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“Are you tired now?”
“No.”
“Then tell me about yourself,” I said, resting my chin in one hand.
At this Ryan shifted visibly. Lines suddenly appeared above his brows, like I’d asked him to solve some complicated math problem.
“You’re from Brooklyn,” I said. “Did you grow up there? What was that like? What were your parents like…”
He was uncomfortable, I could see it right away. I stopped the questions immediately, wondering which one had hit a nerve. In the aftermath of apocalyptic silence, he finally spoke up.
“I never had parents,” he said. “Not real ones, anyway.”
I nodded slowly, letting him continue. I could tell there was more he wanted to say… if I only were smart enough to stay silent.
“I was a foster child,” Ryan said simply. “The same typical story you hear all the time. Bounced from home to home until I was old enough to enlist, then got the hell out of there as soon as I could.”
“What about your actual parents?” I asked boldly. He didn’t answer. “Did something happen to them or—”
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Ryan said defensively. Then, “Does it even matter?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “Mattered to me.”
“You?”
I nodded grimly. “I lost both my parents in a car crash when I was a kid.”
His expression changed. People’s expressions usually do, when something like that gets laid out on the table. Only Ryan’s face wasn’t full of the usual pity. He didn’t rush in with the standard “I’m sorry,” or try to grab my hand for emotional support.
“How old?”
“I was nine.”
“Damn. Nine is rough.”
“Yeah, it was.”
Now it was his turn to be silent, wondering if I’d continue the tale. It wasn’t something I talked about often. Or even at all, really.
“Nine’s probably the worst possible age to lose people that close to you,” I said. “You’re old enough to have all these great memories, but young enough that you still need someone to raise you. Someone new. Someone… strange.”
I wanted to stop, but when I looked back at him his eyes were comforting. There was understanding there instead of sympathy — a deep understanding that I hadn’t gotten from anyone else. Ryan had been where I was. He knew.
“For me it was my father’s best friend and his wife,” I said. “They took over where my dad left off. Tried to raise me according to his wishes, but they already had three kids of their own.”
My fingernails tapped the table absently. My gaze dropped.
“Didn’t work out like that, did it?”
“No,” I admitted. “Doug was alright I guess, but Cynthia always resented that she was saddled with me by default. I was never going to be her daughter. I wasn’t even going to be a sister to my three teenage ‘siblings’ either, just a nine-year old nuisance they teased and ignored. Far too young to relate to them on any real level. Way too old to be cute.”
When I looked up again, I noticed Ryan’s body language had changed. He was more relaxed. His hands were open on the table, instead of closed.
“It sucks, doesn’t it?” he asked. “Not fitting in anywhere?”
“Yeah. It does.”
“Do you still talk to them?”
