PUTTING THE PIECES BACK TOGETHER

Ryan walked to the beach. He put his hands in his pockets as the cool air blew in his face. It had been 5 hours since Marissa walked off. He went back to the house first to look for her but she wasn't there. Somehow, he clicked in. Of course she wouldn't be here. He knew exactly where she would be. He walked slowly towards the lifeguard tower. He saw a familiar figure sitting down. He was right. She was there. He walked slowly to where she was and she stood up to face each other.

"I went back to the house, but realized you wouldn't go there." He started.

"Yeah, well, here I am." She said blankly. She wasn't mad anymore, but she wasn't happy.

"I don't understand why we can't seem to just get it right. Why we can't just talk to each other. You're the only person I really trust, the only person I can really talk to. But why can't we just talk about these things without making it so hard?" Ryan looked down. Marissa knew he was right. Why couldn't they?

"Promise to each other, here on, nothing but the truth. As soon as we see each other, we tell each other, no putting it off?" she offered out her pinky. He looked at it, then her. He smiled and hooked his pinky onto hers.

"Promise." Their fingers broke apart. They sat down side by side, enjoying each other's company until Ryan broke the silence. "I'll go first. In the last 5 hours, I figured why you were so upset with the whole Lily thing. I thought I should clear it up with you. Lily is nobody special. She is a friend of my mom's, the one who got me the internship."

Marissa looked at him, realizing how stupid she was. How she overreacted and assumed Ryan was seeing her or something. Once again, Summer and Caitlin were right. Marissa shook her head.

"I feel so stupid," she laughed at herself.

"It's okay. At first, I wasn't so sure about this internship, that's why I didn't really tell anyone about it. And I didn't think the mention of Lily would result in..." He looked at Marissa and they both laughed. After it died down, Ryan spoke again. "Okay, your turn. Who the hell is Antonio?"

Marissa looked at him, and then it clicked. She laughed so hard she was clutching her sides because they started to hurt. "Antonio? You were jealous of Antonio?"

Ryan looked away, he was becoming embarrassed. He looked at Marissa, "I...I wasn't jealous. Just...curious"

"Riiiight. You were so jealous of Antonio." She teased. "But you do realize, when I said 'some of us got to know some of the people there', I meant Caitlin and Antonio. The last few days of Italy up until now, Antonio is Caitlin's boyfriend." Now it was Ryan's turn to shake his head in humiliation.

"Now I feel stupid." He said. Marissa then took his hand and intertwined his fingers with hers.

"There, the truth is on the table and it turns out, we had nothing to worry about."

Ryan looked at Marissa and just gazed into her eyes. She did the same, getting lost in the pair of ocean blues.

"So...where do we...you know...stand? Are we okay?" she asked him.

"I...don't know..." he inched his head closer.

"What do you want to do now?" their heads now resting on each other.

"You tell me." He smiled coyly.

"Damn it, Ryan would you just–" and Ryan caught her off with a kiss. It was deep and passionate. With the kiss, she could tell he has missed her so much; and she kissing him back told him the same. He placed his hand on the side of her face, brushing her cheekbone with his thumb.

Once they came back up for air, he let out a chuckle, "You have no idea how long I've waited to do that." She looked into his eyes and kissed him again, smiling into the kiss. After making out a little, Ryan brought his arm around Marissa and she cuddled up next to him. They enjoyed the silence of each other's company and watched the sun set together.