hate // ryllon

four

The things Vicky and I settled on are completely bullshit now. Last night was supposed to be no Ryan, no suicide, no thinking of Jessica, and simply a night when I'd go home and sleep and relax, and absolutely none of it came true. I saved Ryan from suicide while being repeatedly reminded of Jess, and I didn't sleep or relax because I've been watching to make sure Ryan doesn't wake up in the middle of the night and kill himself while I was asleep.

My eyelids are heavy but I continue to force myself awake despite wanting to collapse and sleep. The sun is shining through the window and I reckon it's about 9, but it doesn't matter anymore. It's morning.

Ryan inhales sharply and I see him move beneath the blankets. I push myself up and stretch as he tiredly opens his eyes. It takes him a second to process everything and wake up, and soon he is sitting up and looking at me.

"Did you sleep?" he asks, then yawns and rubs his eyes. He's really cute.

I shake my head and watch guilt paint itself onto his face. I have to look away before I feel guilty myself and I look at his arms.

"Because of me?" Ryan asks. I walk over and sit in front of him. I grab his hand and ignore his question, then scan his arms.

"They stayed on pretty well, so that's good," I tell him. He doesn't say anything. I look at him. "What's wrong?"

"Why'd you save me?" His voice is quiet and he looks into my eyes. I look back down.

"Too many people love you for you to kill yourself."

"But how many care?"

I look at him and frown. Tears have come back into his eyes and he looks even sadder than he was a second ago.

"You say people love me, but who actually cares? Who stops and wonders how I'm doing, or if I'm alright, or if I slept? No one thinks to themselves, hey, I wonder if Ryan is doing alright. When's the last time he ate? Last time he showered? Last time he went out of the house? Last time he smiled? It's always people telling me to make music, or hang out with people who don't care about me, or go perform places. I never get a hey, are you okay, because as long as I'm alive, I'm a puppet to be played with and not taken care of," he explains. I help but to notice how my chest hurts as he talks. "I... I almost hate all of my fans, all the people who love me for the music I put out. They're... rude, and toxic, and they hate on people I care about."

But I'm not one of those people, I know that. I could say it, tell him his fans wrote on Jessica's grave, but I'm not gonna be fooled by him. There's no reason he would be talking about something this specific unless something happened, and he knows and doesn't care whatsoever.

"Okay," I say. All I can say. There are a million things I want to say. I want to argue with him, I want to yell at him until at least one of us is in tears, I wanna unleash all sorts of hell on him and scream, scream in his face of how much I hate him and his dumb fans.

But I won't. Not yet, at least.

"I'm gonna make you breakfast, do you have anything?"

"I—... no, not really."

"Are you allergic to anything?" I ask. He hesitates, confused, and I look at him impatiently. He shakes his head. "Okay. Do you have a phone, or laptop, or something?"

Ryan reaches under the bed, then pus out a laptop, handing it to me. I open it and stop for a moment. It's a photo of Jon, Ryan, Brendon, and Spencer, and Ryan looks so happy. Looked, looked so happy.

Because he certainly isn't happy now.

"Why'd you decide last night?" I ask as I open a new browser. I grab my wallet out of my pocket as well.

"Had enough, I guess. Nothing specific, really, I just said I'll go to Vicky's party and see if there's any point in it all. And then—"

He stops, and I look at him after I press "enter".

"And then?"

"Nothing, I just decided... that I should kill myself." He looks down and I look at the screen. "Just waiting for you to leave."

"Well, if that's what it takes, then I'm never leaving."

Ryan doesn't speak, and after a while, he lays back down.

"Any food restrictions—" he tenses slightly, why at restrictions? "—like, are you vegan? Vegetarian? Lactose intolerant? Something like that?"

"No," he says softly, so I simply order double of what I usually get, but now for him as well. It'll last a while until he is stable enough to go into the public, or be left alone long enough for me to get groceries without him killing himself. I could get groceries ordered here, can't I? That's an option, I think? It's LA, anything is possible. Maybe I could pay Jon or Spencer to do it. Maybe.

Last night, I told Jon to not mention me to Spencer, and it is purely because I don't want anyone to think I'm open to being friends with Ryan. I'm not, and so I don't want them knowing I'm here.

I turn on the location and find Ryan's exact address, then put it into the checkout. I enter my card information and silently go to checkout, pressing the order button and waiting until I get the confirmation screen. I put the laptop to the side and look at Ryan, then think. We need to go out to the living room but he is obviously very tired.

I stand, pull the covers back, and pick him up.

"Wait-" he tries, but then he is already in my arms and I'm carrying him out of the room. He is warm and I'm quite cold, and as much as I'd love to push him away or drop him right now, I don't, and I make sure he is safe.

I place him on the couch and sit a little bit away from him.

"So, what do you usually do?" I ask. He frowns a bit.

"I... I don't know, I guess. I've kinda been... locked away in my room for the past few weeks," Ryan says as if he is ashamed of it, but he didn't have anyone to pull him out of that state the way I did with Jess.

The way I am now.

"Any TV shows or movies you like? You play any video games? Stuff like that?"

"I guess I play some video games...? I ran out of TV shows and movies to watch," he says, and yeah, I feel the same way. Jess always said there's always something to do when you run out of shows or movies, and that's to rewatch them or find a new one. But eventually, you find yourself stuck and not having any more interesting things, or things for your mood, to watch, and Jess never understood that.

Ryan does.

"Well," I begin. Ryan looks at me. "Show me what games you like to play."

Ryan nods, saying a quiet, "Okay." He stands and walks over to the TV, crouching down and getting a bit out of my sight. I tense slightly and lean forward a bit just in case.

I never thought of video games, either. Jess and I agreed they weren't for 28-year-old people to do, though Brendon and Spencer play all the time together, and I know thousands of others who do. We thought it was childish but still enjoyed board games.

Ryan stands and walks over with a small stack of games and two controllers. Oh, I guess I'm playing, too. He spreads out the games and looks at me.

"Which do you wanna play?" he asks me. I take a deep breath and scan through, questions going through my mind, and soon my mouth.

"Okay, well..." I tilt my head to look at them better. "Which is easiest, which have you played the most, and which ones are familiar?" I ask, though, the last one is to myself. He hesitates, and then grabs a few and places them aside.

"These are ones I've played the most," he says while looking at the 3 cases. He thinks, hesitates to grab more, then thinks again. This sure as hell is distracting him, and I guess it's a good thing. Confuse him so much until he forgets about trying to kill himself last night.

"And I guess this one is easiest," Ryan says, pointing to a game. I look at it. Left For Dead, Brendon's played it before with Ian and Spencer. They tried to get me to play, but I disagreed.

"Okay," I say. Yeah. Okay. Sure. Whatever.

Fuck.