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Ryan walked off stage, glistening with after-show sweat, but feeling great. He set his guitar into its case and stood up, falling right into the waiting arms of Nevada.
"You guys were great!" she whispered into his chest.
"Thanks."
The two of them walked out of the stage area and found a bench to sit at.
"I love your guy's costumes." Nevada laughed, playing with the frills on his button-up shirt.
"Thanks. Nevada, listen, about today, when we kissed..."
Nevada looked into his eyes.
"What about it?"
"You just got out of a relationship...should we rush into anything?"
"Let's just not rush." She laughed.
"Well...how can we not rush?"
"Let me put it this way; I'm too young to get married, so lets not. I'm too young to have kids, so let's not. I'm not too young to be in love, so let's just do that."
Ryan smiled and kissed the top of her head.
"I can be in love." He breathed.

Ryan stepped into the tour bus and closed the door behind him. Spencer, Jon and Ryan exchanged high fives, but Brendon sat on the couch, not moving.
"Be social, Bren." Spencer said, rolling his eyes.
"My throat hurts after screaming into a microphone for a two hours, thanks." He snapped.
"So don't scream."
Brendon glared at the group.
"So, what's with you and that Nevada chick?" Jon grinned, punching Ryan playfully on the shoulder. Brendon's ears perked up. Ryan shrugged, blushing.
"We're going out, I guess..."
"You guess?"
"We kissed...talked a little bit..."
"You're so modest, Ry." Spencer laughed, pulling a bag of chips out of the cupboard. He poured them into a bowl and set them down on one of the side tables, and the group helped themselves.
"What's the deal with her, anyway? You never explained why she's staying with us." Jon asked.
"She walked in on her fiancé and some bimbo. He kicked her out and I found her all alone...I offered her a place to stay."
"Ah, knight in shinning armor kinda thing?"
Ryan pushed Jon playfully.
"I hope to god she's better than that Miranda," Spencer said darkly, "She screwed you up for months."
Ryan stiffened as he reached for another chip; he tried not to think about the whore who had broken his heart. He didn't say anything, he just let his hair fall into his eyes.
"You ok, Ryan?" Jon asked, frowning.
"I don't like it when people mention Miranda." He hissed, and he got up off the couch, stepped into the bunkroom and shut the door.
"Ok, guys, what's the deal with him and Miranda?" Jon inquired, turning from the bunkroom door to Brendon and Spencer. Brendon sighed and started talking.
"It's not a fond memory, that's for sure. Spencer and I were 15, and Ryan was 16. He had been going out with this Miranda chick since he was 13; at the time, you could swear they were gonna get married."
"They lost their virginity to each other," Spencer said quietly, his eyes on the bunkroom door, "And a month later, they found out she was pregnant."
"Ryan was freaked right out; he was way to young to be a dad."
"And then she started going all...funny. She dressed kinda hoochie and stuff. The entire school knew she was pregnant, but there were whispers about the baby not being Ryan's."
"Ryan went funny, too. His dad was in the hospital then because of his alcoholism. He was staying with his mum, on Spencer's street and mine. Usually we would all walk to school together, but he quit waiting for us and would walk alone. He never sat with us at lunch anymore, and if we passed him a note in class, he wouldn't even look at it, he's just rip it in two."
"He had always been pretty shy and quiet, but he did well in school all the time. Suddenly, he just quit raising his hand, even if we knew he had the answer. He never turned in his homework, and he was failing."
"Miserably."
"He pretty much quit talking to us. Then, one day, Miranda came to school, and cornered Ryan at his locker. She told him she'd had some tests done, and the baby wasn't his, it was this guy Jason's. She admitted to cheating on him for a little over six months, and broke up with him right there in front of all our friends. And then, I'll never forget what she did next..."
"She screamed "I never really loved you, anyway," shoved his class ring back into his hand, turned, and walked away, hoochie heels clicking."
Jon sat in a stunned silence.
"Wow," he finally breathed, "Poor Ry."
"I know. He was trying to fight back tears, I could tell. He dropped his textbooks and ran all the way home. Spencer, Brent and I decided that night to go to his house and make sure he was ok." Brendon said.
"So we get to his mums, and she tells us he's been up in his room since he ran through the front door that day. We quietly crept up the stairs, Brendon first." Spencer was now whispering.
"God, I'll never forget this. I slowly opened his bedroom door...he had his back to us, a shotgun to his head. His hand was on the trigger." Brendon broke off, trembling slightly at the nightmarish memory.
"We all cried 'No!' and Brendon lunged forward. He knocked the gun right out of his hand just as a shot was fired; it went through a picture of Ryan and Miranda that was on his bedroom wall."
"Ryan collapsed onto the floor, sobbing. I'd never seen him like that; I mean, teenage guys just don't cry in front of their friends."
"His mum came running up and she screamed when she saw the gun on the floor and everything. We found a suicide note on his desk, and there was a dead rose that he had given Miranda at the school dance a few weeks previous lying next to it. We dragged him into a chair and tried to get him to talk to us, to tell us what the hell he thought he was doing, but he wouldn't talk, he just kept crying. We got him into depression treatment the next day."
"Oh my God!" Jon breathed.
"People always wonder why the hell Ryan wrote all of our songs the way he did. He never talks about it, but I bet a lot of them have something to do with Miranda."
"Anyway, when he came back to school a few months later, Miranda was getting pretty big. She had heard about his attempt and all of our friends made sure she kept away from Ryan."
"When the baby was born, she brought him to school a couple weeks later and walked around with Jason, showing everyone the baby. And then she loudly started talking about how it had Ryan's nose, and maybe the tests were wrong."
"It was so not true, of course, but Ryan got all worked up. We called a practice for our band right after school so that he wouldn't try anything funny..."
"And he gave us this huge stack of lyrics he'd written. We could tell they were mostly about his dad and about Miranda."
"He seemed to get better everyday, venting through song. When he was 18 and we were 17, we changed the name of our band and got signed and everything. Now look where we are! I guess it was somewhat therapeutic for him...but his shrink said to mention Miranda every once in a while to remind him; some sort of healing process, I guess."
"Wow. I never knew...is Nevada the first girl since Miranda?" Jon whispered, shocked.
"Yeah."
"Wow. I can see why you guys worry about him...I guess he'll never be entirely stable."
"Nah. Sometimes he mutters in his sleep about Miranda; I mean, that bitch was his entire life. He even talked about marrying her one day, and then it was all gone in an instant."
"We still keep an eye on him."
Jon nodded, pondering what he had just heard.

Ryan sat on his bunk in the darkened room, singing softly to himself.
"Well then think of what you did, and how I hope to God he was worth it..."
He sighed and pulled a small, wrinkled photograph out of his suitcase; Miranda smiled up at him, her miniature arms wrapped around a miniature Ryan. A bullet hole pierced right through the middle of the photograph. Ryan traced the puncture delicately with his finger; to think that bullet had been destined for him