Infinite, Sometimes

14

"Ryface!"

Ryan looked up from his hands but he continued picking at his fingers. "Hey you."

"How ya doin'?" Ellen sat down next to Ryan and pulled herself up to the table. In the center of the table were several pieces of obviously fake fruit and a couple glass bottles that were arranged in a way that fell just short of not looking boring. "You beat me here this time. It's a race from now on, Boy."

Ryan smiled. "I'm good, actually. What did I miss in here?"

"A whole lot of nothing. Still life crap, I guess. I don't know, I can't draw. Whatcha got there?"

"Nothing." Ryan laid his hand on top of the folded square of paper he had been concentrating on.

"Sure looks like something."

"I haven't looked at it yet."

"Who's it from?"

"Brendon gave it to me a couple minutes ago."

"Why don't you just read it?"

Ryan shrugged and started to unfold the paper. "I will. I just... eh, I don't know, I'm going to."

"Yeah... so, did you do anything interesting last night? I managed to convince Spence to leave you alone. I swear, you should start calling him mom, because that's what he acts like."

Ryan smiled at the mention of his friend's personality, but he wasn't sure of what to say. The last thing he wanted to do was lie to Ellen, but he wanted to lie to her just as much as he wanted to tell the truth. "If I tell you some shit can you promise to not say anything to anyone?"

"Spence?"

Ryan shook his head. "I'll probably tell him myself. At least, I want to, anyway. Just don't say anything, please?"

"You know I wouldn't do that to ya, Ry. But you've pretty much set yourself up to tell me something important."

"I know."

"What's going on, Ry?"

Ryan pressed his cheek into his hand to support his head as he rested his elbow on the table. His eyes were still focused on the folded sheet of paper that he twisted around in his fingers. "Bren actually came over last night."

"Really? How'd that happen?"

"His mom pretty much found out about him skipping yesterday and he said she freaked out or whatever and told him to leave."

"So he went to you." Ellen hid her smile by pretending to dig around her purse for the pencil that she had already located.

Ryan nodded. "After what his brother said on the way to school today, I don't even know what happened or if it was even that bad, but he was just a mess last night regardless of what went on."

"Poor kid... what did you do for him?"

"I don't know, really." Blatant lie, Ross. What the hell are you doing? "We just laid there and listened to music. Talked, whatever, I don't know."

"Oh. What did you listen to?"

"He wanted to listen to Nine Inch Nails. Hurt, specifically, and we kept it on repeat until we woke up. Hell, I don't even know if I remembered to turn it off before we left. He really likes that song."

"Hold on, he stayed at your house?"

Ryan looked at Ellen as if he had insulted her. "I'm sorry."

"Why would you be sorry for that?"

"Sorry—um, no, sorry, I don't know... last night was just probably the strangest night of my life. I... I don't know."