Page 24 of Loathing Ryan
I gently got Ryan’s attention, who was walking next to me like a zombie fresh from the dead, and pointed ahead. He must have been too worn out to say anything, but he nodded drunkenly, encouraging us to move forward. This would be good enough for now.
It took us forever to get there, even though it was only a few hundred feet in front of us. Ryan was fading fast. He dragged his feet now rather than taking steps. As soon as we crossed the mouth of the cave, I helped him sit down against a wall.
“Shit, ow, motherfucker,” he swore as he fell back against the cave wall. I didn’t know if the moisture beading against his forehead was raindrops or sweat. Carefully, I placed the back of my hand against his cheek and felt the heat radiating off of him. That couldn’t be a good sign, right?
I bit my lip and bent down to be on his level. “Ryan, what can I do?” I asked him. I hardly knew him, aside from the arrogant, self-absorbed bully he made himself out to be.
But this boy in front of me was anything but that. His face was pale, and his hands were clenched at his sides. His head lolled against the wall as he turned to look at me, giving me a weak smile, which looked more like a grimace through the pain.
“I’ll be fine, Bells,” he tried to assure me. Ryan reached his hand up and pulled my bottom lip out from between my teeth with his thumb. I hadn’t even realized I had been gnawing on it. “Stop worrying so much. Just need to rest and shake it off.”
I sat frozen there with his hand on my cheek. What was he doing? He must be delusional. I think this was the most prolonged period of time Ryan and I had ever been together without trying to murder each other. And here he was, rubbing his thumb against my face.
Despite everything, I couldn’t help but lean into the warmth of his hand. I took a deep breath, letting the touch of the only other person going through this hell with me soothe some of the stress for just a moment.
He watched me with studious eyes. I found myself getting lost in his emerald gaze, tracing every little fleck of color and wondering how I never noticed just how nice it felt to have him staring at me like this.
And then I remembered myself. I jolted away from him, narrowing my eyes and wrinkling my nose. What was the matter with me? This was Ryan.
Yeah, no thanks.
“Rest sounds like a good idea,” I murmured to him, backing up and then moving over to sit next to him on the wall. I brought my knees up to my chest and hugged them tightly, trying to conserve as much heat as I could. “Hopefully, that will heal miraculously overnight, and we can figure out how to get back to camp.”
He chuckled, though it was weak, but then he went silent. I gave him a few minutes before peeking over at the blond bane of my existence. He was already passed out cold, his head tilted to the side, mouth wide open as he snored.
What a day we had experienced. I couldn’t place the blame on either of us, really. I wasn’t paying attention just as much as he hadn’t been. Maybe if he hadn’t distracted me from listening to the counselor earlier today...but no. I could’ve ignored him then too.
I looked out the mouth of the cave at the storm raging on. The winds were still in full force, bending the trees and bushes to their will. A shiver crept up my spine, and I tried to dampen down the panic that was growing in my belly.
This was bad. Really bad. What were we going to do? We had no food, no water, no way to call for help. I was still in my soaking wet swimming suit and shorts. Oh, and the remaining t-shirt, which had survived the shredding into bandages. And to add insult to injury, I was missing a shoe. It must have slipped off in the river, but I only noticed it now. How could I possibly have missed that? I must be under even more stress than I thought.
I tilted my foot this way and that, examining the sole without disturbing Ryan too much. The bottom of my foot was covered in dirt, but otherwise unscathed. It was a miracle that I hadn’t impaled it on something sharp while climbing up that bluff. Maybe once Ryan wakes up tomorrow, we could go back down to the river and see if we could salvage anything.
My eyes drifted past the cave’s opening and back to the storm outside. I quickly squashed the hope of finding any leftovers from our kayak. The amount of rain falling and the ferocity of the wind ensured that nothing would be left this far upstream.
I looked back at Ryan, watching him sleep peacefully. I felt conflicted, like my worldviews were contradicting themselves. For so long, I had known Ryan to be exactly who he was—a menace. Yet he jumped right back into that river to save me, hurting himself in the process.
Sitting here, curled up next to him in this cave, I couldn’t deny that I felt safe. He was injured, and probably in pain, but I had a feeling that if something else terrible were to happen to us, Ryan would rally and defend me, showing the same level of bravery as he did by jumping into that river.
Something was nagging at my chest, and I rubbed it away, trying to place the feeling. Finally, after pondering it for far too long, I realized what it was. His words from back in the river reverberated in my mind.
Bells, just trust me, please.
Trust.
My eyes went wide as it all came together. It was true, I had trusted him. Despite having an intimate knowledge of how awful he had been to me in the past, I trusted him. Even though neither of us knew what was coming next or what we would have to do to stay safe, I knew, without any doubts, that I could trust him.
I sat with that for a while, getting used to how it felt as the rain powered on. The rest of the day passed, and soon, the sun went down. Even though the rain hadn’t let up, it had settled into a gentle shower. The sky was dark now, but I could still hear the rhythmic fall of the raindrops against the forest floor.
I shivered against the cold stone wall, the chill now fully seeped through my body. Carefully, so I wouldn’t jostle him awake, I shimmied closer to Ryan so we were flush side-to-side. As soon as I was next to him, warmth flooded through me. I frowned at the realization that he was likely running a fever. The man was a furnace. Biting the inside of my cheek, I attempted to quell my rising panic at his condition. After a few moments, I finally managed enough deep breaths to steady my breathing. We would worry about that in the morning, but for now, we would get some rest.
Even sitting slouched against a wall, Ryan still towered over me. My head barely leveled above his shoulder. Praying that he wouldn’t wake up and see me in such a precarious situation where I needed him, I leaned my head against him and closed my eyes.
Just like earlier, I relished the closeness of my companion. I tried my hardest not to think too much about it, knowing that we were going through extenuating circumstances. As soon as we were back home, I’m sure everything would go back to normal, just the way it always had been. Once I was settled against him, I willed the night to pass just as quickly as the afternoon had.
In the morning, I was awoken by Ryan groaning and shifting underneath my cheek. My eyes fluttered open to see him messing with the bandage wrapped around his middle.
“Stop that!” I swatted at his hands. He startled and looked over at me. Small droplets of sweat had beaded together on his forehead. His eyes were rimmed red, his face still pale and clammy. He definitely had a fever; he looked like death warmed over.
