Love Unscripted

Ryan’s New Love Ryan Christensen and Suzanne Strass may play star-crossed lovers on screen but fate has something else in mind for these two actors in real life. Ryan has ended his almost two year relationship with Suzanne and is reportedly dating local Seaport, Rhode Island business owner, Taryn Mitchell.

“Ryan met Taryn several weeks ago and is completely smitten,” says an insider. Ryan, 26, and Taryn, a 27-year-old New York native, have been turning up the heat on their relationship. Ryan has been seen entering and exiting her apartment at all hours of the day and night and has spent several all-nighters with the attractive blonde.

It was also reported that Ryan had all of his things removed from his private suite at the Lexington Hotel on Monday, where he had been staying while on location, and had them delivered to Ms. Mitchell’s apartment. His reps have neither confirmed nor denied the relationship.

“Ryan has been disappearing a lot lately and has been spending less time with his co-stars,” says another insider, although last week we reported that almost the entire cast spent several hours together at a private party hosted by Ms. Mitchell herself.

“Suzanne and Francesca left the party early and both appeared quite distraught. That’s the day Ryan let Suzanne know there was someone else in his life now.”

I scrubbed my fingers through my hair. Even though the relationship rumors between Ryan and Suzanne were completely false, there was still a lot of truth mingled in the article. God, most of this happened less than twenty-four hours ago and it was already in print! No wonder his manager called yesterday. I clicked on another link.

Split could spell disaster for the Seaside movie series.

Timing could not have been worse for Ryan and Suzanne’s relationship to fall apart – Charles and Gwen’s relationship in the third installment of Seaside is elevated to new intimate levels and is the primary focus of the story. “Everyone is worried that their off-screen relationship will have damaging effects on their on-screen chemistry. If there is tension between the two of them it will certainly show in the film. The smallest of changes can really destroy their amazing chemistry,” says a Seaside insider.

I spent the next hour searching him on the Internet. I was shocked to see how many photos there were of Ryan, along with thousands of other pictures of him and Suzanne together. There were even a few fan-made websites devoted to worshiping his every move; the one website included almost a day by day blog of his life.

I found that there were photos of me on several of the tabloid websites as well. Someone had taken several pictures of me walking down the sidewalk alone; there were also pictures posted of Tammy and me taken the day my window was smashed. There were a lot of pictures of Ryan and me from the night we went to Cal’s.

The general consensus indicated that I was nothing more than a home-wrecker, the reason why Ryan and Suzanne were being ripped apart. I could all too clearly imagine the die-hard Seaside fans coming after me to burn me at the stake.

How convenient for me that they were already out on my sidewalk.

I thought about having to leave the apartment to go grocery shopping and panic welled in my veins. Will the paparazzi follow me into the grocery store to report on what type of body soap I pick out for Ryan? I’d seen pictures of celebrities before and most of them were of the celebrities outside, although the inside of airports seemed fair game; could they follow me inside the grocery store?

I looked out my front window; most of the street seemed clear, except for the normal traffic. Maybe Ryan was seen leaving this morning and the paparazzi and obsessed fans followed him?

I took a shower and spent extra time fixing my hair and makeup, just in case. I took my time, fighting the urge to stay holed up in my apartment instead of going outside… out there. I could understand why Ryan hid in his hotel room.

I put on my best jeans and my black low ankle boots with the chunkier two-inch heel – just in case I needed to run – and my black leather jacket and sunglasses. I counted the money Ryan had left for me - one hundred and twenty dollars – and put it in my purse. Grocery list, purse, bank deposit, keys, cell phone… bravery? Where did I leave my guts? Don’t let them decide for you, you can do this.

I paused by the back door, fixed the alarm, took a deep breath, and stepped out into the alley. That’s when the cameras began to click. About five paparazzi followed me, asking me questions the entire way down the alley. I didn’t answer; I kept my focus on getting to my car. At one point I found that I was almost able to tune out their questions by thinking about something else.

I made sure to look like the love notes that were stuffed under my windshield wiper for Ryan didn’t bother me. I even think I smiled once. I patted them into a nice pile and placed them on the passenger seat of my car.

Did these freaking women actually think that his girlfriend would be considerate enough to pass their love notes on to him? Surely they had to know this was my car and not his!

Maybe they hoped that if we ever got into a fight that he might pick the first love note in the pile and go running to their arms? Like these notes were somehow entry tickets to the Ryan Christensen lottery and the lucky winner would be chosen randomly from the stack? What the hell was in all of their heads?

I knew exactly why he broke down yesterday; these people were loose on the streets. My mind flashed back to the old zombie movies and I pictured that Ryan and I were the only ones not turned into monsters - yet. I took a moment to program my music selection. Ah, there it is – I knew I had it, “Zombie” by The Cranberries. I smiled, turned the volume up, and put my car into reverse. Take a picture of that.

Since I had a large amount of cash on me from my profits at the bar, the bank was the first stop on my agenda. I stood in the small bank line waiting for the next available teller; my options narrowed when one of the two tellers working placed her ‘window closed’ sign on the countertop.

Just my luck I would have to do my banking with someone I went to high school with - Michele Weeks, another downside to living in a small town.

She noticed me standing in line and suddenly she was smiling at me from ear to ear. Great! This girl never said more than two words to me all through high school and now she was grinning at me like we were long-lost friends. Why would she talk to me back in those days? I wasn’t part of that crowd; I hung out with the normal kids who didn’t think they were better than everyone else.

Back then she was the head cheerleader, dating one of the three most popular guys in school, who just happened to get her pregnant right after graduation. Now she was the head teller at my bank. I laughed inside; funny how she always had the term “head” associated to her name.