Mending Ryan Falls ✓

12 | in which he sees past her walls

She's a maze,
With no escape.

.\.|./.

Ryan Falls

|in which he sees past her walls|

Sometimes God grants us second chances.

Chances to fix things we never planned on breaking.

Make up for mistakes we never intended on making.

Maybe that's why coincidences happen.

Coincidences aren't accidents at all. They're the universe's way of redirecting our attention towards what matters.

Why else would I be seeing her again and again? First at Kobuk cafe, then at the hospital, now here. What are the chances that in a state of over seven hundred thousand people, it would be her car I threw myself in front of? There has to be something else. There has to be another explanation.

If I had known it would take another painful injury to see her again, I would have thrown myself down the stairs over a week ago.

Maybe she's like those little guardian angels God sends down to watch over the people he cares about.

I hardly know her. Okay, actually I don't know her at all. I don't know her name, or who she is, or why she keeps popping up into my solitary life uninvited.

I admit, it was I who threw myself in her way last time, but this time must be my chance of making up for the mess I caused for her. It's not easy knowing you're responsible for someone else's pain. Decent people don't want that. Decent people would rather be hurt in themselves than hurt others.

The world doesn't have many decent people.

I'm lucky I found one of the rare ones.

She's one of those decent people, as far as I can tell. She's got those vibes, and I've learned to trust my vibes. When your gut tells you to stay away from someone, obey. When your heart tells you to trust someone, don't just do it because you feel like it. It's easier to love than it is to trust. Maybe that's why the latter hurts more than the former.

For this reason, though, I think she feels bad for what happened to me. She's here, helping me and trying to make up for what she thinks was her fault. It wasn't, but she doesn't know that. I have a sense she blames herself for hitting me with her car, just like I blame myself for hitting her car with myself. The only difference here is, my guilt is justified and hers ill-placed.

She's not like most people I encounter. Or most girls I encounter, to be exact. Back in LA, almost every girl who was in close proximity to me wanted to get a piece of the action. Who am I? What do I do? What do I like? Do I have a girlfriend? These were just a few of the questions they all asked me sooner or later.

I was a mystery, and they expected me to be the cliché. Hot guy, secrets, dark aura -- bad boy. That was the impression everyone had of me.

How freaking wrong they were.

This girl, though, doesn't look at me like she wants to know me. She looks like she would rather forget she ever saw me and go back into whatever hole she just crawled out of.

That's what surprises me about her, just like the last three times I saw her. She doesn't want to be here, yet she is. The worry in her eyes, the panic etched into every subtle line of her face ... She doesn't know me. Why then is she so concerned? Why is she here?

I haven't stopped thinking about her, not like in a I-want-to-get-into-her-pants kinda way, but rather like I-want-to-apologize-for-being-an-asshole kinda way. I didn't want to be a dick to Olivia, so I kept my thoughts to myself, but I was far from okay with the way she treated this girl that morning.