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Not only the 10th gift, but also part of the StrokeVerse, and one of the 100_Situations prompts (038 - Challenge).
Ryan hated that when he finally came home form the hospital, it was to a bedroom on the first floor of the main house, in a room that had previously been Sandy's office. The pool house was too far away and there were too many stairs, something impossible for him to navigate when he could barely stand for 5 minutes without falling over.
Ryan hated waking up in the morning, always long before anyone else it seemed, and just laying there staring at the ceiling until Maggie, the live-in nurse Sandy and Kirsten had hired, came in to help him sit up, wash up, and get dressed. But with one side of his body paralyzed, there was no way he could do it all himself.
Ryan hated how Seth avoided him more often than not, hated the lame excuses Seth had for not being there during physical therapy times when the nurse manipulated Ryan's non-responsive arm and leg. He hated how Seth wouldn't look at him over the dinner table, or any other time really.
He hated how Sandy and Kirsten tooks turns working from home so one of them was always there, and how Kirsten would silently stand just out of his sight, shoulders shaking with surpressed sobs, as the nurse helped him through his exercises in the livingroom. He hated it, but he never told her that he could see her reflection in the TV and could see how it was tearing her up.
Most of all, he hated how nice it made everyone be to him. Julie visited him in the hospital to thank him for helping Marissa, but didn't show up again either there or back at the house. Caleb stopped making his snide comments about Ryan being a deliquent and replaced them with kind inquiries about how Ryan was feeling and offers to help in any way he could.
It was Summer that made him stop focusing on how much he hated his life now, and start focusing on how he could make his life be something he didn't hate.
Stop sulking like a little bitch and do something about it, Chino! Stop being so damn pathetic, because you are so much better than that!
He tried harder after that, refusing to stop physical therapy each day until he managed to move something, even if it was just the slightest flex of his little toe. He started sitting up in bed and reading, or writing random thoughts in a journal, like the hospital shrink had recommended, while he waited for his nurse to come in. He learned how to transfer himself into the wheelchair that he'd needed those first few months, and from there to the chair in the bathtub, and how to clean himself up.
He stopped seeing things as obstacles, and started seeing them as challenges. The day the nurse's alarm clock didn't go off, Ryan got himself up, cleaned up, and dressed all by himself, surprising everyone when they found him sitting in his chair, reading a book and acting like it wasn't a big deal. He started getting himself in and out of the car when he went to doctor's appointments, and he insisted on the doctor talking to him as much as to Sandy and Kirsten. He was the one who had the stroke and was recovering, not them, and it was his right to know.
He didn't get to go to Harbor for his Junior year, he was too busy recovering, but on the first day of Senior year he climbed out of the rover, his bag slung across his shoulders and leaning on a cane that was strapped to his arm, but he did it. He walked up the stairs in front, Seth ahead to make sure nothing was there to trip him, while Summer and Luke stayed on either side of Ryan, pretending to be trying to engage him in covnersation, but obviously preparing to catch him if he fell. It was sort of nice to know they cared, even if it was annoying as hell.
Everyone stared when they thought he wasn't looking, whispered when they thought he couldn't hear them, speculated behind their hands and while huddled over coffee, and he expected it to get worse after the english class where a new teacher, who had no idea who he was or what had happened, made him stand up and read aloud from the book. Luke had tried to protest, but been threatened with detention, so Ryan had stood, wobbling slightly since he hadn't bothered with his crutch, and done his best, even as his words slurred together and come out wrong. The teacher accused him of being high, and he'd gotten laughter with his response.
I wish!
When she threatened him with detention for disrupting class, Luke had almost exploded and Ryan had calmly, forcing his voice to stay relatively clear and coherent, told he that he'd been shot and suffered brain damage because of a stroke. He told her he was sorry if his slurring bothered her, but it was a fucking miracle he had enough brain function to attend school, so she should shut the fuck up and sit down before she said something to really piss people off.
Again, he earned laughter and cheering from his classmates. Later, the topic over cups of coffee was that the kid from Chino was just as much of a bad ass know as he had been before, maybe even more since he's cussed out a teacher and gotten away with it. He became an overnight hero, and it was both funny and pathetic all at once.
Christmukkah brought new challenges, as they found out Oliver was going to trial in a little over a month, just in time for the two year anniversary, and Ryan sunk into a depression that found him laying in bed with his abck to the door, refusing to speak to anyone. Summer broke through, though, coming and curling up on the bed behind him to rub his back and stroke his hair, and tell him crazy stories about what had happened that day. She was an anchor for him that winter, stabilizing him when he felt like he was getting tossed around. It was then that they truly became the close friends they would be for the rest of their lives, and then that Summer seemed to truly realize that Marissa would end up killing Ryan if they reunited, despite Seth's belief that the fab four could return.
The trial came, and the day Ryan was suppose to testify was a bad day, since his leg and arm were pins and needles all morning and even as he walked to the witness stand using his cane and with Sandy helping him stay upright, he couldn't feel them that well. His voice slurred more than usual, and tears formed in his eyes despite his best attempts to hide them. When the prosecution asked if he ahd anything else to say, he had looked down at his hands then at the faces of his friends and fmaily, and finally over at Oliver, who sat impassively beside his lawyer.
Fuck you, Oliver. You did this to me, but I'm gonna get better. I'm gonna be okay. You are always gonna be a fucking psychopath who almost destroyed my life. But not to me. I'm gonna walk out of here when this trial is over, and I'm gonna keep doing my physical therapy, and I'm gonna finish high school, and I'm going to go to college, and I am going to do something good with my life. And I will forget you ever existed. But you will still be a fucking lunatic, and you will remember, because you're the one with blood on their hands. You're the one who's going to remember me while he's sitting in a jail cell, or in the locked ward at a hospital for the rest of your pathetic life.
Then the jury had found Oliver not guilty by reason of insanity, and he'd been set free after his parents promised to admit him to a hospital for treatment of his mental illness. Oliver had walked out of the courthouse with a smirk on his face, while Ryan had stood on the steps with the Cohens, Luke, and Summer, feeling for all the world like the judge and jury had just told Oliver he was a good boy and given him a treat, while Ryan got called a bad dog and got kicked into a corner.
Marissa took his good hand, and he stared at it for half a second before pulling free and turning into Kirsten's embrace, needing someone to tell him it would be okay.
He graduated on time, and made the walk across the stage to get his diploma, his mother nowhere to be seen, but the Cohens cheering loudly, accompanied by most of the senior class. Afterwards, he spent the night ignoring Marissa and Seth's attempts to include Marissa, and wound up laughing as Summer slapped her hand over Seth's mouth and left it there for almost 5 solid minutes until he finally stopped trying to talk.
In the fall, Ryan began at UCLA, still leaning on his cane, but with his voice slurring less and his confidence returning. Mid-day, he'd head to the student union and collapse in a chair to wait for Summer to come in for her coffee fix, and that chat about random topics until Seth arrived and made things awkward by mentioning Marissa.
Then came the fall of the second year, when Summer brought a pretty dark-haired girl with her to join them for coffee, then conveniently made an excuse to leave early. Isabella was smart, and funny, didn't mind that Ryan limped, or when his speech slurred slightly. She laughed at his lame attempts at jokes, and called him sweet and handsome, and for the first time since Marissa, Ryan began to think he could be happy with someone, and not just alone.
Isabella came from a well off family, but was more comfortable in old jeans and t-shirts than dressed up, and when Ryan got his own apartment, she helped him paint it. They both wound up covered in paint, and falling to the floor, laughing. It happened when Ryan brushed a strand of paint covered hair behind Isabella's ear. One minute she's laughing and smearing paint on his nose, the next she's cradling his face in her hands and kissing him like it was something she'd wanted to do forever.
They made love that night, Isabella automatically compensating for the fact that Ryan's nervousness made his left side weaker and his left hand shake slightly. They seemed to fit together, and it made Ryan really begin to hope for something new and good. Afterwards, he told her he loved her, and she had laughed and teased him.
About time you realized it!
Isabella wound up as Summer's maid of honor, and Ryan was of course Seth's best man. Ryan's hand shook as he went to give Seth the rings, and when he realized that Seth thought he had dropped them, he played along for a moment, only stopping when he saw that his friend was getting panicked.
You seriously think I'd do that?
Isabella smacked him at the reception, told him off for pretending and scaring Seth and Summer. Then Ryan took her hand and gently placed a ruby ring in the center of her palm, telling her that he didn't drop the important things. And that's when Marissa turned up and caused a scene, yelling at Summer for choosing Isabella as the maid of honor, and at Ryan for moving on with the other girl. And then Isabella broke two nails when she slammed her fist into Marissa's face. Ryan asked her that night, when they were back at his apartment and sitting snuggled together on the couch, and she had turned and kissed him long and hard before pressing her forehead against his and whispering.
Of course I'll marry you.
They got married that fall, a small ceremony on the beach with only their closest friends and family present, and Ryan managed to stay on his feet longer than he had before, but finally had to sit down on the blankets that had been spread out on the sand. Isabella joined him almost immediately, pulling him so that he was resting his head in her lap while family and friends gathered around and everyone laughed and talked. It was a strange wedding for Newport, but it was what Ryan and Isabella had wanted, and it's what they got.
The End
Ryan hated that when he finally came home form the hospital, it was to a bedroom on the first floor of the main house, in a room that had previously been Sandy's office. The pool house was too far away and there were too many stairs, something impossible for him to navigate when he could barely stand for 5 minutes without falling over.
Ryan hated waking up in the morning, always long before anyone else it seemed, and just laying there staring at the ceiling until Maggie, the live-in nurse Sandy and Kirsten had hired, came in to help him sit up, wash up, and get dressed. But with one side of his body paralyzed, there was no way he could do it all himself.
Ryan hated how Seth avoided him more often than not, hated the lame excuses Seth had for not being there during physical therapy times when the nurse manipulated Ryan's non-responsive arm and leg. He hated how Seth wouldn't look at him over the dinner table, or any other time really.
He hated how Sandy and Kirsten tooks turns working from home so one of them was always there, and how Kirsten would silently stand just out of his sight, shoulders shaking with surpressed sobs, as the nurse helped him through his exercises in the livingroom. He hated it, but he never told her that he could see her reflection in the TV and could see how it was tearing her up.
Most of all, he hated how nice it made everyone be to him. Julie visited him in the hospital to thank him for helping Marissa, but didn't show up again either there or back at the house. Caleb stopped making his snide comments about Ryan being a deliquent and replaced them with kind inquiries about how Ryan was feeling and offers to help in any way he could.
It was Summer that made him stop focusing on how much he hated his life now, and start focusing on how he could make his life be something he didn't hate.
Stop sulking like a little bitch and do something about it, Chino! Stop being so damn pathetic, because you are so much better than that!
He tried harder after that, refusing to stop physical therapy each day until he managed to move something, even if it was just the slightest flex of his little toe. He started sitting up in bed and reading, or writing random thoughts in a journal, like the hospital shrink had recommended, while he waited for his nurse to come in. He learned how to transfer himself into the wheelchair that he'd needed those first few months, and from there to the chair in the bathtub, and how to clean himself up.
He stopped seeing things as obstacles, and started seeing them as challenges. The day the nurse's alarm clock didn't go off, Ryan got himself up, cleaned up, and dressed all by himself, surprising everyone when they found him sitting in his chair, reading a book and acting like it wasn't a big deal. He started getting himself in and out of the car when he went to doctor's appointments, and he insisted on the doctor talking to him as much as to Sandy and Kirsten. He was the one who had the stroke and was recovering, not them, and it was his right to know.
He didn't get to go to Harbor for his Junior year, he was too busy recovering, but on the first day of Senior year he climbed out of the rover, his bag slung across his shoulders and leaning on a cane that was strapped to his arm, but he did it. He walked up the stairs in front, Seth ahead to make sure nothing was there to trip him, while Summer and Luke stayed on either side of Ryan, pretending to be trying to engage him in covnersation, but obviously preparing to catch him if he fell. It was sort of nice to know they cared, even if it was annoying as hell.
Everyone stared when they thought he wasn't looking, whispered when they thought he couldn't hear them, speculated behind their hands and while huddled over coffee, and he expected it to get worse after the english class where a new teacher, who had no idea who he was or what had happened, made him stand up and read aloud from the book. Luke had tried to protest, but been threatened with detention, so Ryan had stood, wobbling slightly since he hadn't bothered with his crutch, and done his best, even as his words slurred together and come out wrong. The teacher accused him of being high, and he'd gotten laughter with his response.
I wish!
When she threatened him with detention for disrupting class, Luke had almost exploded and Ryan had calmly, forcing his voice to stay relatively clear and coherent, told he that he'd been shot and suffered brain damage because of a stroke. He told her he was sorry if his slurring bothered her, but it was a fucking miracle he had enough brain function to attend school, so she should shut the fuck up and sit down before she said something to really piss people off.
Again, he earned laughter and cheering from his classmates. Later, the topic over cups of coffee was that the kid from Chino was just as much of a bad ass know as he had been before, maybe even more since he's cussed out a teacher and gotten away with it. He became an overnight hero, and it was both funny and pathetic all at once.
Christmukkah brought new challenges, as they found out Oliver was going to trial in a little over a month, just in time for the two year anniversary, and Ryan sunk into a depression that found him laying in bed with his abck to the door, refusing to speak to anyone. Summer broke through, though, coming and curling up on the bed behind him to rub his back and stroke his hair, and tell him crazy stories about what had happened that day. She was an anchor for him that winter, stabilizing him when he felt like he was getting tossed around. It was then that they truly became the close friends they would be for the rest of their lives, and then that Summer seemed to truly realize that Marissa would end up killing Ryan if they reunited, despite Seth's belief that the fab four could return.
The trial came, and the day Ryan was suppose to testify was a bad day, since his leg and arm were pins and needles all morning and even as he walked to the witness stand using his cane and with Sandy helping him stay upright, he couldn't feel them that well. His voice slurred more than usual, and tears formed in his eyes despite his best attempts to hide them. When the prosecution asked if he ahd anything else to say, he had looked down at his hands then at the faces of his friends and fmaily, and finally over at Oliver, who sat impassively beside his lawyer.
Fuck you, Oliver. You did this to me, but I'm gonna get better. I'm gonna be okay. You are always gonna be a fucking psychopath who almost destroyed my life. But not to me. I'm gonna walk out of here when this trial is over, and I'm gonna keep doing my physical therapy, and I'm gonna finish high school, and I'm going to go to college, and I am going to do something good with my life. And I will forget you ever existed. But you will still be a fucking lunatic, and you will remember, because you're the one with blood on their hands. You're the one who's going to remember me while he's sitting in a jail cell, or in the locked ward at a hospital for the rest of your pathetic life.
Then the jury had found Oliver not guilty by reason of insanity, and he'd been set free after his parents promised to admit him to a hospital for treatment of his mental illness. Oliver had walked out of the courthouse with a smirk on his face, while Ryan had stood on the steps with the Cohens, Luke, and Summer, feeling for all the world like the judge and jury had just told Oliver he was a good boy and given him a treat, while Ryan got called a bad dog and got kicked into a corner.
Marissa took his good hand, and he stared at it for half a second before pulling free and turning into Kirsten's embrace, needing someone to tell him it would be okay.
He graduated on time, and made the walk across the stage to get his diploma, his mother nowhere to be seen, but the Cohens cheering loudly, accompanied by most of the senior class. Afterwards, he spent the night ignoring Marissa and Seth's attempts to include Marissa, and wound up laughing as Summer slapped her hand over Seth's mouth and left it there for almost 5 solid minutes until he finally stopped trying to talk.
In the fall, Ryan began at UCLA, still leaning on his cane, but with his voice slurring less and his confidence returning. Mid-day, he'd head to the student union and collapse in a chair to wait for Summer to come in for her coffee fix, and that chat about random topics until Seth arrived and made things awkward by mentioning Marissa.
Then came the fall of the second year, when Summer brought a pretty dark-haired girl with her to join them for coffee, then conveniently made an excuse to leave early. Isabella was smart, and funny, didn't mind that Ryan limped, or when his speech slurred slightly. She laughed at his lame attempts at jokes, and called him sweet and handsome, and for the first time since Marissa, Ryan began to think he could be happy with someone, and not just alone.
Isabella came from a well off family, but was more comfortable in old jeans and t-shirts than dressed up, and when Ryan got his own apartment, she helped him paint it. They both wound up covered in paint, and falling to the floor, laughing. It happened when Ryan brushed a strand of paint covered hair behind Isabella's ear. One minute she's laughing and smearing paint on his nose, the next she's cradling his face in her hands and kissing him like it was something she'd wanted to do forever.
They made love that night, Isabella automatically compensating for the fact that Ryan's nervousness made his left side weaker and his left hand shake slightly. They seemed to fit together, and it made Ryan really begin to hope for something new and good. Afterwards, he told her he loved her, and she had laughed and teased him.
About time you realized it!
Isabella wound up as Summer's maid of honor, and Ryan was of course Seth's best man. Ryan's hand shook as he went to give Seth the rings, and when he realized that Seth thought he had dropped them, he played along for a moment, only stopping when he saw that his friend was getting panicked.
You seriously think I'd do that?
Isabella smacked him at the reception, told him off for pretending and scaring Seth and Summer. Then Ryan took her hand and gently placed a ruby ring in the center of her palm, telling her that he didn't drop the important things. And that's when Marissa turned up and caused a scene, yelling at Summer for choosing Isabella as the maid of honor, and at Ryan for moving on with the other girl. And then Isabella broke two nails when she slammed her fist into Marissa's face. Ryan asked her that night, when they were back at his apartment and sitting snuggled together on the couch, and she had turned and kissed him long and hard before pressing her forehead against his and whispering.
Of course I'll marry you.
They got married that fall, a small ceremony on the beach with only their closest friends and family present, and Ryan managed to stay on his feet longer than he had before, but finally had to sit down on the blankets that had been spread out on the sand. Isabella joined him almost immediately, pulling him so that he was resting his head in her lap while family and friends gathered around and everyone laughed and talked. It was a strange wedding for Newport, but it was what Ryan and Isabella had wanted, and it's what they got.
The End
