Sullen
by M. F. LuderPart four
"-- half a dozen steps toward the sound of his voice, stepping carefully around a clump of brambles even though she was wearing jeans instead of shorts. She paused, looked back, and realized she could still see the Kezar Notch path ... which meant that anyone coming along it would be able to see her, squatting and peeing with a half-loaded knapsack on her back and a Red Sox cap on her head. Em-bare-ASS-ing, as Pepsi might say (Quilla Andersen had once remarked that Penelope Robichaud's picture should be next to the word vulgar in the dictionary)."
Sarah sighs, running a hand through her dark hair.
"I really don't know why you like this stuff, sweetie. It's so dark. It's so..." Sarah shrugs. "It's not really you, you know? You're supposed to read poetry and talk astronomy, like you usually do, not read... this."
She looks down at the book, "The girl who loved Tom Gordon", the first one her hand reached for when she went home last night to take a shower and change clothes.
"I still don't know if this is the sequel to "Talisman" which, yes, I have in my bag, or if "Talisman" is the sequel to this." She frowns, tilting her head and trying to remember Emma's voice and her words, back when she had explained sequels and great books. "Or was it another one that went first, before "Talisman"?"
After a moment, her mind coming up blank, she sighs.
"I'll read this, then "Talisman", then another one. Probably "It", you love it so much. If you don't wake up until then..."
She leaves her words hanging.
"I won't read anymore after that, okay? There's only so much of Stephen King I can take."
She looks down at the book, picking up where she left off.
"Trisha went down a mild slope, her sneakers slipping a little in a carpet of last year's dead leaves--"
Sarah pauses, looking up from her book to the innocent face of Emma. Sleeping, beautiful Emma. Her heart seems to skip a bit, and her voice shakes as she says, "If I get nightmares after this, I'm sleeping with you."
She takes a deep breath before continuing.
"Trisha went down a mild slope, her sneakers slipping a little in a carpet of last year's dead leaves, and when she got to the bottom she couldn't see the Kezar Notch path any more. Good. From the other direction, straight--"
On Monday morning, just before lunch, Kirsten drives back to her house from the office. She stopped pretending work could get done today before ten, gave up and got her suitcase. However, Caleb called her into his office to talk about the problems with the union, and the new model home that was supposed to be ready last week.
She runs a hand through her unruly hair, the beginnings of a headache burning behind her forehead.
She thinks about arriving home, having lunch and then going straight to bed. She barely slept two hours last night, or the night before, worrying about Ryan and staring at the phone, willing it to ring.
The logical side of her mind knows that won't bring her boy back, but she can't do anything else. She's a mother, and mothers don't consider logic when their hearts are breaking over a lost son.
We'll find them, she tells herself. We'll find him. She takes a turn to the right. We have to. I will not... I will not lose my son.
Her distress must have been obvious for her father to ask about it. Her hands shake as she tightens her grip on the wheel, pausing at a red light. With a soft sigh, she closes her eyes. She can still hear his words in her mind.
"Something wrong?"
"No, dad. Nothing."
He frowned, and she knew he saw through her lie. "I don't think so, Kiki. I know you. Going home before lunch is not you. What happened? Is Seth okay?"
She hates that her dad doesn't think of Ryan as her second child, not the way she does. He still thinks of him as someone who shares their home, who eats their food and spends their money. She hates that about her father.
However, when she burst into tears, her father hugged her and pet her hair, whispering comforting words into her ear. Something he hadn't done since she was child.
She explained, in between muffled words and tears, that Ryan was missing.
"It's ok. Everything will be ok, Kiki. I promise you."
She swallowed thickly. He hadn't mentioned Ryan's name, he hadn't told her that her son would be found. Caleb wouldn't do that.
But he hugged her and petted her hair and she let herself be calmed down, reassured by her father.
Calmer, she takes a deep breath, slowly through barely parted lips.
Kirsten opens her eyes, blue eyes staring forward onto the road as another pair of blue sees the ceiling of room 526 for the first time.
Emma opens her eyes, blinking, confused.
Sarah walks down the hall, soda in hand. It's the second one in the day even though it's only ten in the morning. She knows she shouldn't be drinking, not coke at least. Emma always worries about Sarah's blood pressure, which tends to rise with sugar, and her cholesterol, which would be grateful for a diet. Losing twenty pounds wouldn't kill her.
Water, Emma always tells her, water it's better for you.
Sarah's heart clenches for a second and it's hard for her to breath. She pauses, hand reaching for the wall, and takes a deep breath. She's fine, Sarah tells herself. She's fine. She's here, with me. She's here. She's just... she just needs to open her eyes. I know that. She just needs to open her eyes.
This is harder than Sarah imagined. This. Watching Emma lying down in that bed, breathing slowly, like every second might be the last. In her heart, Sarah knows Emma will come back to her. She knows. She knows this... stunt Emma is pulling is just her being a smart ass. Emma is making her suffer.
Don't do it anymore, Sarah thinks. Stop it. Just wake up.
Taking another deep breath, Sarah walks into the room, ready to pick up where she left off in that book, even if it'll give her nightmares again tonight.
Blue eyes are blinking, staring up at the ceiling. Sarah's heart pauses and she feels like screaming. Her grip on the coke tightens.
"Emma?" Sarah's voice shakes in that single word.
It takes Emma a moment before she turns to her right and sees Sarah there, standing by the door, coke in hand, looking like she's about to faint.
Emma can only smile, her voice raspy and dry. "Hey, babe."
Thursday night, Seth lays down on his bed, one hand under the pillow, eyes wide open. He doesn't think he could get any sleep with a gallon of Ritalin, not that he knows what Ritalin is for, or anything. He can't help but think about the conversation at the table, his dad's words. His mother crying.
Lately, his mother's eyes have stayed blood shot, and Seth really can't blame her. He feels like he's dying half the time. He feels like he should be dead by now.
Seth doesn't think it was good news, considering they barely found out anything at all. The PI is still looking for any sign of Ryan, or Theresa. He'll keep looking until he finds them, his parents have told him. He'll keep looking.
Seth has a strange feeling in his gut, like a void, black and bottomless, that the guy won't find anything.If they find Ryan--No, no, when they find Ryan. When they find Ryan. When they find Ryan, Seth knows it won't be the PI's work. It'll be something else. A bright light at the end of the tunnel kinda deal.
It'll be someone else's doing.
Not Seth, because he really has no idea where to start looking. Not that he hasn't thought about going on foot, no transportation at his disposal at the moment, and look around Newport for Ryan. But Ryan's not in Newport. If he were... if Ryan was in Newport, he would have come home by now. He knows this. Ryan would have come home, if he was in Newport. And Ryan should have called, because it's not like Ryan not to call his parents, to make them worry.
Seth's heart tightens, and not for the first time he thinks about Ryan, dead in some alley, no one to claim his body, and it feels like he's dying all over again. He chokes back a sob, fist going to his mouth to keep himself quiet, his father's words running through his mind.
Arturo, Theresa's brother, was found. He's doing time for robbery with a blunt weapon, and don't all kids from Chino get busted at one time or the other. Then again, it was Ryan getting busted that brought him into Seth's life, so he's not about to complain, or talk trash about Trey asking Ryan to go with him to steal a car. Actually, he should thank Trey. If not for him, he would still be Cohen, and not Seth.
His dad talks about Arturo's imprisonment while Seth sits there, listening, doing nothing. It has become somewhat his ammo, to do nothing.
Arturo had done a job with a guy called Gata that had gone wrong, landing him in jail. That had been on the twenty first of July, almost two weeks ago. A week later, his mom had gone to visit him and told Arturo she was moving to Miami with a comadre because the grass is always greener on the other side.
If watching Telenovelas has taught him something, it is a Spanish word here and there. And comadre is one of them. A very close friend of hers. Oh, right, and that Theresa and Ryan had left. Just like that. Nothing more. Arturo has no idea where his pregnant sister and the quasi father of the baby she's expecting have gone. Meaningless information, if they asked Seth, because they were back where they started.
Ryan's missing and they have no idea where he's run off to -- and hasn't running off to some deserted place become somewhat of a habit in this family?
And maybe it's karmic balance coming to bite Seth in the ass, because suddenly he feels like Theresa when the Atwoods left home. One day, Ryan was there. The next, poof, gone. It has to be karmic balance, asking for Seth to be on the other side of the road, to watch, powerless, what Theresa had to suffer. He knows now what it feels to be the one left behind. He knows, and it hurts like hell.
Seth swallows thickly, pushing back the covers and jumps off the bed. His hands shake and it feels like he has to do something. Anything, really, but something that's not laying down on his bed and pretending it doesn't kill him not to know about Ryan.
He stands in the middle of the room, wanting to move but not knowing where to go. In an impulse, he walks to the window and pushes the curtains back to look outside. The pool house is barely sixty feet from where he's standing, and he can see it clearly from his window. He could always see it clearly from his window, knowing the exact moment when Ryan would turn off the lights and go to bed.
But now, at barely eleven at night, the light is turned off. The curtains are pulled down. The door is closed. No one is inside. No one has been inside for the entire summer, almost three months. No one has been inside, and Seth misses it. He misses the light turned on, the knowledge that Ryan was downstairs if he ever needed him.
Seth misses his best friend. His eyes burn, and he shuts them, trying his best to pretend it doesn't hurt. He can't. He leans forward, forehead touching the window, hand clenching at the windowsill, and he tells himself they'll find him. They have to.
Seth can't live otherwise.
Sunday night, August 15th, Sarah tilts her head, hand tightening its grip on Emma's hand.
"I love you," she whispers, and it seems like she can't stop herself from saying it.
Emma smiles, grimacing as she does so. Every muscle seems to hurt, even almost a week after waking up. "I know. Me too."
"Scared the shit out of me."
Emma sighs. "I know."
Sarah nods, her free hand going to her eyes, scratching her eyelids, hiding the fact that they had started to tear up. "Yeah, well, don't do that again."
A low chuckle before Emma starts coughing. "Don't do that. It hurts."
Sarah nods, silence falling between them.
Emma knows it's comfortable silence, the kind one is used to after spending four years with someone, but she also knows Sarah's scared. She doesn't like that, Sarah scared. Sarah's tough, and strong, and the rock that has kept her going though thick and thin. She can't have her baby scared.
"So," Emma says, her voice still raspy, "you read to me, huh?"
A snort. "Yeah, well, I was getting bored talking to a wall."
"What did you read?"
"Almost everything you have."
One eyebrow lifts and Sarah sighs.
"Yeah, well, not everything. A lot, though. Astronomy."
Emma smiles, her face seeming tired but her eyes wide open. "Astronomy? You don't like--"
"I know that, but you like it." She shrugs, squeezing Emma's hand. "I thought you'd like that."
"I did. I do." A smile. "Thanks. So, what else?"
Sarah chuckles, shaking her head. "A little bit of Poe, about two poems of Baudelaire." She pauses before sighing. "And Stephen King."
Emma gasps, and she starts to cough. Sarah hands her a cup of water and Emma takes it gratefully. "Sorry."
"Be more careful. I want you on your feet soon, huh?"
"Yeah, well." She waves it off dismissively, like she's talking about taking out the garbage, which she always forgets to anyway. "Back to the subject. King?"
Sarah tilts her head, lifting one eyebrow. "What else was I supposed to read? I wasn't going to do Sartre, so it was Stephen or Reader's Digest."
Emma chuckles. "Sorry, babe. Get scared?"
A strong and emphatic shake of a dark haired head. "Nope, not at all."
Emma waits and it doesn't take more than two seconds before Sarah sighs.
"Yeah, well, I slept here with you. Holding your hand."
Emma nods. "That's my girl," she says, squeezing Sarah's hand. "Love you," she whispers.
Sarah smiles back. "You too."
Seth tilts his head, the back of his eyes starting to hurt, but he pays no attention. He forces himself to read, to focus on the words.
"--but one he had never really believed. Subconscious? Well, there was something down there all right, but Bill thought people had made much too big a deal out of a function which was probably the mental--"
Seth groans, shaking his head. He can't remember what the last two lines meant. He reads the paragraph again.
"Elegant answer, that, but one he had never really believed. Subconscious? Well, there was something down there all right, but Bill thought people--"
Another shake of his head, a groan sounds low in the back of his throat, and he throws the book onto the coffee table. It tumbles, pages wide open, and then falls to the floor. Seth closes his eyes, palms covering them, and he takes deep shallow breaths. His brain seems to be a bundle of thoughts and images, nothing certain, nothing true, but everything coming at once. Everything.
He seems to be thinking and seeing everything at once.
He remembers sitting on the floor, controller in hand, when this boy (not even quite a boy, but almost a man) walked into the room, head a mess of blondish hair and wife beater tight. Seth remembers thinking This has to be the kid my dad brought home, because his mom had woke him, bright an early, to warn him, talk to him about his dad's compulsive behavior and new found love for stranded puppies.
For Seth, it had been quite the surprise. Not that he was expecting some three hundred pound ex-con with tattoos on his arms and the back of his neck, but this boy? This guy? That was not what Seth had been expecting.There was something about him, something that screamed friendship, and good, and nice. In that moment, Seth knew he could like this guy. He could love this guy. So he did the only peace offering he knew. He extended his hand and asked the kid if he played. What he received in return was a friend. His best friend.
Seth's heart clenches and it feels like it might stop now, this second, and then it beats again and Seth wonders why God is punishing him like this.
First, Ryan had to leave. He got that, he really did. For the bigger picture, the baby who deserved a father, and all that crap. Seth might have taken the coward route about it, leaving the way he did, right after Ryan did, but he did get it.
He really did. If that wasn't enough, if giving up his best friend, the only person who actually completes him, to a woman with a child that might not even be his, Seth had to lose him. As in the whole meaning of the word. That is down right ironic, and not at all fair.
Images blur together, one after another.
Ryan going back home, and Seth hurting because of a boy he wasn't even supposed to be close to. Ryan coming back, barely two hours after, and Seth feeling like he found home once again. Running away, hiding Ryan, because Seth would have done anything to keep him. The model home burning down, Ryan going to jail. Ryan's mom coming. Seth's mom deciding Ryan would stay, once and for all. For real. Forever. The cotillion, the two of them, as Cohens, finally. Luke getting shot, Tijuana, Chrismukkah, New Year's Eve.Nine months in barely seconds go by and Seth doesn't know how he keeps on breathing.
Seth shakes his head, tired of pretending, of telling himself today is a day like any other when, really, it's anything but.
It's past midnight and Seth has only been trying to read because he knows he won't be able to sleep. Not when it has been over a week (eight days, eleven hours and forty three minutes) since Seth had any peace of mind.
He walks out of the kitchen, already clad in pajama bottoms, and walks toward the pool house. He pauses before the door and it takes him a moment, two deep breaths and his own voice talking himself into it, to open it. A year ago today, Seth pushed Ryan away from him, thinking Ryan had been hitting on Summer.Seth sighs and stares inside. The sheets have been changed, dark blue instead of white. The dresser, which had once held pants and shirts, now is only occupied by towels. The kitchen's empty and there are no books lying on top of the nightstand.
He thinks of the fight, of Ryan coming to his rescue even though Seth had just pushed him away and announced to Newport he stole cars back in Chino. Still, Ryan came to save Seth. Seth couldn't have been more impressed by Ryan.
He frowns, eyes squinting slightly, before he closes his eyes. The burning feeling in the back of them means nothing. Nothing. Brown eyes open and he takes a seat on the edge of the bed.
Minutes tick by and Seth remembers taking a cab back home, Ryan and him with black eyes as a souvenir. Slowly, tiredly, he turns around and crawls to the top of the bed. He places one hand under the pillow, not caring about sleeping on top of the sheets.
Seth slept on a funny flowery looking couch on the side of the room while Ryan slept on the bed. Seth should have shared the bed with Ryan.
He closes his eyes, slowly drifting off to sleep, and on the anniversary of Ryan coming into his life Seth can almost hear Ryan breathing next to him.