Ryan, when something's up in your mind, I think now is the best time to say it. After we all made fools of ourselves and performed a soul striptease there's nothing for you to lose." My father tries an attempt – a not really sensitive one.
"Wrong time, Dad." I only reply. It's too early for sarcasm right now. We've reached a crucial point. Ryan's in his option-weighing-brooding mode. This remark could have tipped his brooding into a direction we don't want it to be.
"So it's not cheesy to say that…this time was…like Dawn and her boyfriends reloaded." He says shyly. I knew that he was thinking like that, but I've never heard my friend saying it with some sort of emotion swaying in his voice.
R.
"I…dunno it's…I mean…when I was …actually I have no idea how old I've been then…
My Mom had been in really bad shape then. She had been drinking more than ever. I've never seen her being sober or lucid in those days. I guess she'd been using something too then. I dunno and I don't wanna know. It had been the time in which she started to hook up with A. was horrible seeing my Mom like that every day. Had been quite a rough time. Not only did I have to take care of myself, but of my Mom and Trey, when he was around. I didn't complain, just thought Mom had a bad phase or something, until she brought A.J. home and unleashed the storm. At first he was only beating her and when I tried to get between the two of them…I was the lucky one getting the beating. I never understood why she let him do that. I knew my Mom when she'd been sober. She never allowed anyone humiliating her. I mean, we never had a lot, but she always had her pride. She stopped taking care of anything. She even stopped taking care of herself. When I got up in the morning she was still in bed and when I came home I saw that she already had drunk half a bottle of whatever cheap liquor she could get. I started to ask her why she wouldn't stop and she only answered that there was no reason for doing so. I think after my father got arrested she just saw no other way than drowning her sorrows in a bottle. She tried to make a new start with us in Chino, but she failed. She got no job and those she got barely paid the bills. She must have been awfully frustrated. I know I would have been. Then she just started drinking and hold on to anything that only seemed like a glimpse of hope like all these boyfriends she brought home and made her depending on them. She lost her pride and her independence.
She reached a point where she really hit the rock bottom. She had stopped eating. Instead she was drinking and puking. Nothing else. I had to make her sit upright so she wouldn't choke on whatever she had to throw up. She was nothing else but a limp body in my arms when I did so. She had nothing to support herself. She was …helpless. It was shocking seeing her like this, day after day. Taking care of someone who used to be able to take care of himself is awful. One day I held her skinny, but heavy limp body in my arms. A.J. had beaten her up badly and pissed off afterwards. She had been drinking the whole time since.
"I hate this fucking bastard." She'd been swearing between the retches.
"It's okay Mom." I tried to sooth her. She was too upset as if her stomach could settle down in that state. When she was done I carried her to bed.
"Be good and bring me a drink." Mom said. I couldn't believe what she was asking for after all the throwing up.
"Mom, don't you think you had enough for today?"
"Didn't I have enough guys that hurt me? And, did it make any change? Do you need to hurt me too?" She answered. I knew I couldn't make any difference that night. If I wouldn't get her the drink she requested, she'd been angry with me and got it herself. I brought her a glass of I don't know what.
"When will you stop this?" I asked her again.
"When you're eventually gone and my life is worth living." I didn't reply to that. It had hurt like hell and I don't know why I stayed with her. I should have gone as she told me to, because my reward for staying were the beatings of A.J and my mom's hatred, negligence, depression or whatever emotional state she had left over for me. Maybe if I'd gone that evening she would have stopped, gotten the help she needed and then got the life worth living she's always been dreaming about.
Then I met Sandy and things turned out to be worse when my Mom eventually kicked me out, but then you let me stay with you and told me things would be different and that I was having a family and things weren't going back to be as they've been in Chino. Then Kirsten started drinking and everything started from new. I was holding her limp and skinny body when she was throwing up. The only difference was that she wasn't as heavy as my Mom used to be. I watched how a woman that I love lost all her pride and self-esteem, and stopped taking care of everything around her and herself, though she used to be woman that took care of everything. It was the same. I came home one day. Kirsten's been lying on the couch again – passed out. I wanted to carry her to bed, but she woke up. We didn't make it to the bathroom. I was glad that the bowl was sitting on the small table in the den. I rubbed her back, although I knew she didn't appreciate it. I used to do it for my Mom too. I always found it very comforting. It took her some time to regain her composure, or what was left of it. She glared at me with her cold eyes and I already felt that she wanted to be left alone and that I was the last person she wanted to see in that moment. I shouldn't have said anything then. I did, though.
"When do you stop all this?" I wanted to open her eyes, hoping that the fact that she was puking in a bowl, meant to be decoration, instead of into the toilet bowl, would make her realise how wrong all of this was.
"When you stop pestering me." The only thing that made her different from my Mom was the fact that my Mom probably doesn't know what pestering means. I should have listened from the very beginning, but I didn't. I had promised Seth I would stay. I couldn't break it. So I stayed and then Sandy started lashing out after me and things were exactly the same as it was at home, and despite the fact that I couldn't take it anymore, I really thought that if I behaved differently this time, things would turn out to change and that Kirsten would get the help she needed. So I left and I was right.
S.
Just the same old shit. I doubt that people can change their attitudes that substantially, that former hatred can become something they perceive as love. So before I risk getting disappointed once again, I rather stay alone." I'm astonished about this deep insight into my friend's/brother's story. It's the first time he actually allows me to see things out of his point of view. It's strange but all those things really have a different meaning for him, and I thought it was impossible. Nevertheless he made one mistake in his calculation.
"You know that not everything is the same, or? I mean did your Mom ever get help and become sober after you left her?" He looks away from me what means he got the point and is too embarrassed to accept that he had forgotten about one important thing, which is so tiny and though can tip the whole math he performed in his head to another result.
"Thanks Seth."
"What for?" I ask him back. I don't understand his answer.
"For making me the most stupid person on earth." He answers back and I still don't get what he means, not even when he let himself fall onto the bed and curls up. What's that? Things are strange since Mom had brought Ryan back into our lives. Ryan acts strange. Well not that his actions usually made sense, but they now make even less sense and that's scary.
K.
I stare at my son. Until now I only thought my husband had the gift of talking people into realisation. Now I have to watch how one of my sons inherited this gift. But it hurts to see how much this realisation seems to hurt Ryan. He deserves a little bad conscience, but not the huge one, because we're not innocent in this. We made him compare us with…his biological family and worst of all: we made him thinking of us as the same bunch of persons as his biological family. This is a sign for a huge failure.
S.
"Ryan, I think we all made a lot of mistakes and this here is the smallest one and the easiest one to be forgiven." I let Ryan know, although I doubt that he'll ever listen to me again, after he had drawn a perfect parallel between me and his father. I watch as my lost son curls up on the mattress. He's all an adult man by now, but right now he looks awfully young and vulnerable. It's like I'm getting an insight how a young Ryan would have reacted. How desirable this insight is, it hurts seeing it right now after all we put him through.
K.
Seeing my younger son like this makes my heart shatter into pieces and my maternal feelings take over. I go over to his mattress and lie down, cupping his curled body with mine, embracing him with one of my arms, stroking the back of his head with the other one.
"Everything's going to be fine. We might not have sorted out everything, but the core of the problem we did, and the rest has time. Only important is, what we've reached now: understanding each other and realising our mistakes. That's all we've been asking for." I let him know. I can't remember if he ever before had allowed me to come that close – physically but also mentally. I can't remember him showing this vulnerability any time before.
S.
"Yes man, I mean we've all gone a little bit crazy about the whole situation. We needed this blow up to come back to our senses." I let my brother know. I sit down on his bed, well aware that he'd kick my ass if he was well enough. He hated it when I was in or on his bed and I doubt this had changed. I hope it hasn't otherwise I have to find a new routine for getting his attention when he tries to ignore me.
K.
I look at my husband. In his eyes I can see the same vulnerability as in Ryan's eyes. I look at him encouragingly. It would be wrong if he wouldn't join us in this situation. It would keep him in an outsider position and this could neither be good for him nor for Ryan. Ryan and he have always shared a special bond. It seems wrong to me if we didn't try to repair what had been damaged by the time. Sandy eventually decides to come over to us and sits down at the foot of the bed.
S.
I sit down on the bed. It feels strange. It'll never be as it had been before. We've lost too many years in which happened to many things which tore us apart, but we can try a new beginning and I hope I can sort out what had happened between him and me some time. I don't expect miracles. I expect nothing at all. I only hope and that's what's driving me since I've got to know that he's back in our lives again. I pat his leg, but the flinch under my touch doesn't remain unnoticed.
"Sorry…" He whispers apologetic. I can't take it amiss. "I…just need to …come to terms." He answers. He has never been that open towards us. He used to keep everything in a hidden order. He didn't even confide in me in such a way, before it happened. I'm not sure, whether the fact that he's now open like a book to us, ought to make me worry.
"Come to terms with what, honey?" Kirsten asks him. My worry didn't go unnoticed.
"…the different shades of grey, especially the light greyish ones."
"You'll have time for that when you're finally home."
"Kirsten, look at me and tell that I look like someone who just gets into a plane and travels around. I…can't. These meds, just…it's like chemo in form of pills, what means I'm persistently intoxicating my body…I'm not getting a break anymore."
S.
I'd never thought that I would hate the day on which my brother would reveal his true feelings and conditions to us, reveal what's really wrong with him. But I do. I do, because it makes me so much more aware of the seriousness of this. I could blend out is pale complexion, the bruises on his arms and on the back of his hand, his neck. I could blend out the net of vessels and veins shining through his papyrus like skin and even the bold head. What I can't blend out is his confession. It's something he had never given to any of us before and now all cards are on the table. He doesn't have the strength to hide anymore. He has to ration what he has.
"You can rely on us, not solely on your strength. You only have to let us." My Mom tries to convince him. I can only pray for him being really strong enough. If Ryan already has doubts himself, I'm not sure whether it's a good idea to persuade him from something different, even though he might be able to rely on us now.