"THIS TIME AROUND"
By: gb
Chapter 38
Ryan walked into SOS and saw Hayley doing paperwork at on of the tables. The place was empty now but would be packed with people that evening.
She looked up when she saw him.
"Hey, Ryan. Welcome back! Great work on getting that new band for the club!"
Ryan only smiled and handed her the contracts.
"At this rate, you'll be rolling in profits before next season!" Hayley enthusiastically glanced over the papers.
She put them into a folder and put the other ones aside.
She then said, "Ryan, I have something to tell you...I think you're gonna hate me for it..."
"Tell me," he answered good naturedly, getting himself a club soda. "I'll try not to hate you."
Hayley grimaced and looked uncertainly at him, then went on, "I ran into Gillian today."
"Yeah?" he took a sip of his drink. "And she was still upset with you right? Look, Hayley, I think she's always-"
"Ryan, I knocked her for her affair with David Hayward." admitted Hayley quickly.
"You what?" Ryan abandoned his drink in mid sip and put his bottle down.
"I didn't mean to, Ryan, honest. When she first told me about it when you were in the hospital with pneumonia, I defended her. I felt so sorry for what Hayward did to both of you. I understood what she felt for you. But now, she can't get over what happened with us and I felt she wasn't being fair."
"Hayley, please tell me you didn't just take all the hard work I went through to get Gillian back and chuck it out the window!" he begged.
"Are you telling me you don't care what happened with her and David?" she asked, surprised.
"I'll always care!" Ryan answered bitterly walking over to where she was sitting and taking the seat next to her. "But now mainly because I understand why it happened!"
He got up and began to pace slowly and stood next the bar now and began to explain what he never wanted to have to admit.
"When I first found out about them, I was so hurt and angry! I didn't think I was ever gonna get past that! I felt so betrayed...but really I was the one who betrayed her! She came to me and told me she loved me- she had alot of growing up to do, but the love was real! I rejected her. Coldy and cruelly rejected her! I couldn't handle our love so I told her I didn't believe her and told her I didn't want to be married to her- I was sick of us!"
"You were just reacting the way you're used to doing." Hayley said sympathetically.
"She turned to Hayward because I couldn't give her what she wanted even though a part of me wanted that! All she wanted ws my love when I threw her away and Hayward happened to be there!"
Hayley came to stand next to him and put her hand on his in support.
"What she wanted was not so much, why did I think it was so damned terrifying?!" Ryan asked in amazement now."Where was my head?!"
Hayley shrugged. What could she say? Mateo might be able to answer though since she had put him through the same ordeal! Listening to Ryan was like watching her own life video playing before her eyes- she knew all these words of regret! She had spoken them herself!
"They didn't care about each other, Hayley," Ryan explained. "I wanted to console myself by thinking she was faithless and selfish by nature and I was better off without her. But really, she was just looking for some affection from me and Hayward took advantage of that while I was so busy with my friendship with you and running away from what I knew I felt for her. He used her and I guess, in her own way, she was using him. And when she came back to me, he felt that he had to hurt us for it!"
"Ironically, it was David who showed me how much Gillian means to me- how much it hurt to see her with someone else! I know now that being apart from her is something I could NEVER deal with- I love her too much and I'm too addicted to her!"
"I always valued our friendship," Hayley told him. "She should've understood that. I always supported your marriage to her."
"But I should've put my marriage first because it was something I came to want," Ryan
insisted. "I didn't have to hurt her like that. I didn't have to leave her to be David's pray and be humilliated by him for the rest of her life! What she did was wrong, but...I helped her do it. I'll hate Hayward for the rest of my life! Because I helped him help himself to my wife...I had her love and told her I didn't want it and I couldn't understand how I was hurting her...I really missed the boat, Hayley! I'll live with that split second mistake for the rest of my life. Maybe I'm the one who cheated on me."
Ryan looked down in a sadness that his heart had now unburdened from its inner locks and then back at his friend in helplessness.
"You can't help that you were raised without love," Hayley told him. "Ryan, honey, please stop beating youself up about what happened- it's in the past. Gillian is yours forever now. She always has been."
"Gillian was raised with alot of grief,too, and she found a way to love me. Sometimes, I think I was as abusive to her when we were married as my father and mother were to each other."
Hayley could see the guilt dripping off of Ryan's words in thick doses.
"That's not true, Ryan," she insisted. "You can never be that cruel and Gillian Knows that."
"I'll never forget the look on her sweet face that christmas day when I told her I loved her...or when I rejected her when she told me she loved me...and..."
Hayley waited for him to continue as he looked over at her carefully.
"And when I told her I had feelings for you...that'll haunt for as long as I live." he finally finished.
"What?"
"See, I can console myself by saying Gillian never felt anything for Hayward- it never meant anything...but you and I...there were real feelings there, Hayley. Who knows what could've happened. I think she always knew that. I mean we realized that what you had for Mateo and what I felt for Gillian was always going to mean more to us, but I was finally honest with her about it and I broke her heart. I just wanted to be honest- I couldn't live with letting her think she was imagining things."
"I understand."
"But, she's the one I'm IN LOVE with and that's a world of difference. I love her, Hayley. She's the reason I can say that out loud."
"You're never going to be able to care that way for anyone else,are you?" asked Hayley in a tone that suggested that something she'd been missing had finally found its way into her thoughts.
He looked at her and just shook his head. His eyes seemed to be restless as if he were silently apologizing to her because nothing could happen between them. And nothing ever could as long as there was Gillian for him, Hayley now knew.
"As far as first loves go, thirty's not too late to experience it, Ryan, you know." she smiled at him.
A second later, she told him sadly, "I'm sorry I messed this up. She tried to explain and I think she did, but she said something about too many heart pieces."
"I think she means her heart was in a million broken pieces. See, I can even understand her crazy english!" offered Ryan. "She and I- somehow, we make sense."
Ryan suddenly turned and told Hayley goodbye and headed for the door as Mateo was just coming inside. He quickly got out of Ryan's way.
"Hey, where are you going?" called out Hayley.
"I've got to get to Gillian! I've got to make sure we're still ok!"
Hayley watched him leave the club and heard his car speed off a few minutes later...
end of part 38
(to be continued...)
Next time: Ryan and Gillian...and David and even Jake have an interesting run in at the hospital...