"Ryan
wasn't looking for true love. He only wanted a reason to live."
Ryan's
parents have been a bit overprotective since he got out of Patterson Hospital a
few months earlier. All summer, he has escaped by standing under a waterfall
where a guy had supposedly drowned. When the rains came in August, the
waterfall and creek swelled to the point where even Ryan wasn't crazy enough to
risk standing underneath. While sitting on the bank one day, the younger sister
of a fellow classmate, Kent Thornton, strikes up a conversation. Ryan cannot
remember her name. She likes to go under the falls and wants to know if Ryan
wants to join her. He passes and is nervous the whole time he is unable to see
her. He is relived when she comes out. He notices that she is shivering from
the cold water. She didn't think to bring a towel and Ryan offers to take her
to get one. They hike ten minutes through the woods to his house. He gets her a
couple of towels and she has always admired the house from the outside and asks
to look around. He takes her through the rooms including his bedroom. Ryan is
nervous and doesn't want to introduce a girl who name he doesn't know to his mother.
Ending up in the basement, she notices the home gym and asks Ryan if he uses
it. He replies yes until he had mono in the spring. She says that she heard
that he was in the hospital. He tells her that he was but for a different
reason. She looks at him and he wonders if she will have the nerve to ask why.
She breaks eye contact and doesn't. They go back upstairs and she tells him
that the rumors about the waterfall are true. She was there the day that her
brother's friend slipped and drowns. He was just eight. She thanks him for
everything and leaves. Ryan still doesn't know her name.
The
next morning, Ryan goes down to the falls and sees Kent smoking a joint. He
says that he heard that Ryan ran into Nicki. Kent says that she is a nut and
has been screwed up since their father died. Before he leaves, Kent warns Ryan
to be careful with his sister. He also says that Ryan is crazy if he stands
under the falls. Ryan goes under the falls and when he comes back out, Kent is
gone. He rests on the bank and then Nicki comes up behind him. She finally asks
the question that Ryan has been waiting for. He asks her if she is suicidal but
she claims she's not. He punches his number into her cell phone in case she
needs help. She also asks for his email address. There is something she wants
to say to him but she cannot do it to his face. When checking his email earlier
for messages from the two friends that he made while hospitalized at Patterson,
Val and Jake, he is ready to log off when he sees a message from Nicki. She
wants to know why he tried to kill himself. She has no one else to ask since
nobody will talk to her about her father's suicide. He tells her that he
doesn't want to talk about the worst day of his life. She writes
"please".
The
next day he finally hears from Val. They catch up on each other's lives and she
asks about a girlfriend. Ryan harbors a secret crush on Val but he does tell
her about Nicki and the question she asked him. Val tells him that maybe she
just needs a friend. He goes to stand under the waterfall and when he gets out
of the water, Nicki is standing there. He tells her that he is sorry about her
father and she apologizes for her email. She then tells Ryan that she has made
an appointment with a psychic to get the answers she needs. He tries to talk
her out of it and wants to know if someone is going with her. When she says no,
Ryan, who just met her a week ago, agrees to go with her.
Kent
drops the two if them off and they walk to the psychic's house. Ryan sees right
off what a fake she is when she cannot give Nicki any definite answers. He
makes the rash decision to pepper the psychic with questions to ask Nicki's
father that hit a little too close to home. They leave when Nicki doesn't get
what she is looking for. She berates Ryan for what he did and asks if he is
happy that he was right about the psychic being a fake. Then she asks him if he
left a note and that she knows that all of the questions he asked were really
about him. Ryan knows that Nicki's father didn't do the same things that he had
done or kept the secrets that he keeps.
Why
did Ryan try to kill himself? What secrets is he still keeping? Will Nicki ever
find out why her father killed himself? What happens when the two of them keep
hanging out, are they just friends or are they falling in love with one
another? Can the two of them help each other move forward in their own lives?
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