Rum and Coke

Ryan laughed as he watched Ellie dart away. “I swear, that girl has supersonic hearing.” he said with a shake of his head as he continued to wheel down the hall.

“Only when it comes to that damn cell phone of hers.” Ren butted in after taking a swig of his water. “I swear, she can be completely oblivious to you yelling to get her attention, but, damn, if that cell starts ringing, she’s instantly back in reality.”

The three teenagers laughed at his statement. It was a proven fact that her cellphone was never further than an arm’s reach away.

Ren pushed open the door only to see Ellie staring at her phone with a blank expression.

“Ellie?” Kay asked, sliding into the room.

“Baby?” Ren asked, pushing past her. When Ellie didn’t move, he tried again. “Honey? What’s wrong?”

Still nothing.

“Josephine, Thyona,” Ryan called, using the names of one of the two characters she identified so strongly with. His brows knitting together, he rolled straight toward his twin.

Ellie’s head instantly shot up and we locked eyes.

“Who was on the phone?” Ryan asked in a kind tone.

“Should I feel sad?” she asked before looking back at her phone.

“I don’t know. What happened?” Ryan asked, quickly glancing at her phone, hoping that it would give him an answer. It didn’t. The screen was black.

“I don’t know if I should feel bad, break down and cry, get mad and punch something, be jealous, or to laugh and be happy… or to run…”

“What happened?” Ryan asked. He had completely forgotten about the other two in the room. All he knew was that Ellie was in character-heI just didn’t know which one and that scared him.

“WHY?!” she yelled after a brief moment of silence, throwing her phone at a wall, where it fell to the floor in pieces. “I'll make it on my own. I'm an autonomous person! I'm an independent person! I can do what I want! I can be who I am!” She screamed, her eyes were glazed over and empty. She grabbed the nearest object, which happened to be an empty beer bottle and threw it at the wall. To any stranger, she would look like she had the gift of Insanity.

Definitely Thyona, Ryan thought.

She began to pick up random things and toss them against the wall, all the while shouting in metered verse. “Do you think I like feeling this way?” crash “Do you think it feels good to feel bad all the time do you think I wouldn’t rather just be a nice, happy well-adjusted seeming person who can just take it as it comes and like it?...NO!” crash “I refuse to let this get to me!” crash “...But I can’t just not be honest. Do you think that makes me happy? To spend my whole life on earth the only life I’m going to have feeling angry?” she looked back to Ryan with her glossy eyes. The spark that was normally there was gone.

Ryan quickly noticed that the Avenged crew was in the room, along with everyone else. He took in everyone’s shocked faces before turning to Kay. “Here, take my phone. Call Kale or Adam. If they don’t pick up, then call my aunt. Ask if anything bad happened back in New York. There’s only one thing that could have broken her this much, and I pray to god that it hasn’t happened. Go now,” he said quickly to her as Ellie broke out into song.

“- Each phrase is better.”crash
“Better than him.
Better!” crash“Even my smallest whim
Is better!
How can he miss what's so clear?”crash“How can I do better”crash“than what's
Already here?”crash crash

“Ellie, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Brian asked his daughter. But Ryan knew she was already too far gone.

"GET OFF MY KUMQUAT!" she screamed as she threw a duffel bag at the wall.

“EVERYONE GET OUT!” Ryan yelled. They all looked at him as if he, too, had lost his mind.

“But-“

“NOW!” Ryan yelled, as Ellie hurled more beer bottles at the wall. They scrambled out. Ellie, off in her own little world, had reverted back to spoken verse.

“-So you get up every morning” crash “and say who can I compromise with today?” crash “Surely there’s a sociopath somewhere who wants to make a deal.” crash

“Thyona,” Ryan said calmly, addressing her character.

She picked up an empty beer bottle and chucked it at the wall. “But I get started on a sentence, and that leads to another sentence-”

“I know.”

“-and then, the first thing I know, I’m just trying to work it through, the logic of it, follow it through to the end because I think, if I stop, or if I don’t get through to the end before someone interrupts me they won’t understand what I’m saying and what I’m saying isn’t necessarily wrong—it might be, but not necessarily, and if it is, I’ll be glad to be corrected, or change my mind—but if I get stopped along the way I get confused I don’t remember where I was-” she shook her head in frustration and chucked another beer can at the wall.

“Nikkos, you need to stop.” He addressed the new character, grabbing a hold of her hands and giving them a forceful tug. This is what she did when she completely broke down- revert to every character that she has ever come into contact with…and, when you grow up in a theatre, that’s a lot of characters.

“- or how to get back to the end of what I was saying…”

“Nikkos!” he said, squeezing her fingers. It was now that he wished his legs were functioning properly. He would have given her a firm shake and smack on the back of her head. “I cannot help you if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on!”

“And now I'm all alone again, no where to go no one to turn to,
without a hope without a friend without a face to say hello too.
And now the night is near,
And I can make believe (they're) here."

"You can do so much better than Eponine."

"Contradictions are what people are, bundles of contradictions, fighting them and working them out. And I refuse to be dictated to by your overly simplistic logic-chopping approach to life.” she seethed.

“Tom,” He yelled rather forcefully.

“She asks how I am.” she started to sing breathlessly.
“How can I reply? I go through my daily routine.
I give lessons, I wait.
Time goes by.
Yet lately I find there is
Pleasure in humming a silly tune.
And some days I go to the park
And I sit there all afternoon.
Some evenings I swear
I can hear a door slam.
The house is far too quiet now.
That is how I am.”

“Oh, god, you’re not seriously quoting Professor Bhaer, are you?” Ryan asked incredulously.

“It's gonna change everything, it's gonna end ignorance and misunderstanding, it's gonna end illiteracy. It's going to end war…”

“Ok, I’m not familiar with that one. Mind quoting something I’ll actually know?”

“And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead;
Go to thy death-bed
He will never come again…”

“Who?” Ryan demanded, squeezing her fingers for good measure. “Who is dead, Ophelia?”

She yanked herself out of his grasp and began throwing things at the wall again, speaking her madness in the many different tongues and characters that she knew. She was flipping through them like she were changing the channel of an international satellite.

“Ellie,” Ryan tried her real-self again. She had never been this bad before. Whatever news she was told, broke her down completely. That much was sure. crash

“Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime
say the word and I will follow you
Share each day with me,
each night, each morning...”

“Phantom,” Ryan said in a softer tone, rolling over to her.

“NO!” she screamed, jumping up onto the couch.“No! you can’t make me!” She began to scream at a phantom in the doorway.

Ryan quickly lunged to her and grabbed her around the waist. He had effectively pinned her arms by her side.

“I pray terry, let me go!”

But Ryan didn’t let go. He knew that she had to get it out of her system. “Not so kind and decent if he’s not threatened with some kind of scandal of dead women hanging off his house…And Ken’s doing the Lambada, so of course they all have Mai Tais!”

Ryan stayed quiet, letting the exertion take its toll on her body.

“Oh, Mama, I’m in fear for my life
From the long arm of the law
Lawman has put an end to my running
And I’m so far from home
Oh, Mama, I can hear you a crying
You’re so scared and all alone
Hangman in coming down from the gallows
And I don’t have very long…” she sang softly, now clinging onto Ryan’s shirt. Her jaw suddenly hardened and she struggled against his hold. “Why can’t men be more like women!” She screamed before collapsing back into his arms. Ryan slowly lowered the both of them to the ground, as she began to softly sing again.

“I never dreamed of this sorrow,
I never thought I'd have reason to lament,
I hoped I'd never know heartbreak,
How I wish I could change the way things went!
I wanted nothing but goodness,
I wanted reason to prevail,
Not this bare emptiness.
I wanted Days of Plenty

But I refused to feel tragic,
I am aching for more than pain and grief.
There has got to be meaning,
Most of all when a life has been so brief.
I have got to learn something,
How can I give (them) any less?
I want life to go on.
I want Days of Plenty…” she died out, but Ryan picked up where she ended (but two octaves lower then it was meant to be sung at and substituting words).

“You have to Believe,
There is reason for Hope.
You have to Believe
That the answers will come.
You can't let this defeat you.
I won't less this defeat you.
You must fight to keep (them) there,
Within you!

So Believe that (they) matter!
And Believe that (they) always will!
(They) will always be with you!
(They'll) be part of the days you've yet to feel!
(They) will live in your bounty!
(They) will live as you carry on your life!

So carry on,
Full of Hope,
(They'll) be there,
For all your Days of Plenty” he sung.

“You don't own me,
don't try to change me in any way
You don't own me,
don't tie me down 'cause I'd never stay…

I don't tell you what to say
Oh-h-h-h don't tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That's all I ask of you”

“Sh, I know. I know. I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“I’m not o-fucking-kay]” she whimpered out defeatedly before burying her head in the crook of his neck. She was clutching at his shirt and soaking it with her tears, but Ryan didn’t mind. He wasn’t going to be one of the people in her life that suddenly abandons her.
“Why?” she asked, finally her real-self again. It was a simple question that merited a thousand and one answers. “Why did they have to leave me?”

Ryan rubbed her back. “They didn’t want to. They were taken,” he replied, speaking generically.

She shook her head. “Matt left willingly…as did Bailey and Mark…”

“Is this what that was about?”

She shook her head again. “God, I wish it was.”

Ryan barely caught her words before she started crying again. He held her tighter, knowing that her tears meant something huge. Ellie rarely cried offstage. She felt that crying was a sign of weakness, and she absolutely hated showing any form of weakness. Calmly, Ryan began to hum and rub her back. Eventually, the tears subsided.

“They all leave me. Marcia, Thomas, Tony…Matt…Mom…Bailey and Mark…and now? Them…Are you going to leave me, too?”

Ryan slightly loosened his grip on her and forced her to look into his eyes. “No. I told you once, and I’ll tell you a million times. I will never ever leave you, got it? You’re going to have to let go first. Okay? Blood to blood, I will always be there.”

She nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck tighter. “I’m in charge of too much now.”

“What do you mean?”

“A quarter of a law firm, an entire dance company and school, a Broadway theater house, two residential houses, and all that money…” Ryan squeezed her tighter, not believing what she was saying even though it all added up to two people. “It’s all too much to bear. I’m only eighteen! I can’t handle all that on my own! It’s too much…”

“Sh, just quiet down…everything will work out in the end. It has to.”

“And the worst part?...I-I think I killed them.”

Ryan loosened his grip on her again and rested his forehead against hers. “No, you didn’t. Do not make yourself responsible for their death. Don’t go down that road.”

“But, I did. Th-they were held at gunpoint…a-and asked if th-they kn-knew me…a-and then? H-he sh-shot them! B-because o-of our s-songs…”

Ryan held her tightly and kissed her head several times.

“I-I was supposed to die before them! That was the plan. Ever since-”

“Shh, don’t worry about it,” Ryan whispered in her ear. “I’m here now, and nothing is going to harm you. I’ll make sure of that.”

The two stayed like that for the next half hour. Ryan only know that because Brian came in, a flustered look on his face. When Brian saw that she was cradled in Ryan’s arms, asleep, his look softened, but not by much.

“We cut the set in half. Do you know what happened?” he asked, motioning to her still form as he kneeled down beside the two.

Ryan looked down at his best friend and tenderly kissed the crown of her head. “Yea, her entire world came crashing down around her.” he replied as Brian took his daughter. She immediately clung to him as if her life depended on it.

“Oh my god,” Kay said from the doorway. “You’ll never believe what happened!” Her eyes were red and slightly bloodshot as she entered the room.

“Kale and Jared are-”

“Dead. I know.” Ryan finished for her.

She nodded and landed in his lap. Ryan hugged her back, not really knowing why she was crying- she had never met them.

“Are they really?” Matt asked as he and the rest came in.

Ryan nodded. “Yea, they are.” he replied, his eyes trained on Ellie.

Ren took her from her father’s grip, but kept her close by him. She stirred in her sleep. When she opened her eyes, she looked lost and confused.

“Ren?” she asked groggily.

He smiled down at her and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

She then looked over at Brian and grabbed his hand. “Daddy, what am I going to do?” she asked timidly, giving his hand a squeeze. “What’s going to happen next?”

That seemed to be everyone’s question, but no one seemed to know the answer.