// thirteen //
Ryan’s truck was parked in the driveway of his house, but when Ella knocked a bit too loudly on the front door, it was his mother who answered.
“Oh, Ella,” she said in a surprised tone, and Ella felt odd that Ryan’s mom had even remembered her name. Julie Hunter’s dark brown hair was swept up into a tangled ponytail, the strands appearing frizzy and broken from lack of care. There were bags under her eyes just above the cheekbones, and they didn’t go away when Julie leaned slightly out of the doorway into the murky sunlight. “How are you?”
“Fine, thank you,” Ella replied quickly, and in her haste, she forgot to return the polite greeting which had always been ingrained in her practically since birth. “Can I talk to Ryan?”
Julie gave Ella a small smile, with pale lips that didn’t appear to have much practice at the expression. “Ryan’s not home right now, actually.”
“What? But his truck is still here.”
Ryan’s mom leaned further out to peek around the white-paneled siding of the house, sighing heavily when she spotted the sight of the dark blue vehicle parked beside her own. “I suppose it is. He must have gotten picked up by a friend – he never tells me where he goes anymore.”
Ella heard the slightly hurt note in Julie’s voice, and she suddenly felt extremely awkward at the hinted fault lines in Ryan’s family. She didn’t have time to stammer out something in response to that – a statement which probably would have made things even more uncomfortable, anyway – finding Ryan was more important. “Do you know where he would have gone?”
“I’m not sure,” she told her tiredly. There was another sigh as Julie leaned against the doorway, the open front door swinging against her hip. “I can have him call you when he turn’s up, if you’d like.”
“Please, Mrs. Hunter,” Ella blurted, “I really need to see him now.”
Ella’s tone had been pleading, certainly more desperate than she would have liked, but the news report from earlier was still burning in her mind and she couldn’t ignore the growing nausea within the pit of her stomach. But Ryan’s mom gave another smile, shaking her head and saying kindly, “Just call me Julie, honey. I know Ryan sometimes goes to the pier down by that old log mill; he’s said that one of his friends lives down that road just off the highway. I don’t think he’d be anywhere near the school. That’s the only place I can think of.”
Ella opened her mouth to thank her, but a deep voice called out from further inside the house. She hadn’t understood what whoever it was had said, but Julie gave Ella another tired smile. “I should go back in. I left spaghetti on the stove.”
“Okay,” Ella said quickly, backing down onto the first step of the porch. “Thank you. I’m, um, I’m going to see if he’s at the pier.”
Julie nodded, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she gave Ella another smile. The skin was smooth where laughter lines should have been, and there were faint wrinkles between Julie’s eyebrows as though they were usually drawn together in seriousness. Ella hadn’t noticed this the first time she had met Ryan’s mother, but she had a feeling that this was the most smiling she had done in quite some time.
Ella was halfway across the cracked pavement of the driveway when Julie called after her. She turned, seeing Ryan’s mom standing out on the porch with her arms crossed tightly against the chilly late autumn air. Julie’s voice was careful as she told her, “Do me a favor, Ella. If…if Ryan doesn’t want to come back home with you, please just stop by and let me know he’s alright. Even if he doesn’t come back.”
“I – I will,” Ella stammered. It was an odd request, but surely this wasn’t the first time Ryan had gone out without telling his parents? Did he normally stay away from home for more than an afternoon?
There was another yell from inside the house, and Ella quickly turned away as she realized someone was calling for Julie. She gave an awkward wave to Ryan’s mom as she slipped back into the driver’s seat of her car, but Julie was already hurrying back through the front door, with hunched shoulders and her head ducked low.
Ella’s fingers were stiff from the cold as she twisted the key into the ignition for a second time. She quickly backed out of the hunter’s driveway, shivering and reaching across the dashboard to turn on the heat. As the warm, stale air began to filter through the cheap vents, Ella turned left onto the main road to head for the highway. She hoped she would remember how to get to the pier, because there wasn’t time to return home for a road map. Besides, Ella was much too anxious to waste more time.
Going to Ryan’s house should have made Ella feel relieved, but instead, the mannerisms and tone of Julie had left her feeling even more worried than before.
~*~
Ella had thought she wouldn’t find Ryan at the pier, since she’d begun to expect the worst now, but she wasn’t nearly so unlucky.
She pulled to a stop beside a construction truck near the mill’s entrance, the tires crackling as the black rubber rolled over broken rocks and old asphalt. There was muffled clanging from inside the mill on her left, the repairmen calling to each other above the mechanical sounds in echoing voices.
There was someone sitting at the edge of the dock about thirty feet from where she’d parked, and even against the cloudy lighting of dusk, Ella knew the shape belonged to Ryan. The lake appeared dull and black surrounding the dock, stretching out into a bland nothingness against the murky tree line in the distance. The mill’s chimneys behind Ella were spewing out a pale grey smoke, adding a depressing quality to the already cloudy, fading afternoon sky.
For the life of her, Ella could not understand why Ryan would have decided to come here.
The lake water was lapping against the dock’s wooden legs, so Ryan didn’t hear Ella’s footsteps as she approached him. She could see tendrils of white curling through the air above his head, and Ella knew he was smoking; somehow, this made her even more frustrated.
Not bothering with a greeting, Ella snapped somewhat harshly, “What the hell were you thinking?”
Ryan jumped and twisted to see her standing behind him, nearly dropping the cigarette into the water below his feet. His eyes were wide, his tone stammering as he exclaimed, “You – what the fuck, Ella –?”
“I saw the news,” she seethed, watching as Ryan exhaled in frustration and closed his eyes. “Why would you ever try to do something like that without me?”
He pressed his lips into a thin line, looking up at Ella standing over him and an exhausted expression relaxing his face. Ryan pointed to the spot next to him, sighing quietly, “Just sit down, Ella.”
She debated refusing, considering telling him to stand up and face her as he explained himself. But Ryan’s expression was nearly more sad than tired, so Ella let out a huff of air and stepped around him. She swung her legs out over the edge of the wooden dock, the toes of her boots dangling much higher over the water than Ryan’s due to her short height.
It was only when she turned to him, now at the same level, that Ella saw his black eye.
The skin underneath his right eye, just against the top of the cheekbone, had turned an angry purple with a bit of green already smeared above it. Ella’s mouth fell open, and Ryan quickly turned his head so the bruise was out of her sight.
“What – ?” Ella broke off, because the air had seemingly escaped her lungs halfway through the sentence she’d been trying to formulate. She sucked in a second breath before trying again, the misty air that lingered over the lake cooling her tongue. “What happened to your eye?”
Ryan was looking down at the opaque water just beneath his worn sneakers, the cigarette balanced with practiced ease between his left middle and forefinger. His voice was quiet when he spoke, the words slow and cautiously guarded. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Ella remembered the first time she had seen Ryan with a bruise on his chin - it had been the first time she’d gone into his house, after being invited first. Then, he had given her an excuse; this time, he wasn’t even going to make an attempt at one.
She rolled her eyes and reached for his chin, grasping it with cool fingers and gently turning his face towards her. Ryan wouldn’t look at Ella as she examined the black eye, her face so close to his that she was sure he could feel her breath against his lips. When Ella’s eyes accidentally drifted away from the bruise and down to his mouth, she hastily let go of his chin and glanced away with glowing cheeks.
“Ryan,” Ella said firmly, swallowing hard to forget the sudden flare of warmth in her stomach, “tell me what happened.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. Did it happen today?”
Ryan was glaring coldly at the lake beneath his feet, a gust of wind whipping across the water and making his dark hair blow away from his forehead. The glowing end of the cigarette nearly sputtered out, and Ella shivered. The clouds above their heads were a dark grey, washing everything beneath them in the same dull shade - very nearly creating a purely black and white filter on the entire pier. Ella wanted to go home.
“Yeah. Yeah, it happened today,” Ryan replied shortly. “Happy?”
“No,” Ella snapped, watching as he continued to avoid her gaze. “Who did it?”
He scoffed slightly under his breath, looking down at his hands as he passed the slowly disintegrating cigarette to his right hand. Ryan shook his head, telling Ella in a voice that was nearly disguised by the wind, “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters,” Ella protested. He rolled his eyes and started to twist away from her, his free hand going up to run through the tangled strands of his hair. She reached for his hand then, desperately, grabbing his wrist instead and tugging. “Stop, don’t turn away from me. Ryan, just look at me. I’m trying to help you.”
“Yeah, well,” he bit out fiercely, “you helping me never seems to go very well, does it?”
Ella’s lips parted and no sound came out, but she kept her hand on his arm – her fingers wrapped against the smooth skin between his hand and leather jacket. Ryan was finally looking over at her, blue eyes cool and darkened by the storm-like sky. He leaned closer again, saying a low voice, “I’m not going to tell you about the black eye, and I’m sure as shit not going to tell you about the gas station. Because I’m not going to keep dragging you down in all my shit, alright? You don’t want to get involved anymore.”
She looked up at him, her eyes starting to feel warm with the ominous foreboding of tears and her ears that were aching from the cold beginning to ring. Her voice was hushed as she told him softly, “But I do want to.”
“No, you don’t. Damn it, look – you have to stay away from me. Look at what you’ve done every time you’re with me. You’ve helped me steal money. And now I'm - I'm robbing gas stations. I’m bad news, Ella Jane.”
It had started to snow. Greyish-white flakes were drifting down through the air, huge and fluffy as they floated into the blackened lake, into Ella and Ryan’s hair and the wooden dock. The snowstorm had come early, and Ella’s breath was starting to come out in clouds of moisture, matching the tendrils of smoke from Ryan’s cigarette. There was a long moment of silence, so Ryan shook his head and put the cigarette between his lips.
“Look,” Ella said as Ryan blew out a stream of grey smoke towards the water below. Her voice shook, but she tried to sound firm as she told him seriously, “Stop being an idiot. If I didn’t want anything to do with you, then I wouldn’t have driven all the way out here. And why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“That.” Ella pointed to the half of a cigarette in his left hand, watching as Ryan looked down at the tiny object as though he’d forgotten it had been there. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”
Ella regretted the words as soon as they escaped her lips and made it out into the air between them. Ryan’s eyes narrowed, his left elbow resting on his knee as he turned to face her. His tone was kept quite cool as he replied, “Why does it matter to you?”
“For fuck’s sake,” she spat without pausing to think. “Obviously I give a damn about you.”
His eyes widened at her sudden outburst, but Ella shook her head angrily and stood when he didn’t say anything straight away. But as she was righting herself, Ella missed the way Ryan’s lips had parted with the beginning of a sentence – a sentence that could have been anything, or nothing all at once.
Ella held her car keys in one hand and looked down at him, saying with much less vigor than before, “Come on, we can talk about it later. I’m bringing you home. Your mom is worried about you, and I am too. We’ll both get frostbite at this rate, anyway.”
Ryan’s eyebrows furrowed together and he started to protest, but Ella had already turned away. She started back across the dock, snowflakes tickling her nose and cheeks and slipping underneath the soles of her boots. Though she held her head high and tried to appear as though she was leaving with or without Ryan, Ella knew she would turn straight back around if he refused to go with her. She wouldn’t tell him this, of course, but she would sit at the edge of that dock throughout the snowstorm if he’d wanted to.
But Ryan had stood from the dock behind her, exhaling in frustration and straightening his jacket against the cold. He took one last look across the lake before turning away, following her across the snow-slicked wooden boards.
Ella didn’t see it, but Ryan had flicked the remainder of the cigarette into the water before turning around. The white paper floated against the slow waves for half a second before sinking, the ash turning to black in a tiny puff of smoke.
By the time Ryan was seated in the passenger seat of Ella’s car, the cigarette had already sunk to the bottom of the lake.
~*~
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