What Was I Gonna Do?
Previously: The team realizes it needs some help and Ryan Dominguez avoids an important question.
Silence. The soft gold light outside the windows was fading quickly.
“Ryan —” Ed began softly, turning to his charge.
“I can’t go back to juvie.” A hoarse whisper from Ryan as his head whipped to look at Ed, tears brimming.
“No one wants to send you back to juvie.” Jeannie saw Ed’s eyes narrow slightly. “But it’s time to come clean, son. You need to tell them what you know.” Ryan inhaled shakily. “Think of your friend, Ryan.” Ryan shook, trying to suppress tears. Paco got up quietly and returned with a box of tissues and a small bottle of water, placing both in front of Ryan. Jeannie glanced at Mark slightly, both tacitly agreeing to hold their silence. Ed placed a firm hand on Ryan’s shoulder, “Ryan— it’s time.”
“He - he said no one would believe me.” Ryan pleaded to Ed softly.
“Who?” Mark asked quietly. Ryan’s wide eyes whipped to him.
“M-mister Hartman. He told me no one would believe me over him.” Jeannie felt a chill go over her shoulders and neck. She looked to Ed, who looked back at her, confused. Jeannie inhaled deeply.
“Okay Ryan,” she began, “Let’s back up a bit. How do you know Mr Hartman?” Ryan stared at the tabletop, breathing shakily.
“Um, I don’t really,” he sniffed, “but I know Tripp.” He lifted his eyes to Jeannie’s, pleading. Again, she felt the cold chill.
“How do you know Tripp? From Alexa?” Ryan winced with tears and shook his head.
“Um - I - I guess I met him at one of their parties last year - he’s friends with Seb. I - I didn’t go to many parties, but I knew Seb from Alexa, and sometimes Tripp would be around.” He took another shaking breath. “B-but he, he came into Rose’s this summer when I was working.”
“Okay. Who was he with?”
“No one. He came on his own. He said he wanted to say hi to me, and see if we could hang out.” Jeannie felt sick.
“When was this?”
“Um…I don’t know. Maybe like later in July? Alexa was away, so…”
“So, maybe you were feeling lonely?” Ryan rolled his head.
“I mean…Alexa, we-we hadn’t spent a lot of time together. Maybe a day or two in June, but she, she went to Lake Tahoe and came back and then just left. She didn’t say goodbye. She was gone for weeks.”
“You didn’t know they were going east for the summer?”
“No - no, I did.” Ryan looked at her. “Alexa asked me to come with them at the end of school, but I couldn’t because of my probation.” Ed inhaled sharply.
“I didn’t know that Ryan. We could have worked something out.” Ed said to his side. “I’m sure the Thomases would have been accommodating —”
“—It- it doesn’t matter.” Ryan cut him off, face crushed. “I had work, and my Mom was happy I was home. We got to have some time together.” Ryan looked to the tabletop again.
“Ryan?” Jeannie began gently, “I would venture that missing out on this trip mattered very much to you.” The boy’s face scrunched. “You were disappointed about it, weren’t you?” A curt nod. “Okay. I understand. So then, Tripp Hartman comes into your work and asks to spend time with you - that must have felt good. He’s popular and rich, and that must have been flattering.”
“Yeah, at first.” He looked up at Jeannie and licked his lips. Jeannie didn’t want to think of where this story was going.
“So, what happened? Did you hang out?” Ryan nodded, breathing deeply.
“We did. He told me his parents were in Lake Tahoe so I should come over and we could play video games. So I went the next afternoon, and hung out. He had a lot of beer and he kept offering it to me, even though I told him I couldn’t. And then we ordered pizza and watched some of a movie —”
“Which movie?” Mark asked softly, wanting to keep him in the moment.
“They were all car movies.” Ryan looked defeated. “Tripp said he heard that I knew about cars and stealing cars, so he thought it would be fun to watch. He played Gone in 60 Seconds and then we went into some of the Fast & Furious movies. He kept asking me if things in the movie were real or not.” Jeannie exhaled, trying to release the tension in her shoulders.
“Was that upsetting?”
“A little bit, yeah. But like, what was I gonna do, leave?”
“You could have.” Ryan shook his head.
“It’s a nice house - it’s really big and the TV is great, and they have all this food. He kept offering if I wanted something other than pizza, like he could order whatever I wanted, like it didn’t even matter. I didn’t know people really lived that way.” Ryan looked at the tabletop again. “None of the kids at my school live like that. It’s like how people live on TV or in a movie. All these rooms…and bathrooms.” This was a different Ryan from the one they’d spoken to on Saturday; the one full of poses and bluster was gone.
“So, did you hang out with Tripp again?” Ryan leaned back a little, his face full of hurt.
“Yeah.” It was barely audible. “I mean - I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t like how I felt after that day watching those movies and all his questions. I knew he was being kind of mean, but it was just nice being there, you know. It was so different.”
“What happened the next time you hung out?”
“We went to see that new Godzilla movie.” Ryan narrowed his eyes and looked at the table again. “And —” his breath caught. “And he felt me up in the movie theatre.” Jeannie exhaled slowly. There it was. She wasn’t about to shame the kid by daring to look at Mark.
“Did, did you think something like that was going to happen?” She asked Ryan softly,
“No. Not at all. I thought he was straight. I thought we were sort of friends, like.”
“Were you consenting?”
“I mean…” Ryan’s head tilted, and a tear came down his angular cheek. “He didn’t ask. But - but I — I didn’t tell him to stop.” Jeannine nodded slowly.
“And then what happened?”
“When we left the movie, he drove me home, but we stopped down at Crissy Field and made out in the parking lot.” Ryan paused. “He — he kept touching me. I— he got me off.” He barely whispered. Jeannie could feel the boy’s shame from across the table. Ryan squeezed his eyes shut. Jeannie looked at Ed who looked shocked. He reached over and pulled the water and tissues closer to Ryan. Everyone was quiet for a long moment. Ryan sniffed and wiped his face with tissues before cracking open the water to have a drink. The boy breathed slowly and shakily.
“Ryan, did this happen again?” Ryan nodded. “How many times?” He shrugged, the huge hoodie nearly shrouding his face.
“A few times. I mean, Tripp wasn’t always around over summer, but when he was, he would text me and we’d get together. We —” Ryan inhaled again. “We just did oral stuff, or hands…we didn’t, we didn’t have full sex. I-I don’t really know how, and I don’t think he does either.”
“I need to ask you, did you like Tripp? Was this enjoyable for you? Did you want to spend time with him or have sex with him?”
“I mean, I guess so? It’s not like I’ve been with a lot of people, and like you said, he’s rich and popular, but I don’t think his friends know about him.”
“Did you meet his friends?”
“Well, I - I kind of knew some of them because of Alexa, right?” Ryan looked up at Jeannie expectantly. “Like, I knew Seb, and Seb hangs with Dash a lot, right? But we’re not like, friends, you know? They weren’t even Alexa’s friends, really. But like, this was different. Tripp didn’t really seem to want me around them. Like he didn’t think I could hang and not give him away.” Jeannie nodded slowly, considering.
“So, you don’t think any of them knew he was gay?”
“Of course not.” Ryan scoffed lightly. “It’s like, it’s like Tripp doesn’t even know he’s gay. Forget about everyone else. He even has some girl that’s like supposed to be his girlfriend.”
“Tripp has a girlfriend? This is the first time we’ve heard that.”
“Well yeah, because no one believes it’s real. I don’t even think the guys believe it, but they go along with it. They’re all so uncomfortable about it.”
“Hold - hold up, Ryan.” Mark paused him gently. Jeannie was always slightly surprised at how gentle Mark could sound when he was normally so cut-and-dry. “They’re uncomfortable about Tripp being gay and closeted or they’re uncomfortable about him having a so-called girlfriend?”
Ryan shrugged and licked his lips, considering. “I mean, both?”
Jeannie pushed out a long, soft breath. “Ryan, do you know who Tripp’s girlfriend is?”
“Yeah, it’s that chick Angela? Angela Parisi? The one Tally calls “Goody”.”
“Why does Tally call her that?”
“Because she’s a fucking goody-goody.”
“Ryan, language.” Ed interjected quietly. Jeannie shook her head at him slightly.
“It’s - it’s okay, Ed, he’s just in the moment. He’s not being disrespectful.” Jeannie nodded at Ed, feeling weird that she was overriding him. These professional dynamics were going to stymie her sometime. Ryan glanced at Ed and then back at Jeannie. “What do you mean that Angela Parisi is a goody-goody, Ryan?”
“Well, like, her brother Vin? Vincent? He’s always around Tripp’s and so she kind of comes along, and since Seb and Dash aren’t interested in her, it kind of fits that she’s for Tripp, but like, he doesn’t exactly pay a lot of attention to her, just when she’s useful. It’s like, her job to play Tripp’s girlfriend when he needs it. She’s fine, like, simple, basic, you know? Kind of pretty, I guess, just not…like, she’s not memorable. Yeah, there’s nothing much to remember about her. She’s kind of just, like, there. She’s a goody-goody.” Ryan shrugged.
“Why would Angela be okay with that?” Ryan shrugged again.
“I mean, apart from barely having a personality? I don’t think she has a choice? Like, from what I could gather her Dad and Tripp’s Dad are connected somehow, like maybe business partners? The Parisi kids are kind of just in it, you know?”
“We actually haven’t spoken to them yet.” Mark put in. Ryan’s eyes got wide.
“Oh. Wow. Okay.”
“Well, we didn’t really know about them.” Ryan considered this, sniffing a little.
“Hmmm. I can see that. It’s not like someone like Tally would think they’re anything, but like, they’re around a lot. Maybe it’s more of a Xavier thing — they all go to Xavier together.”
“Right.” Jeannie began, trying to organize her thoughts. “Okay, Ryan. Let me ask you this: are you, are you and Tripp still—?”
“No…No.” Ryan looked at the table again. “School started and he kind of just disappeared. And since Alexa wasn’t seeing Seb any more, there wasn’t any reason to be at one of their parties. The first time I saw him again was on Friday night at the party.”
“How did that go?”
“I mean…he seemed surprised to see me, but then came up to me and told me to come up the back stairs to his room.” Ryan shook his head slightly. “And then it happened again.”
“What happened?” Ryan’s mouth wrinkled and he shook his head again.
“We didn’t even talk. He didn’t say anything, but then I’m up against the door and we started making out, and then he had my pants down and he was going down on me, and…and we barely got going and then there was someone banging on the door…and it was loud, like pounding. And then yelling.”
“Who was it, one of the boys?”
“No. It was Tripp’s father.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
whew that is not where i thought that interview was heading…
!!!!