Mending Ryan Falls ✓

22 | in which she decides she wants him

There were miracles in your kisses,
They were medicine in my veins.

.\.|./.

Crystal Monroe

|in which she decides she wants him|

I shift the phone from one clammy hand to the other, unconsciously tapping my foot as light peeks in through the closed window curtains.

It's not that I haven't tried contacting him over the past three months. I really have. After multiple unreached calls, hundreds of unanswered texts, and a bunch of emails that went ignored, I finally stopped.

Stopped expecting an answer.

Stopped hoping he would return.

Stopped dreaming of him realizing how he's hurting me.

Ryan became a distraction. It was either Jeremy's memories or Ryan's unwelcome presence, that really wasn't as unwelcome as I pretended it was. It was easier to lie that I was only doing it because I was lonely, though. Admitting I was falling out of love with Jeremy and into a pool that had Ryan's name on it was too much for my poor mind.

It doesn't make sense, how someone like Ryan would want to be around someone like me. He's perfect, I'm not. He's beautiful, I'm flawed. He's everything Jeremy wasn't, and I'm nothing I should be.

And that brings me to the second thought. Maybe Ryan doesn't really want to be with me. Maybe he wants someone to pass time, kind of like cooking for him helps me pass mine. He might just be lonely, looking for a good time and searching for some pleasure. In the entire month I have known him, Ryan has never had a girl over, and he was too incapacitated to go out. Maybe the only reason he kissed me that night was that he wanted some physical action.

The thought stings somewhere, and even though a part of me refuses to accept this baseless assumption of mine, another part of me knows it's probable. Jeremy told me that the world was a bad place, narrating to me all the rumors he had heard about me. Being a cheerleader attracted drama, but the kinds of things he told me his friends said, made me feel lucky he even looked at me without judging me.

When Jeremy told me about my best friend trying to seduce him, I lost my trust in people. She denied any such accusation, telling me I'm losing my mind, but I knew Jeremy wouldn't lie to me. What use would it be for him to lie to me?

I sit with the phone in my hand for a long time, staring unseeingly at the blank stretch of wall before me.

 When Jeremy asked me to move in with him, the entire female student body burned to ashes. Jeremy was the most charming guy in school, an athlete with a record of treating his girl like a princess. He had a bright future in store, the chance at a full scholarship, gold medals in every interstate run he took part in. And despite all of that, Jeremy wasn't a player. He was loyal, caring, and sweet. What more could a girl ask for, and every girl wanted it.

I got it.

'Did you hear? Jeremy Stone just asked Crystal Monroe to live with him.'

'I heard they're getting their own place?'

'You think they're going to get married?'

'Damn, Crystal is so lucky.'

'I bet she feigned pregnancy to get this done.'

'At least all those nights paid off for Monroe.'

'She just hit a goldmine.'

'Fucking slut.'