Living With Stranger Boy

Chapter Twenty-One

"I don't know what the heck any of this is..." I quietly muttered, and I knew my friends had the same thoughts as me.

"That's okay, we'll have a positive day," Ryan said, trying to cheer everyone up. I caught along, and said the same thing.
"Let's order, then," I beamed, clapping my hands together.

"That'd be great, except we don't know what any of these...items are," Seb complained.

"I have an idea!" Daniella exclaimed. Wow, that was such a rare moment. She barely volunteered to speak first, so right now, she had our full attention.

"Let's all close our eyes, and pinpoint our fingers to an item in the menu. Which ever item our fingers fall on, we order that."

That's risky, but we thought it was a good idea anyways, so that's what we did.

My finger fell on some item I never even heard of, but I ordered it.

We all chatted until our meals came, and after it came, we dug in.

The food was delicious, I won't lie. I could tell my friends were loving their food as well. Well, they were kind of exclaiming about how good their food is.

***

It's been 6 hours since we left the restaurant. Right now, it's 7 pm, and Ryan and I are sitting on the roof of our house. Thank the lord that today was a sunny day, so all the snow melted, which allowed us to climb the roof.

The sun already set about an hour ago, and the sky was a mixture of dark blue and grey. It looked mysterious, and I seemed to like it.

"I lied to you," Ryan stated, breaking the silence we've had for a while. I looked at him confused, "About what?"
He took in a breath, "When you asked me if I have a past, I said no. I, I do have a past."

I gave him a small smile. "What made you tell me that now?"
He looked at me, "I trust you. Completely." He sounded so serious, and sincere.

"I'm glad you trust me," I replied honestly.
"And I wanna tell you, if you don't mind."
I smiled, "Does it look like I mind?"
He shook his head lightly, "Doesn't look like it."

I waited for him to go on, I gave him some time to steady himself enough to tell me.

So, he did.

"I had a sister. Her name was Amanda, we call used to call her Mandy," he started, and I noticed how he was talking in past tense from the beginning. "Is..is she dead?" I shakily asked. He grimaced, but nodded his head. "One day, we both decided to have a brother-sister bonding day, and we headed to the bowling alley. On our way, this little girl was stuck in the middle of a highway, she was maybe 5 years old, she was clutching to her little doll, frightened. Before I could run to save her, Mandy pushed me and ran to save the little girl. That's when a car came crashing towards them. Mandy was able to save the girl, she had protected her by becoming her shield. But she couldn't survive," a single tear dropped from his eye, and I let the rest of the tears flow down, he needed this. "I-I tried so hard to save her, but, but I couldn't. From that day on, I took the blame of her death on myself. Only- only if I was a little bit faster to run to the girl. Only if.."

"It wasn't your fault," I softly said to him.

"She could've survived," he whispered.
"And she did," I whispered back. "You still remember her, and by that, you're keeping her alive in your heart. She has survived, Ryan. She did survive."

He scoffed, "Bullshit. That's bullshit, Riley. It's just a way of people being calm after someone's death."

I smiled weakly at him, "But something you don't realize, is that that's the truth. Memories always live, they never die."

"They're memories for a reason. It's past."

"But once alive," I said in a steady voice.

He looked at me. He finally looked me, for the first time since he started telling me his story. His eyes held pain, fear, guilt and regret, but admiration as well.

"Thanks for not providing me with pity," he said.
"Hey, you did the same thing for me when.. you know."
"I know," he weakly smiled.

We became silent after that, and it was welcoming. It felt good, as the wind lightly blew against my face, lightly blowing my hair.

"I want to tell you something," he glanced at me, "Just don't freak out."
I raised my eyebrows, "I think you've reached your ultimate freaky-ness already. What's new?"

He was silent for a moment, as if preparing himself for what he was about to say next.

"I like you."

A/N :: this chapter is shorter than the others, but it was necessary to end it here. A little cliff hanger never hurt anyone ;)

actually, it does. I get crazy when there are cliffhangers.