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Genesis Garcia grew up in an average home in the Bronx and shared a room with her older sister. She slept on the bottom bunk. Late at night, she loved to draw in her sketchbook with Crayola colored pencils, but her sister would throw a pillow at her and tell her to turn off the lamp.
She first saw Ryan on a TV mounted high in her local bodega. There he was, promoting a movie called Looper. He looked so young in his first late-night show interview that it took her by surprise. When she swiped her debit card and left the store, she turned around to see the audience laughing at Ryan calling Conan a "bad hooker."
So she decided to see Looper by herself—her friends wanted to rewatch The Hunger Games for the twentieth time. She was impressed by the story but wished the CGI or prosthetics on Ryan's face had been removed. He was a gifted actor and good-looking, but it was the way he became his character that was riveting to see.
And so, during the months he spent filming, Genesis decided to make an account dedicated to the actor, which was composed of updates, stills, and her own fan art.
The account grew after Ryan was announced to be in the adaptation of Call Me By Your Name, so she decided to read the book and finished it in a day. Ryan seemed like the perfect Elio: an intelligent, well-read, musically gifted teenager, and he could portray Elio's anxious nature without it being tacky.
Then @RyanStoneDaily grew to thousands of followers, and Genesis began to favorite images of Ryan in Italy. People began to draw the actor with the Young Joe look: retro, 1950s, an Eisenhower-style kid in a leather jacket. The contrasting styles made Ryan look like he could live in different eras, giving him an almost timeless appeal.
And there were already rumors of Ryan filming another project with a new director, which showed that he wasn't doing it for the money but for the craft. Then the page peaked when Emma Roberts and Ryan started getting their photos taken by the paparazzi, which then became fan art in the community.
The couple simply looked good together: Emma gave next-door-girl energy, and Ryan looked like that funny, nerdish friend who was always good company.
So when Genesis watched clips from the ET interview with Emma, she was shocked by how it all went up in flames. The blowback against her account forced Twitter to temporarily suspend it. Her account was flooded with comments like:
↳@lunatoons: How does this account still post fucking Ryan Stone art? Do you support Hitler?
↳@findingson: Still supporting Ryan in 2012? He fell off gang.
@mikeytuna: I mean we should hear from Ryan's side
↳@lancaster: His manager is going to tell him to stay quiet. And he looks scary, have you seen him? His asshole is probably bigger than Ryan's face.
There were hundreds of other comments telling Ryan to off himself. His address was already public knowledge, and there were attempts to find his family's address in New York.
People in the community—who had been drawing pieces of Ryan in different clothes—now trashed him as another degenerate and failure, flipping completely to the other side. So when it was announced that Ryan would be on Conan again to promote another movie, people were curious about what he would say.
Conan and Ryan's energy meshed really well. Conan's self-deprecating humor and Ryan's playful insults harmonized into a great Comedy Central Roast-like mood. And it went exactly like that.
Genesis's older sister said, "Can you put that phone down? I don't want to hear your boyfriend."
"Get a real one then, not someone on the fucking TV," Genesis said.
"Shut up."
The iconic giant moon over the water reflected on Ryan's face, and these days, he looked exhausted—even more than usual.
Then Conan asked the question.
"How do you deal with the criticism and fallout of a relationship?"
Genesis's stomach dropped. She'd been dreading this since she saw the trending topic. She gripped the arm of the couch, ready to watch him fumble or deflect, say something that would make her regret every tweet she'd posted in his defense.
Ryan inhaled. He looked around at all the eyes on him, then looked straight into the camera.
"For that, I am so sorry for the people that I have hurt and let down. And in the case of Emma, she's dealt with a lot."
A single tear came out of his eye.
Genesis felt her own eyes sting. She hadn't expected that. She'd expected a lawyer-approved non-answer, an answer given to him on a notepad. Instead, Ryan was sitting there, exhausted, apologizing to people he'd never met, wishing Emma well and calling her a great actress.
"After a tough breakup," he said, "there are always feelings of anger and misinformation. I wish nothing but the best for her and I know she's a great actress so she will be fine."
Her older sister said, "He's acting, dipshit."
Genesis didn't even hear her. She grabbed her phone and started typing before the applause even finished.
@RyanStoneDaily: he didn't have to say that. He could've dodged it like everyone else. But he looked at the camera and apologized and wished her well. THAT'S who he is. I told y'all. watch the interview. #RyanStone
She retweeted clips. She threaded together the interviews she'd watched for years: the kindness, the humor, the way he treated fans and co-stars. She posted her old ballpoint drawings of him, the Young Joe ones, the CMBYN ones, and wrote: same guy i've been drawing since Looper. nothing changed.
The community that had trashed him—the artists who'd flipped to calling him a degenerate and a failure—started to trickle back. The comments turned. People who'd told her to off herself were now saying he handled it maturely. People all over said he was "mature for his age." The account that Twitter had temporarily suspended was restored, and her followers climbed past forty thousand.
Genesis sat back, exhausted but glowing. She'd been there since the bodega TV. She'd defended him when everyone had buried him. And now, watching people come around, she felt a quiet, fierce pride. She'd been right about him. She'd known it all along.
***
Across the country, in Los Angeles, Ryan Stone stepped out of the black Escalade and into a wall of light.
The paparazzi were already there, a scrum of cameras and shouted questions pressing against the velvet rope outside the venue. He'd done the Conan interview hours ago, and the response had been better than Mark had predicted—TMZ spinning it as mature, People calling him gracious, the scandal finally, mercifully dead. But the flashes didn't care about any of that. All they wanted were the headlines: Does Ryan Really Have A Heart Of Stone?
"Ryan! Ryan, over here!"
"Ryan, any comment on Emma?"
He kept his face neutral, one hand raised to shield his eyes, the other gripping the handle of the car door. Rebecca was already at his side, steering him toward the entrance. The flashes went off in rapid bursts, turning the night white, and he blinked through the afterimages like he was walking through a strobe light.
He didn't answer. He just gave a small, tight smile and let Rebecca guide him past the rope.
Inside, the noise dropped to a low, warm hum. The party was in full swing: low lights, clinking glasses, and a quiet DJ. There were a few stares toward him but he was excited to finally let loose a bit, after all - in his age - he should be in college.
He found a corner near the window and stood there, looking out at the city lights, the flashes of the paparazzi still surrounding the front entrance .
He scrolled through his phone and saw the account @RyanStoneDaily trending. He liked the message. He'd decided to go to Zachary's house party so he could cool off after all the negativity.
And for a moment, standing there in the corner of a room full of people who wanted something from him - a Sony producer was already circling around him - he almost felt like himself.
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