The Ryman LegacyChapter 10A

By Mzyra

Rebound

Juan

Mia

Baby!

M: “Do you think maybe I should go for something a bit longer now I’m an adult, Juan?”

J: “No, no… If you’ve got it flaunt it, babe. You ready in there yet?”

M: “No, I’m still putting on-”

J: “Well, I think I’ll join you…”

M: “Juan! No! We can’t…!”

J: “I think you’ll find we can!”

Mia never thought she would, but they did…

M: “We really shouldn’t have done that, I’m sure everybody heard-”

J: “Don’t worry about it babe, they’re all uptight anyway, don’t care what they think. Listen, I have a question for you…”

M: “Can’t you ask me questions somewhere else? It may have tables and chairs, but this is little more than a back alley and it’s night-time…”

J: “Mia Ryman, will you, like, marry me and stuff?”

M: “Oh, Juan….”

He was proposing. He was actually proposing. And the ring was impressively shiny. This was exactly what she wanted, wasn’t it? But it was in a back alley, them having just made love for the first time in a changing booth. That had never been a part of the plan. But it was still a proposal and that was hard enough for him… There would have to be some compromise on both sides and if he could compromise to commit, she could compromise to… get engaged in a back alley. She was going to have to have a long bath after all this, if only to try and get the unclean feeling off. At least he looked like he wanted her to say yes, that was a good sign…

“Of course I’ll marry you, Juan Harris.”

J: “Heh, you’re going to be my wife!”

M: “And you my husband.”

J: “Weird, huh?”

M: “Maybe a little. Um, can we go now? This place is a little…”

J: “Oh, yeah, sure. Can’t wait to get you back to the bedroom anyway…!”

M: “Heh, yeah….”

That long bath was going to have to wait, apparently…

A: “Hey Gina, what are you doing in- Oh my god, what the hell?! W-what are you doing in here?!”

G: “Picking up tips?”

A: “What?! Come on, let’s go! Like, far, far away! And wash our eyes with bleach…”

G: “Aww, spoil sport…”

[I did not set this up – Gina seems to have serious issues o_O]

J: “How weird is it that we’re getting married? Already! Crazy, right?”

M: “Well, it’s a little quick, but you are okay with it, right?”

J: “Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s just a bit… Weird!”

M: “Being married won’t be difficult, Juan, pretty much the same as dating, but even more official.”

J: “Yeah, I just didn’t figure… Already…”

M: “Well don’t worry, get a drink, talk to some people, relax. It’ll all be fine.”

J: “Yeah. Right.”

Mia also took some of her own advice, catching up with old friends and the gossip going around – she may be out of high school now, but only just, she could still enjoy the rumour mill with her girlfriends. Allen wasn’t quite so appreciative of it, but whatever made his big sister happy.

A little while later it was finally time to commit as the guests enjoyed the beautiful weather. It looked like things might finally be going their way for once!

“I, Mia Ryman, take you, Juan Harris, to be my lawfully wedded husband for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health until death do us part-”

But when it came to putting the ring on his finger, it all went wrong.

J: “Whoa, whoa, whoa! What do you think you’re doing?!”

M: “… Marrying you!”

J: “What, spending forever with you? No way! I don’t love you, I barely know you! Count me out, weirdo!”

M: “But-! But-! But…”

But Juan was off and running.

What had just happened? Mia knew that he was a bit uneasy about the whole marriage thing, but he’d seemed okay with it… Had he suddenly had a moment of clarity and changed his mind? Maybe she didn’t know him like she thought she had. Or maybe it was her. Maybe the idea of spending the whole of the rest of his life with her was just too horrible a prospect.

Maybe she was so repulsive that no man could bear to have anything permanent with her. Maybe she was always going to be alone, used and tossed aside-

C: “Oh god, Mia, I’m so sorry!”

M: “W-Why didn’t he love me Calvin? Am I really so h-horrible that n-no-one w-will ever-”

C: “Shhhh! Don’t be silly, Mia. To be honest I always thought Juan was a bit of an idiot. I thought you could do better, but I didn’t tell you so because you seemed happy, but now… You can do better than that Mia. And if he doesn’t appreciate you, he obviously doesn’t deserve you.”

M: “… You have to say that, y-you’re my brother.”

C: “Hey, I can get a whole list of guys who’ll back me up on this. Juan didn’t deserve you, though he deserves an Oscar for his acting; if I hadn’t believed that deep down he really cared for you I would have sorted him out months ago…”

The day wasn’t a complete failure on the romantic front – it may have been a little insensitive, but Gina finally made a proper move on Jenna. After all, Mia would get over Juan soon enough what with Calvin being super-brother, there was no reason for Gina to put her own life on hold.

And Gina wasn’t very good at taking things slow or waiting in any case. Nor was she good at making things private, much to her siblings’ annoyance, who tried to distract themselves as best they could.

But, despite Calvin’s efforts and Gina’s hopes, Mia wasn’t going to get over being left at the altar any time soon and she could be found crying all over the place. Gina tried not to be any more insensitive and say anything about it, but the constant crying and depression frustrated her endlessly – if everyone else had her views on relationships they wouldn’t have these problems!

Eventually Mia was calmed by being run a nice warm bath so that everyone else could get a bit of peace, but it wasn’t a very good trade off; she just stared lifelessly at the wall, even beyond the bath water going cold, when Gina had to persuade her to go to bed before she got ill.

Calvin had left after the party had broken up, but instructed Allen to call if they needed anything and/or when Mia had finally gone to sleep.

“Yeah, she’s asleep now but it’s really bad. She was in the bath for like 4 hours and wouldn’t stop crying before that…. Well we’ll try, but we can only do so much, especially when we have to go back to school. Did anyone manage to track down Juan…? Really? Not even Aunt Marina or Uncle Sean? He must have passed somebody’s house around here… He may have been on the football team, but he wasn’t an Olympic runner or anything…! I guess you’re right, better off without him, pretend it never happened, but I’d really like to know what his problem is, maybe give him a real one… Yeah, yeah, okay. Night Calvin.”

Despite what Allen believed and told his brother, it wasn’t long until Mia was awake again and unable to sleep. Still being low on cash, there wasn’t much to do in the house, so Mia took to obsessively scrubbing every surface she could find until it was completely spotless. She didn’t know why; she was trying not to think at all. Thinking equalled pain.

But something else equalled even more pain – she was pregnant.

M: “Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod!”

What was she going to do? She knew she shouldn’t have let Juan persuade her before they were married! She was going to wind up being a single mother in a shack! Why did everything keep going so wrong for them? For her? What if the child was like Juan and didn’t love her either?

Mia was so anxious and distracted, even by the time the rest of the house woke up, that she burnt her food and barely noticed that she’d accidentally set fire to the stove. It turned out okay due to the fire alarm, but Rick worried about her state of mind… But what could he do? He didn’t want to say anything in case it upset her… He’d just leave it and hope it’d get better with time on its own.

Rick had more important things to do anyway; he was almost an adult himself and had yet to make a definitive decision on who his girlfriend was, so he invited both Jane and Celeste over to hang out and see who he really liked best. Not that they knew this.

As the two met each other, however, Rick started to wonder whether Allen and Gina would help protect him if the girls figured it out and got mad. …Probably not.

Jane monopolised his time pretty quickly, but with friendly and innocent things: pillow fights, kicky bag, red hands… Celeste just stood on the side, watching them. It looked to Allen like Jane might win easily at this rate.

But it turned out that while Celeste might not get quantity of interaction, she definitely got the quality – romantic quality anyway – much to Mia’s angry, hormonal annoyance.

It seemed pretty obvious to Rick what the right choice was, the one who had caught his eye first originally.

M: “Ugh, does the phrase ‘get a room’ mean nothing to young people today?”

R: “Mmph- sorry- mmmm…”

M: “Teenage romances never work out anyway, it all ends in tears when it turns out that they’re an evil, back-stabbing jerk who never loved you at all and you’re left alone with a child to look after-”

Rick and Celeste soon decided that they’d rather not kiss and have to listen to an angry lecture, so they reverted to playing games instead, but their relationship was secured - after all, Celeste had been waiting for him to ask for literal years – and Mia was left to wander off, muttering bitterly to herself about men and relationships in general.

Gina didn’t really believe in official relationships as a rule – they just caused heartbreak and everything – but with Calvin, Rick and Allen all in working ones she did ponder the possibilities of one with Jenna. As much as she might not like being tied down, she couldn’t say that she liked the idea of Jenna doing stuff with any other girl. Admittedly, there were very few lesbians at their school, but if she decided not to do something now then a really hot girl would probably show up and steal Jenna away, so it was probably better to play it safe while she could.

Jenna didn’t quite see it the same way.

“Whoa, Gina, whoa! Heh, what happened to the romance thing? You know I like you and think you’re gorgeous and everything, but a relationship? Really? You can’t want that! Even beyond being tied to one person, you want to conform to society and everything? That doesn’t sound like the hot and spicy girl I know! Now come on, let’s just go make out, we don’t need anything more!”

“’Kay…”

It kind of made sense, but it was still a rejection and Gina hated not getting her own way. Still, she could go without a relationship…

Already satisfied with his romantic life, Allen focussed on his future career instead. Hoping to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather in the culinary business, he spent the majority of the night making boxes of chocolates, leading to both cooking ability and much-needed simoleons.

But it had its risks…

N: “BOO!”

A: “AHH! …Mum?”

N: “I died in a fire and I am not happy about it!”

A: “Accidents happen, Mum. Sorry. At least you’ve got Dad with you now too…?”

N: “Pfft, barely. Haven’t seen him at all, there’s something wrong with his grave, he can’t come out…”

A: “What happened to him, anyway?”

N: “How should I know? I was dead! Anyway - what time do you call this? Go to bed!”

A: *Sigh* “Yes, Mum…”

Meanwhile, Gina decided that, forget her principles, nobody turned her down and she would get what she wanted! Which, with her powers of persuasion, she swiftly did.

J: “Are you really sure about this, Gina? I don’t want to hear you complaining about how I trapped you a few weeks down the line…”

G: “Don’t worry, you won’t… Not when I’ve got you…”

J: “I’m gonna hold you to that, by the way. And if you cheat on me instead I’ll tear you a new one!”

G: “Ooh, I’d like to see you try…”

J: “Oh would you now…?”

All of this nauseating teenage romance meant that Mia had to get out of the house for once, so when she got a phone call from an old friend she decided to head downtown, try and have some fun for once.

Zack Landry had been older than Mia in high school, but he was pretty sweet and shy so they’d made friends regardless. And he had the ability to gossip just as well as the girls did, so he was almost guaranteed to cheer Mia up a little.

Or maybe a lot.

After all, in retrospect Mia should have known Juan would always be a jerk, but Zack was sweet and a good friend, he’d be a much better boyfriend. Maybe a husband. Maybe a (step-)father. He couldn’t be any worse than Juan. And with how sweet he was and how much he seemed to appreciate Mia… she kind of loved that about him.

It was almost funny – Mia had tried so hard to get Juan to be the kind of guy she wanted and Zack had been right here all along! He didn’t even have a problem with her being pregnant! He’d never go around noogie-ing people or proposing to people in back alleys! Mia couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been! But at least she’d gotten it right. Eventually, ha.

And soon Mia was being a complete and total hypocrite, committing the crime of Public Displays of Affection left, right and centre. Eventually her cousin, aunt and uncle* who were playing darts in the corner decided enough was enough and issued the ultimatum of either stopping or leaving or risking being disowned.

*[You can see May, Sean and Marina’s just hidden behind Sean – I don’t know why they’re all here, none of them even live in the same house…]

Which lead to Mia deciding that it would be a good idea to bring Zack home and show him the place. He wasn’t going to move in after just one date of course – they’d probably get engaged first – but she didn’t want him to get any nasty surprises and he seemed fine with the tiny shack of a house, family graves and random chasm in the garden.

Gina’s definition of a good idea was clearly very different to Mia’s, however.

“Oh my god, is she crazy?! They go on one date and she brings him home? We better do something about this – serious rebound issues!”

R: “I’m really not sure we should get involved, Gina… It’s none of our business really.”

G: “Yeah, easy for you to say, you’ll be moving out soon! If they get together we’ll have to live with the guy! But it’s more than that – she’s not thinking rationally, she’s going to make a really bad decision and then she’ll feel even worse…”

A: “We might as well try a bit, Rick.”

G: “Yeah, come on Rick, be a man!”

R: “Oi! Why are you so much more convincing when you’re letting me hit you?”

G: “Because I’m awesome. Now come on, let’s go!”

M: “So you guys saw Zack, right? Seems great, doesn’t he?”

A: “Uh, yeah, but… Are you sure you’re not moving too fast? You might be going in the wrong direction…”

G: *Cough* “Rebound!”

R: “Gina!”

G: “What…? Okay, okay. We just-”

R: “Ahem!”

G: “Okay, I think that after the whole Juan thing you’re on the rebound and trying to move too fast with some new guy who’s not right for you.”

M: “Look, I appreciate your concern guys, but this isn’t a mistake! Zack is a really great guy and he’d be a fantastic husband. As for what happened with Juan, ha! That barely counts as a relationship, it was just a stupid high school thing really. This is real.”

G: “Do you love this Zack guy?”

M: “…Yeah. Don’t give me that look! I do! … I do.”

G: “Okay…”

M: “Besides, he’s not moving in just yet and you guys won’t be here that much longer, so it doesn’t matter to you. But I’ll be fine and me and Zack will be great together.”

It wasn’t the most satisfactory of answers…

And even Mia was wondering a little.

“Hey Mum. Nice out tonight, huh? …Uh, I guess I just kind of wanted to talk to you. You and Dad didn’t know each other that long before you got together, did you? But you loved each other, right? Or you loved each other as much as was sensible… You brought up a batch of good kids and lived a happy, if short, life… That’s enough to hope for, right? I mean, I do love Zack – you’d like him too, he’s sweet and funny, a little geeky, but that’s cute and everything. He’ll be a good father and husband. I love him. It’ll be good. Right. Okay, yeah, we’ll get married and have kids and be happy. It’ll be great. Thanks Mum!”

N: *Yeah, I think that would be a rebound…*

Mia had barely skipped back into the house after philosophising at her mother’s grave when she was suddenly hit with intense pains in her abdomen – the baby was coming and she was stuck in a house full of teenagers, only one of whom would probably remember seeing a birth before and still wouldn’t know how to deal with it!

She’d just have to struggle on alone, so she closed her eyes and focussed hard on pushing-

And saw something – something somehow different to anything she’d ‘seen’ before, the focus or something was wrong – it looked like her father, curled up on the floor of somewhere, some kind of electricity or something running over him-

And all of a sudden Mia was looking into a pair of bright green eyes and whatever she’d been thinking about before was gone. A little baby – her little baby. A little boy. He had what must have been Mia’s mother’s black hair (she would have been pleased about that), but his eye and skin colours were distinctly those of his father, there was denying it. She’d have to do something, give it a chance…

She put the baby down and reluctantly picked up the phone. Juan had had a mobile, but she’d always avoided calling it since he left. The baby deserved to know his father if Juan was willing though, so she’d have to try. Shaking a little, she dialled the number.

The phone beeped and then an automated voice started “I am afraid the number you are trying to dial is unavailable-” She hung up. Was that enough? She didn’t know any other number to dial or where Juan might be by this point, she’d done all she could. The baby would have to just do without him. And would probably be better off, especially with somebody like Zack instead.

“I guess it’s up to me to name you then, huh little guy? What name do we like…? How about… Lyle. Lyle Ryman. You like that?”

The baby gurgled quietly.

“Good boy, Lyle. Mummy loves you and that’s all you’ll ever need.”

~~~End of 10A~~~

It’s not been all doom and gloom for people – all the Rymans got to go to Calvin’s son Wally’s first birthday party: naturally their little branch of the family is adorable.

And so here we have Wally Verse in his toddler-ified glory. He looks a lot like his mother and so a little odd at this point, but he might grow into it a little better later on, we shall see.

As for the spare-of-spare-of-spares, we have all the girls you’ve seen before as children: Sean’s grandkids Janice Andrews and Roxanne Raymond, Marina’s twin granddaughters Karen and Laura and Kimmy’s granddaughter Tom’s daughter Tessa, all adorable in their own special ways.

There have been a number of now-toddler additions as well though…

Lola Cormier & Norman Tang Billy Raymond

Johanna Andrews Winston Jayapalan

(adopted)

And finally, ever since we got Kimmy vampirised by Count Christian the vampires have been going around vamping random townies, which is a little annoying, but we don’t really care. That is until we have family members wandering the lot; much as we adore Sean and might like him to stick around longer, we don’t want him vamped ta, so we spent a little while having a minor heart attack when Mia was on that date with Zack, worried that that might happen. Luckily she vamped that random brunette instead.

Also: we think this vampire (who we shall call Cadence :p ) may be the mother/ grandmother/great-grandmother or Garden-Club Allyn. We think she agrees.

Anyway: see you again soon!