[oc] A Shadow Across. Chapter three.
I'm sorry it has taken almost a month to finally update this story. The thing is, work isn't exactly writing inducing, and I got stuck in a chapter... Nevermind. It's here, and I hope you all enjoy it. *g*
Title: A Shadow Across
Chapter: Chapter three
Pairing: Ryan/Seth.
Category: Future fic. First time.
Spoilers: AU to the whole show. *g* I'm evil like that.
Author's note: Written and winner of NaNo2007.
Special thanks: To 60schic for the amazing beta. Thanks babe!
one | two | three | four
A Shadow Across
III.
Seth calls a little after ten, almost every night, like clockwork. Ryan tends to already be up in his bedroom, either reading or just not really waiting. A couple of times Seth's caught Ryan fixing something on the first floor, or pushing things around in the attic. Once, Seth called a little early, and Ryan was still outside, leaning against the fence, looking out into the dark Oklahoma sky. It was Mrs. Landingham who picked up, told Seth wait for a second, she'll call Ryan, and how are you, sweetie?
Ryan picks up the phone on the small corner table that's actually in the middle of the hallway. He ends up sitting on the wooden floor, legs straight out, one ankle folded over the other, back against the wall, head tilted back until he is staring at the ceiling as Seth retells the story of his Professor Sandburg and how English is a worse subject just for having the man as a teacher. The sound of Seth's laughter makes him smile.
Only eight days after their first phone call, Seth starts asking deeper questions.
"There's so much I don't know about you. It's like, I can fill a Post-It with what I do know."
"You know enough."
"No, actually, I don't. I know you're an Atwood, but that's just about it."
Seth's non question is met with silence, and then Seth's sighing on the other end of the phone, Ryan leaning his head back against the right wall in his bedroom, his eyes closed.
Seth starts telling him about his classes.
Summer comes with a scorching sun that's the hottest in almost forty years, according to the folks that can remember, Mrs. Landingham amongst them. The air itself burns with heat as Ryan lies on the dolly, underneath a car for a simple tune up, someone just passing by. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and can feel sweat rolling down his back, in between shoulder blades, drenching his white t-shirt, making dark circles under his armpits and neck. Bobby bitches about the heat, about how it's the stupid pollution and fucking global warming and Ryan can't help but smile at the thought of Bobby being worried about global warming. Seth laughs his ass off when Ryan tells him.
Seth spends the summer busy with his job at that magazine that he's always asking Ryan to check out on the internet --
"It's just a freaking click away."
"I'm not saying I won't check it out."
"Dude. I've given you the links three times already and so far, each time I ask you about our latest issue, all you have to say is huh. You haven't checked it out and you know it, so don't you freaking lie to me."
Ryan chuckles at the indignation in Seth's voice. "I haven't lied!"
"Saying you're going to do something when you very obviously have no intention of ever doing it IS lying, you ass."
Ryan laughs, head thrown back, phone cradled between his ear and his shoulder.
-- and Ryan keeps saying he'll do it and never really does. It's a matter of actually crossing the town's square to the one internet café (that's not really a café but this small coffee shop where the college kids like to hang in during summer, with their laptops and cell phones and people to reach out to) and use one of the three computers the place has and type in an address and read what it is Seth loves so much.
Ryan's pretty sure he doesn't do it only to hear that tone in Seth's voice each time Seth asks and Ryan says huh.
"My sister's birthday is today."
Ryan can feel his mouth closing slowly, not quite making a sound. He looks around his bedroom, even though he knows he doesn't have a calendar here. He tries to remember the date, but falls short. He knows it's Friday.
"June 26th."
Seth could have gone home. Taken the day off, caught an early plane and been home for the cutting of the cake. If he had wanted. If he had wanted...
"She turns two."
Ryan nods, doesn't know what to say. 'I'm glad' doesn't cut it, and he knows questions won't be well received.
Seth talks about an interview of yet another up and coming author that Molly, one of the English majors who works with him, did today. He doesn't mention Sophie again.
El Paso was a bust. Every place asked for ID or parents' signature. Ryan was three months shy of turning seventeen but that wasn't enough, it would never be enough.
He stayed there as long as he could with as little as he had. By the second week of January he was hitchhiking his way across to Austin with nothing but his backpack and his lower lip sucked between his teeth.
In the second week of July, Bobby gets a horrible case of the flu, and Laura calls early one Tuesday morning to tell Ryan to go ahead and open the shop, it's his for the day, and probably the rest of the week, the way Bobby's lying on the bed being miserable and bitching about having to stay home for the stupid flu. Ryan knows Bobby likes bitching for the sake of bitching alone, and has no idea how Laura, an amazing woman, can put up with him.
He has two trucks to take care of, and Barbara's car that's making a weird sound once again, and then two days in, the Kent's farm truck simply stops working and Ryan has to leave the shop to go out to the farm. That first day, he heads back home after ten and he has been paid double for the speed job because the tomatoes are ripening and ready to be picked, and he's missed Seth's call.
He devours his dinner, standing up against the sink after he has warmed it up in the microwave. Mrs. Landingham yells at him about eating properly and forces him to sit down and eat like a gal durn person. Afterwards, after he has finished a forty minute shower that finally allows him to shift his shoulder without feeling the pull of muscle and bone from a long ass day, he crawls into his bed, pulls the covers up to his shoulder and eyes the phone on the nightstand next to his bed.
He could call Seth. He could. He has Seth's cell phone number, knows it by heart, and Seth's always complaining about how he does all the calling, but the times he's offered to call Seth, Seth's always waved it off, saying not to worry, he'll call tomorrow. And it's not like they talk every night. They don't. Seth has a life over there, and there are times when he actually goes out. Not to a bar or with friends, because for all the talk Seth does about the people he works with, he's never really mentioned a friend, someone he hangs out with, calls when he isn't making calls to Oklahoma.
But they talk often enough. At least five times a week, almost six. Some days Seth stays up late at work, or goes to the theater or to the movies, but it's not often, and he always tells Ryan in advance, tells him he won't be calling tomorrow, there's a Museum exhibit he's been waiting for, or one of the few authors he loves who are actually alive is doing a presentation. Most of the times, Seth just sits down on the ground, phone in his hand, Thai take out on his lap and phone against his hear as he fires a hundred words all the way to Ryan's end of the line.
His eyes have closed before he notices it, and then they are opening, wide and awake, at the sound of the ringing phone.
He reaches for it, still half asleep, blinking and rubbing his eyes with his free hand. He has no idea what time it is, but somewhere in the back of his brain he knows it's late and he's worried about the phone waking up Mrs. Landingham.
"H'lo?"
There's a pause before Ryan can hear a sigh. "Hey. I thought..." Ryan can almost see him sitting in his small one bedroom apartment, with his back against the wall. "Just thought I'd call. You know? I know it's late--"
Ryan glances at the clock by the phone, and it's eleven twenty eight, and the night has long fallen dark, and he shouldn't be this happy to hear Seth's voice.
"-- but I really just wanted to talk to you, ya know?"
Ryan smiles, nods, sitting up in bed, back against the backboard. "I know."
July ends and by mid August, Seth's sick of his job and swears to himself never ever to get one like this.
"I'm not made for this," he says in one of the many phone calls throughout the first two weeks of August. "I really aren't. I'm an English major! I should be locked up somewhere, writing a book. Or working for a publishing company. It was very stupid of me to think that working for a magazine would be a good idea."
Ryan shrugs, doesn't know what to say. He used to think about college with a dream-like quality to it, never anything even close to thinking it would become a reality. He stopped thinking about it as he stood with his bicycle by his side, leaning against a concrete wall.
He opens his mouth, thinks about saying a word, something. He can almost feel the whisper of architecture against his lips, on his tongue, but then the moment is gone and the word leaves a bitter taste in his throat. He swallows, looks away even though he had been looking at nothing at all, and closes his eyes for a fleeting moment.
Seth chuckles on the other end of the line, doesn't even hesitate in his complaints because silence is what Ryan does best, so he does it.
Seth starts his senior year of college on August 17th, 2009. Ryan spends the day working under Terrence's Ford Explorer. He thinks of nothing at all.
Ryan will have lived in Shadow's Willow four years in less than a week, on August 25th. It fell on a Thursday, back then. He remembers it in the weird way he remembers most of that day, in bits and pieces of fear and anger and frustration and curses at Dawn and fucking Trey for getting himself sent to jail. And even so, in the four years he has lived here, he has interacted with every single person in town, but never more than he strictly had to.
He came to live with Mrs. Landingham because the woman has something about her that will bludgeon you to death unless she gets what she wants, what she thinks is the best for you. He was only seventeen, after all, even though he had told everyone in town that he had turned eighteen the year before. She hadn't believed him. He doesn't think anyone had believed him.
And yet. And here is where it all gets interesting, Ryan thinks with a small smirk that doesn't become him, with self deprecation that's even less him. And yet, for someone who has lived in the same place almost four years, for someone who has a steady job and a place he can almost call home, he hasn't exactly grown roots. He knows; he knows like he knows how he feels when he looks out into the dark sky at the back of the house, he would leave this place if it ever came down to it. He could. He has nothing tying him to this place. Nothing at all. And isn't that a little sad.
It's Friday afternoon as Ryan thinks of that, of all the passing thoughts he tries so hard to bury out of sheer force of will. Seth has a paper due on Monday and he's spending the afternoon and probably early night at the library and he has told Ryan he wouldn't call, probably not until tomorrow morning, if he can catch him before going to the shop. Ryan goes to Eve's bar that night.
He looked up Matthew Morgan the minute he got out of the trailer truck that finally left him in Austin. There were three Matthew Morgans in the greater Austin area and none of them were the one Ryan remembered from the seven month affair with his mother. He had come all the way here for nothing.
He took a shallow breath in through his mouth, right hand gripping the phone receiver, left hand around the edge of the phone booth, the side of it cutting into his palm. He had come here for nothing.
He hung up the phone, hearing a metallic sound as it was placed on its perch. He took in another shallow breath, rubbed one hand across his eyes, feeling them prickle hot and itchy.
This wasn't right. This wasn't fucking right at all. He should have thought this through. He should have tried to find Matthew beforehand. He should have made calls, and then he would have realized that he knew that man almost two years ago and he could have very well found something more interesting and moved on. He should have known. He should have.
He rubbed his hand across his eyes once again, took in a deep breath and then picked up his backpack from where he had placed it by his feet.
He looked around the phone booth, to the shops across the street, to the cars passing by. He swallowed and took a step forward.
He sits by the bar, and even Eve glances at him from the corner of her eyes before turning around to really look at him, smiles at him warmly, nicely. He smiles back, lifting his beer in a small salute, but the feeling is lost inside, in the way the muscles on his cheeks move, the way it doesn't reach his chest or his eyes.
He swallows, taking a long drink of the beer. He's downed half of it in less than a minute. That's never good. He glances at her once again before looking down at the bottle.
Eve runs this bar because her dad ran this bar before her and she's an only child. He died three years ago, of a stroke. Ryan hadn't wanted to go to the funeral; he had only met the man a couple of times, because drinking hadn't been big on his list back then. She married Stuart a couple of years back, owner of a small pet store in town that does surprisingly well.
He finishes his beer.
He asks for another one and Eve hands it to him, no questions asked. She smiles at him, tells him how they don't really see him here in town unless he's at the shop. He nods in all the right places, shrugs when the statement ends in a question. He watches her sigh and then move down to where Barbara and Mark are having a quiet drink at the other end of the bar, talking with Claire.
Claire; best friends of Barbara since they were in high school. He has heard all about their childhood exploits, because apparently Claire was a firecracker in her youth, but has mellowed now that she has two kids, two little girls, ages six and four. Claire's husband died in Iraq three years ago, two months after Lila (the youngest) was born, and Claire decided to move back to her hometown, lives in her mother's house now. Lucy blushes whenever Claire takes her car or her mother's old pick-up truck for a check up. Lucy, the oldest, six and three quarters, gave him a daisy the last time they went up to the shop, not even two weeks ago. Claire thinks it's so funny that her daughter has a bit of a crush on the young mechanic, told it to Barbara who told it to him.
The second beer goes down quicker.
He's asking for a third before it's eleven at night.
He knows all these stories, from everyone's childhood, like he has lived here his whole life, like he has lived through it with these people of whom he knows names and backstories and secrets. He doesn't think he likes that.
The fourth one is hardly even felt.
His fingers itch for a cigarette for the first time in years. He thinks about the luxury it became at one point, how he'd have to actually stop to consider if buying a pack was worth foregoing bread or something resembling meat. And he remembers when he stopped smoking, March of 2005, back in Austin, when things started to get tight again. Up until then, he'd try to bum a cigarette from one of the guys at the site when he could. He hadn't known how much he'd missed the cigarettes, the taste of the nicotine down his throat, the light pressure in between his eyes, the smell of it on his fingertips, until that night in May, all those years ago. He swallows. He fucking hates Austin.
The fifth one loses its taste.
He knows all these stories but feels detached from them, from the people that own the stories. He knows them but doesn't, he lives with them but doesn't. He... He...
I think you need to leave, Ryan
Where am I supposed to go, mom? Huh?
Ryan snorts against the mouth of the bottle, tilts it back and finishes it in one gulp. He places it back against the bar, thinks about ordering another one. It's almost midnight. There's only Eve, and Carl and Jason having their nights out while their wives stayed in. It's almost funny, only it isn't. He thinks about doing something stronger, because six beers in and he's barely feeling them at all. Whiskey. He used to love whiskey, even if it was only the cheap kind, all the way back when. Back when getting it was almost a privilege. Back when Arturo and Trey would show off the bottles, like it was gold or something. He was fifteen. He'd done coke, too, decided it was too expensive to get into as a habit. He closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath.
For a second he lets himself wonder where Trey is, if he's alright. If he's still in jail. That lawyer of his, that morning back in juvie, had told him that they would be keeping Trey in for at least five years, Grand Theft and possession. The guy had smiled a stupid grin, like he was happy Trey was rotting in jail, stupid blue eyes and blond hair, and Ryan had wanted to punch him, split his lip, break his nose.
For a second he wonders about his mother, killing the thought before it's fully formed.
The sixth one tastes almost sweet on his tongue.
He doesn't remember where AJ hit him. He thinks the man split his lip, and Ryan touches it with the pads of his fingers, or maybe bruised the skin around his right eye. He remembers anger and pain and frustration. He remembers feeling lost for a second before feeling like he hated her, hated everything she was to him, hated that he had hoped she'd protect him.
If he drinks a seventh, he won't be fit to drive.
He pays Eve, watches her watch him with worry at the edges of her eyes, in the pull of her mouth.
I don't care, he wants to tell her. You can care all you want, but I don't care. I can't. I've stopped.
He walks back to the tow truck, shifts it to first and pulls out of the drive outside the small bar, down the street to the intersection and then to the right, the few miles from here to the house he's been living in for the past months that have almost become countless.
He stops by the house, but doesn't go in. He knows Mrs. Landingham has gone to bed long ago. He told her he wouldn't be arriving early today, not for dinner, probably not even before she turned in. She didn't say anything about it, only thanked him for letting her know so she wouldn't worry.
He walks around to the back of the house, to the fence and leans forward, head pounding, hands holding the wooden slats tight, knuckles almost white. He takes in a deep breath, a harsh breath through his mouth, lets it out almost as if it pains him. With the next one, it doesn't, not as much, not as bad.
He takes the pack out of his pocket, the one he had to drive three extra miles to be able to buy, to find a store was that was open this late, and lights it with a flick of his thumb. He takes a long drag that makes his eyes fall close, something push in between his eyebrows. It's been too long since he last allowed himself this, allowed himself a lot of things.
He used to smoke four, five cigarettes a day. One in the middle of the morning, when he'd cut class with Theresa and Richard and Jorge. Another one right after lunch, a habit he picked up from Arturo, actually. Then one in the afternoon, as he took a swing of the beer or rum or something else stronger if they had the money for it. Another one later that night, sitting on the steps at the back of Theresa's house, her hand in his or on his thigh.
I used to...
It doesn't matter. He goes inside the house, makes his way quietly up to his bedroom. He lies down with nothing but his t-shirt and his shorts, pulls only the sheet over him, and closes his eyes. After a second, he opens them, stares up at the white ceiling, the small cracks he can see in the paint, the play of shadow and grey on the lines and edges and imagination.
He thinks about calling Seth.
I used to live in California, he'd say, even though Seth knew that part of the story. The only part Seth really knows. I used to live in Chino. I used to have a family, in a way. I used to. She kicked me out. Let her boyfriend beat the crap out of me. There was nowhere for me to go. I slept in the park that first night, didn't want to talk with Theresa or Richard or anybody, knew everyone would be talking about poor little Ryan, being kicked out of his own house. Spent the day down by Long Beach, just sitting there, played poker to pay for lunch. On Sunday, when I went back, they were long gone. I got a note.
His teeth grind against each other, making his jaw hurt; the corners of his eyes, his temple, ache along. He turns around harshly on the bed, closes his eyes, tries to forget.
It's so easy to be angry. It's always easier; easier than feeling lost.
Seth calls the following day, and Ryan sits down on the ground, props up one leg and stretches the other, leans his head back and listens. He can feel the ghost of a headache in between his eyes, on his temples. He doesn't mention it, he doesn't say a word. He thinks about drinking water when he goes down to the kitchen. He thinks about it.
He thinks he wants to ask, am I your only friend? Is that why you keep calling me, someone you met for two days in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles from where you live? Are you that out of touch?
And he wonders to himself, and am I so pathetic that I let you? That I like it?
He asks neither.
I'm really proud of this story, of how it's developing. It has a background story! That's mostly because 60schic is a pain in the ass and asks questions that need answers, and points out that even if it's in my brain, it needs to be on the paper. Or on the keyboard. Or something. *g*
I know what I think of this story. Now, I want to know what you think. Click, click!!!! *bounces*
Title: A Shadow Across
Chapter: Chapter three
Pairing: Ryan/Seth.
Category: Future fic. First time.
Spoilers: AU to the whole show. *g* I'm evil like that.
Author's note: Written and winner of NaNo2007.
Special thanks: To 60schic for the amazing beta. Thanks babe!
one | two | three | four
A Shadow Across
III.
Seth calls a little after ten, almost every night, like clockwork. Ryan tends to already be up in his bedroom, either reading or just not really waiting. A couple of times Seth's caught Ryan fixing something on the first floor, or pushing things around in the attic. Once, Seth called a little early, and Ryan was still outside, leaning against the fence, looking out into the dark Oklahoma sky. It was Mrs. Landingham who picked up, told Seth wait for a second, she'll call Ryan, and how are you, sweetie?
Ryan picks up the phone on the small corner table that's actually in the middle of the hallway. He ends up sitting on the wooden floor, legs straight out, one ankle folded over the other, back against the wall, head tilted back until he is staring at the ceiling as Seth retells the story of his Professor Sandburg and how English is a worse subject just for having the man as a teacher. The sound of Seth's laughter makes him smile.
Only eight days after their first phone call, Seth starts asking deeper questions.
"There's so much I don't know about you. It's like, I can fill a Post-It with what I do know."
"You know enough."
"No, actually, I don't. I know you're an Atwood, but that's just about it."
Seth's non question is met with silence, and then Seth's sighing on the other end of the phone, Ryan leaning his head back against the right wall in his bedroom, his eyes closed.
Seth starts telling him about his classes.
Summer comes with a scorching sun that's the hottest in almost forty years, according to the folks that can remember, Mrs. Landingham amongst them. The air itself burns with heat as Ryan lies on the dolly, underneath a car for a simple tune up, someone just passing by. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and can feel sweat rolling down his back, in between shoulder blades, drenching his white t-shirt, making dark circles under his armpits and neck. Bobby bitches about the heat, about how it's the stupid pollution and fucking global warming and Ryan can't help but smile at the thought of Bobby being worried about global warming. Seth laughs his ass off when Ryan tells him.
Seth spends the summer busy with his job at that magazine that he's always asking Ryan to check out on the internet --
"It's just a freaking click away."
"I'm not saying I won't check it out."
"Dude. I've given you the links three times already and so far, each time I ask you about our latest issue, all you have to say is huh. You haven't checked it out and you know it, so don't you freaking lie to me."
Ryan chuckles at the indignation in Seth's voice. "I haven't lied!"
"Saying you're going to do something when you very obviously have no intention of ever doing it IS lying, you ass."
Ryan laughs, head thrown back, phone cradled between his ear and his shoulder.
-- and Ryan keeps saying he'll do it and never really does. It's a matter of actually crossing the town's square to the one internet café (that's not really a café but this small coffee shop where the college kids like to hang in during summer, with their laptops and cell phones and people to reach out to) and use one of the three computers the place has and type in an address and read what it is Seth loves so much.
Ryan's pretty sure he doesn't do it only to hear that tone in Seth's voice each time Seth asks and Ryan says huh.
"My sister's birthday is today."
Ryan can feel his mouth closing slowly, not quite making a sound. He looks around his bedroom, even though he knows he doesn't have a calendar here. He tries to remember the date, but falls short. He knows it's Friday.
"June 26th."
Seth could have gone home. Taken the day off, caught an early plane and been home for the cutting of the cake. If he had wanted. If he had wanted...
"She turns two."
Ryan nods, doesn't know what to say. 'I'm glad' doesn't cut it, and he knows questions won't be well received.
Seth talks about an interview of yet another up and coming author that Molly, one of the English majors who works with him, did today. He doesn't mention Sophie again.
El Paso was a bust. Every place asked for ID or parents' signature. Ryan was three months shy of turning seventeen but that wasn't enough, it would never be enough.
He stayed there as long as he could with as little as he had. By the second week of January he was hitchhiking his way across to Austin with nothing but his backpack and his lower lip sucked between his teeth.
In the second week of July, Bobby gets a horrible case of the flu, and Laura calls early one Tuesday morning to tell Ryan to go ahead and open the shop, it's his for the day, and probably the rest of the week, the way Bobby's lying on the bed being miserable and bitching about having to stay home for the stupid flu. Ryan knows Bobby likes bitching for the sake of bitching alone, and has no idea how Laura, an amazing woman, can put up with him.
He has two trucks to take care of, and Barbara's car that's making a weird sound once again, and then two days in, the Kent's farm truck simply stops working and Ryan has to leave the shop to go out to the farm. That first day, he heads back home after ten and he has been paid double for the speed job because the tomatoes are ripening and ready to be picked, and he's missed Seth's call.
He devours his dinner, standing up against the sink after he has warmed it up in the microwave. Mrs. Landingham yells at him about eating properly and forces him to sit down and eat like a gal durn person. Afterwards, after he has finished a forty minute shower that finally allows him to shift his shoulder without feeling the pull of muscle and bone from a long ass day, he crawls into his bed, pulls the covers up to his shoulder and eyes the phone on the nightstand next to his bed.
He could call Seth. He could. He has Seth's cell phone number, knows it by heart, and Seth's always complaining about how he does all the calling, but the times he's offered to call Seth, Seth's always waved it off, saying not to worry, he'll call tomorrow. And it's not like they talk every night. They don't. Seth has a life over there, and there are times when he actually goes out. Not to a bar or with friends, because for all the talk Seth does about the people he works with, he's never really mentioned a friend, someone he hangs out with, calls when he isn't making calls to Oklahoma.
But they talk often enough. At least five times a week, almost six. Some days Seth stays up late at work, or goes to the theater or to the movies, but it's not often, and he always tells Ryan in advance, tells him he won't be calling tomorrow, there's a Museum exhibit he's been waiting for, or one of the few authors he loves who are actually alive is doing a presentation. Most of the times, Seth just sits down on the ground, phone in his hand, Thai take out on his lap and phone against his hear as he fires a hundred words all the way to Ryan's end of the line.
His eyes have closed before he notices it, and then they are opening, wide and awake, at the sound of the ringing phone.
He reaches for it, still half asleep, blinking and rubbing his eyes with his free hand. He has no idea what time it is, but somewhere in the back of his brain he knows it's late and he's worried about the phone waking up Mrs. Landingham.
"H'lo?"
There's a pause before Ryan can hear a sigh. "Hey. I thought..." Ryan can almost see him sitting in his small one bedroom apartment, with his back against the wall. "Just thought I'd call. You know? I know it's late--"
Ryan glances at the clock by the phone, and it's eleven twenty eight, and the night has long fallen dark, and he shouldn't be this happy to hear Seth's voice.
"-- but I really just wanted to talk to you, ya know?"
Ryan smiles, nods, sitting up in bed, back against the backboard. "I know."
July ends and by mid August, Seth's sick of his job and swears to himself never ever to get one like this.
"I'm not made for this," he says in one of the many phone calls throughout the first two weeks of August. "I really aren't. I'm an English major! I should be locked up somewhere, writing a book. Or working for a publishing company. It was very stupid of me to think that working for a magazine would be a good idea."
Ryan shrugs, doesn't know what to say. He used to think about college with a dream-like quality to it, never anything even close to thinking it would become a reality. He stopped thinking about it as he stood with his bicycle by his side, leaning against a concrete wall.
He opens his mouth, thinks about saying a word, something. He can almost feel the whisper of architecture against his lips, on his tongue, but then the moment is gone and the word leaves a bitter taste in his throat. He swallows, looks away even though he had been looking at nothing at all, and closes his eyes for a fleeting moment.
Seth chuckles on the other end of the line, doesn't even hesitate in his complaints because silence is what Ryan does best, so he does it.
Seth starts his senior year of college on August 17th, 2009. Ryan spends the day working under Terrence's Ford Explorer. He thinks of nothing at all.
Ryan will have lived in Shadow's Willow four years in less than a week, on August 25th. It fell on a Thursday, back then. He remembers it in the weird way he remembers most of that day, in bits and pieces of fear and anger and frustration and curses at Dawn and fucking Trey for getting himself sent to jail. And even so, in the four years he has lived here, he has interacted with every single person in town, but never more than he strictly had to.
He came to live with Mrs. Landingham because the woman has something about her that will bludgeon you to death unless she gets what she wants, what she thinks is the best for you. He was only seventeen, after all, even though he had told everyone in town that he had turned eighteen the year before. She hadn't believed him. He doesn't think anyone had believed him.
And yet. And here is where it all gets interesting, Ryan thinks with a small smirk that doesn't become him, with self deprecation that's even less him. And yet, for someone who has lived in the same place almost four years, for someone who has a steady job and a place he can almost call home, he hasn't exactly grown roots. He knows; he knows like he knows how he feels when he looks out into the dark sky at the back of the house, he would leave this place if it ever came down to it. He could. He has nothing tying him to this place. Nothing at all. And isn't that a little sad.
It's Friday afternoon as Ryan thinks of that, of all the passing thoughts he tries so hard to bury out of sheer force of will. Seth has a paper due on Monday and he's spending the afternoon and probably early night at the library and he has told Ryan he wouldn't call, probably not until tomorrow morning, if he can catch him before going to the shop. Ryan goes to Eve's bar that night.
He looked up Matthew Morgan the minute he got out of the trailer truck that finally left him in Austin. There were three Matthew Morgans in the greater Austin area and none of them were the one Ryan remembered from the seven month affair with his mother. He had come all the way here for nothing.
He took a shallow breath in through his mouth, right hand gripping the phone receiver, left hand around the edge of the phone booth, the side of it cutting into his palm. He had come here for nothing.
He hung up the phone, hearing a metallic sound as it was placed on its perch. He took in another shallow breath, rubbed one hand across his eyes, feeling them prickle hot and itchy.
This wasn't right. This wasn't fucking right at all. He should have thought this through. He should have tried to find Matthew beforehand. He should have made calls, and then he would have realized that he knew that man almost two years ago and he could have very well found something more interesting and moved on. He should have known. He should have.
He rubbed his hand across his eyes once again, took in a deep breath and then picked up his backpack from where he had placed it by his feet.
He looked around the phone booth, to the shops across the street, to the cars passing by. He swallowed and took a step forward.
He sits by the bar, and even Eve glances at him from the corner of her eyes before turning around to really look at him, smiles at him warmly, nicely. He smiles back, lifting his beer in a small salute, but the feeling is lost inside, in the way the muscles on his cheeks move, the way it doesn't reach his chest or his eyes.
He swallows, taking a long drink of the beer. He's downed half of it in less than a minute. That's never good. He glances at her once again before looking down at the bottle.
Eve runs this bar because her dad ran this bar before her and she's an only child. He died three years ago, of a stroke. Ryan hadn't wanted to go to the funeral; he had only met the man a couple of times, because drinking hadn't been big on his list back then. She married Stuart a couple of years back, owner of a small pet store in town that does surprisingly well.
He finishes his beer.
He asks for another one and Eve hands it to him, no questions asked. She smiles at him, tells him how they don't really see him here in town unless he's at the shop. He nods in all the right places, shrugs when the statement ends in a question. He watches her sigh and then move down to where Barbara and Mark are having a quiet drink at the other end of the bar, talking with Claire.
Claire; best friends of Barbara since they were in high school. He has heard all about their childhood exploits, because apparently Claire was a firecracker in her youth, but has mellowed now that she has two kids, two little girls, ages six and four. Claire's husband died in Iraq three years ago, two months after Lila (the youngest) was born, and Claire decided to move back to her hometown, lives in her mother's house now. Lucy blushes whenever Claire takes her car or her mother's old pick-up truck for a check up. Lucy, the oldest, six and three quarters, gave him a daisy the last time they went up to the shop, not even two weeks ago. Claire thinks it's so funny that her daughter has a bit of a crush on the young mechanic, told it to Barbara who told it to him.
The second beer goes down quicker.
He's asking for a third before it's eleven at night.
He knows all these stories, from everyone's childhood, like he has lived here his whole life, like he has lived through it with these people of whom he knows names and backstories and secrets. He doesn't think he likes that.
The fourth one is hardly even felt.
His fingers itch for a cigarette for the first time in years. He thinks about the luxury it became at one point, how he'd have to actually stop to consider if buying a pack was worth foregoing bread or something resembling meat. And he remembers when he stopped smoking, March of 2005, back in Austin, when things started to get tight again. Up until then, he'd try to bum a cigarette from one of the guys at the site when he could. He hadn't known how much he'd missed the cigarettes, the taste of the nicotine down his throat, the light pressure in between his eyes, the smell of it on his fingertips, until that night in May, all those years ago. He swallows. He fucking hates Austin.
The fifth one loses its taste.
He knows all these stories but feels detached from them, from the people that own the stories. He knows them but doesn't, he lives with them but doesn't. He... He...
I think you need to leave, Ryan
Where am I supposed to go, mom? Huh?
Ryan snorts against the mouth of the bottle, tilts it back and finishes it in one gulp. He places it back against the bar, thinks about ordering another one. It's almost midnight. There's only Eve, and Carl and Jason having their nights out while their wives stayed in. It's almost funny, only it isn't. He thinks about doing something stronger, because six beers in and he's barely feeling them at all. Whiskey. He used to love whiskey, even if it was only the cheap kind, all the way back when. Back when getting it was almost a privilege. Back when Arturo and Trey would show off the bottles, like it was gold or something. He was fifteen. He'd done coke, too, decided it was too expensive to get into as a habit. He closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath.
For a second he lets himself wonder where Trey is, if he's alright. If he's still in jail. That lawyer of his, that morning back in juvie, had told him that they would be keeping Trey in for at least five years, Grand Theft and possession. The guy had smiled a stupid grin, like he was happy Trey was rotting in jail, stupid blue eyes and blond hair, and Ryan had wanted to punch him, split his lip, break his nose.
For a second he wonders about his mother, killing the thought before it's fully formed.
The sixth one tastes almost sweet on his tongue.
He doesn't remember where AJ hit him. He thinks the man split his lip, and Ryan touches it with the pads of his fingers, or maybe bruised the skin around his right eye. He remembers anger and pain and frustration. He remembers feeling lost for a second before feeling like he hated her, hated everything she was to him, hated that he had hoped she'd protect him.
If he drinks a seventh, he won't be fit to drive.
He pays Eve, watches her watch him with worry at the edges of her eyes, in the pull of her mouth.
I don't care, he wants to tell her. You can care all you want, but I don't care. I can't. I've stopped.
He walks back to the tow truck, shifts it to first and pulls out of the drive outside the small bar, down the street to the intersection and then to the right, the few miles from here to the house he's been living in for the past months that have almost become countless.
He stops by the house, but doesn't go in. He knows Mrs. Landingham has gone to bed long ago. He told her he wouldn't be arriving early today, not for dinner, probably not even before she turned in. She didn't say anything about it, only thanked him for letting her know so she wouldn't worry.
He walks around to the back of the house, to the fence and leans forward, head pounding, hands holding the wooden slats tight, knuckles almost white. He takes in a deep breath, a harsh breath through his mouth, lets it out almost as if it pains him. With the next one, it doesn't, not as much, not as bad.
He takes the pack out of his pocket, the one he had to drive three extra miles to be able to buy, to find a store was that was open this late, and lights it with a flick of his thumb. He takes a long drag that makes his eyes fall close, something push in between his eyebrows. It's been too long since he last allowed himself this, allowed himself a lot of things.
He used to smoke four, five cigarettes a day. One in the middle of the morning, when he'd cut class with Theresa and Richard and Jorge. Another one right after lunch, a habit he picked up from Arturo, actually. Then one in the afternoon, as he took a swing of the beer or rum or something else stronger if they had the money for it. Another one later that night, sitting on the steps at the back of Theresa's house, her hand in his or on his thigh.
I used to...
It doesn't matter. He goes inside the house, makes his way quietly up to his bedroom. He lies down with nothing but his t-shirt and his shorts, pulls only the sheet over him, and closes his eyes. After a second, he opens them, stares up at the white ceiling, the small cracks he can see in the paint, the play of shadow and grey on the lines and edges and imagination.
He thinks about calling Seth.
I used to live in California, he'd say, even though Seth knew that part of the story. The only part Seth really knows. I used to live in Chino. I used to have a family, in a way. I used to. She kicked me out. Let her boyfriend beat the crap out of me. There was nowhere for me to go. I slept in the park that first night, didn't want to talk with Theresa or Richard or anybody, knew everyone would be talking about poor little Ryan, being kicked out of his own house. Spent the day down by Long Beach, just sitting there, played poker to pay for lunch. On Sunday, when I went back, they were long gone. I got a note.
His teeth grind against each other, making his jaw hurt; the corners of his eyes, his temple, ache along. He turns around harshly on the bed, closes his eyes, tries to forget.
It's so easy to be angry. It's always easier; easier than feeling lost.
Seth calls the following day, and Ryan sits down on the ground, props up one leg and stretches the other, leans his head back and listens. He can feel the ghost of a headache in between his eyes, on his temples. He doesn't mention it, he doesn't say a word. He thinks about drinking water when he goes down to the kitchen. He thinks about it.
He thinks he wants to ask, am I your only friend? Is that why you keep calling me, someone you met for two days in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles from where you live? Are you that out of touch?
And he wonders to himself, and am I so pathetic that I let you? That I like it?
He asks neither.
I'm really proud of this story, of how it's developing. It has a background story! That's mostly because 60schic is a pain in the ass and asks questions that need answers, and points out that even if it's in my brain, it needs to be on the paper. Or on the keyboard. Or something. *g*
I know what I think of this story. Now, I want to know what you think. Click, click!!!! *bounces*