AN: Another chapter for you all. I'm introducing another character to help Ryan through this. Just let me know what you think about all of this. PLZ R&R!
Disclaimer: See earlier chapters.
Chapter 21: Late-Night Visitor
Everything was quiet in the Cohen house. For once, it seemed that Ryan was able to sleep through the night. Suddenly, there was a loud noise coming from the direction of the kitchen, which roused them all from their deep sleep.
"What was that?" Kirsten sat up.
"Maybe it was Ryan coming downstairs." Sandy told her as they both pulled their robes on and started out the door. "Or not."
Kirsten looked and saw Ryan and Seth slowly creeping down the stairs; Seth in his bathrobe and Ryan in his sweats, both of their hair disheveled.
"What was that?" Seth whispered.
"We were just going to check it out." Sandy told them. "Stay there until we tell you it's safe."
They both nodded as Sandy and Kirsten inched their way towards the kitchen. They got near the kitchen and saw someone crouched on the floor as they heard the clinking of glass. Sandy flipped on the lights and they turned around with a startled look.
"Hailey?" Kirsten came out from behind Sandy. "What are you doing here?"
"Sorry. I was trying not to make noise, but I bumped into the counter and a glass fell to the ground."
"Don't worry about the glass. What are you doing here?"
"Dad was able to track me down. He said that you guys needed all the support you could get right now. He told me what happened with Ryan. After not giving him a fair chance, I figured it was time I got to know my other nephew."
"It's ok, boys! You can come in now!" Sandy called.
"So you know everything about Ryan?" Kirsten looked at her.
"Yeah. Dad told me. He figured I could relate, you know. Give him someone to talk to about it after I've bonded with him a little."
"Just don't mention it to Ryan just yet. He's having a hard enough time as it is right now."
"I promise." she told her as there was some shuffling and Seth and Ryan came in.
"Aunt Hailey?" Seth looked at her shocked. "What are you doing here?"
"What? I can't come see my family?"
"You ever heard of coming during daylight?" Ryan mumbled.
"That's a good question." Sandy told her. "Was it really necessary to wake us all up?"
"I didn't mean to make any noise. I was just going to sneak up to one of the guest rooms and surprise you all in the morning. I figured Ryan would be in the pool house."
"Ryan has his own room in the house now." Kirsten told her. "So you can have the pool house if you want it."
"Or there are two other guest rooms upstairs." Seth spoke up.
"It's ok. I can stay in the pool house." Hailey told them.
"So she can sneak in people and things behind mom's back." Seth whispered to Ryan and he smirked.
"Can we go back to bed now?" Ryan mumbled. "There's time to catch up when we're more conscious."
"He's right. The boys have school tomorrow." Sandy told them all. "Let's get some sleep and we'll see you in a few hours, Hailey."
Ryan slowly went up to his room and fell onto the bed as he tried to get back to sleep. His eyes shot open when he felt that someone was standing behind him.
"It's late. Leave me alone until the morning." he grumbled and he heard them retreat as fell back to sleep.
No one wanted to get out of bed the next morning. Sandy actually had to forcefully drag Ryan as well as Seth out of their beds. They all met in the kitchen as they tried to find something to eat before they all had to leave.
"Ryan, will you be finding out if you made the team this afternoon?" Sandy asked him as he drank some coffee.
"Probably." he mumbled.
"Well, call us as soon as you find out."
"Sure." he mumbled as there was two honks outside. "There's our rides."
"Which team did he try out for?" Hailey asked them as she sat at the counter with a bowl of cereal.
"The baseball team." Sandy told her.
"He's very excited about it." Kirsten told her.
"Are you sure about that?" Hailey looked at them.
"What do you mean?"
"He didn't look very excited about it to me."
"Maybe because he was exhausted from being woken up in the middle of the night. Just like the rest of us are."
"He looked more apprehensive to me."
"He's probably nervous about if he's going to make the team or not."
"I hope you're right." Hailey finished her breakfast and went back out to the pool house.
"Do you think she's right?" Sandy looked at Kirsten.
"I don't know. He such a closed book." she sighed. "I better go. I need to make a stop before I go to work."
"So you're really going to do that to Julie?" he looked at her. "Don't you think that's a little drastic?"
"After what she's been doing to Ryan? I'm just sorry I didn't do it sooner."
"Well, good luck." he told her as they both left for work.
Ryan sat on the steps in front of the school entrance waiting for Seth to finish whatever it was that he was doing. Taylor couldn't take him home because her mom had planned some kind of mother-daughter bonding dinner. She wasn't really looking forward to it, but she had no choice. Ryan finally got tired of waiting for Seth and Summer and just decided to walk home. He reached the Cohen house and silently walked inside and went to get a drink from the refrigerator.
"Hey, Ryan." Hailey came out to greet him.
"Hailey." he nodded at her as he took a mountain dew out of the refrigerator and took a big gulp.
"How were baseball tryouts?" she asked him as he went into the den.
"Fine." he mumbled.
"You know if you want Sandy and Kirsten to believe it, you're going to have to lie better than that."
"What are you talking about?" Ryan glanced at her as he turned on the TV.
"I've been lying to my dad since I was fourteen. I can spot a liar a mile away."
"Ok. So I never went to baseball tryouts like everyone wanted me to." he mumbled. "I'll just tell them that I didn't make it."
"And you think that they'll believe you?"
"I'm not sure."
"Well, I'll have your back." Hailey joined him on the couch.
"Why?" he looked at her. "It's not as if we liked each other from the beginning. So why would you help me?"
"As I recall, my dad didn't like you from the beginning either. And now, his place is your escape from this house. So maybe I want to get to know you better, too."
"You know, don't you?" he looked at her.
"Know what?"
"What happened in that place. Your dad told you, didn't he?" Ryan all of a sudden became defensive. "He said he wouldn't tell anyone. I should've known not to trust anyone with this."
"There's a reason he told me." she tried to calm him down. "He figured I would understand."
"Why would you understand this?"
"Ok. I didn't want to tell you this until we bonded a little." she sighed. "But I know what you're going through."
"How would you know what I'm going through?"
"Ok. This happened a long time ago. I hardly ever think about it anymore."
"Think about what?"
"Ok. I was sixteen. My parents were out of town, and Kirsten was still in Berkeley. I decided to throw an all-weekend party."
"Not really surprising me here."
"I'm not finished. It was just a couple hours before my parents were scheduled to arrive back home. There was this guy that had been really aggressive with me all weekend. He was this hot shot senior who never even looked twice at me during school."
"Did he-I mean, were you-"
"I was very inebriated the entire weekend so I barely remember it happening. But it was my first time."
"You were-r-raped?" Ryan looked at her.
"My parents arrived home early. My dad broke up the party. My mom found me passed out on my bed. She saw the stains and she immediately knew what happened. So she got me awake and she took me to the hospital."
"And what happened after everything went down?"
"Well, my mom was focused on getting me through it. But my dad was focused on wanting the guy to pay."
"And did he make him pay?"
"Well, he's Caleb Nichol. He owned half the town, even back then. Before I knew what was happening, the guy was being sentenced and he was sent away. He was really angry at me for messing up his future. He had a scholarship to play football at any college of his choice."
"So is he still in lockup?"
"He was released a few years ago. He was all about making ammends, but I wanted none of it."
"So is that why you're always partying? Or why you never stay in one place for too long?"
"Maybe. I can't be sure." she paused to glance at him. "My point for telling you this is that you're going to be fine. You'll get through this. It will take time, but it will happen."
"Yeah. Ok."
"And you need to let people in so they can help you. I know you feel disgusting right now, but you won't always feel like that. You need to let Sandy and Kirsten help you. They love you no matter what the people at that place told you-Yes, I'm pretty sure they messed with your head in there-Sandy and Kirsten are the good guys. They're the parents. You need to let them help you. It doesn't have to happen overnight, but try to open up to them. Just the stuff that you're comfortable with."
"Sure." Ryan sighed. "I think this is the longest conversation we've had."
"Seth isn't around to interrupt." She told him and he smirked.
Ryan was in his room trying to finish the rest of his homework, but his mind kept wandering back to suppertime a few hours earlier. He felt guilty every time Sandy or Kirsten asked him how baseball tryouts went. He brushed off all their questions and told them that the final roster wouldn't be posted until the next day. He was supposed to be concentrating on his History project, but he kept going back to what Hailey told him about trusting Sandy and Kirsten. Maybe he should make the first move; he wasn't ready to talk about his stay in the unmentionable place, but he could start communicating with them more like Dr. Freedman suggested at every session he had with him. He turned off the computer and grabbed the flier he had gotten from school and started downstairs to find Sandy and Kirsten.
Sandy was doing some research for the upcoming custody trial that they had scheduled for in a few weeks. He heard someone coming down the stairs and assumed it was Ryan. He probably had another nightmare. He looked up as there was a knock on his office door and Ryan stuck his head in.
"Hey, kid. Couldn't sleep?"
"I was doing some work on my History project." Ryan paused. "Can I come in? I need to talk to you."
"Sure." Sandy gestured for him to sit in one of the chairs before his desk as he closed his laptop and closed the folder that had all the important papers in it. "So what's up?"
"I lied to you. I've been lying to you and Kirsten that last couple of days."
"What are you talking about?"
"I never tried out for baseball. I just stayed at school long enough for you to think that I went to the tryouts."
"Why would you do that? You were looking forward to the tryouts."
"Was I?" Ryan looked at him.
"What do you mean?"
"Did you ever once hear me say that I wanted to try out?"
"I-"
"Everyone else kept saying that I should tryout. Luke said that they needed a better team, and decided that I should try out. I never wanted to."
"But you said you played when you were younger."
"The only reason that I signed up for all those sports teams when I was younger was so that I could get out of the house for a couple hours everyday. Playing baseball was better than helping Dawn sober up enough so that she could go into work so we wouldn't go without food."
"And all those times you went to the batting cages with Luke?"
"It was something fun to do."
"Ok." Sandy sighed as he got up from behind the desk and sat in the chair next to Ryan's. "So why didn't you tell us that you never wanted to try out?"
"Everyone was so excited for me to try out."
"Don't worry about how everyone else is feeling. You need to worry about how you're feeling. And you need to be honest. If you don't want to do something or you feel uncomfortable, let us know. Speak up."
"I know. And I'll try."
"That's all that we ask." Sandy assured him. "So what about when you joined soccer in the fall? Did you join that just to please us?"
"No. I liked playing soccer. In fact," Ryan pulled the flier out of his pocket and handed it to him. "They're having tryouts for an all-star soccer team."
"What exactly does this entail?"
"There's an informational meeting for parents Wednesday night."
"This is something you're really interested in?"
"Yes."
"All right. I'll talk to Kirsten about it." Sandy placed the flier on his desk. "So what made you decide to come talk to me?"
"Hailey. We talked this afternoon. She said I should trust you guys, and that I should try talking to you."
"We've been telling you that for weeks now. Along with Dr. Freedman. Why is it so different when Hailey tells you?"
"Hailey knows what I'm going through."
"Oh. So she told you." Sandy sighed. "She said she wasn't going to tell you right away."
"I kind of forced it out of her. I knew she wasn't telling me everything."
"Well, it's been a long night for both of us." Sandy pulled Ryan up as he stood up. "I think we need to get some sleep."
"You're probably right."
"Thank you for coming to me, Ryan. I missed talking to you when you actually answer me back."
"Yeah. I missed it too."
"So do you think there will be more instances like this?"
"Possibly." he smirked at him as he started up the stairs. "Good night, Sandy."
"Good night, kid." Sandy watched him go upstairs to his room and smiled in satisfaction. Maybe this is the first step to them finally starting to get back to being a family.
AN: So what'd you all think about this interesting turn of events? I know that it seems a little out-of-character for Hailey, but I always thought that there was another reason for all of her partying besides the fact that she was a trust fund kid. Anyway, PLZ R&R!
