8. FIELD

FIELD

I sat at my desk the next afternoon, writing a letter to Ryan that explained why I couldn’t tutor him any longer. It hadn’t been an easy conclusion to come to, but after laying in bed staring at the ceiling all night, I realized I couldn’t let him plague me like that.

Whether or not he was truthful or lying, I shouldn't be tangled up so tight by a boy who had bulldozed into my life with only a month left of school. I had plans to graduate, to move away, to experience life without the fears of my mother and the nagging of my father…somewhere far from the sounds of hospital beeping and feelings of needles poking my skin.

I couldn’t let a boy destroy my hope of freedom, not when I had come so far.

I had also re-written the letter four times, but none of the words came out properly. I hadn’t even gone to school today, avoiding him properly the best I could until I figured out how to tell him.

I was surprised he hadn’t shown up yet, banging on my door for answers. That seemed like the thing Ryan would do most. So I sat silently, trying to figure out exactly how to tell him all my feelings. Considering we weren’t even…anything to one another, it seemed stupid. I can no longer continue to assist Mr. Cody in his tutoring .

That sounded cold.

I have simply too much preparation to do for my exams and my school work, so I will no longer be able to help Ryan.

That sounded insensitive.

I hate that everyone stares at me when he’s around, and there’s never anywhere to hide.

I’m a massive coward.

There had been too many times before when everyone whispered, wanting to know why I had missed so much school and where I had gone. Mostly, the rumors were that I had gotten pregnant, and they sent me to a convent to purge me of my sins and have the baby in private. That one was hilarious.

But the rumors were just that, rumors.

I had been sick. They found a tumor in my lung.

But radiation was enough for me to go into remission and return to school after a month of recovery at home. Not to mention the multiple arguments between my parents over whether or not I should go back. Mom had wanted me to stay home, to finish my senior year from my bed…my cage. Dad suggested I go back, that the rumors of my absence had started to affect his re-election.

So I went back to school, and they went back to ignoring me.

But Ryan complicated everything. Tutoring him was one thing, having a crush on a boy like him… It was messy, to begin with, stupid. Even admitting that I had inklings of those feelings felt dangerous, but I couldn’t help myself. Every time he smiled at me, I forgot about the tumor, I forgot about the hospitals and the fighting. I forgot that there was a chance everything came crashing back down.

Ryan made me feel high, and it was terrifying.

So I had to stop tutoring him. I needed to stop seeing him because if this was a game to him- I set the pen down and sighed, staring at the botched letters as my stomach grumbled.

I tried several times, but nothing came out, so I pushed the papers aside and wandered downstairs. I ate a bowl of pasta on the island alone because Mom and Dad were out of town being friendly with the Governor or something. I didn’t really care.

The quiet was peaceful, giving me time to think through my decision and cement my reasoning for not entertaining this tutoring deal any longer. The school could get mad if they wanted, but ultimately, no one could force me to continue helping Ryan. He was practically halfway through his assignments anyway, so it’s not like it mattered.

He didn’t need me to help him at all. He just wanted to draw attention to himself.

I cleaned up my mess and grabbed a glass of water before making my way back to my room. I was trying to decide which movie to watch when I noticed a shadow moving under my closed door.

Someone was in my room…

I pressed my ear to the wood, scared it might be an intruder, but sighed when I heard his soft mumbling. I opened the door to him in time to see him crumble to the floor at the end of my bed.

“Ryan?” I said when he didn’t look up from his hands. “How did you get in my room?” I asked him. His dark blue t-shirt was ripped around the collar, his arms wrapped around his torso, and his legs stretched across my carpet. I would get yelled at later for the streaks of mud his cowboy boots left.

“I climbed up,” he grumbled, still not looking at me.

“Get out,” I huffed, “what is wrong with you? You can’t just climb into people’s windows.”

“Yeah… yeah, I’ll go—I, uh, this was dumb.” He pushed to get up off the floor and that's when I saw it, the state of his face.

A large misshapen bruise painted his freckled face, a tiny gash splitting his once-perfect skin in a mixture of angry red and dark maroon dried blood. I stepped forward, my heart betraying my mind and squeezing tightly at the sight of him.

“What happened?” I asked.

He groaned with every step he took toward the open window, and I knew there were more bruises concealed on his torso with each ginger movement.

“It doesn’t matter,” he shook his head, strands of hair sticking to his cut cheek. “It’s obvious that you don’t want me here, I just—”

“You just what?” I said, setting the glass of water on my table and getting closer to him as he stepped away awkwardly.

“I started walking and ended up here." He confessed, turning around to meet my eyes. His eyes were red, and it only made the green of his irises brighter, almost painful in a way. The bruise on his cheek spread across the base of his eye, and a few broken vessels spidered across the white.

“Sit down,” I said, pointing to the chair at my desk.

Ryan hesitated for a moment, unsure of my change in tone, but when I snapped my fingers, he shuffled his way and slumped down into the chair. I left the bedroom and found the first aid kit under my bathroom sink, taking a short moment to catch my breath before running a cloth under some warm water and returning it to him.

“Did you mean this?” He asked, his shaky fingers holding onto one of the half-finished letters. I hadn’t meant for him to see those, and I cursed under my breath at my ignorance. I shook my head and wandered over to him, setting down the bag.

“Head up,” I tapped gently under his chin, and he listened. His eyes trained on me as I moved around and dug out some things from the kit. “This is going to sting,” I said, dabbing a warm cloth to his cheek to clean away the dried blood.

His hand clenched around the scattered papers on the desk, but he never closed his eyes, even as his body tensed and his jaw tightened. Ryan continued to watch me.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” I asked him again.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll leave when you’re done. I won’t bug you anymore.” He said in a string of careful, tight words.

“Ryan,” I said, but he stopped me, his fingers wrapping around my wrist, pushing my hand away from his face so he could stand up.

He hovered over me, his hands at his side and his eyes rolling over my face. “What did I do?”

The question caught me off guard. Maybe I had expected him to defend himself or make excuses, but even after reading the fragments of letters I never finished, he still didn’t know. Or maybe he just didn’t understand because I was wrong.

“I meant everything I said, Rae.” His bottom lip shook, and I noticed another small bruise forming around the corner. “I just don’t know what happened in between…”

The Ferris wheel and tonight.

“Alright, stop, just for a second.” I put my hands up, “I want to know what happened to you before anything else.”

Ryan ran a hand through his hair, followed by a strangled whimper as his body stretched awkwardly. I wanted to know how bad it was but wasn’t brave enough to ask. My eyes flickered back up to his, and he was still watching me nervously. And it was only when he looked away that confirmed there was more damage he was concealing.

“After you didn’t come out of the bathroom, I knew I had screwed something up, so I went and got drunk with Landry. It was stupid, but I was—” he stopped and shook his head, “I was sad.” He said. “I didn’t know what I did, but I knew you were mad at me. There’s no way you’d just vanish like that. And then I sat in the library all morning knowing you had a free period before lunch, but you never came in.”

“I stayed out sick,” I said quietly.

“I know," he said in a stuttered voice, "I know that now. I skipped my afternoon classes cause I was mad at you and myself for not trying harder. I was pissed off and confused, so I went home, and my Dad found out,” he said. “We got in a fight.”

“A fight?” I said, my brows coming together in disbelief, “or a beating?” I asked him.

He looked at me for a long moment, his eyes so dark I could barely tell they were green. “It doesn’t matter. I walked away, and I walked until I ended up on your lawn without thinking.”

“You were mad at me?” I scoffed.

“Yeah, I was, Rae!” Ryan said with conviction, “no matter what I do to show you I love you, you don’t believe me!” He argued.

“You can’t love someone after seven days, Ryan!” I said. “And because that’s true, it means you’re playing games with me! Everyone sees it! Cadence—”

“That’s why you took off? Cadence, Georgia, and Paisley? Those girls are nothing but rude, cruel chickens, pecking and clucking, and if that’s not where you were going with that sentence, I don’t wanna hear it, Rae. They hold no weight in this conversation. It’s you and me. ”

The tone of his voice was more serious than I had ever heard him be.

“I love you, Lorraine Field. I knew it the second you turned those angry, terrified, blue eyes on me that day. I believe it, and every day you don’t breaks my heart a little more! I am going to run out of glue trying to put it back together.” His hands grabbed my face, his jaw ticking in pain from the movement. "Why do you listen to everyone else's noise but you never wanna listen to me?”

“I’m scared,” I said to him, and his features softened with a shaky exhale. “You scare me.”