Mending Ryan Falls ✓

43 | in which she calls her a bitch

Some people are just born,
With tragedy in their blood.

.\.|./.

Crystal Monroe

| in which she calls her a bitch |

I turn when he tells me to turn, my stomach doing somersaults the closer we get to the battlefield. I don't know what I'm scared of, since I've never met Ryan's mom. From what I've gotten to know about her, though, I have to admit ... I hate her freaking guts.

Ryan is anxious, but he seems to be clear that he wants to do this. This was not a plan of his before today, and he never mentioned wanting to see his mom. But if he wants to do this, I'm standing by him no matter what.

We have sandwiches on the way, devouring all our stock of water within the hour.

"I need to get some of my projects done or we won't even have money for gas," Ryan mumbles to himself.

"I could become a stripper," I suggest playfully, an innocent expression on my face.

Ryan snorts. "No thanks, Crystal."

I shrug. "Your call."

"Maybe I can become a stripper," he says.

"Shut it, Adonis Do you want to be a homewrecker?"

"Homewrecker?" He raises his eyebrows playfully.

"Yeah," I say without looking at him. "When the entire women population of the world falls in love with you and men decide they want you dead ... I don't think I can handle that drama."

Ryan laughs, taking my hand in his.

The neighborhood we turn into is quieter than most of the LA I have seen in the past eighteen hours or so. Ryan indicates for me to stop in front of a white-painted house. I park along the side of the road, wishing I hadn't had so much water to drink. The way my stomach keeps twisting, I feel I'm going to spill everything out.

I hope that if I puke, it's on Ryan's mom.

"Ready?" I ask when he makes no attempt to move.

The sun is beginning to decline and I'm afraid we'll be on the road again after nightfall. Ryan doesn't seem like he wants to face his mom, but wasting time here would land us on the road in the dark. Either that or we'll have to rent a motel for the night again, and the last thing I want is to spend another night in Los-freaking-Angeles.

Ryan inhales deeply and nods, before opening the door to get out of the car.

"Will you come with me?" he asks hopefully.

"Do you even need to ask?" I say, following him without wasting a single moment.

I don't know what the hell has happened to me, but having Ryan beside me makes me kind of fearless. After the way he handles me shooting Jeremy and somehow turned the tables on him and got him charged and me free of any charges, I think I can do anything and nothing bad will happen. He won't let anything bad happen.

As soon as I'm next to Ryan, he takes my hand and walks towards the looming front door of the house that looks unlike anything I imagined. It makes no sense, but when I heard about Ryan's past, I imagined him to come from a run-down slum where the houses were broken, doors hanging off their hinges and windowpanes cracked. I imagined stray dogs barking at passersby and piles of garbage cluttered everywhere.

I don't know why I had imagined it that way, but somehow, an educated, well-off family with standards and prosperity didn't seem to me like the kind of people who would sit back and allow their child to be abused by a stranger.