I don't know why it surprised me that the next week Ryan all but avoided my existence. He hadn't given me much to work with in regards to his past and who he was, but I'd gotten enough to be able to connect that he was one to run when things got serious. He occasionally would nod in my direction, but had purposefully picked up extra shifts at work knowing I'd be with Ryder every day at the house.

Ryder hadn't actually let me into the room during the day until Friday evening. The sun had started to set, but it was still light enough that sun casted into the room, and I felt my stomach drop. His walls were bare of anything; black with not even a poster hung up. I had always thought Ryder to be one to express himself in any way possible, but seeing the room was heartbreaking.

"Dad made us take down every picture of her." Ryder muttered now, breaking the silence as he pressed his door shut behind him. "I think Ryan might still have one on his nightstand, but Dad told us a few months after she died that he couldn't bare to look at her. I guess it was because he was feeling guilt over moving on so quickly."

I watched in silence as he crossed the room to his computer desk, a red and gray duffel bag sitting on a gray keyboard. His finger tips brushed his name embroidered into the front. "I planned to take a few to my dorm at UCLA in the fall, but it's looking like I won't make it to see the school."

"Ryder—"

"I don't want to hear it." he didn't bother to look back at me. "I just. . . when I die, I told you I want to be cremated. But the memorial for me, put pictures of Mom beside me. I want people to see the two of us together."

I nodded, trying my best to keep my composure. My bottom lip trembled slightly, and it took about a minute for me to bite down hard on it to drown my emotions.

"Ryder, come on. Let's go in the living room and watch something." I suggested, edging closer to him. "Get your mind off of this for a little bit."

He ignored me; in fact I almost thought he'd forgotten my presence in the room entirely. He moved at lightning speed to his closet and pushed the sliding door to the left. He crouched slowly, groaning, and came back up with a shoebox. I eyed it cautiously, feeling the tension that was beginning to radiate off him the closer he got. Once he was at my side, he set the box on the bed and pulled the lid off. I jumped back, my heart jumping into my throat when I saw what was in there.

"Ryder, why the hell do you have a gun?" I gasped, taking a step back.

He tensed, but still wouldn't look at me. "I'm tired of this."

"My mom said if you go to the hospital—"

"The hospital won't do shit but force drugs into me and dope me up until I can't function without them!" he shouted, whirling on me. I flinched under the intense words and fire burning in his eyes. "I can't keep going to bed every fucking night and waking up feeling a hundred times worse the next morning! It's like I'm on a slow, inevitable road to death. Each day it hurts a little more."

Part of my brain, the logical side of course, was instructing me to carefully back out of this room and take off. But the loving side, the part that cared for Ryder, kept my feet glued in to the floor.

"I don't want to keep doing this, Zoey." Ryder breathed, picking up the pistol. I backed away, shaking my head, but he was still too lost in his own thoughts to see how scared I was. "I don't want to feel like this anymore. I just want the pain to stop. Help me make it stop."

"Ryder, please." My voice caught in my throat and I cleared it before I continued. "Put the gun down. We can call my mom and see what options—"

"This is the only fucking option!" he growled, throwing his hands up in exasperation. In doing this, his finger pressed on the trigger and he shot at the ceiling. I cried out, dropping to the ground and covering my head. Ryder stared at the ceiling in horror, then looked at me, but just as he opened his mouth to speak, the door was thrown open and his father and Ryan were standing between us.

"What the hell was that?" Ryan demanded, eyes on his brother. They slowly flickered from Ryder's shocked expression to the gun in his trembling hand. "Ryder, what are you doing? Give me the gun."

Ryder gripped the pistol tighter as Ryan lunged for it, then made the split second decision to point it at his older brother.

"Ryder." Mr. Blake said softly, holding a hand up. "Son, please put that down."

"You should have died, not her!" Ryder spat at his father, then slapped the gun against the side of his head. "You should be six feet under ground."

Ryder then looked between the two men before him and at me, looking almost guilty as he whispered, "Get out, Zoey. I don't want you to see this."

"What are you on?" Ryan interjected, eyes narrowing. "You're cocked out or something?"

"Fuck off." Ryder huffed, then made a gesture with his gun toward the door. "Get out, Zoey."

I started to rise shakily, but Ryan took the opportunity to lunge forward again. Unfortunately for him, Ryder immediately turned the gun. But not on his older brother. But on me.

"Try again and I'll shoot her." he threatened with a bitter edge in his voice. "You don't want Zoey getting hurt in the crossfire do you, brother?"

"You shoot her I'll kill you myself." Ryan threat held much more malice then his younger brother. I looked between the two, and in the matter of milliseconds, Ryan had Ryder pinned against his bed and was able to disarm him and empty the gun of its remaining bullets.

"You asshole!" Ryder cried, rolling over and punching Ryan. "I don't want to do this! I can't do this anymore! Let me go! Let me fucking die!"

Ryan froze for a moment, his shoulders slumping forward and sadness entering his eyes as he loosened his grip on Ryder. "Stop saying that."

"I hate you!" Ryder shoved at Ryan. "Get the fuck out of my room. Go!"

**

I leaned into the tailgate of Ryan's truck and snuck a quick glance in direction. His expression was unreadable, but the slight tremor in his hand was enough to keep me from saying anything. Ryder had refused to let anyone other than my mother in, so she'd kicked us out of the house and told us to go away for a while. Only Ryan's idea of away was only a few blocks away in a Save and Shop parking lot.

"Are you okay?" the hoarse voice tore me from my thoughts. I looked back to Ryan to find the first emotion I'd seen in the last hour in his eyes. Concern. "I didn't even. . . I didn't think about getting you out of there. I thought. . . he looked like he really did want to shoot himself."

"I'm fine, Ryan." I lied, touching my hand to his knee. "Don't worry about me."

He eyed me skeptically. "Bullshit."

"Ryan, I mean it. I'm fine."

"You can lie to your mom and your friends, but I see through that crap, Zoey. Tell me how you really feel."

I remained silent for a few minutes before I climbed on to the tail gate beside him and clenched my trembling hands into fists on my thighs. "I'm scared. I thought he was going to shoot me then himself. Every day I start to lose hope that he's going to make it through this. I don't want to do this anymore either. I allow myself to feel for the first time in years and he is dying."

"I thought catching more shifts would be a good distraction." he answered. "If I've got my head under a car, I can't be thinking about my brother, and for a while I don't. I think about the damn car and you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you." he rested one of his hands on my leg. "I'm so sorry for ever talking you back into helping him with this. It isn't fair that you have to be victim to all this shit too. It's hard watching him dwindle away into nothing. Sometimes I wish he was still the little asshole who stole my keys in the middle of the night. Now he's just a shell of my little brother. But I have to watch you now too, watch you break bit by bit and try to conceal all your emotions so he doesn't see its affecting you."

"It's not your job to worry about me, Ryan. You need to worry about Ryder."

He stared straight ahead for a while, then bowed his head and said, "I need you too, Zoey."

"I'm not going anywhere, Ryan." I squeezed the hand on my leg. "I thought we established that already."

"No, I mean that I don't think I. . . I'm barely holding on as it is right now. When he goes, I. . ."

He couldn't find the right words and stopped abruptly, shaking his head. I lifted his arm up and slid underneath it so I was pressed against his side. I touched my hand to his cheek so he'd look at me. "I'm not going anywhere, Ryan. Not now, and not when. . . if he passes."

"Why?" he grumbled.

"Because you're my friend." Well, I don't think friends kiss the way that we had kissed, but I think putting a label on things would do anyone any good right now.

"No, why of all the girls did he have to choose you?" he ran his knuckle along my jaw. "Why of all the girls I've been through did you have to be the one to finally sneak in and get under my skin? Break down my guard."

I smiled weakly. "Could say the same. You Blakes were a headache growing up."

"You were just fun to get a rise out of." The faintest of a smile touched at his lips. "You'd always get so red and when you'd look at me, your eyes would be so wide and angry, but the green in them was always a little brighter when I pissed you off."

"Oh, so all these years Ryan Blake was secretly lusting after me?"

He snorted. "Maybe."

"Maybe isn't a definite answer."

"You're irritating."

I nudged his side with my elbow. "But you're smiling that's what matters."

"Ryder asked me a couple days ago what my intentions were with you." Ryan mumbled after a couple minutes of silence.

"Yeah? What'd you tell him?"

Ryan raised a brow. "You really wanna know?"

"Obviously or I wouldn't have asked."

"I told him we were planning to have obnoxiously loud, mind blowing sex in the next room on my days off."

I tried to fight my smile but a laugh escaped me before I could stop it.

"You didn't."

"Oh, I did." Ryan trained his eyes forward again. "Shoulda taken a picture of his expression too. He looked so disgusted."

I nodded with a smile, but he must have seen through that too, because he touched a hand to my arm. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No. No, you're fine."

"Then what's up with the face?"

I waved my hand in the air dismissively. "Nothing. Doesn't matter right now."

"Zoey."

"Ryan."

"Zoey."

"Would you. . . do you actually want to. . ."

Ryan took my face between his thumb and index finger. "Why do you think I've been avoiding you?"

"I. . ." I wasn't able to finish talking as his lips had found mine and his hands were roaming me not long after.

I knew that it'd be in our best interest to head back home, but there was a desire to escape reality even if only for a second in the back of that truck. I was going to allow my feelings to come first for once in my life.