A Life On The Edge

Thanksgiving

"Blake," Chris called as I walked into his office. "I need you to do me a favor."

"What?" I sighed exhausted from a long week.

"We're having trouble getting into contact with our side project. Make a detour over there and see if everything is okay. Take Bella and Erica with you." I frowned.

"Why Erica."

"Because I said so, now go."

**

"What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know." Kramer sighed. "He's just been laying there like that."

"For how long?"

"Since a few days before break started." It's been a couple days since the date with Lyle and everyone was gearing up for the stupid holiday of Thanksgiving. River was extremely excited and so was Tina. They had been buzzing around the house for days with decorations and talk about feasts. Lyle has been stuck in his head lately. Whether he wanted to admit it or not I could see that what was happening with Jennika was bothering him. I told him that I called Blake and told him to do with Jennika as he pleased. We're not really sure what he did and Lyle wasn't asking any questions.

Eddie apparently had some problems with his "boss" which was probably whoever he was reporting to all the time. And most likely the person he's been getting all these drugs from. The cocaine I saw him doing with Sadie that night, all the weed he sells. He has to be getting that from somewhere. So until the problem was resolved our date would be postponed and he seemed pretty serious about that. I think something went wrong, I haven't seen him around lately and to be honest it was really weird.

"Ryder," I grumbled as I looked at his slumped over form on the couch. He was scruffy from not shaving and it smelled as if he hadn't showered in days. "Come on you have to get up."

"No." he groaned. "Leave me alone."

"You're making the couch smell dude." Kramer sighed. I rolled my eyes as I watched him spray the couch along with Ryder with freshener. "That's better." He smiled.

"Go away." I grumbled trying to restrain myself. Kramer gave me a snide looked and walked off mumbling nonsense under his breath. "Ryder"

"Go away," he whined, my heart broke at the shakiness of his voice. I didn't see his face, he had it buried in the couch but I can tell now that he'd been crying. I sighed made use of the little room there was and crawled on the couch with him.

"What's wrong?" He didn't say anything. "I can't help if you don't tell me what's wrong."

"I don't want help, I want to wallow."

"Spiraling isn't fun. I know how terribly good it feels to just sit and wallow. To do nothing but think about the bad and the ugly, but it's not healthy. None of it is." He kept his silence. "I used to have a friend who could tell when I was like this just by the sound of my voice. He would come over and comfort me with movies and ice cream or keep his distance and give me space. Somehow he always knew what I needed. I'm not as good of a friend as he is. I'm not used to having relationships with...relatively normal people. I'm used to addicts and run away children with night terrors and crippling fears. So I'm sorry if I'm going about this the wrong way." I sighed and got up from the couch. I grabbed a hold of his ankles and pulled him off.

"Ouch! What the fuck!"

"Get the hell up!"

"Leave me alone Riley!"

"NO, it's Thanksgiving and I'm not going to let you spend it crying in bed. Now get up."

"I thought you hated thanksgiving."