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“That’s my motto. Mantra, I guess. It’s how I see this world, this life; it’s all one big car wreck. You’re strapped into the seat and riding the fucked-up ride until you fall headfirst over a cliff and into darkness. I was in a bad accident when I was around thirteen. I think that’s when I started saying it.”
Ryan didn’t respond. He looked off to the distance toward the tree line that marked the edge of the farm, blue eyes swimming in thought. A couple of stunning brown-and-black horses lazily grazed a few feet in front of us, swishing their tails and giving the occasional content whinny.
“It’s a good saying,” Ryan said, surprising me slightly. “But I think you’re missing the most important part. One word. Ride the wreck out. I think that’s how it should be.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, plucking a few blades of vibrant green grass.
“I get that sometimes life can seem like an out-of-control car crash, but I don’t believe that’s how someone’s entire life shapes out. I think you have to ride it out, grab hold of the ‘oh shit’ handle, and wait for the world to stop spinning. Then you get out, assess the damages, and you move on. You find happiness even in those moments after your life might crumble, and those are the moments that will keep you going. You just have to ride it out.”
“Weird.”
“What’s weird?”
“I’ve never really been challenged on it…” And I didn’t like it. I got where Ryan was coming from. He lived with permanent optimism and saw the world through a field of rose-colored glasses. It was enviable but also kind of upsetting in the moment. I didn’t have that outlook. Where people saw the glass half-full, I saw it spiderwebbed with cracks, ready to shatter at any moment and impale the drinker with shards of glass. “I get how it sounds like a super-negative way to live, but Ry, I’ve been through it. My car’s never stopped spinning, and I’m getting tired.”
“You’re saying you feel like you’re in a car crash when you’re with me?”
I snapped my head to the side. “No, that’s not—it’s not about you, Ryan. It’s just about everything in my life. Just yesterday I had someone drop off a fucking pig head at my job, like I was in some damn Sopranos spin-off.”
Ryan looked like he was about to apologize, but I jumped in, a singeing heat rising in my chest.
“Yes, I’m happy when I’m with you, but being with you doesn’t erase the bullshit storming around me at all times or the bullshit I drag with me from my past. Even being here, meeting your dad, it’s so fucking sweet, and it makes me so fucking sad. I’ll never be able to introduce you to my biological parents because they abandoned me. They abandoned me. They left me.”
I started to cry. It wasn’t a sniffle but a flood. Ryan embraced me, and I cried harder and I got angrier, and the sadness in my chest turned even more rotten, having festered inside me since the day my parents physically pushed me out of the house and locked the door. It hurt, so fucking bad, like dunking my entire body into a pool of boiling water.
I cried.
Cried and cried. Growing angrier with every sob. At my parents, at the world, at Ryan, at the grass, at those stupid horses, at my pathetic life.
“Maybe this was a mistake,” I said once I was able to form words. I stood, knees trembling as much as my bottom lip. “You don’t need me. This cloud hanging over you. Not when—your life, it’s so perfect. You don’t need this shit.”
Yeah. This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have let myself fall as hard as I did. I should have pushed him away harder than I did. I should have never shown up at Stonewall, never sat in front of Ryan, never fallen for him.
Should have never touched him, kissed him, held him.
Fallen in love with him.
Never.
“Wait, Eli, hold on. This is spiraling. Let’s sit down and talk it through. I want you here with me. You aren’t a cloud, okay? You’re the sunshine that pushes the clouds away. Your smile, your laugh, your eyes. Every single thing about you lights my life up. Please, stay.”
“I— I need to go.” I started to walk, even though I couldn’t see a damn thing through the curtain of tears.
Which meant I couldn’t see the rock sitting in the perfect spot to trip me. My feet tangled, and my arms flailed, and before I knew it, I was getting a mouthful of goldfish pond water and really regretting every decision I had made that led me up to this point.
25
Ryan Diaz
It all happened incredibly fast. One moment, we were checking out the goldfish pond, and the next, Elijah was taking a dip in it. I jumped into action, pulling him out of the shallow water and helping him back up onto his drenched feet. He looked down, his entire body soaked, and he gave a defeated laugh.
