Mending Ryan Falls ✓

6 | in which he whimpers like a girl

I'm that seven-year-old again. The same seven-year-old who wept blindfolded and hand-tied in that dark and hot basement with the soundproof walls that absorbed my screams, and the darkness that caged me.

His hands on my hips and the first blow hurts. I gasp out in pain, feeling nothing but pain.

Pain.

Only pain.

Too much pain.

My eyes snap open, and the bunch of fluorescent lights on top of my head, set in a wide circle nearly blind me. My breathing comes ragged, but the smell of phenyl and Tylenol soothes my lungs. I would pick this over cardamon any day. I'm panting like I just ran a thousand miles, or perhaps resurfaced after a near-drowning experience. I might just have drowned.

What bothers me is the numbness. I shouldn't be numb. I'm awake. I should be trembling and sobbing into my pillow, struggling to fight off the panic pulling me under. I should be alone too, in my bed in my apartment with no one to watch me break down each night.

Instead, I'm here, lying face-up in a bed that doesn't feel like mine, in a room that doesn't look like mine, and feeling utterly exposed in front of whoever is sobbing by my bedside.

Blinking back the tears, I try to move my head in her direction and see who it is, but my head is not in my control. It is weighed down by the amount of bandages wrapped around it as if to mummify it. When I try to move my hand, I find that my arm is in the same state.

Hating the helplessness already, I attempt to yell out. It doesn't come on. What comes out of my mouth is a sound halfway between a pained groan and a girly whimper.

Ryan Falls does not whimper.

Except he totally just did.

"Oh my, God, Ry!"

My invisible room buddy comes into my line of vision, which is blurry but otherwise okay.

Her face seems familiar. The sky-blue eyes swimming with tears, the button nose that is red because of too much rubbing, the freckled cheeks that are too puffy to belong to a grown woman, and the ginger hair that remind me of oranges.

"Olive?" The one-alphabet-different-from-her-name word rolls off my tongue lighter than a whisper.

She sobs harder. "Oh, Ryan!" Olivia goes on hysterically, looking like she wants nothing more than to throw her arms around my neck and cry as much water as there is in the Indian ocean.

Maybe it's the sight of me that stops her from tossing herself at me, though, because she restrains herself. I must be really hurt. Olivia never hesitates.

"You're crying like I'm already dead," I attempt to joke, but the brokenness of my tone doesn't help.

Thanks a bunch, lungs!

She squeezes her eyes shut and looks close to ripping me to shreds.

"I hate you, asshole," she mumbles through the tears.

I force a smile, fighting the urge to close my heavy lids. I'm slowly realizing that the left side of my face is pretty much numb too.

"That makes two of us, Olive," I say.

She half-laughs, still crying like she's just been dumped by her boyfriend. She hadn't even cried this bad when she was actually dumped by my asshole cousin. Laying here and looking up at the woman, I can't help but pity my cousin. He made the biggest mistake of his life that day.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, are you family?" someone speaks out of my line of vision.

"Um ... no, I'm just here to see him ..." answers a hesitant voice.

How many people are here?

I blink multiple times, fighting to open my eyes each time because they have possibly grown a mind of their own and want nothing to do but close and never open. My head is heavier than it has ever been, and my body is still ... still. I'm sure I've lost my ability to move, and that sucks.

What if I can never move again?

What if I become the next Stephen Hawkins?

I'm not even smart. I'll probably end up getting exiled from the country for being so full of crap.

"I'm sorry, then, you can't be here. Visiting hours are over."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I just need to say something to ... that man."

Even though my gaze remains on Olivia, who is red in the face, half from crying, half from what looks like anger.

"Who's that?" I whisper, unable to speak any louder. It's too much effort to even move my lips.

"The girl who hit you with her car," is Olivia's answer.

My brow furrows. Why would the girl be here? Shouldn't she have been ... anywhere but here?

The first rule of hit-and-run. You hit, and you run. You don't follow the victim to the hospital and sneak around their room without them knowing so you can watch them sleep.

What kind of girl does this shit?

"Hey, I know you're hurt and all, but I just came to say ..."

The invisible girl is probably speaking to me because when she pauses, neither Olivia nor the hospital staff member stops her or asks her to go on.

"I can't see you," I confess, hoping she would at least show me her face. I don't like talking to people I can't see. It brings back too many memories.

"Oh, sorry."

I hear shuffling somewhere to my left and blink once more to clear my vision. I hate the fog that's clouding my view. I hate being blind-folded, whether by an actual blindfold or by the amount of morphine being pumped into my blood through the needles digging into my hands and chest.

A blurry face comes into view, and I move my eyes all the way into the left corners in an attempt to see who the hell it is. Olivia doesn't move out of the newcomer's way, and I assume she's pretty pissed that I got run over. She's a loyal woman. Of course, she wouldn't be all buddy-buddy with whoever put me in this state.

If only she knew the truth ...

If only she knew whose fault it actually was that I got hit.

She will never find out, though. It would kill her.

Kill her to know I wanted to get hit.

And not survive.

.\.|./.

A/N: Those of you who suspected some form of child sexual abuse, you were right. Ryan Falls is a victim of repeated abuse at the hands of the man that will be frequently mentioned off and on.

There are so many stories talking about girls who are sexually abused. However, reality shows that males also experience abuse, and it is a common occurrence for young boys to be abused by older men. These issues are rarely highlighted and cases almost never brought to light, mostly because of the masculine stereotype.

Rape and sexual trauma is a serious issue. Not a joke.