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When the doorbell chimes, she’s just gotten comfortable in the corner of the living room couch and pressed play on her Bring It On dvd. Grumbling at the timing but eager at the idea of sitting down with a slice of greasy pizza in moments, she propels herself forward, pausing the movie she’s only just started.
“Coming,” she says from afar, slipping on her slides. After ditching the after party, all she wants to be is comfortable.
Picking up cash from Neil’s wallet, she opens one of the French doors. “Hi.”
She never would’ve expected the person on the other side of the door to be Ryan, tie loosely hanging from his neck, shirt untucked, and his hands carrying two pizza boxes.
“H-hey,” he greets.
Her eyebrows raise, eyes picking up a delivery car driving away in the distance. Going for levity, she asks, “Since when do you deliver pizza?”
Ryan grins. “Tonight would be the first.”
She nods, biting her lip. Having him back in her life in the limited capacity he’s taken up lately has been… nice. Nice enough anyway. She hasn’t let herself analyze it beyond surface-level agreeance quite yet. “How much do I owe you?”
“Oh,” he says nervously, rocking on the balls of his feet. “Don’t worry about it.”
Marissa frowns. “It’s Neil’s money. For emergencies.”
He blinks. “Emergency?”
She acquiesces, avoiding his gaze. “I mean, like, in case we don’t wanna cook.” She doesn’t want him thinking she’d fled the party crying her eyes out.
Ryan nods, accepting the two twenties she shoves in his hand. Tilting his head, he gestures to the boxes.
“Right,” Marissa says, shaking her head. “You can set them down inside.”
“Kitchen?” he asks, taking a few steps into the foyer before turning left. Him knowing this house is yet another reminder of the before. The time she consciously avoids revisiting.
“No,” she replies, walking in the opposite direction. “Living room is fine.”
With a shrug, he follows her directive, trying not to study the slope of her back as she walks ahead of him. Her camisole hits right above her hip and he can see the lower ring of her tattoo. Shaking his head, he tries not to dwell on the memory of how he first discovered it or how ticklish she is there when he kisses–
“Ry?” Marissa asks, turning around. “You okay?”
“Y– yeah,” he says, trying to recover. “Uh, you–” he sets the pizza boxes down on the coffee table. “Your sweatpants.”
Her eyebrows raise in confusion before her gaze moves to her pants. They’re a pale grey. Definitely a bit loose and hanging low on her hips but nothing out of the ordinary. “What about th–” she starts, but then it clicks. “Oh.”
They’re his. And one of his favorite pairs. She realizes, her cheeks burning, that he must’ve left them behind months ago when he stayed over.
Swallowing a lump in her throat, she meets his eye. “Do you want them back?” She tries not to make it sound flirty, but it comes out anyway.
Ryan can’t help but smirk, grateful for the turn. “No.”
With a victorious grin she sits down on the couch, ignoring her own pivot in tone, opening the first box containing her breadsticks. “So what’s up?”
Watching her open a marinara sauce, he leans on the edge of the sofa. “No plates?”
She shrugs, gesturing upstairs. “They’re asleep. I’ll clean up in the morning.”
For some reason it makes him chuckle. She narrows her eyes playfully.
“So…” Marissa says again, gesturing to his presence in her living room.
“Right, right,” he replies, nervously running a hand over his loosened tie. “I, um–” he takes a breath, “I wanted to see how you were doing.”
She nods, eyes averted.
“And,” he adds hastily, “Uh, Seth told me to meet him here.”
Her brows raise in question. “Why?”
“Summer’s still sick at the Bait Shop.”
She looks at him, shoulders shrugged. That still doesn’t make sense. “Okay…”
“I don’t know why. I’ll ask when he gets here.”
Marissa leans back into the sofa cushions, confused. “How’d you get here if he still has the limo?”
“How did you?” He counters.
“Cab,” she says, and he nods in tandem. Her brow furrows. “Where’s Theresa?”
Ryan moves to sit on the couch when she gestures that he should, far enough away so that their sides don’t touch. “Home.”
Marissa nods, thinking, eyes moving to the pizza. “Have some if you want.”
His eyes meet hers and he nods in gratitude, reaching forward to open the second box. “You always did like plain cheese.”
She grins, reaching for a slice. She definitely does not feel anything whatsoever when their hands accidentally touch, Ryan’s hand dropping the sweet pepper he just picked up. He says nothing, picking it up again and popping it in his mouth. She’s sure whatever wave of electricity that went through her was because of the air conditioning turning on. Sure.
“You seem okay,” he comments, biting into his slice. “Not–”
“Not at the bottom of a bottle?” she asks with an edge to her voice, setting her slice down and sipping her soda.
“That’s not what I was thinking,” Ryan says, his cheeks flaming.
She looks over at him briefly, wondering if it was a lie. She presses play on the remote, resuming Bring It On to ease the tension. She takes a long sip of her sprite, thinking. “Sorry, you were just being nice.”
She can see from the periphery of her vision that he shrugs, eyeing her too. “It’s okay.”
Criss-crossing her legs, she moves hair out of her face. “It’s not. I shouldn’t presume that you were presuming.”
Marissa turns to face Ryan as she says it, her eyes taking him in. She hasn’t been allowed to look at him like this in so long. The curve of his jaw, the crinkle he gets in the corner of his eye.
“You left pretty abruptly,” he says, his leg moving up and down in what she realizes is nervousness.
She nods. “It just felt like, I don’t know, like I didn’t belong there. Everyone was having fun and all I wanted to do was be… nowhere.”
She didn’t mean to share all of that. But for some reason she didn’t want Ryan to think Kevin’s wayward behavior was the reason she felt so lost. Of course, though, it didn’t help.
He turns to her, his eyes boring into hers. “You didn’t deserve what happened.”
She purses her lips. “No, but–”
“No, Marissa, he fucking– he fucking sucks. Always has.”
She lets out a tight-lipped smile, nodding. “Yeah.”
Their eyes meet again and she knows what words are just on the tip of his tongue. How could you ever be with someone like that?
With a shrug, she breaks their gaze. I don’t know.
The movie keeps playing, but for the first time in her life she can’t keep her focus on it. “The partying wasn’t good for me, but he… he wasn’t all that bad. When things were quiet.” Ryan’s brows furrow, and Marissa picks at another slice of pizza. “Now that I think about it, we never did say we were exclusive.”
“That doesn’t excuse it.”
“No, it doesn’t. Not at prom.”
“Not anywhere.”
She smiles softly, eyes bright. “Thanks, Ry.”
Turning to the screen, Marissa leans back into the couch. “This is a perfect movie.”
“Mm, don’t tell Seth.”
“His judgment can’t be trusted anyway.”
“True,” Ryan agrees. “What was it that happened the last time we watched? He got his DS out, right? When was that?”
She nods, remembering. “He did. Zelda I think. And,” she thinks, “It was the week after New Year’s.”
His eyes linger on her, and she feels a warmth radiate off them both. Minutes after the clock struck midnight was the last time he’d told her he loved her, sitting on the dock by the yacht club where their parents had hosted a soiree. Fireworks went off in the distance and he’d held her tighter, his sport coat draped over her shoulders. It’d been easy.
Marissa blinks, the memory washing over her. He’d been so sweet, the words holding just as much weight as they always had.
Her phone rings in the distance, and it brings her back to the present.
“Fuck,” she murmurs, “Where’s my phone?”
Ryan blinks, shaken too, adjusting his tie before deciding to remove it completely. “Uh, kitchen?”
She nods, getting up to look for it, grateful for the interruption. Falling deeper into the mythology of their past probably isn’t smart. She’s sure he feels similarly.
Walking into the kitchen, she vaguely remembers dumping her clutch on the counter before rushing upstairs to change. Picking up her ringing phone, she sees Seth’s contact appear. “Hey, Cohen.”
“Marissa, hey,” he greets, and she hears muffled music on his end.
“So you’re still at the Bait Shop?”
“Yeah. I wanted to leave like an hour ago but my little party animal kept passing out and then sneaking more drinks when I went to get her water.”
She nods. “Sum’s an unruly partier.”
“And I’m blessedly only just finding this out now, thanks,” he says sarcastically.
Marissa shrugs. “Now you know why she doesn’t do it that often.” She knows Sum’s stance on backing away from the party scene they used to inhabit, but she can’t deny that it was funny seeing her best friend let loose again. “What’s up, Cohen? Should I expect you soon?”
“I– I don’t know,” he responds, “I’m not sure if I should wake her or not. And I can’t find Ryan anywhere.”
She blinks, looking off to the living room. “What?”
“Should I wake her?”
Marissa shakes her head into focus. “How bad is it?”
“She’s slumped in a booth now.”
“Sitting up?”
“Yeah. She keeps moving, and I have to– but yeah, yeah she’s sitting up.”
“Okay, that’s good. Keep giving her water.”
“Okay,” Seth agrees. “I swear he was just here. But I guess he could’ve left with–”
“His date?” Marissa offers, a touch more snidely than she intended. She rolls her eyes at herself.
“Perhaps,” he says. “We can unpack that later if you want.”
“Sounds fun,” she volleys sarcastically. Her eyes move to the living room. If Ryan lied about meeting Seth at the house, he must’ve done so for a reason. “I think– I think you should wait another hour maybe. If you can stand it.”
There’s a door closed on Seth’s end. “Okay, see you then. Maybe he went home.”
Marissa nods, her mind racing. “I’m sure you’ll find him.”
Walking back to the living room, she eyes Ryan on the couch. “It was Seth.”
“Everything okay?” he asks.
Marissa nods, sitting back on her side. “Yeah, Sum’s just… she had too much fun, I think.”
Ryan chuckles. “I’ve never seen her like that.”
“Didn’t you? Your first Newport party?”
“Oh, right. How could I forget?”
She smirks, looking back to the tv. “You didn’t have to pause the movie.”
He only shrugs in response.
It makes her smile.
Marissa reaches for the remote to press ‘play’ but hovers over the button, thinking. Sitting back, she turns to Ryan fully, folding her legs beneath her. She bites her lip, wondering if she should say it. But then Ryan’s looking at her too, his eyes studying her up and down. They’re friends, they are. “Why did you lie about Seth?”
His eyes widen just a fraction, cheeks pink.
She gulps, trying to keep her hopes at bay.
“I–”
“Because it’s okay that you did. I just want to know.”
Ryan nods, fussing with his tie again in his hands. He takes a moment to gather his thoughts before meeting her gaze again. “I wanted to see you.”
Marissa nods in turn, saying gently, “Yeah, I got that.”
He smiles softly. “I wanted to see how you were doing. Like… actually doing. Not just saying you’re fine.”
She reaches for the piece of pizza crust she threw into the box earlier. “You could’ve just said that.”
He shrugs, tossing the tie onto the table. “You know how it is with us.”
“I guess.”
“I just– talking to you… being your friend this time… it’s strange.”
Her brows raise, a smirk appearing on her lips. “Of course it is. It always is.”
Ryan reaches for a pepper in the corner of the pizza box. “I think it’s hard to not,” he starts. “It’s hard for me to not care in a different kind of way.”
“I’m– I don’t get it.”
He looks at her, expression changing. “I don’t know how to just be your friend. I feel like that line gets–”
“Blurry,” she offers, understanding. Her cheeks redden too.
“Yeah,” he says, relieved. He seems surprised he said it at all.
She takes a moment to think it over. It’s hard for her too. Her thoughts go to the hours previous, thinking that she can be honest if he was. “I don’t– I didn’t like how I was feeling when I saw Theresa tonight.”
Ryan’s eyes meet hers, and she sighs, blinking.
“I’m not proud of it. I actually like her, so it’s not because I have anything against her. It’s just–”
“Strange?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she says, letting out a small laugh.
“I think that ship has sailed,” he says. “I thought that bringing her tonight might make me feel different.” She cringes to herself and hopes he doesn’t see. “But it didn’t feel right.”
Marissa takes this in. She hopes the relief that courses through her veins at the admission doesn’t show across her face. Her feelings about Theresa have always been so complicated. At times she’s wanted to hate her, but she never could bring herself to actually feel it. “You guys went through a lot,” she says.
He shrugs. “Yes and no.”
Her gaze meets his, brows raised.
“Well sure,” he amends, chuckling. “But the kind of relief I felt when I found out he wasn’t mine, phew.” He blows out a breath. “I’m– I’m not proud of that.”
Marissa shrugs. “You’re allowed to feel those things.”
He looks like he’s considering her words, his eyes darting around the room. “I guess so.”
“No, Ryan,” she says, “You’re allowed to be relieved. It doesn’t mean you wouldn’t step up if things were different.”
He nods, his eyes finding her again. He looks at her longer than she expects, and she wonders if he feels that same pull she does. The one that she’s felt since she was sixteen. Even with everything that’s happened this year, her eyes will meet his and it’s as if she’s sitting atop a ferris wheel. It’s nice to be reminded of that now after feeling like she lost it for a while.
“I never– I never gave you enough credit for being so– so understanding of that whole thing.”
Pursing her lips, she looks down. “What’s done was done. It’s not like me being upset would’ve changed much.”
He wonders if he should push it but decides not to. “You– that whole time of my life was confusing. I hated it.”
“So did I.”
Their eyes meet again, and he remembers a series of silent phone calls, her ragged breaths mixed with the ocean waves in the background the only sound filling his ears for minutes on end. He never let himself think too much about how that summer broke her heart. No matter what he did he was letting someone down. Doing the right thing seemed to redefine itself over and over.
“I’m sorry about Johnny,” he says abruptly, and Marissa’s eyes perceptibly widen.
“What?”
Ryan looks to his lap. “I’ve thought about him more lately. And I really fucked that up.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I should’ve believed you. And I should’ve let you grieve in your own time.”
Marissa unfolds her legs and brings them to her chest, resting her crossed arms atop her knees. She never would’ve thought the evening would end like this, talking about this. A dismissal is on the tip of her tongue, but she can’t get the words out. For just a moment she wants to sit with what he’s said.
“I spent so much time blaming you,” he continues, like he can’t really stop. “Before and after the accident. Not to your face, but I held all this resentment. And I– I think I carried that over after we– when we broke up. I didn’t feel like myself for a while.”
She stares at him blankly, this part of him so foreign. She doesn’t think he’s ever spoken this plainly to her about anything before.
Clearing her throat, she licks her lips. “Why– why did you resent me?”
“It wasn’t you. I mean, I thought it was. And for a while I felt… comfortable in that? Like you were at fault for Johnny and I could just put all of that away in a box. Like I do with all the other shit,” he picks at the lint that’s accumulated on his tux. “But it was me. I was the reason you turned to him in the first place.”
Marissa swallows. Thinking back just a few months, she remembers just how much she relied on Johnny to be that sounding board. He never offered anything in the way of proactive solutions to her problems, but he listened. More than anyone else. And she became so protective of that.
“You did what you could,” she says diplomatically. “I made every problem of his my problem. And that–”
“Became a problem?” he supplies, smirking.
She smiles, grateful for the turn. “Yeah.” It feels good to look back and see it for what it was. Even her own culpability. “I never loved him. Not like that.”
She hopes that he’ll finally believe her.
Ryan meets her eye. “Okay.”
“He just became this thing that I felt responsible for. It– God, it totally snowballed. It makes me sick, looking back. And then after the accident I chose to ignore everything. So, you’re not the only one who carried stuff over.”
Marissa picks up her soda but doesn’t drink it, moving the straw around in a circle as she thinks. He rolls her words around in his head, overwhelmed by how much he’s already shared. He didn’t expect to. Maybe it’s sitting with her in the Roberts’ living room eating pizza and watching Bring It On like it’s November and everything is fine. He gets a better look at her, face scrubbed clean and curly prom hair up in a ponytail. It’s like he blinked at Chrismukkah and now they’re here.
She presses ‘play’ on the remote, eyes lighting up again when it resumes. It’s nice seeing her like this again. He could sit here all night with her. It’s a comforting realization.
Looking at the pizza box, she says, “Have the last slice.”
“Only if you have the crust.”
Marissa smiles softly. Their routine from not long ago. She nods, pulling the slice apart to give him the other part. This time, when their fingers brush, she doesn’t pull away as if it’s burned her. Neither does he. She remembers his touch like a spark to her system.
Ryan looks at their hands touching ever so briefly, his own thoughts moving a mile a minute. He catches her sweatpants dipping even further and isn’t as quick to try and avert his eyes this time. She catches his eye then, smirking and pulling away to move them up with her free hand.
He blinks, only slightly disappointed.
She turns back to the tv, amused. Still feels his eye on her. It makes her cheeks warm. “Sum and I used to reenact the cheers,” she says to break the tension.
“Oh yeah?” he asks, sitting back, eyes drifting upward to the screen again. He remembers hearing about that at some point.
Marissa chuckles. “Yeah. We were so bad, though.”
“I doubt it,” he says kindly.
She rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “It was bad, Ry.”
He smiles.
Marissa’s phone chirps from the coffee table in front of them. She picks it up. “Hmm, they’re on their way.”
“Cool,” he replies.
She bites her lip, remembering what he’d said earlier. Thinks back to how much they’ve covered tonight. It’s so much more than she ever expected, especially considering how fractured they became toward the end. She sighs. I don’t want you to go. She doesn’t say it, but she rolls the words around in her head.
“Seth’s probably staying here,” she announces. “I assume so, at least. He sounded like he liked taking care of Sum.”
“Won’t Neil be mad?”
Marissa shrugs. “I think Neil likes fucking with him for the most part.”
Ryan laughs at this.
“Seth’ll probably earn some good will by tending to her through the night. Neil’s the one who wants her to have more fun.”
His brows raise. “Huh.”
“Yeah, he’s cool.”
Ryan nods, remembering. “The time he caught me leaving before sunrise was awkward.”
“Oh Jesus,” Marissa says, putting a hand over her eyes. “I forgot about that.”
He chuckles. “It went better than if it was Seth.”
Smiling, she agrees. “Yeah.” Remembering what she was going to say, she turns to him. “If you want the couch, you can stay too.”
His brows raise in surprise.
“I mean, like, if you want. Because Seth is probably staying.”
Marissa looks away then, busying herself with her soda can. She moves the top of it back and forth until it breaks off.
“Okay,” he says. “It’s late anyway.”
She nods, running a hand over her bare shoulder. “We can get breakfast.”
Ryan gives her a soft smile. Like old times. He can’t help but hope the limo driver decides to take the long way.
“Only if I get those back,” he says, gesturing to her sweats.
Marissa purses her lips. “Maybe.”
His mouth opens. “Hey…”
She shrugs. “What’s done is done.”
He leans back into the couch cushions, content to stay in this moment with her. She looks over her shoulder at him, smiling. He knows she feels it too.
“We can share custody,” she jokes, sitting back too, her legs outstretched and resting her feet on the coffee table. “I’ll draw up the papers.”
Ryan chuckles. “I’ll file a motion for the wifebeaters too, then.”
Marissa grins. “No, those I’m unwilling to budge on.”
“The leather jacket?”
“Nope.”
“The Journey cds?”
“Those you can have.”
He laughs heartily, feeling it throughout his whole body. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt lighter.