Ryder

Chapter 12

The plan was supposed to be a simple one.  I was good at controlling my emotions.  Holding everything in was second nature to me.  I could gain the upper hand against myself. 

Ryder was just another girl.  I wouldn't like her.  There was nothing special about her, and I told myself so every time I saw her.  She didn't matter to me.  She just didn't.  And I would make it stay like that. 

The days spent recovering in my room were painfully drawn out and lonely.  I yearned to go back down to Ryder, or to go to Sarah's room, or to wherever she was.  I missed her.  I tried not to let myself give my emotions control.  I wouldn't give in.  But....I couldn't really help it.  She was like a drug.  And I had become addicted.  And nothing would really help me.

I would lay down, facing the ceiling.  Flat on my back.  That was the least painful thing for me.  I breathed in deeply, and exhaled slowly through my nose.  It was calming for me.  I could've stayed like that for a while, except the memories that I saw tortured me.  It was always her.  Ryder.

Her tiny body rising up and down in rhythm with her breath.  The small part between her lips when she slept.  The long eyelashes that made her silver eyes pop.  How her hair flowed all around her when she would lay down, as if she were in water.  Her quiet voice.  How beautiful she was.  How everything she did was amazing.  Perfect.  Yet imperfect.  Perfectly imperfect.

Clear your thoughts, Ryan, I told myself, shaking my head.  This was so frustrating.  My head began to throb again, but this time not with physical pain.  I felt like my insides were being torn apart.  I wanted to scream out loud.  I couldn't like Ryder.  I just couldn't.  She was the new kid.  The weird girl.  The scary and spacy one.  The victim.  And it takes a victim to know a victim.

It was her or me.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with being a little selfish sometimes, right?

....

The following Monday, we went to school again.  The walk there was silent and intimidating.  I could feel Ryder staring at me with her glassy eyes, but I refused to look up back at her.  I gazed at the ground, an uneasy feeling in my stomach.  One of the hardest things is trying to ignore a person who is piercing you with their eyes.  I swallowed hard, still determined to be silent. 

After what seemed like forever, we were at the front entrance to the school.  People began to look at us, as usual.  I guess dropping off the face of the planet for a week or so does wonders to your popularity. 

"Finally back from protecting your girlfriend, Pohler?"

"Ready for another beating?"

The jeers were like darts, and I was their target.  They got a bulls-eye each and every time.  Why were they doing this to me?  Before I could let the waterfall of questions continue, I answered. 

Because of Ryder.

Before her, I had been a nobody.  And I had been perfectly fine with that.  I didn't get stared at.  I sat with people at lunch.  I even had some friends, or at least people who would talk to me on a daily basis.  But then I had to find....her.  Ryder was the new girl.  The weird one.  The person who scared others, even though she was friendly.  But they never got to know her....she was so out-of-place that no one wanted anything to do with her.  So why did I?

Suddenly, there was a loud thud.  I turned around and saw Ryder lying on the grass, wincing.  Next to her was a large, rough football.  A group of jocks stood a couple of yards back.  They were laughing, pointing, whispering. 

"Hey Pohler!  Why don't you help the lady up?  She belongs to you!"

I couldn't take it.  This was the final straw.  My anger boiled up inside of me, and I felt it burning my throat with fury.

"Why should I?  She's just....nothing but a freak!"  I screamed.  My eyes were bulging, and my breathing had become loud and long. 

Their laughter stopped.  Ryder looked up at me, still on the ground, a look of shock in her large eyes.  Like a kicked puppy.

I accepted my new role as a puppy-kicker and ran.