Of Han Solo and Leia

Mr. Black was readmitted to the hospital six days after Meanie April submerged. Mom said that this readmittance meant that Mr. Black was no longer part of the living world again in a short time. I didn't know which made me feel worse: the fact that the last correspondence between me and him ended in such a sour note, or the fact that Ryder would have to leave after his death.

Ryder hadn't talked much to me either. I asked Quentin about this, and after recounting every single details (including how many times Mr. Black blinked after I told him those Mean Words), Quentin surmised that it was perfectly in Ryder's right to be mad at me.

"You're just being a bitch back there," my brother had called me a lot of names, but never the B word. "But that's good, you know? I've been afraid that you'd be the type who'd, you know, be a doormat and let people step all over you. But then you actually have an inner bitch, and that's normal."

The consolation was designed to make me feel better, but it actually depressed me very much, to the point where I started to spam Ryder a lot of text messages that dwelled around being apologetic.

For some reason, 'I'm sorry' never really came out, though.

I'm just so stupid.

Typical text from Regretful!April towards Upset!Ryder:

'Did you know that the tv show 'Biggest Losers' have created more long-lasting relationships than 'The Bachelorette' and its female counterparts?'

Typical reply from Upset!Ryder towards Regretful!April:

'No.'

'I also read that the three things most difficult to say are 'Thank you', 'I love you' and 'I'm sorry''

'Ok. Have you eaten?'

'I have. I had macaroni and cheese today with extra cheese. What about you?'

'I haven't.'

Sometimes, it was far worse when someone wouldn't yell and got mad at you after you've done something wrong.

Because that would mean that he had given up.

And I never wanted him to give up on me.

-

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-

It was on the seventh day after the last time I saw Ryder when the bell rang. I hoped that I would see him by the door when I opened it, but that would resemble a scene right out from a typical Romantic Comedy . And my life, unfortunately, was not a romantic comedy.

Because instead of Ryder, it was actually his friend.

"Uhm," my mind went to a temporary state of frozen solid because I couldn't quite remember who he was. "The one from Linda's funeral."

"Do you seriously forget my name?" the blonde asked. "It's Alex."

"Hi, Alex. I'm sorry I have a bad memory."

He dismissed it with an easy smile and a wave of his hand. "Don't worry I don't remember your name either. I keep referring you as Ryder's Girl inside my mind."

"It's April," I reached out my hand, but then retreated it when he was about to shake it. "Um, and I don't like being touched by strangers."

"And I'm slightly offended," Alex's mouth slightly curved downwards, and yet there was unmistakable amused glint on the green of his eyes. "So I heard that Ryder's father went back to the hospital last week?"

I nodded. I stared at Alex's very shiny leather shoes and his slim-fit black pants. I wasn't one who followed the trends of fashion, but I knew expensive, fancy clothes when I saw one. And this Alex character was dressed like he was rolling in cash.

"Is Ryder's inside?" he asked.

"No, Ryder's house is next door," I told him. "I'm his neighbor."

Alex pouted. "Really? I always confused which house was his."

"Not here."

"Yep," and yet he wasn't going away. "So, is he home now?"

"No, he and the rest of the family hasn't been home since Mr. Black was readmitted to the hospital."

Alex's hand went to the back of his head, there was discomfort on his face, which he hid pretty well.

Apparently, I talked about that out loud.

"Well, I can't really deal with those kind of things," he actually bothered to comment on my musing. "You know, the mushy, intense-y, feelings-y... stuff? It creeps me out."

"I can actually relate to that!" I said, excited that someone actually shared my discomfort about anything that involved more work in the cardiovascular and tear-glands area. "So why are you here? I thought Ryder doesn't like you. Or have you two made up?" I added as an afterthought.

"You go straight to the point, that's nice. Nah, I'm here for you, actually. The little confusion thing about which house was his was a lie. I'm kinda here to bring you to where Ryder is now."

"I... I don't know if I'm ready to go to the hospital now," I said, biting on my fingers. I was afraid of many things, and my fear for Ryder hadn't subsided completely. I didn't want to see his upset face, and yet somehow I felt worse at the thought of not seeing him being upset at me. This whole confusion scared the Jedi out of me and I wasn't ready to deal with any of that.

"Who says he's in hospital right now?" Alex raised an eyebrow. I noticed that whereas Ryder's eyebrows were dark and thick, Alex's were lighter in color and a little thinner. But what they lacked in color and shape was made up with how Alex used them. He did know how to move those eyebrows. Up and down and arched and pulled. I was actually transfixed seeing them.

"Hey, sweetheart? Are you listening to me?"

"Hearts are not sweet, you know? They actually taste quite awful," I had to tell him that because there were too many people calling their Precious Person sweetheart while ignoring the ugly truth about hearts. "And I'm listening now."

"Ryder's having a fight in about," he checked his watch, which also shone in its expensive glory. "Forty five minutes. I wanna take you there as a surprise for him."

That information didn't register too well into me. Ryder was having a fight? Right now? But I thought he wouldn't have one anymore.

"You need to see your boyfriend in action. He's a beast, that guy. I figured you'll allow him to fight after you've seen him in one. You know that he needs money, right?" Alex said as he leant against the door. He smiled ruefully as he continued. "Especially later, when... his living circumstances change."

"That's a good euphemism for 'when his dad dies'," I said. "I wouldn't have been able to come up with that."

There was that lopsided smile again. "So are you coming?"

"To Ryder's fight?"

"To Ryder's fight."

I was silent as I contemplated this, but Alex was very devilishly persuasive.

"Have I told you that he looks crazy good looking when covered in sweat and grunting? I'm a straight man but even I have to admit it."

"What kind of good looking? Han Solo or Luke?"

"Uh... Han Solo."

Three minutes later, I was inside of Alex's Lexus and upon seeing a Chewbacca bobbing head on his car, I started a full on one hour lecture on Wookie's civilizations.

Alex never once complained about my lengthy monologue, which was a really great gesture of him.

-

-

-

Alex finally stopped the car at a shady looking street in the edgy neighborhood. You knew that you were in not the good part of the neighborhood when there were billboards that advertised cheaper phone calls for your jailed relatives.

"Seems like a really cliche place to run streetfights."

"Just so you know, the criminals run this place."

I could feel my whole body tensed up. "Like, mafias and stuff? Ala the Sopranos?"

"Right. Mafias. Hooligans. People whose father leave them and become drug dealers. Those kind of people." He was quiet for a while, and I was left gnawing on all of my ten fingers, before then he let out another laugh. "You do realize that I was lying the whole time, right?"

"No." I said, still undecided whether it was a good time to exhale in relief or not. "But you're lying to me also upset me big time."

"Seriously, are you always this gullible?"

My first instinct was to nod, but then I had a feeling that he would further deepen my embarassment if I admit my tendency to trust all kinds of people, so I was stuck between nodding and shaking my head.

"Don't worry, the people here do have rough lives, but most of the time, they're nice. Plus, participating in a fight tires them out, so they have no energy left to do any dangerous felony."

I tried to sense if it was another lie or not. It seemed hard to believe anything he had just said, considering the amount of vandalism that were going on all over the walls of the houses here. I could hear the faint sound of people cheering and shouting, and Alex gestured me to follow him.

Alex's body warmth became alarmingly close. "Stay close. God knows what Ryder will do to my face if you get touched by any of these people."

"But if any of 'these people' ever ambush us and threaten to hurt us, will you actually protect me?"

"No. I'll just dash and give you to them as an offering."

"Yeah, you seem like the type who'd do that."

"Thanks for the compliment."

"You also seem like the type who'd consider that a compliment."

Alex snorted another laugh. "You are not being sarcastic. We're here now, and again, stay close to me," he said as he pulled me over to him.

The unfamiliar touch of his hand on my shoulder made me squirm. If there was one person who I'd allow to touch me unannounced, then it'd be my family plus Ryder. Alex may not complain about my excessive rambling about Wookie's and he appreciated my blunt character study of him, but he wasn't anywhere near the level where he could touch me.

"Don't do that. Don't touch me."

He just ignored me, but he did stay a little further away from me. I would have surmised that he was a bit offended with my request, but I couldn't bring myself to really dwell about this because my whole attention was drawn into the fight that was going just seven feet away from me.

To be totally honest, I couldn't really see anything, since the mob of people was really dense, and a lot of them were taller and broader than I was. I had a really hard time sneaking a peek.

"Having a hard time sneaking a peek?" Alex voiced out my concerns.

"Yeah," I said grudgingly. "All I can hear is grunting and yelling in this kerfuffle. I can't even single out Ryder's voice so I don't know if he's winning or losing."

"I'm just going to put my hand on your back," he said as he slowly placed his hand on my back, "and then help you go through these monkeys." He tipped his head as he added another comment. "Kerfuffle. Pfft."

Alex was good at searching for loopholes. I thought that being slimy and foxy helped him to see all kinds of holes, whether on people (emotionally) or people (in thick crowd). Most of the guys who participated in the cheering were covered with tattoos and smelled like they didn't know that they had to use soap at the bathroom, and yet Alex acted as if he knew how to deal with them, in lieu of his preference to high fashion and the Rich Face. It took us a while, but we finally could get into the very front of the circle, and I could finally see who Ryder was fighting.

The moment I laid eyes on his enemy, I felt like it was a bad idea go to the front row.

Because the man was at least six foot tall, weighed twice as much as Ryder, and had inhumanly sharp teeth. He also had the tendency to growl like an animal.

The people around me were chanting, and AnimalMan and Ryder were deep into their wrestling. Of course, being the bigger of the two, AnimalMan was winning. He had Ryder in a headlock, and one of his feet was on snaked around Ryder's lower body, preventing any movement. I had never looked at Ryder covered in that much sweat and veins, and the sound that came from his bared teeth didn't sound like him at all.

A lot of cursing and taunting were being thrown at the two superstars, and that seemed to rile them up. AnimalMan's baldhead shone at the dim ray of the streetlight as he clenched his muscles around Ryder's neck, causing him to choke. My hands went to my own neck as I saw the horrifying display of my Precious Person being ripped to shreds by a guy who looked like a People Ripper for a living.

"Ryder!" I couldn't help screeching.

Ryder's dark eyes found mine, and they widened in surprise. His lack of concentration gave a chance for AnimalMan to spin him around and gave him a jab on the stomach.

At this point, everything went in slow motion. I took in all the details in Ryder's back. He wasn't wearing any shirt so all sort of bruises and cuts that he had were exposed. I could tell that he was experiencing agonizing back pain and shoulder pain and all over body pain and maybe minor disorientation because AnimalMan's knuckle made a dangerous sound as it clashed against Ryder's torso.

And yet, for some reason, Ryder managed to turn his head to me and yelled my name. "Why are you here?!" I thought that was what he yelled afterwards.

"You don't turn your back to me, buddy," like I had imagined, AnimalMan's voice was nasally hoarse. He grinned his sharp teeth again, before landing another jab on Ryder's face.

Ryder doubled over, but he didn't fall. As the chanting of the people took a new level of loud, he turned his back to his opponent again and faced towards my direction. There was a trickle of blood running from the side of his mouth, and it made him all the more slanderous when he shouted, "Alex, you bastard!"

"We're not finished here," AnimalMan let out yet another supposed-to-be-badass-comment. Ryder had less than a second to react as the bigger guy tackled him to the ground.

"That... usually doesn't happen," Alex commented beside of me. "Usually he'll be the one doing the tackling." I almost forgot that he was beside me. In fact, I almost forgot where I was, and the sea of people around me suddenly alarmed me. And then I could see Ryder being kicked on the ground, and it hurt so much seeing it, because it felt as if it were me who absorbed all the pain.

"It's because of me," I said to myself. Ryder was a good fighter, I knew that he was. He won once when I saw him (chapter five), sending his opponent airborne in the air in a winning uppercut. From what I had gathered from Alex's testimony, Ryder wouldn't be losing like this normally; he wouldn't be lying on the ground, trying to protect his head and his vital areas from being ravaged by a guy who were twice his size. I knew that he was strong at being offensive, but then again, most people who were fast and nimble weren't usually good at being defensive and sustaining damage.

It's coming again.

The compressed feeling, the sudden short of air, the invisible needles prickling at my head. Only this time, when I tried to back away, there was no wall or a safe place, there were only more people. All of them looked dangerous, all of them ready to deal damage.

"Hey, are you okay?" Alex asked, but by then, I was gone too deep. I crouched on the floor, my knees up to my chin and I tried to lock every sound, every movement, every life out of me. And yet I could still painfully feel every single person here, I could still hear the sound of AnimalMan's knuckle connecting against whatever part of Ryder's body, and him screaming my name. The noble thing for me was to repress this episode of anxiety and get away from here. But I wasn't a noble person, and I certainly wasn't strong.

"What's wrong? April?" someone asked. "Hey, hey! What are you doing?" he shouted, but it wasn't directed at me.

At the same time, I could feel a man's hand wrapped around me and in a single swoop, I was up in the air. There was a hurricane inside my mind, thundering, knocking everything, rendering me incapable of thinking clearly. I was too disoriented and too short-winded to actually take a look to know who got me.

But then, it didn't matter, because whoever had me on top of his shoulder got tackled. We fell together on the ground, and I could see from my peripheral vision that there was another crowd circling against us. There was the sound a punch dug inside that person's head. And another, and another, and another.

And then I could feel his familiar smell enclosed upon me. There was the smell of blood and mansweat around him, but Ryder was now around me.

"If anyone dares to touch my girlfriend, I'll kill you!" Ryder announced. "I'm not even joking. That guy over there will need a lot of money to repair himself at the hospital."

"Are you okay?" Ryder asked me. "April?"

"Gimme a minute," I said. I took deep breaths, focusing my mind to go to my Happy Place, which was the telephone booth of Doctor Who. It proved to be hard because there were lots of strangers watching me do it. "I might need a hug."

"I can do that!" one of the strangers chimed.

Ryder shot him a glare so magnificent it could have burnt a glacier to crisp. As the random guy cowered and faded to the background of even more random guys, Ryder took one of my arm and slung it on his shoulder, while he held me closer to him. But he didn't stop there, his other arm found the back of my knees and he lifted me up to the air.

It took me a while to actually realize what was happening to me: I was being carried Princess-style! It wasn't particularly uncomfortable. In fact, I liked the feeling of walking on air and having Ryder's arm around me.

We went to his (Linda's) car and he put me on the passangger seat. He sat on the driver's seat and rested his forehead on the steer.

After my shortage for oxygen finally subsided, I talked to him. "You're covered in blood."

"Mine is probably only half of it," his reply came without him even lifting his head.

"Thank you for saving me back there. You know, at one point during that panic attack, I thought that the people around us were turning into werewolves and-"

"Why the hell are you here?!" Ryder didn't let me finish. "Don't you know how extremely dangerous this place is for a girl?"

I was very conscious about his anger. "It's... I... Uh. Alex said-"

"I'm going to beat him!" Ryder was ready to open the car door, but I grabbed him by the elbow because he didn't look like he was ready for another fight.

"Don't, please! Judging by his choice of clothes and shoes, Alex would be devastated if you break the temple that is his body."

Ryder's eyebrows rose in recognition. "That makes me want to shove my foot to his face even more."

"And Alex managed to get me here because he said you'd look crazy good looking when you're fighting."

At this, Ryder was quiet. Even though he tried so hard to not get affected with how the world viewed him, he always did. He was as self-conscious as I was, maybe even more, and yet he hid behind the mask of aloofness. "That's still not a good reason. One of the guys tried to kidnap you, for Christ's sake. I didn't even want to know what he was going to do with you."

"According to the movies that I've watched, guys who reside in this part of the neighborhood usually regard women as sex toy, so maybe he was thinking of boning me when I was slung over his shoulder."

"Don't... ever... talk about it," Ryder's voice was dangerously low. "You don't talk about that. April, you do not talk about that!" he put both of his hands on my shoulders and shook me a bit. "I care about you, okay? You really shouldn't be here, and you shouldn't be thinking about that. It's upsetting me."

"And I care about you, too," I said, looking at his bare chest and the bruise that was on his left shoulder blade. "I don't like seeing you getting beat up."

"That's because I was distracted seeing you there!"

"Do you really need the money? Because I can give my savings to you. I practically never go out so I have a lot stashed under my bed..."

"I don't want your money, April. And I do need cash, but it's not..." he huffed. "I'm not that desperate, okay? I can get a job, and there's my father insurance. Plus, my grandma promised that she'd help. I'm not going to be some kind of a bum in the street."

"But then why are you fighting again?"

Ryder's eyes darkened. "I don't know. I guess I just need it. I've never been good at expressing what I feel, okay? All I know that there's this anger bottled up inside and everytime I try to tell someone about it, it's like talking in another language. I don't like opening up to people and they don't want me to open up."

"But-but I thought you could talk to me."

"It's not easy to talk to you, okay? You're living in another whole dimension of the world. Up until now, I'm not even sure if you like me as much as I like you. I mean, I understand that you have problem with expressing empathy, but I never thought that-"

"That it'd be this difficult?" I finished for him.

"Look, you just hurt me a lot at the dinner, okay? You insulted my father, you always said the wrong things in the wrong time, and it's like..." he took another deep breath, as if refusing to say it. "it's like the things that made you endearing at first infuriates me now. It's not even the normal level of infuriating; one time, I was close into ripping my hair off my head. And you know how invested I am on my hair products."

There was a lot to process after that long of a monologue. I liked how honest he was being towards me. I needed it. I wouldn't have caught it otherwise. On the other hand, his honesty didn't make anything easier. We still had to thread lightly, we still had a lot to go through. Particularly with the way we deal with emotions and stuff.

God, I was so bad at this.

Ryder was quiet, he was obviously waiting for me to say something. But again, words died on me and my whole head stop thinking about what would be the best things to say.

"Tell me what you're thinking," he said.

"I don't know what to say," I admitted it to him. "I don't even know what to think."

"The sad thing is, I know you're going to say that." Ryder retorted.

"I-I have something to give to you, though," I grabbed onto my pocket to reach for my cellphone. "I mean, I've been making this since the fiasco that was The Black Dinner. It's been a little project of mine. And, um. I hope that you'll like it."

"What?" Ryder looked onto the screen of my phone, but it was still in the home menu.

"Wait," I tried to find where I stored the file was, but I forgot. "Wait a little more." I said, because I knew Ryder's patience was wearing thin. "There it is," I pressed on the video and chose 'Play'.

Immediately, I could hear the cheesy music that I chose at the start of my tribute video for Ryder. Right after this, Woodie Allen would profess his love for Annie Hall in the form of Diane Keaton in 1977.

"Love is too weak a word for what I feel - I luuurve you, you know, I loave you, I luff you, two F's, yes I have to invent, of course I do, don't you think I do?"

And then followed by that, Jack Nicholson would again profess his love to Helen Hunt on As Good As it Gets,

"...I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and ... I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food, and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me."

At the mention of 'woman', however, the Jack Nicholson's voice was faded out and changed to my voice saying 'man'. It took me a while to figure out how to do that trick in a movie editing software, actually, and a lot of youtube tutorials to do it perfectly.

I gingerly tried to look at Ryder, but his eyes were fixated on the screen of my phone. I couldn't tell what he was thinking because his face was unreadable. It wasn't the kind of face that he had shown me before. In fact, I didn't even know that he could make that kind of face, the dazzled look, combined with pulled eyebrows and parted lips. He looked like he was watching a masterpiece and a Razzie-worthy film combined.

And then came the scene from New Moon, when Edward said those words to Bella, "I love you. You're my only reason to stay alive... if that's what I am."

I felt the need to provide some editorial commentaries on that. "I guess I liked the quote from Twilight more, but New Moon is a better movie because-"

"Sssh," Ryder shushed me, his gaze were still glued on the screen. The scene from Edward and Bella was cut now, and now we could see Julia Roberts in the front of Hugh Grant, teary eyed and smiling, and absolutely relatable because that's how I often feel when facing Ryder Black in hard times, and she was saying, "I'm also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her."

The cheesy music that marked the start of my Tribute Video was being played again, which means that my short film had finally ended.

Both Ryder and I didn't say anything in the following one minute. I took my phone back from his hold and pocketed it. Normally, I appreciated silence more than anything, but I guess silence wasn't something that I expected after I had bared my soul and heart. (granted, in a form of movie compilations, but still I expected some kind of reaction. Anything aside from silence.)

I even detested the silence so much, I was the first to break it. "Um, so, I compiled movies, because the writers of these movies clearly know what they're doing. I mean, I definitely feel every single thing that was said in the compilations, but I never knew how to put those feelings into words. And even if I did, then it would be in a much worse version than when the actors and actresses said it. I mean, they know how to work their expressions and they know how to use inflection on their voice, and when I say those things, it'll be in my bland voice and bland expression and..." my voice was dying because things were getting harder to say. "And you deserve more than that."

"It's going to be difficult," he said. "I'm temperamental and I'll be living three hours away from you. Plus, my father's going to die and I'll have lots of baggage."

"I can deal with that," I said, "But please remember that I have zero knowledge on emphaty and I use movies as a crutch. I can't even say what I'm feeling without hyperventilating and often I don't know what I should say to make you happy."

"I can deal with that," Ryder smiled. "I'll most likely not go to college. I'll always try to find a decent job, but if you're with me, I don't think you'll be living the kind of life that would allow you to party lavishly."

"That's actually a nice ordeal," I told him. "I am never going to not have Asperger's. If you're with me, I don't know if we're ever going to be able to look at each other in the eye and I'll automatically know what you're feeling. I'll always going to disappoint you."

"I'm pretty vocal with my feelings to you," he said. "You're not going to dissappoint me. At least, not permanently. You always know how to make it up. I don't know how you do it, but you always make it up."

"You're saying that the movie compilation works?"

"It kinda does," Ryder's face was a little red at this admittance. "I mean, if it were any other girl who gave me that, I would have thought that they're just being lazy. But I know how much movies mean to you."

"Thank you," I raised my hand and caressed him in the cheek, oil and dirt and blood and all. I knew he liked being touched in his face. I knew he knew that I did this to him because it would make him happy. "For understanding."

"I love you," he suddenly said. "I love you, April."

I'd heard this before, at the dinner. He said that he loved me to his father. But I never would have thought that the effect would be different when he said it in person, just a few centimeters away from me.

I felt like the whole world just stopped moving, at this instant.

"And it's okay if you can't say it back now. Just do it ala Han Solo and say 'I know', because I've made it absolutely clear that I love you."

I nodded, and in my best Harrison Ford(1) impersonation, I straightened my back and said to him.

"I know."