Ryan O'Malley
September 03, 2012 1:35 PM
Pebbles by Ryan O'Malley
It always seemed that whenever Ryan looked in the water room, the scene was always the same, a calm, peaceful lake with a dock containing a beach chair, the kind one could stretch out on, like a recliner. It was a scene that he often felt the need for. The Crotalus often felt stressed out and wound up and anxious. No matter where he went there was no respite from it. Even here, Ryan was worried that she would find him, though he'd made sure to check the common room before venturing out. He'd literally stood with his back against the wall of the stairway to the boys' dorms and made sure that Carrie wasn't in there before crossing to the exit.The sixth year knew that his sister was angry about Jamie being pregnant-and their father remarrying in the first place. Ryan even sort of worried that the twelve year old would do something to hurt their step-mother while she was pregnant or their new sibling when it was born. Not only that, but he worried about the new sibling. What he or she was like Carrie and delighted in tormenting Ryan too? Or if Jamie decided she didn't want him around anymore because of the baby.
Of course, the person Ryan was really worried about the younger Crotalus hurting wasn't even a person. It was his new puppy Scruffy, whom he wasn't allowed to have at Sonora and missed terribly. Getting Scruffy had been the highlight of the whole summer. Which between his sister teasing him about his DADA CATS score and Sophie's slumber party that he couldn't go to and Carrie teasing him about not being invited to the slumber party had not been that great, though he had done very well on the Transfiguration portion of his exams. His written score hadn't even hurt him. Which was surprising given his mental defects.
That was another thing, after having Ivy, Aunt Lilac had decided not to work at Sonora anymore. Though he didn't let anyone know, Ryan was rather struggling with it. There was a new professor this year, and the sixth year was sure she would not like him, like he was sure that the rest of the staff aside from Uncle Seth did not like him.
The Crotalus got up and walked down to the shore, he picked up a handful of pebbles and went back up to the dock. Instead of sitting back in the chair, Ryan sat down on the edge of the dock and began throwing the pebbles into the water, pretending each one was one of his problems-though Arabella would probably say it would have better if he literally threw his biggest one, Carrie into the water instead. He doubted this exercise would work, but he was attempting it anyway.
Before long, Ryan heard footsteps behind him and tensed. What if it was Carrie coming to torment him? Sometimes, he felt like he couldn't take much more of it. He'd have worried about her pushing him in the water too, given that he really couldn't swim, but that would mean touching him and Ryan knew Carrie wouldn't do that, given she thought that he was contaminated.
Nervously, the Crotalus turned to look up at the person, hoping that it wasn't anyone who wanted to hurt him any way.
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Ryan O'Malley
Pebbles
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Sally Manger
September 04, 2012 9:15 PM
What do they accomplish? by Sally Manger
The school year had only just begun, the wagon trails likely just beginning to fade, but already it felt wrong. There were many things Sally knew, and there were many more she did not understand, but this feeling was one of the few she sensed and knew. It was longing, a craving for what once was but now was not, a desire for normalcy and regularity. She wished for her aunt to return and allow things to go unchanged.Sonora did not feel right now. She wanted to leave. It was not right to be on the grounds if her aunt was not around. Something about it burdened her thoughts. She attempted to use logic to defy her irrationalities, but her usual stand-by seemed to fail now.
Obviously, Aunt Lilac had entirely good motives for her departure. With a new baby, teaching full-time would be far too difficult. She was aware of her aunt’s plan to tutor privately, such as involved with the general magic education many pureblood children received before reaching school age. For now, though, her attention was fully on her daughter.
The Aladren ventured to Tranfigurations and continually felt her stomach knot. Who was this person at Aunt Lilac’s desk? It was not right. She wandered the school, seeking tranquility, and continually expected to see a mess of brown hair around the corner, an orange-clad figure down the corridor. There never was.
It was just odd. Numerous aspects of her life were odd now, such as her mother’s pregnancy. For whatever reason, Sally had not foreseen a new baby, though perhaps she should have. Her mother was only thirty-four, and babies tended to result from marriages, even broken ones like those from which she and her step-brother both stemmed.
Speaking of, as she aimlessly meandered through the MARS room of the water theme, she noticed Ryan on the edge of the dock. He either sensed her presence or heard her footsteps, as he turned around. “Does it seem odd to you too?” she inquired, offering no greeting prior. Sally liked to get down to business; there was no need to waste time on formalities like Hello, how are you?s with a member of her own home. “Everything? Ivy, Aunt Lilac, our sibling-to-be?”
The brunette seated herself beside him on the dock, sliding out of her shoes before hanging her legs over the edge. She pulled her long burgundy skirt up enough to ensure it not meet the water, her toes flirting with the water’s surface. Sally examined the contents of her brother’s hand. She had seen him tossing the pebbles before she approached, and there seemed to be a few remaining, resting in his palm. “Why are you throwing rocks?” she inquired, blinking grey-brown eyes. They appeared empty, as they often did, and yet there was something, hidden and marred by the emptiness, smothered into nothing but somehow maintaining status of a something.
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Sally Manger
What do they accomplish?
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Sally Manger
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Ryan
September 06, 2012 6:49 AM
Nothing, I suppose. They're just rocks. by Ryan
Ryan breathed a sigh of relief that his companion was his step-sister and not his biological one. Though Sally felt more like she was than Carrie did. She treated him nicely, the younger Crotalus did not. It was the same with Jamie and his natural mother. Truthfully, this-minus the second year of course-was the family Ryan secretly wanted but hadn't thought he deserved.He still didn't think he did. That was likely why Carrie was there to remind him of it and ruin things for him. Ryan didn't exactly know what he'd done wrong that the universe felt he needed to be punished for, how he'd earned his bad karma, but he knew there had been something and it must have been something horrible. Maybe it was just that Ryan was defective like he had always been told.
Besides, the Crotalus was worried that his step-mother would stop wanting him around anyway and of course, that was what he deserved. He basically lived in fear that even if someone did like him, they would stop. That was why Ryan took having the sleepover that Sophie had so poorly, despite knowing full well, that if he allowed himself to be down, Carrie would notice and seize on that vulnerability. Which she had of course. It was something the second year had a knack for, seemingly, especially when it came to him.
"Some of it." Ryan admitted. "I love Ivy but I really miss having Aunt Lilac here. She was the one staff member I knew liked me. Aside from Uncle Seth of course, but he doesn't teach. My grades don't depend on his opinions of me and while I can do spells okay, essays are subjective and I'm afraid that professors will give me bad grades because they hate me." It was okay to open up to Sally, she was his sister. A sister that liked him and treated him well, sort of like Valerie and Melanie were. The sister Carrie would never be to him.
Ryan took a deep breath. "I am worried about the baby though. Like, what if it grows up to hate me too? Or your mother turns on me once he or she is born? I want so badly for the baby to love me but I fear that it won't, that it will grow up to treat me the way Carrie does.Plus, I'm afraid that there won't be a place for me in our family anymore." His mother had made it very clear to him that that had been the case before.
"I don't really know why I'm throwing them. I mean, I had the idea that they were like troubles I was throwing away. Like my mother and Carrie, only not in a violent way. A metaphor of sorts." Ryan's face colored a bit and he looked out at the lake. "I guess that sounds really stupid." He instantly regretted telling Sally. What if she laughed at him?
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Ryan
Nothing, I suppose. They're just rocks.
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Sally
September 08, 2012 12:24 PM
They must do <em>something</em>. by Sally
“My mother is not like yours,” Sally stated bluntly. Ryan’s concerns about the second Mrs. O’Malley changing to a negative opinion of him and the baby hating him obviously stemmed from the treatment he’d received from his mother and sister for the duration of his life. “She would not simply ‘turn on’ you or permit her child to treat you poorly, and there is no reason for the baby not to like you. Despite whatever Carrie says, you are a great brother.”If his sibling had been anyone else, the fourth year was completely certain Ryan would have been happy. Any other younger brother or sister would have looked up to him. Carrie was just so blinded by the hate inherited from their mother that she could not see that. Sally knew for a fact that her brothers looked up to him and his father too. There hadn’t been a good male role model for them up until now.
Somehow, her brothers even looked up to her as well, despite having never truly given them reason to. Sally had always been distant, and age had set them apart along with gender. She supposed they admired her intelligence and logical thought-process. They did not know how it plagued her.
The rocks served to distract. Ryan mentioned a metaphor of throwing his troubles away, and the brunette nodded. Her eyes shifted down to the water when his did, searching for whatever source of interest and stolen his gaze but finding nothing. He spoke just as her vision returned to him, and she realized the reason his eyes had darted away, using the red hue of his face as evidence. Blushing meant embarrassment, she remembered. “I guess that sounds really stupid.”
“It sounded perfectly fine to me,” replied the Aladren. “I’ve never been huge on metaphors, but I might engage in this one.” She scanned around and, snatching one precise pebble, returned to center. Her eyes closed, and she thought. Sally allowed things she’d shut away—her father and his knack for making her mother miserable, mainly—to flow back, and she pretended like a child. She imagined that somehow, all of that, all of him, was inside the rock.
Opening her eyes, she tossed the stone into the water. It did not go terribly far, her arm strength not built up, but it was somehow satisfying. The splash of the rock against the water pleased her, and as it fell below the surface, it was gone forever. Sally felt herself smile, delighted. “It is fun!”
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Sally
They must do <em>something</em>.
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Sally
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Ryan
September 13, 2012 7:04 PM
They can be turned into buttons. by Ryan
Ryan stared at the ground. Was Sally mad at him? Did she think he'd insulted her mother? He hadn't meant to, especially as Jamie had been so nice to him so far. The Crotalus should have known that most people who were not him or Amity were very attached to their mothers and didn't like when others said things that weren't very nice. "Sorry." Ryan muttered. He was very afraid Sally would hate him for what he'd just said. Or that Jamie would think that the sixth year was just an ungrateful brat. "If what I said was nasty and unfair."That was how his mother viewed him. Even though she'd really given him anything but grief over the years, she believed that just not abandoning him in a cave somewhere was doing him a huge favor. Not that his father would have let her. The reason Ryan had spent a good portion of his childhood at his grandparents' house was because apparently for his own well-being. His father couldn't protect him if he wasn't there.
The thing about it all was, despite what Sally said about her mother not being like his, was that Ryan didn't felt that he deserved to have people be nice to him. He just couldn't shake the belief that there was something inherently wrong with him. The Crotalus didn't know exactly what, but there just had to be something . Why else would his own mother reject him? Mothers didn't do that to their kids, even Aunt Jillian didn't seem malicious towards Amity and Chaslyn, simply rather unreasonable at least in the former's opinion. Ryan honestly would have rather gone through what his cousin had to do than what he'd dealt with.
His face flushed when Sally said he was a great brother. At least it meant that she was probably not angry with him even though Ryan wasn't entirely sure that it was true. Aside from that he was better than average at Transfiguration-all likely from genetic causes-he didn't think anything about him was good. "Thank you." The sixth year replied in a small voice. He wasn't all that used to compliments.
The Crotalus felt a bit better too, when Sally didn't think his metaphor was stupid. He brightened when she even said that it was fun. "I'm glad you like it." Ryan replied. "It helps me feel a little better." Only a little though. He could pretend all he wanted that it worked for real but his troubles would never go away completely. His mother would always hate him and while Ryan wouldn't ever see her or deal with her ever again, it had all taken a toll on him, his self-esteem was non-existent. Nor could he escape his sister, eventually he'd have to risk crossing his common room where Carrie might be lying in wait.
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Ryan
They can be turned into buttons.
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