How To Kill Ryder Blake (COMPLETED)

{Eighteen} Kiss or Kill

I don't know why it surprised me that the next week Ryan all but avoided my existence. He hadn't given me much to work with in regards to his past and who he was, but I'd gotten enough to be able to connect that he was one to run when things got serious. He occasionally would nod in my direction, but had purposefully picked up extra shifts at work knowing I'd be with Ryder every day at the house.

Ryder hadn't actually let me into the room during the day until Friday evening. The sun had started to set, but it was still light enough that sun casted into the room, and I felt my stomach drop. His walls were bare of anything; black with not even a poster hung up. I had always thought Ryder to be one to express himself in any way possible, but seeing the room was heartbreaking.

"Dad made us take down every picture of her." Ryder muttered now, breaking the silence as he pressed his door shut behind him. "I think Ryan might still have one on his nightstand, but Dad told us a few months after she died that he couldn't bare to look at her. I guess it was because he was feeling guilt over moving on so quickly."

I watched in silence as he crossed the room to his computer desk, a red and gray duffel bag sitting on a gray keyboard. His finger tips brushed his name embroidered into the front. "I planned to take a few to my dorm at UCLA in the fall, but it's looking like I won't make it to see the school."

"Ryder—"

"I don't want to hear it." he didn't bother to look back at me. "I just. . . when I die, I told you I want to be cremated. But the memorial for me, put pictures of Mom beside me. I want people to see the two of us together."

I nodded, trying my best to keep my composure. My bottom lip trembled slightly, and it took about a minute for me to bite down hard on it to drown my emotions.

"Ryder, come on. Let's go in the living room and watch something." I suggested, edging closer to him. "Get your mind off of this for a little bit."

He ignored me; in fact I almost thought he'd forgotten my presence in the room entirely. He moved at lightning speed to his closet and pushed the sliding door to the left. He crouched slowly, groaning, and came back up with a shoebox. I eyed it cautiously, feeling the tension that was beginning to radiate off him the closer he got. Once he was at my side, he set the box on the bed and pulled the lid off. I jumped back, my heart jumping into my throat when I saw what was in there.

"Ryder, why the hell do you have a gun?" I gasped, taking a step back.

He tensed, but still wouldn't look at me. "I'm tired of this."

"My mom said if you go to the hospital—"

"The hospital won't do shit but force drugs into me and dope me up until I can't function without them!" he shouted, whirling on me. I flinched under the intense words and fire burning in his eyes. "I can't keep going to bed every fucking night and waking up feeling a hundred times worse the next morning! It's like I'm on a slow, inevitable road to death. Each day it hurts a little more."

Part of my brain, the logical side of course, was instructing me to carefully back out of this room and take off. But the loving side, the part that cared for Ryder, kept my feet glued in to the floor.

"I don't want to keep doing this, Zoey." Ryder breathed, picking up the pistol. I backed away, shaking my head, but he was still too lost in his own thoughts to see how scared I was. "I don't want to feel like this anymore. I just want the pain to stop. Help me make it stop."

"Ryder, please." My voice caught in my throat and I cleared it before I continued. "Put the gun down. We can call my mom and see what options—"