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buffyxTitle: Let’s Not Shit Ourselves (1/1)
Author: buffyx
Pairing/Character: Summer/Ryan
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers/Warnings: Through season two. A sequel to You Know I’m No Good, but can be read alone. Also, it's twenty pages long. Holy crap.
Summer knows that she’s still friends with Marissa when she goes to the bathroom after lunch and sees the words MARISSA COOPER IS A DYKE scrawled on the stall door in blue pen, and then ONLY ON THE WEEKENDS underneath it in red, in someone else's handwriting. Anger boils up in her gut, crawls under her skin; it’s like an old school rage blackout coming on.
She crosses out the insults with a purple Sharpie, and then writes underneath them, You bitches write anything else about MC, and I will track you down and kick your asses. Don’t even try me. –SR. And then, as an afterthought, adds: P.S., I’m really not kidding.
Maybe Marissa has been failing at best friend duties lately, but that doesn’t mean that Summer is going to let anyone trash her.
Guilt kind of nags at her for the rest of the day. Sure, Marissa isn’t even around at school enough lately to notice what a joke she’s become around Harbor, but even if she’s all gay now, Summer did sleep with her ex-boyfriend and isn’t planning on telling her anytime soon, so maybe some sign of loyalty is deserved. Otherwise she’s just a backstabbing slut with no respect for the rules of friendship.
Summer calls Marissa after her last class as she’s walking to her car. It goes straight to voicemail, so she leaves a message and says, "Coop, hey, it’s me, listen, I know it’s been awhile, so we should hang, talk, whatever, call me," and when she clicks off the phone, she looks up and sees Ryan. And Lindsay, too, the two of them, standing next to Kirsten’s SUV.
It’s been two days since they had sex in his poolhouse, and they haven’t talked since. Summer spent Sunday at Neiman Marcus, buying two pairs of designer Christian Louboutin pumps, a designer Cavalli jacket, and a new Kate Spade handbag, and not thinking about Ryan, and then Monday there was school and getting her nails done and fighting with the stepmonster over dinner and not thinking about Ryan.
And now here he is, chilling by his car, right in front of her, so she can’t not think about him. He's talking to Lindsay; it looks serious. Lindsay tucks her red hair behind her ears and pouts prettily and touches Ryan’s elbow, and--oh. Okay, then. Summer sees how it is.
Suddenly she doesn’t really want to look anymore.
**
It’s just Summer and the stepmonster for dinner, since her father is out on business all week, once again. She braces herself for more brutal attacks than usual, but the stepmonster doesn’t pick an argument with Summer once, and when Paloma serves zarangollo with potatoes, she doesn't even complain about having egg in hers.
Huh. They must’ve upped the antidepressant dosage--Summer guesses she can look forward to the stepmonster lapsing into a Xanax-induced catatonia during her father’s absence.
Later, Marissa calls while she's reading Byron for an assignment. She’s in a generous mood, so she picks it up, and is immediately greeted with loud music blasting in her ear.
"Marissa?" She shuts her textbook and sits up on her bed.
"SUMMER!" Marissa yells. She sounds drunk. Before nine o’clock? On a Tuesday? What? "SUM! CAN YOU HEAR ME? SUM?"
Summer hears something in the background, voices talking and aluminum rustling, grungy girl punk still blaring obnoxiously, and she only catches snippets of what’s being shouted.
"SUMMER-- I GOT YOUR-- I CAN’T REALLY--WISH YOU WERE--YOU SHOULD--I’M SOOOO--CAN YOU--?"
"Coop, I’m here--" she tries, but it’s all in futility. There’s the sound of someone--probably Alex--laughing, and then the phone clicks and the dial tone buzzes loud and persistent, like it’s mocking her.
Summer flops back on her bed and wonders when she started surrounding herself with people who are either losers, or addicts, or both.
Ten o’clock rolls around and she’s restless and annoyed and obsessing about Ryan, again. What does he see in Lindsay, of all people? She’s so… plain. Maybe he’s one of those guys who likes plain. Maybe it’s like how she learned in Lit, how the protagonist always has the fatal flaw, and that’s his--he falls in love too easily, and always with the wrong person.
Summer’s never been in love. Definitely not with Zach, ew, ugh. For awhile she thought she was with Seth. She did love him. She still loves him, even, but it’s not really romantic or anything--it’s like how she loves Coop, kind of, how someone can be in your life and be too annoying to live sometimes but you love them anyway, even if it doesn’t make sense.
As far as she can tell, love makes you crazy and constantly miserable, and if that’s how it is, she’ll pass, thank you.
The only people she knows that are in love and actually happy about it are Sandy and Kirsten Cohen. But she’s pretty sure that they’re a freak of nature, and that it usually only works out in the movies, and hardly ever with anyone in the real world. Her life is not at all like a movie; Marissa's, on the other hand, is like ultra cinematic. Summer figures this means she'll either get the big happily ever after, or die tragically at the prime of life.
She’s itching for some kind of a distraction-- it’s been awhile since she’s done any yoga, so she gets on the floor and does the lotus, concentrating on her breathing techniques, and then shifts onto her stomach and bends into the cobra, and then reaches behind to grab her ankles and pull herself into the bow. But it doesn’t work; now she’s just thinking the same thoughts in some uncomfortable pose on the floor.
Summer has to get out of her room, out of the house, so she puts on her new come-fuck-me heels and her new jacket and goes downstairs. The stepmonster is already in bed for the night, knocked into an early coma, and Paloma shoots her a curious look before she slips out the door but says nothing.
Her car’s parked in the drive. It’s a Bentley Continental, silver. Her dad bought it for her for her sixteenth birthday; he didn’t really say anything when have gave it to her, just had the keys giftwrapped and left on kitchen table, and kissed the top of her hair when she hugged him. She’d long ago resigned herself to the fact that he would never be the kind of father to use a lot of words to say how he felt; he was more into expressing his love via his credit card.
Right after her mother died, he bought her a pony. It was a mean old thing, and after the second time it bucked her off, he sold it, and by then she had come to the conclusion that toy horses were more fun than real ones anyway, and that was the end of that.
Summer drives over to the Cohens’, pulls the car over half a block down the street from their house. A quick glance in the rearview mirror to doublecheck that her lipstick isn’t on her teeth, and then she gets out, squares her shoulders and marches straight to Ryan’s poolhouse.
She throws open the door dramatically, since she knows the importance of making an impressive entrance, and makes sure to bolt it shut behind her. He never locks it, which seems stupid of him since the Cohens don’t seem to understand the concept of boundaries, like, at all.
There’s music playing and Ryan is lying on his bed. He’s flat on his stomach, his arms folded underneath his eyes. He doesn’t look up even after she’s been standing there for about fifteen seconds.
"Don’t ignore me," she snaps, "don’t pull that hot-and-cold shit on me. Don’t even."
"I wasn’t ignoring you," he says into the comforter, muffled.
"You’re ignoring me, or you’re brooding, or both," she retorts. "Whatever. Either way, it’s dumb. I hate it. So stop." She pauses. "Also, you shouldn’t lie like that."
He peeks up at her, finally. "Why not?"
"Sleeping on your stomach is bad for your back. It like crushes your organs or something. I don’t know, do I look like a doctor?"
She walks over, drops her purse on the bed and sits down next to him.
Slowly he pulls himself into a sitting position and looks over at her. "You’re the one ignoring me, you know."
"Hello, I came over here, didn’t I?" She shrugs off her jacket and kicks off her shoes. "Are you listening to Bon Jovi?"
"Is that a problem?"
"Uh, if it was a problem, I would tell you, assface," she shoots back, annoyed. "What is your damage? Is this about Lindsay? I saw you guys. What, are you two like an item again?"
"Lindsay is seeing a guy," he explains, and then adds, "He plays the clarinet."
"A band geek? Ew."
Ryan smiles wryly. "She wanted to talk to me, about it. To make sure I didn’t have a problem. And to let me know that he’s extremely funny, and doesn’t have… baggage."
"That just means he’s boring," she informs him. "Anyone worth knowing has baggage."
"Even you?" he asks with raised eyebrows.
"Please. I am perfect."
She moves closer to him, crawls into his lap, puts her arms around his neck. His hair is soft, and longer than she'd realized.
"Summer," he says, almost warningly, his hands coming up to her waist.
"Ryan," she replies evenly, and bends her head down so her hair falls across her face like a curtain. "What, did you think I seriously came over so we could share our feelings and braid each other's hair? Because, uh, no. I'm not that kind of girl."
"Seth," he reminds her, "Seth--"
"--only wants me when he can’t have me," she finishes. She rolls her eyes. "And not even then, lately."
He must agree with her on that because when she kisses him, he doesn’t push her away.
"I locked the door," she says against his mouth, sotto-voice, and drags her top off, over her head, lets it fall to the side. "No one saw me come in."
She’s sitting in his lap in nothing but a red lace bra, which he takes a few moments to look over her appreciatively. Good. It's damn time someone appreciated her the way she deserves.
There’s not a lot of foreplay, this time around. For all of his initial reluctance, he’s quick to wriggle her out of her skirt, spread her out underneath him. She’s already soaked through her underwear. It’s ridiculous. He hikes her legs way up, winds them above his rib cage, and she’s suddenly very, very grateful for her silly yoga-as-a-substitute-for-sex phase.
Her hips tilt up and she’s clenching her thighs around him tightly; he pushes into her again and again, leaves her scrabbling at his shoulders, trying to crush him closer. Her nerves are on fire, and her orgasm pulls her apart, hits her fast and furious. She has to bite into his shoulder to keep herself from crying out.
It leaves her shaking and exhausted, slick with sweat and sex, and she can’t believe she just came from penetration only. That’s never happened before. Seth could only ever get her off with his mouth or his fingers, and even then it wasn’t always a sure thing. And it was definitely never like this.
Ryan keeps holding her when they’ve come down, is giving little licks and bites in her neck and the hollow of her collarbone, until finally she pushes him to the side so she can catch her breath. He rolls off the condom, ties it up and tosses it into the trash.
"You okay?" he asks.
"Mmmph," she nods, and licks at his mouth, sucks in his lower lip and bites down. She has better uses for his mouth than talking.
He untangles himself from the sheets and steps into his jeans. His belt is low and loose, boxers poking out over the waistband, and he digs a pack of cigarettes out of his dresser drawer, flips one of them into his mouth. That is badass, and so hot. For some reason she had thought he would smoke Newports, or Marlboro Reds. But instead he has a pack of Camels.
Summer props her elbow up on the pillow, sets her chin in her hand and studies him, his muscled hips and the flat stretch from his navel to a curl of hair, still exposed until he yanks on a wifebeater.
"You look like Marky Mark," she says. Except prettier, she thinks.
"Thanks?" He glances over at her and zips himself up. One hand runs briskly through his hair, and he hesitates. "Summer--"
"Chill out," she cuts in, before he can complete that thought, because she’s pretty sure she knows where this conversation is headed, and she’d rather steer clear of it entirely. "I’m not going to ask you to go steady or whatever, okay?"
The last thing she needs right now is a boyfriend. She likes Ryan, actually, he’s nice to be around, but boys are frustrating enough. The second you start dating them, they basically become retarded. It’s just a fact.
She’d rather this just stay what it is--sex. Two bodies, banging together on occasion. Emotions are too exhausting.
**
Summer’s favorite part of People is the section with pictures of celebrities running around doing normal stuff, like buying groceries and walking their dogs and sitting in LAX gabbing on their cell phones. Without all of the airbrushing, it’s easy for her to determine that she has better boobs than Cameron Diaz, better teeth than Kirsten Dunst, and better skin than Nicole Ritchie. Also she has more class than the three of them combined, but that’s a given.
She’s sitting at a table outside at lunch, looking over a photo of Jake Gyllenhaal browsing a book store with an unidentified male companion, when Marissa plops down across from her.
"Hi, Summer," Marissa says.
Her voice is light, but she’s looking at Summer weirdly, like she’s ready to jump on the defensive at any second.
"Coop, hey," she replies, and sets down the magazine.
Marissa’s skin is oily, definitely not better than Nicole Ritchie’s. Also, her hair is matted and stringy-looking, totally neglected. It’s actually kind of sad. And she’s wearing way too much dark eyeliner-- what is this, the nineties? Did she miss the memo? Heroin chic is dead. Thank god.
"So I was thinking, and you’re right, we should do something, together," Marissa’s saying, picking at her salad without actually eating it. "Zach told me that Holly’s rents are in Aspen, so she’s throwing a party this weekend. Maybe we could go to that, or hang on Saturday--"
Summer freezes. "You talk to Zach?"
"Well, yeah, we have psych together," Marissa shrugs. "Whatever. Not a big deal. Changing subject. Man, that French oral was a killer, wasn’t it?"
"Totally," Summer lies. She passed it easily. Languages aren’t hard at all.
She got the best scores on her SATs out of anyone she knows. Except Ryan. She only knows he got higher than her because Seth found out and blabbed it to her, because he can’t keep his mouth shut about anything, ever, obviously.
Marissa starts to talk more about how French sucks, and that somehow segues into how Julie Cooper is ruining her life, but then her cell phone rings. It’s Alex, and she answers, of course, mouths "I gotta take this" to Summer and wanders off with an apologetic wave.
She’s about to go back to reading her magazine when Ryan sits down next to her.
"Hey," he says, and holds out a muffin in offering. "Muffin for your thoughts?"
Summer looks down at it. Blueberry. That’s acceptable.
"Thanks." She takes it and tilts her head in consideration. "Paris Hilton. How can someone with a lazy eye get to lead such a glamorous lifestyle? There is no justice."
"Clearly," he agrees, amused. "So…"
"So?" she echoes, unwrapping the muffin.
"Seth and Zach are having a comic book… meeting…thing, today," he explains. "He wants to borrow the car."
This is how Summer ends up giving him a ride home after school. Of course that leads to them making out in the front seat--she claws at his hair and kisses him until she’s hot and flushed, and he runs his hands over her back, under her shirt. She really, really wants to just drive him straight over to her house, drag him inside and pin him down in her bed for hours. They could totally get caught like this, but she doesn’t care.
"I--I should--" He stops sucking on her neck and looks toward the Cohen house. "Kirsten--"
She sits back and sighs, still panting, frustrated. "Yeah, yeah, I know, whatever. Go ahead."
"Summer--"
"Go!" she shoos, swatting at his arm. He grins and leans in to peck her quickly on the mouth before he gets out of her car.
Summer goes home and thinks about him as she masturbates in the shower, and then again before she falls asleep, and comes both times.
**
The next evening, Summer’s in the mood for Gouda cheese, and they’re out of it at home; Paloma has the night off to go to her seven-year-old niece’s birthday party in Costa Mesa, so Summer swings by the store to pick some up. She’s standing in the dairy section--who knew there were some many kinds of cheese products?--when Seth taps her on the shoulder.
He’s just kind of standing there with a dumb look on his face. His curly hair is in his eyes, which are big and brown and staring at her all funny. How did she ever find that look to be endearing and charming and cute? Now it’s just, like, really irritating, and maybe that is how she knows she is totally over him, for real.
"What do you want?" she huffs.
"Why, yes, Summer, it's great to see you too, as a matter of fact, I've been doing awesomely. Thanks for asking."
"I’m kind of busy," she tells him with a glare, "so do you have something to, like, say, or are you just trying to bug me?"
"Maybe it’s not about you. Did you think about that, huh? Maybe I’m just pondering these various cheese selections." Seth reaches out and takes a package of Gouda, juggles it between his hands. "Gouda, Brie, Monterey Jack... It’s a difficult decision, Summer. It requires a lot of deliberation. We Cohens are a fickle breed."
"Well, pick one and get out of my face."
"Feisty! Old school Summer coming out. Okay. I like that."
"Are you done yet?" she sighs. "Some of us have plans."
Okay, that is totally a lie, but for all Cohen knows, her plans involve doing the water polo team. She goes to brush past him, but he steps in front of her so she ends up bumping into his chest, hard.
"Plans? What, like a date? Like boyfriend plans? You have a boyfriend?" Seth asks. His eyes are narrowed at her, suspicious.
"I have friends. Boys. Boys as friends."
Another lie. She used to have boys as friends; she used to have Luke, and Seth and Zach, and now she barely has anyone at all-- only Marissa, kind of, and. And Ryan.
Oh, that is so many levels of pathetic, she cannot even.
"Ah, but I see more in your eyes," he says, cryptically.
She snatches the Gouda cheese from him.
"You don't see much in my eyes, Cohen," she snaps.
"Hey, what's with you?" He sounds confused. Like this is some game and she should be playing along, but she doesn’t fucking feel like it.
"What's with you?" she retorts, and gets in line to buy her cheese. "Why don’t you go bother Zach. You two are all super duper best pals now anyway. You know, you can’t have everything, Seth."
Seth’s mouth hangs open, but he doesn’t say another word, and she swears that he blushes or something, but whatever, she’s so over it, over everything, so she tosses her hair and turns on her heel and walks out through the automatic sliding doors.
**
Friday night comes, and Summer goes to Holly’s, and it’s totally like ninth all over again, with the boozed up jocks and the deafening music you can barely think over and threesomes in the bathroom. The beer is cheap and disgusting and served in red plastic cups, but she drinks it anyway and tries not to feel completely bored out of her mind. This did, after all, used to be, like, her life.
By the time Summer finds Marissa, Marissa’s already gone through half a fifth of vodka; she’s on the corner of one of the couches, perched on Alex’s lap. She keeps laughing so hard that she loses her balance and falls onto Alex’s thin shoulders. Then they start pawing at each other, and assaulting each other’s mouths with tons of tongue and grinding their hips together, right there in front of everyone, like Summer’s not standing half a foot away from them. And Summer’s kind of scandalized, which makes her feel stupid and twelve years old.
She tells Marissa she’s going to find a bathroom--not that she’s heard or anything--and then squeezes past some slutty sophomore making it to second with a water polo sleaze on the staircase, hurries upstairs.
There’s a line for the toilet, so she decides, whatever, this party is a bust, fuck it. But then she walks past one of the guestroom doors and hears a familiar voice. Cohen’s voice, muffled and indistinct. The door’s cracked open, so she peers through it.
It’s Seth, and Zach, sitting next to each other on the bed. Seth's hand is on Zach's neck. He’s leaning against him, and Zach is fisting the collar of Seth’s Elliot Smith shirt with one hand, and it’s like they’re pushing and pulling at each other, their foreheads so close they’re almost touching. Seth is saying something, but she can’t hear, grating hip-hop blasting from downstairs drowning them out--
But then Seth bends forward, and Zach stops pushing, and Summer’s breath catches.
She turns fast, too fast, her shoulder knocks against the doorframe painfully, but she doesn't stop.
She stumbles blindly down the stairs again, out the back door, onto the patio, all the way down to the beach, down by the roaring bonfire. She’s totally stunned, like the time Greg Richardson kicked her in the stomach and knocked the wind out of her in second grade. Where everything was spinning and standing still at the same time. So stupid, she’s so stupid, how did she not see this coming?
For a second she thinks she is going to puke right there. But that would be so gross, plus no way in hell is she going to risk ruining her shoes-- besides, the shock is already fading into fury, she’s pissed, and she crumples the plastic cup in her hand and throws it aside angrily. God, fuck them. Fuck them.
"Summer. Summer Summer Summersummersummer."
Someone is suddenly grabbing at her shoulder, and she turns and it’s Holly, her eyes bright and glassy. She grabs Summer’s hand, dissolves into high-pitched giggles, squeezes their interlaced fingers. Which is weird, since, um, they’re totally not friends anymore, which must mean that Holly has been dropping X with the rest of the ravers dancing on the beach.
"You have to try," Holly gushes. "You. Have. To."
And why not, Summer thinks. Her night can’t get any fucking worse-- might as well.
Holly makes sure she gets hooked up; the guy with the tabs is probably in his twenties, with greasy hair and a porn stache, standing outside of the circle of dancing partiers. He eyes her up and down with a leer and says, "You should probably take only one, baby doll," but she takes two instead, steals Holly’s plastic cup full of Kool-Aid and Bacardi to chase it down with.
It takes awhile to kick in. At first Holly stays with her, drags her into the circle, holds her hand up and dances with her to the pounding techno. But then they separate, and she disappears into the sweaty mass. Summer's left surrounded by losers who are all dry humping each other to house music.
Some random comes up from behind, puts his hands on her. She tries to get into it, grinds back against him, leans into his touch, but his fingers are too clammy and his mouth is too wet on her neck. All she can think of is Ryan, Ryan’s hands, Ryan’s lips, Ryan, Ryan, Ryanryanryan--
She spins away from him, keeps spinning, out of the throng, trips over her feet and tumbles onto the beach. Her ass hurts, but it feels good to stretch out there, the sand pillowing her back, listening to the whooshing of the waves and the ba-BUMP ba-BUMP of the blood roaring in her head over the unrelentent techno. All of it melting together into liquid sound.
Someone's tongue is in her ear, and that's seriously gross, but she barely even notices, it's like she's floating above herself. Weightless. A little like the feeling she used to get when they’d hotbox Luke’s car, plus being super-drunk at the same time, except it's smoother, stronger. Thrumming in her veins. Her heart races.
It's pretty boring, actually, but she doesn't care about being bored, or the fact that this random guy is, like, molesting her neck, or about anything, at all.
And then the tongue isn't there anymore, and she turns her head and sees the guy rolling in the sand beside her. Standing sentinel above him is Ryan, shaking out his fist, the shadows from the bonfire flickering over his face strangely.
She figures it's the drug, she's hallucinating, or something, but then he kneels down next to her and she knows he's really there. She wants to pull him down to her, roll around in the sand, into the water, let the waves engulf them and press into him and feel him inside of her. She wants to touch him all over, everywhere, she’s burning for it, she’s burning.
She presses her palm to his throat; she can feel his heartbeat through the thin skin, pounding hotly, echoing through her body, and she drifts her mouth loosely over his pulsepoint, up to his jaw. One of his hands curls around her wrist.
Without warning, he scoops her up, like all of her, and carries her back up the beach. Like she’s a bride, or a damsel in distress in some fairytale, but that’s not right.
"Hey. Hey! I'm not in a tower. I don't eat apples," she protests feebly into his neck. "You don't even have a horse, Chino. Put me down."
He does put her down, eventually, but instead of landing on sand, or grass, or even pavement, like she expected, she hits the leathery cushions of her Bentley with a soft oof.
"Shh," he hushes, gentle, pushes the hair off her face and smoothes a hand over her forehead like he's checking her for a fever.
There's this massive pressure on her chest, and suddenly she's crying, for no reason at all. It comes out of her in short, ragged bursts. She's aware enough to be embarrassed, but she can't stop, it just makes her sob harder, it doesn’t even feel like she’s crying. The drug is rolling over her in waves and she rides it, rides it, rides it.
**
Summer’s eyes open and she’s facedown, sideways on a bed. Ryan’s bed. The springs creak as she gradually draws herself onto her knees. There’s a pillow clutched tight in her arms, and she glances down at the floor and sees the comforter bunched up there in a pile. Early morning light streams in through the blinds.
Shit. She can’t even swallow, her mouth is so dry. A glass of water is sitting on the nightstand, on top of a napkin, and her purse and car keys are propped up next to it. She drinks the water down all at once; it’s lukewarm, but it still helps. It makes her head feel a little less foggy, at the very least.
Ryan is on the floor on the other side of the bed, sleeping. She really doesn’t want to wake him up and deal with everything, definitely not, but she feels bad about leaving without saying anything. She settles for digging out her lipliner and scratching out Thanks in flamme rose red on the damp-ringed napkin, then tucks it back under the edge of the empty glass.
Summer gathers up her purse and keys and eases her sore feet into her skinny heels, teeters toward the Cohen house. It’s really early, the sun’s barely up, and she’s dying for something more to drink, so she sneaks into the kitchen and rummages through their refrigerator. There’s a quart of milk, and a bottle of vitamin water in the door that, when Summer opens it, smells suspiciously like vodka. Must be Kirsten’s, she thinks, frowning.
She quickly puts that back and finds what she’s looking for: a carton of orange juice. Just as she shuts the fridge door, she hears footsteps.
"Ryan?"
Oh crap, oh crap, it’s Mr. Cohen. For a second she flails, trying to decide if she should make a run for it, or else try to improvise some cover story. Normally she thinks she could pull off the latter, but then she remembers that Mr. Cohen is a lawyer, and even worse, a really really good one.
He comes ambling in and finds her with her hand frozen on the refrigerator handle. He’s in a long t-shirt, sweats, a little scruffy and rubbing sleep out of his eyes.
"Summer, is that you?" His head cocks to the side, bushy eyebrows crinkling with confusion.
She sees it in his face as he takes her in-- her messy hair, eyes circled in smudged mascara, the rumpled skirt, the hickey mark evident on her neck-- the dots are connecting, and it’s like he sees right through her. It’s like he knows.
Summer panics. She abandons the juice and bolts.
"I-- I gotta go," she says breathlessly, and hears Mr. Cohen call her name, but she rushes out the door, doesn’t stop running until she’s reached her car, dives into the front seat and starts it up with shaking hands.
She gets home and takes a shower, washes the sand out of her hair, stays under so long her fingers turn pruny and gross. Her stomach is still cramped and her teeth still ache from all the crying she’d done the night before.
She curls up under her thick covers and turns on the Food Network, where a big-boobed Italian woman is cooking up a lentil bruschetta with basil and pecorino. The thought of eating alone makes her queasy, so then she flips through the channels and stumbles across an episode of M*A*S*H*. And that just reminds her of Ryan.
The universe is totally fired.
Finally she turns the television off completely and pulls the covers all the way over her head, thinks she feels another crying jag coming on, but it dies somewhere in her throat and only makes her feel like she’s going to throw up.
It’s not like she gives a fuck if people think she’s a whore or whatever, for the most part, but for some reason she can’t stand the idea of Mr. Cohen standing there and giving her that look, that disapproving, disappointed look, even though she deserves it.
And she does, she does deserve it, and worse, because she’s fucking with both of his boys--literally and figuratively--and Summer’s no idiot. Everything in her life was so much easier when Ryan was just Chino and Seth was just some dumb faceless dork, before Marissa had to designate Ryan as her Personal Savior, before Seth stood on tables and openly declared his love and she ignored her instincts and took his sweaty hand in hers when he offered it, back before when she didn’t have to care about anyone’s feelings except Coop’s and her dad’s.
She wishes sex could just be sex, that she could be with Ryan and not have things be so complicated, but they have to be, because he’s Ryan, and then there’s Seth, too, you can’t have one without the other-- and she loves them both and hates that there has to be a choice at all, and that no matter what people are going to get hurt. Fuck.
**
Marissa doesn’t call Summer to hang out like she said she would, and she doesn’t call the next day to apologize. She doesn’t call at all.
Summer’s not really that upset about it. Vaguely annoyed, maybe, but mostly she doesn’t even care. Her best friend isn’t her best friend anymore and she doesn’t even care, how fucked up is that?
**
So that leaves Ryan--assuming he doesn’t like, totally hate her now. And if he does, fuck him, okay, it’s not like she needed rescuing or whatever, she didn’t even know he was there. And how did that even happen, anyway?
Whatever. If he’s going to be a dick, or act all stupid about it, she wants to know now so that she can tell him to fuck off properly.
When she lets herself into the poolhouse, Ryan isn’t there, so she decides to wait. She puts a CD in the stereo by some band she’s never heard of, someone called Simply Red, then curls up in the middle of Ryan’s bed, on her side. The music is kind of melancholy, but not like slit-your-wrists Conor Oberst emo crap melancholy. It just makes her feel--tired. Like, in her bones.
"Are you-- are you brooding?"
Ryan is in the doorway, looking up at her from underneath his eyebrows, like he’s amused.
"Shut up." Summer pitches a pillow at him and watches it bounce harmlessly off of his chest. "I do not brood. I was just-- waiting."
Waiting, for a lot of things. For him. For her life to change. For things to start making some fucking sense.
God, this is what hanging out with Chino gets her: way too much maudlin introspection and morosity. Morosity? Moroseness? Whatever.
The mattress sinks with his weight as he sits down next to her, and she adjusts herself so her cheek is resting on his thigh. He brings one of his hands down and starts to pet her hair. It feels really good.
"I don't think Marissa and I are friends anymore," she confesses. "Also, I think I turned Seth gay."
Ryan’s hand stills. "You… turned him gay?"
"And Zach, too. Maybe."
"Seth… and Zach?" he asks dumbly.
"I saw them." She traces the edge of her thumbnail in a circle across his denim-clad knee, worries at her lower lip. "Together."
"Saw them--doing what, exactly?"
"They were--leaning, and stuff! I’m not an idiot. I know what’s going on, okay?"
"You thought you saw me and Lindsay, though. Before."
So he’s got her there. She did run away before they actually did anything--maybe she’s been watching too much of The Valley lately. Maybe she was imagining things, or just too drunk. Maybe--
Okay, so none of that is convincing her otherwise.
Seth and Zach. When she stops to think about it, it clears a lot of stuff up, weirdly. And maybe--maybe that means it’s not her fault, why Seth stopped wanting her when he finally had her, why it was such a no-brainer for him to leave Newport last summer, because he loved Ryan more. Not just as a pseudo-brother, but more than that, maybe he’s like in love with Ryan, for real. Like he thinks about Ryan in the way that she does, about having him, his hands and his mouth and his cock.
That thought makes her feel kind of sticky and hot.
Summer pushes herself up off Ryan’s lap, looks him in the eye and says, "I’m not Coop, okay?", and Ryan laughs a little and says, "Believe me, I know," and she’s kind of insulted, so she snaps, "Fuck you, Chino," and is about to storm off, but he catches her wrist and pulls her flush against him, kisses her soundly.
"I didn’t mean--" he sighs, and shakes his head. "I like that, okay? I like that."
She studies him carefully to make sure he’s being sincere, and then says, "Fine, okay, whatever," and lets him kiss her again.
He buries his face into her stomach, and then between her thighs, works her with his mouth. She arches off the bed, pushing out her chest; it’s like yoga poses, like she's doing the ardhachandra-whatever-- the half-moon one-- except on her back. She tries to focus on her breathing, where you empty out your lungs but keep your abdomen still the whole time, which is trickier than you’d think. Her knees give way after a while, so Ryan holds her up under her ass as he licks her out. For a second she thinks she might pee, but then she’s coming, coming, and she can’t remember any of her breathing techniques anymore.
**
Caleb Nichol thinks Ryan is a dirty hoodlum out to scam the Cohens out of their money; Ryan tells her this a few nights later at some magazine fundraiser gala whatever that Julie Cooper and Kirsten host at the Cohens’. He says it like it’s a joke, but his voice is kind of rough around the edges, like it pisses him off in all truth.
Summer thinks that if Caleb really feels that way, then he is an idiot. If Ryan was a dirty hoodlum for real, would he be hanging around and going to school in Newport? No. He would have stolen all of Mrs. Cohen’s best jewelry, which is probably worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a laptop, and an SUV, and bailed in the middle of the night ages ago. Duh.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he deadpans when she shares her take on the situation, and she smirks in return.
Ryan cleans up nice--looks sharp in his suit, but not too sharp, pretty but not too pretty. He looks like he fits right in. Julie Cooper, on the otherhand, is dolled up in Valentino’s extravagant signature red gown; everything about her is overdone, trying too hard. She screams new money. Summer always thought the Valentino collection was on the tacky side anyway.
Marissa’s around, somewhere--Summer saw her briefly, but Coop looked like she was sulking and was nursing a flask, and Summer felt weary just looking at her, so it wasn’t like she was going to go out of her way to approach her or anything. Lindsay is here with her band geek, who is such a downgrade from Ryan that it’s seriously laughable. That girl is an idiot.
Seth and Zach are standing together in a corner, eating finger sandwiches and ignoring her. Which is fine, because every time she glances over at them, she thinks about Seth’s hand on Zach’s neck, and imagines them kissing and rolling around and jerking each other off, and her face heats up.
Plus, she has Ryan for company, so that doesn’t totally suck. She makes fun of everybody else’s outfits, and he talks about the vaulted ceilings and the Sistine Chapel. Summer makes sure not to stand too close to him, but sometimes she gets kind of caught up in the cadence of his voice, and they end up really close.
He’s in the middle of explaining how Michelangelo actually painted standing up, not on his back like most people assume, when suddenly there’s shouting and the sound of tinkling glass shattering.
Summer snaps her head around and sees Kirsten, wobbling a little on her feet as she yells something at Sandy--something about college, and true love, and a name, like Regina or Rebecca or Roberta. Sandy’s face is wet and dripping, and Summer quickly realizes that Kirsten must have thrown the wine into his face before lobbing the glass onto the ground.
Ryan automatically swoops in, sets a hand on her shoulder, and Kirsten whirls on him immediately.
"Don’t," she flings at him, viciously. "Don’t. I am not your mother."
He recoils as if she slapped him, and takes a few backward steps as Haley hones in, maneuvers Kirsten away and into the kitchen. Sandy’s busying himself with mopping off his face with a napkin, and Seth is nowhere to be found--actually, Summer looks around and realizes that Zach is MIA, too, the both of them are probably holed up upstairs, geeking out over comics, or making out, or both, at the rate things are going these days.
Ryan disappears out one of the doors. Summer presses past a group of Newpsie trophy wife gawkers, who are trading scandalized whispers full of barely-contained glee at the dramatic scene unfolding before them, probably already planning out the wording of the gossip to swap over late brunches the next morning with the ones who were unlucky enough to not witness the drama firsthand. If the stepmonster ever snaps out of her Xanax haze, she will be so pissed that she missed this.
She follows him, finds him outside. He’s standing next to the SUV. He kicks the tire, twice, slams one closed fist into the door. Normally she’d be all, what the fuck, oh my god, chill out, get a grip, Chino-- but then he just stands there, shaking, lost. Something about that, like, tugs at her.
Summer walks up to him from behind, presses the full length of her body against his back and clasps her arms tightly around his waist. Her face is buried in the folds of his shirt, against the knob of his spine. He smells good. Warm and clean.
She stays like that until she feels the tension slowly leave his body.
"What, no ‘Get a grip, Chino’?" he finally says, but he doesn’t sound pissed. "I must look… really pathetic."
"Get a grip, Chino," she mumbles against his shirt. "Does that help?"
"If I say yes, will you let go?"
**
Three days later, Kirsten gets sent off to rehab, after Caleb strongarms her into it. Summer thinks it’s funny that Mrs. Cohen pulls one Coop in public and they ship her away in the blink of an eye--but no matter how obviously and dramatically Marissa falls apart, no one ever thinks to do anything on her behalf.
Actually, that’s not funny, it’s just sad, is what it is. Summer pities Marissa, because Julie Cooper is in denial and Caleb doesn’t care about her enough to intervene, but she refuses to feel guilty--it’s not her responsibility to stop the train wreck that is Coop.
Ryan and her sit outside at lunch. He looks worn down, and tired, and he tells her that it was really emotional, that there was a lot of crying involved. She wonders if that means that Ryan cried, too, but it’s not like she’s going to ask.
He says that Seth is going to Pittsburgh for awhile, to stay with Anna, until after spring break. That surprises her--Seth stills talks to Anna? Weird. But of course he can’t deal, of course he’s leaving, that totally makes sense. The same way Ryan’s reaction to everything is either guilt or fists, Seth’s default is to run away from his problems like a little bitch. Figures.
"We’re supposed to visit, in a few weeks," Ryan says slowly, and looks down at his hands, and then past her shoulder. "Would you maybe--?"
It takes her a few seconds to understand what he’s hinting at, and then she gets it.
"Sure," she agrees, sipping her latte. "Yeah, sure. I’ll go."
**
Rehab seems a lot like a luxury resort to Summer. There are gourmet chefs, and a gigantic outdoor pool with a waterfall, and the rooms are huge (with vaulted ceilings, she points out to Ryan, and is impressed with herself for remembering)--the bedsheets are 500 thread count, at least. She decides immediately to convince her father that she has a crippling shoe addiction that can only be cured at a place like this.
Caleb was the first one to visit, and Mr. Cohen has to work and is coming up by himself the next day, and Seth is still in Pittsburgh, so it’s just Ryan and Summer. She comes over early in the morning, before Mr. Cohen leaves-- he totally knows what is up, but he smears a poppy seed bagel for her and jokes a lot and doesn’t look at her like he’s disappointed or anything, not once. Maybe he even, like, approves-- which is unexpected, but hey, she’ll take it.
Before they go, Summer stops by her house and changes her outfit five times; Ryan sits on her bed, flicking through one of her old issues of Vogue without reading it, and every time she comes out of her closet in a new one, he tells her she looks fine. But he’s a boy, so what does he know? How do you dress for a visit to rehab?
Eventually she settles on what to wear, but then Ryan wants to have sex when he sees her in it, so she ends up having to change her outfit again afterward. So really, it’s completely his fault that they’re running late.
Kirsten hugs her, briefly; she smells like laundry soap, and when she pulls back Summer can see that though her hair is neatly arranged, her face is freshly scrubbed and she isn’t wearing any makeup at all. She looks older, and tired, but not unhappy.
Summer sticks around for a couple of minutes, then waits outside to give them time to talk. When she comes back in so they can leave, Kirsten gathers Ryan all up in her arms. She rests her chin on the top of his head and then kisses his hair, whispers something Summer doesn’t quite catch--probably "I love you," she thinks, because during the whole drive home, Ryan’s eyes are wet, and he stares out the window and blinks a lot.
**
They take her Bentley and drive to the pier. Summer carries her heels in one hand as they head down the boardwalk to an empty spot. She winces a little when she sits down--she’s wearing a Vera Wang skirt, one of her favorites, and after this it’ll probably be ruined. It would be dumb to complain about that, when Ryan is like really upset, over real stuff, and she’s tough, she can suck it up and sacrifice a skirt in the name of being a friend. But when did she ever care about her problems sounding dumb?
"My skirt is like totally ruined," she complains.
He shrugs. "Sorry."
That’s Ryan, always apologizing for crap that isn’t even his fault. Whatever. She waits until he extracts a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, and holds out her hand. He lights one for himself and uses the tip to light hers. She takes a long pull from it, gazes out at the sea.
"My mom--" she starts, then stops. "I was really young, when she died. Sometimes it’s like I’m actually…"
Summer trails off, hesistant. The wood planks are cool under her thighs. Ryan turns his head and stares at her for a long time. That’s kind of, like, unnerving, but she takes another drag and continues.
"It’s like I’m glad, or something. That all I remember is the good stuff. She died before she had a chance to, like, fuck up and make me hate her." Why is she saying this, to him? She doesn’t even like to think about it. God, she’s a horrible person. "God, I’m a horrible person."
"No, you’re not," he says firmly.
It’s sort of an intense moment, and Summer’s afraid he’s going to be all, We should talk, or, I can’t do this anymore, or worst of all, I’m in love with you--but then she thinks maybe that wouldn’t be the worst, maybe she wouldn’t hate it if he said that at all. Her chest feels tight when she looks at him.
Instead he bumps his shoulder against hers, and kisses her temple, like everything’s okay, or at least is going to be-- and she closes her eyes and thinks that maybe it is.
++
A/N: The title is stolen from Conor Oberst, which is ironic or something since Summer hates him in this story. For the record, Ryan is listening to “Wanted Dead Or Alive” in the first part, and toward the end Summer puts on “Holding Back The Years.” Anyway, I like this story a lot more than the first one, though the ending is kind of lame. SORRY, WORLD.
Author: buffyx
Pairing/Character: Summer/Ryan
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers/Warnings: Through season two. A sequel to You Know I’m No Good, but can be read alone. Also, it's twenty pages long. Holy crap.
Summer knows that she’s still friends with Marissa when she goes to the bathroom after lunch and sees the words MARISSA COOPER IS A DYKE scrawled on the stall door in blue pen, and then ONLY ON THE WEEKENDS underneath it in red, in someone else's handwriting. Anger boils up in her gut, crawls under her skin; it’s like an old school rage blackout coming on.
She crosses out the insults with a purple Sharpie, and then writes underneath them, You bitches write anything else about MC, and I will track you down and kick your asses. Don’t even try me. –SR. And then, as an afterthought, adds: P.S., I’m really not kidding.
Maybe Marissa has been failing at best friend duties lately, but that doesn’t mean that Summer is going to let anyone trash her.
Guilt kind of nags at her for the rest of the day. Sure, Marissa isn’t even around at school enough lately to notice what a joke she’s become around Harbor, but even if she’s all gay now, Summer did sleep with her ex-boyfriend and isn’t planning on telling her anytime soon, so maybe some sign of loyalty is deserved. Otherwise she’s just a backstabbing slut with no respect for the rules of friendship.
Summer calls Marissa after her last class as she’s walking to her car. It goes straight to voicemail, so she leaves a message and says, "Coop, hey, it’s me, listen, I know it’s been awhile, so we should hang, talk, whatever, call me," and when she clicks off the phone, she looks up and sees Ryan. And Lindsay, too, the two of them, standing next to Kirsten’s SUV.
It’s been two days since they had sex in his poolhouse, and they haven’t talked since. Summer spent Sunday at Neiman Marcus, buying two pairs of designer Christian Louboutin pumps, a designer Cavalli jacket, and a new Kate Spade handbag, and not thinking about Ryan, and then Monday there was school and getting her nails done and fighting with the stepmonster over dinner and not thinking about Ryan.
And now here he is, chilling by his car, right in front of her, so she can’t not think about him. He's talking to Lindsay; it looks serious. Lindsay tucks her red hair behind her ears and pouts prettily and touches Ryan’s elbow, and--oh. Okay, then. Summer sees how it is.
Suddenly she doesn’t really want to look anymore.
**
It’s just Summer and the stepmonster for dinner, since her father is out on business all week, once again. She braces herself for more brutal attacks than usual, but the stepmonster doesn’t pick an argument with Summer once, and when Paloma serves zarangollo with potatoes, she doesn't even complain about having egg in hers.
Huh. They must’ve upped the antidepressant dosage--Summer guesses she can look forward to the stepmonster lapsing into a Xanax-induced catatonia during her father’s absence.
Later, Marissa calls while she's reading Byron for an assignment. She’s in a generous mood, so she picks it up, and is immediately greeted with loud music blasting in her ear.
"Marissa?" She shuts her textbook and sits up on her bed.
"SUMMER!" Marissa yells. She sounds drunk. Before nine o’clock? On a Tuesday? What? "SUM! CAN YOU HEAR ME? SUM?"
Summer hears something in the background, voices talking and aluminum rustling, grungy girl punk still blaring obnoxiously, and she only catches snippets of what’s being shouted.
"SUMMER-- I GOT YOUR-- I CAN’T REALLY--WISH YOU WERE--YOU SHOULD--I’M SOOOO--CAN YOU--?"
"Coop, I’m here--" she tries, but it’s all in futility. There’s the sound of someone--probably Alex--laughing, and then the phone clicks and the dial tone buzzes loud and persistent, like it’s mocking her.
Summer flops back on her bed and wonders when she started surrounding herself with people who are either losers, or addicts, or both.
Ten o’clock rolls around and she’s restless and annoyed and obsessing about Ryan, again. What does he see in Lindsay, of all people? She’s so… plain. Maybe he’s one of those guys who likes plain. Maybe it’s like how she learned in Lit, how the protagonist always has the fatal flaw, and that’s his--he falls in love too easily, and always with the wrong person.
Summer’s never been in love. Definitely not with Zach, ew, ugh. For awhile she thought she was with Seth. She did love him. She still loves him, even, but it’s not really romantic or anything--it’s like how she loves Coop, kind of, how someone can be in your life and be too annoying to live sometimes but you love them anyway, even if it doesn’t make sense.
As far as she can tell, love makes you crazy and constantly miserable, and if that’s how it is, she’ll pass, thank you.
The only people she knows that are in love and actually happy about it are Sandy and Kirsten Cohen. But she’s pretty sure that they’re a freak of nature, and that it usually only works out in the movies, and hardly ever with anyone in the real world. Her life is not at all like a movie; Marissa's, on the other hand, is like ultra cinematic. Summer figures this means she'll either get the big happily ever after, or die tragically at the prime of life.
She’s itching for some kind of a distraction-- it’s been awhile since she’s done any yoga, so she gets on the floor and does the lotus, concentrating on her breathing techniques, and then shifts onto her stomach and bends into the cobra, and then reaches behind to grab her ankles and pull herself into the bow. But it doesn’t work; now she’s just thinking the same thoughts in some uncomfortable pose on the floor.
Summer has to get out of her room, out of the house, so she puts on her new come-fuck-me heels and her new jacket and goes downstairs. The stepmonster is already in bed for the night, knocked into an early coma, and Paloma shoots her a curious look before she slips out the door but says nothing.
Her car’s parked in the drive. It’s a Bentley Continental, silver. Her dad bought it for her for her sixteenth birthday; he didn’t really say anything when have gave it to her, just had the keys giftwrapped and left on kitchen table, and kissed the top of her hair when she hugged him. She’d long ago resigned herself to the fact that he would never be the kind of father to use a lot of words to say how he felt; he was more into expressing his love via his credit card.
Right after her mother died, he bought her a pony. It was a mean old thing, and after the second time it bucked her off, he sold it, and by then she had come to the conclusion that toy horses were more fun than real ones anyway, and that was the end of that.
Summer drives over to the Cohens’, pulls the car over half a block down the street from their house. A quick glance in the rearview mirror to doublecheck that her lipstick isn’t on her teeth, and then she gets out, squares her shoulders and marches straight to Ryan’s poolhouse.
She throws open the door dramatically, since she knows the importance of making an impressive entrance, and makes sure to bolt it shut behind her. He never locks it, which seems stupid of him since the Cohens don’t seem to understand the concept of boundaries, like, at all.
There’s music playing and Ryan is lying on his bed. He’s flat on his stomach, his arms folded underneath his eyes. He doesn’t look up even after she’s been standing there for about fifteen seconds.
"Don’t ignore me," she snaps, "don’t pull that hot-and-cold shit on me. Don’t even."
"I wasn’t ignoring you," he says into the comforter, muffled.
"You’re ignoring me, or you’re brooding, or both," she retorts. "Whatever. Either way, it’s dumb. I hate it. So stop." She pauses. "Also, you shouldn’t lie like that."
He peeks up at her, finally. "Why not?"
"Sleeping on your stomach is bad for your back. It like crushes your organs or something. I don’t know, do I look like a doctor?"
She walks over, drops her purse on the bed and sits down next to him.
Slowly he pulls himself into a sitting position and looks over at her. "You’re the one ignoring me, you know."
"Hello, I came over here, didn’t I?" She shrugs off her jacket and kicks off her shoes. "Are you listening to Bon Jovi?"
"Is that a problem?"
"Uh, if it was a problem, I would tell you, assface," she shoots back, annoyed. "What is your damage? Is this about Lindsay? I saw you guys. What, are you two like an item again?"
"Lindsay is seeing a guy," he explains, and then adds, "He plays the clarinet."
"A band geek? Ew."
Ryan smiles wryly. "She wanted to talk to me, about it. To make sure I didn’t have a problem. And to let me know that he’s extremely funny, and doesn’t have… baggage."
"That just means he’s boring," she informs him. "Anyone worth knowing has baggage."
"Even you?" he asks with raised eyebrows.
"Please. I am perfect."
She moves closer to him, crawls into his lap, puts her arms around his neck. His hair is soft, and longer than she'd realized.
"Summer," he says, almost warningly, his hands coming up to her waist.
"Ryan," she replies evenly, and bends her head down so her hair falls across her face like a curtain. "What, did you think I seriously came over so we could share our feelings and braid each other's hair? Because, uh, no. I'm not that kind of girl."
"Seth," he reminds her, "Seth--"
"--only wants me when he can’t have me," she finishes. She rolls her eyes. "And not even then, lately."
He must agree with her on that because when she kisses him, he doesn’t push her away.
"I locked the door," she says against his mouth, sotto-voice, and drags her top off, over her head, lets it fall to the side. "No one saw me come in."
She’s sitting in his lap in nothing but a red lace bra, which he takes a few moments to look over her appreciatively. Good. It's damn time someone appreciated her the way she deserves.
There’s not a lot of foreplay, this time around. For all of his initial reluctance, he’s quick to wriggle her out of her skirt, spread her out underneath him. She’s already soaked through her underwear. It’s ridiculous. He hikes her legs way up, winds them above his rib cage, and she’s suddenly very, very grateful for her silly yoga-as-a-substitute-for-sex phase.
Her hips tilt up and she’s clenching her thighs around him tightly; he pushes into her again and again, leaves her scrabbling at his shoulders, trying to crush him closer. Her nerves are on fire, and her orgasm pulls her apart, hits her fast and furious. She has to bite into his shoulder to keep herself from crying out.
It leaves her shaking and exhausted, slick with sweat and sex, and she can’t believe she just came from penetration only. That’s never happened before. Seth could only ever get her off with his mouth or his fingers, and even then it wasn’t always a sure thing. And it was definitely never like this.
Ryan keeps holding her when they’ve come down, is giving little licks and bites in her neck and the hollow of her collarbone, until finally she pushes him to the side so she can catch her breath. He rolls off the condom, ties it up and tosses it into the trash.
"You okay?" he asks.
"Mmmph," she nods, and licks at his mouth, sucks in his lower lip and bites down. She has better uses for his mouth than talking.
He untangles himself from the sheets and steps into his jeans. His belt is low and loose, boxers poking out over the waistband, and he digs a pack of cigarettes out of his dresser drawer, flips one of them into his mouth. That is badass, and so hot. For some reason she had thought he would smoke Newports, or Marlboro Reds. But instead he has a pack of Camels.
Summer props her elbow up on the pillow, sets her chin in her hand and studies him, his muscled hips and the flat stretch from his navel to a curl of hair, still exposed until he yanks on a wifebeater.
"You look like Marky Mark," she says. Except prettier, she thinks.
"Thanks?" He glances over at her and zips himself up. One hand runs briskly through his hair, and he hesitates. "Summer--"
"Chill out," she cuts in, before he can complete that thought, because she’s pretty sure she knows where this conversation is headed, and she’d rather steer clear of it entirely. "I’m not going to ask you to go steady or whatever, okay?"
The last thing she needs right now is a boyfriend. She likes Ryan, actually, he’s nice to be around, but boys are frustrating enough. The second you start dating them, they basically become retarded. It’s just a fact.
She’d rather this just stay what it is--sex. Two bodies, banging together on occasion. Emotions are too exhausting.
**
Summer’s favorite part of People is the section with pictures of celebrities running around doing normal stuff, like buying groceries and walking their dogs and sitting in LAX gabbing on their cell phones. Without all of the airbrushing, it’s easy for her to determine that she has better boobs than Cameron Diaz, better teeth than Kirsten Dunst, and better skin than Nicole Ritchie. Also she has more class than the three of them combined, but that’s a given.
She’s sitting at a table outside at lunch, looking over a photo of Jake Gyllenhaal browsing a book store with an unidentified male companion, when Marissa plops down across from her.
"Hi, Summer," Marissa says.
Her voice is light, but she’s looking at Summer weirdly, like she’s ready to jump on the defensive at any second.
"Coop, hey," she replies, and sets down the magazine.
Marissa’s skin is oily, definitely not better than Nicole Ritchie’s. Also, her hair is matted and stringy-looking, totally neglected. It’s actually kind of sad. And she’s wearing way too much dark eyeliner-- what is this, the nineties? Did she miss the memo? Heroin chic is dead. Thank god.
"So I was thinking, and you’re right, we should do something, together," Marissa’s saying, picking at her salad without actually eating it. "Zach told me that Holly’s rents are in Aspen, so she’s throwing a party this weekend. Maybe we could go to that, or hang on Saturday--"
Summer freezes. "You talk to Zach?"
"Well, yeah, we have psych together," Marissa shrugs. "Whatever. Not a big deal. Changing subject. Man, that French oral was a killer, wasn’t it?"
"Totally," Summer lies. She passed it easily. Languages aren’t hard at all.
She got the best scores on her SATs out of anyone she knows. Except Ryan. She only knows he got higher than her because Seth found out and blabbed it to her, because he can’t keep his mouth shut about anything, ever, obviously.
Marissa starts to talk more about how French sucks, and that somehow segues into how Julie Cooper is ruining her life, but then her cell phone rings. It’s Alex, and she answers, of course, mouths "I gotta take this" to Summer and wanders off with an apologetic wave.
She’s about to go back to reading her magazine when Ryan sits down next to her.
"Hey," he says, and holds out a muffin in offering. "Muffin for your thoughts?"
Summer looks down at it. Blueberry. That’s acceptable.
"Thanks." She takes it and tilts her head in consideration. "Paris Hilton. How can someone with a lazy eye get to lead such a glamorous lifestyle? There is no justice."
"Clearly," he agrees, amused. "So…"
"So?" she echoes, unwrapping the muffin.
"Seth and Zach are having a comic book… meeting…thing, today," he explains. "He wants to borrow the car."
This is how Summer ends up giving him a ride home after school. Of course that leads to them making out in the front seat--she claws at his hair and kisses him until she’s hot and flushed, and he runs his hands over her back, under her shirt. She really, really wants to just drive him straight over to her house, drag him inside and pin him down in her bed for hours. They could totally get caught like this, but she doesn’t care.
"I--I should--" He stops sucking on her neck and looks toward the Cohen house. "Kirsten--"
She sits back and sighs, still panting, frustrated. "Yeah, yeah, I know, whatever. Go ahead."
"Summer--"
"Go!" she shoos, swatting at his arm. He grins and leans in to peck her quickly on the mouth before he gets out of her car.
Summer goes home and thinks about him as she masturbates in the shower, and then again before she falls asleep, and comes both times.
**
The next evening, Summer’s in the mood for Gouda cheese, and they’re out of it at home; Paloma has the night off to go to her seven-year-old niece’s birthday party in Costa Mesa, so Summer swings by the store to pick some up. She’s standing in the dairy section--who knew there were some many kinds of cheese products?--when Seth taps her on the shoulder.
He’s just kind of standing there with a dumb look on his face. His curly hair is in his eyes, which are big and brown and staring at her all funny. How did she ever find that look to be endearing and charming and cute? Now it’s just, like, really irritating, and maybe that is how she knows she is totally over him, for real.
"What do you want?" she huffs.
"Why, yes, Summer, it's great to see you too, as a matter of fact, I've been doing awesomely. Thanks for asking."
"I’m kind of busy," she tells him with a glare, "so do you have something to, like, say, or are you just trying to bug me?"
"Maybe it’s not about you. Did you think about that, huh? Maybe I’m just pondering these various cheese selections." Seth reaches out and takes a package of Gouda, juggles it between his hands. "Gouda, Brie, Monterey Jack... It’s a difficult decision, Summer. It requires a lot of deliberation. We Cohens are a fickle breed."
"Well, pick one and get out of my face."
"Feisty! Old school Summer coming out. Okay. I like that."
"Are you done yet?" she sighs. "Some of us have plans."
Okay, that is totally a lie, but for all Cohen knows, her plans involve doing the water polo team. She goes to brush past him, but he steps in front of her so she ends up bumping into his chest, hard.
"Plans? What, like a date? Like boyfriend plans? You have a boyfriend?" Seth asks. His eyes are narrowed at her, suspicious.
"I have friends. Boys. Boys as friends."
Another lie. She used to have boys as friends; she used to have Luke, and Seth and Zach, and now she barely has anyone at all-- only Marissa, kind of, and. And Ryan.
Oh, that is so many levels of pathetic, she cannot even.
"Ah, but I see more in your eyes," he says, cryptically.
She snatches the Gouda cheese from him.
"You don't see much in my eyes, Cohen," she snaps.
"Hey, what's with you?" He sounds confused. Like this is some game and she should be playing along, but she doesn’t fucking feel like it.
"What's with you?" she retorts, and gets in line to buy her cheese. "Why don’t you go bother Zach. You two are all super duper best pals now anyway. You know, you can’t have everything, Seth."
Seth’s mouth hangs open, but he doesn’t say another word, and she swears that he blushes or something, but whatever, she’s so over it, over everything, so she tosses her hair and turns on her heel and walks out through the automatic sliding doors.
**
Friday night comes, and Summer goes to Holly’s, and it’s totally like ninth all over again, with the boozed up jocks and the deafening music you can barely think over and threesomes in the bathroom. The beer is cheap and disgusting and served in red plastic cups, but she drinks it anyway and tries not to feel completely bored out of her mind. This did, after all, used to be, like, her life.
By the time Summer finds Marissa, Marissa’s already gone through half a fifth of vodka; she’s on the corner of one of the couches, perched on Alex’s lap. She keeps laughing so hard that she loses her balance and falls onto Alex’s thin shoulders. Then they start pawing at each other, and assaulting each other’s mouths with tons of tongue and grinding their hips together, right there in front of everyone, like Summer’s not standing half a foot away from them. And Summer’s kind of scandalized, which makes her feel stupid and twelve years old.
She tells Marissa she’s going to find a bathroom--not that she’s heard or anything--and then squeezes past some slutty sophomore making it to second with a water polo sleaze on the staircase, hurries upstairs.
There’s a line for the toilet, so she decides, whatever, this party is a bust, fuck it. But then she walks past one of the guestroom doors and hears a familiar voice. Cohen’s voice, muffled and indistinct. The door’s cracked open, so she peers through it.
It’s Seth, and Zach, sitting next to each other on the bed. Seth's hand is on Zach's neck. He’s leaning against him, and Zach is fisting the collar of Seth’s Elliot Smith shirt with one hand, and it’s like they’re pushing and pulling at each other, their foreheads so close they’re almost touching. Seth is saying something, but she can’t hear, grating hip-hop blasting from downstairs drowning them out--
But then Seth bends forward, and Zach stops pushing, and Summer’s breath catches.
She turns fast, too fast, her shoulder knocks against the doorframe painfully, but she doesn't stop.
She stumbles blindly down the stairs again, out the back door, onto the patio, all the way down to the beach, down by the roaring bonfire. She’s totally stunned, like the time Greg Richardson kicked her in the stomach and knocked the wind out of her in second grade. Where everything was spinning and standing still at the same time. So stupid, she’s so stupid, how did she not see this coming?
For a second she thinks she is going to puke right there. But that would be so gross, plus no way in hell is she going to risk ruining her shoes-- besides, the shock is already fading into fury, she’s pissed, and she crumples the plastic cup in her hand and throws it aside angrily. God, fuck them. Fuck them.
"Summer. Summer Summer Summersummersummer."
Someone is suddenly grabbing at her shoulder, and she turns and it’s Holly, her eyes bright and glassy. She grabs Summer’s hand, dissolves into high-pitched giggles, squeezes their interlaced fingers. Which is weird, since, um, they’re totally not friends anymore, which must mean that Holly has been dropping X with the rest of the ravers dancing on the beach.
"You have to try," Holly gushes. "You. Have. To."
And why not, Summer thinks. Her night can’t get any fucking worse-- might as well.
Holly makes sure she gets hooked up; the guy with the tabs is probably in his twenties, with greasy hair and a porn stache, standing outside of the circle of dancing partiers. He eyes her up and down with a leer and says, "You should probably take only one, baby doll," but she takes two instead, steals Holly’s plastic cup full of Kool-Aid and Bacardi to chase it down with.
It takes awhile to kick in. At first Holly stays with her, drags her into the circle, holds her hand up and dances with her to the pounding techno. But then they separate, and she disappears into the sweaty mass. Summer's left surrounded by losers who are all dry humping each other to house music.
Some random comes up from behind, puts his hands on her. She tries to get into it, grinds back against him, leans into his touch, but his fingers are too clammy and his mouth is too wet on her neck. All she can think of is Ryan, Ryan’s hands, Ryan’s lips, Ryan, Ryan, Ryanryanryan--
She spins away from him, keeps spinning, out of the throng, trips over her feet and tumbles onto the beach. Her ass hurts, but it feels good to stretch out there, the sand pillowing her back, listening to the whooshing of the waves and the ba-BUMP ba-BUMP of the blood roaring in her head over the unrelentent techno. All of it melting together into liquid sound.
Someone's tongue is in her ear, and that's seriously gross, but she barely even notices, it's like she's floating above herself. Weightless. A little like the feeling she used to get when they’d hotbox Luke’s car, plus being super-drunk at the same time, except it's smoother, stronger. Thrumming in her veins. Her heart races.
It's pretty boring, actually, but she doesn't care about being bored, or the fact that this random guy is, like, molesting her neck, or about anything, at all.
And then the tongue isn't there anymore, and she turns her head and sees the guy rolling in the sand beside her. Standing sentinel above him is Ryan, shaking out his fist, the shadows from the bonfire flickering over his face strangely.
She figures it's the drug, she's hallucinating, or something, but then he kneels down next to her and she knows he's really there. She wants to pull him down to her, roll around in the sand, into the water, let the waves engulf them and press into him and feel him inside of her. She wants to touch him all over, everywhere, she’s burning for it, she’s burning.
She presses her palm to his throat; she can feel his heartbeat through the thin skin, pounding hotly, echoing through her body, and she drifts her mouth loosely over his pulsepoint, up to his jaw. One of his hands curls around her wrist.
Without warning, he scoops her up, like all of her, and carries her back up the beach. Like she’s a bride, or a damsel in distress in some fairytale, but that’s not right.
"Hey. Hey! I'm not in a tower. I don't eat apples," she protests feebly into his neck. "You don't even have a horse, Chino. Put me down."
He does put her down, eventually, but instead of landing on sand, or grass, or even pavement, like she expected, she hits the leathery cushions of her Bentley with a soft oof.
"Shh," he hushes, gentle, pushes the hair off her face and smoothes a hand over her forehead like he's checking her for a fever.
There's this massive pressure on her chest, and suddenly she's crying, for no reason at all. It comes out of her in short, ragged bursts. She's aware enough to be embarrassed, but she can't stop, it just makes her sob harder, it doesn’t even feel like she’s crying. The drug is rolling over her in waves and she rides it, rides it, rides it.
**
Summer’s eyes open and she’s facedown, sideways on a bed. Ryan’s bed. The springs creak as she gradually draws herself onto her knees. There’s a pillow clutched tight in her arms, and she glances down at the floor and sees the comforter bunched up there in a pile. Early morning light streams in through the blinds.
Shit. She can’t even swallow, her mouth is so dry. A glass of water is sitting on the nightstand, on top of a napkin, and her purse and car keys are propped up next to it. She drinks the water down all at once; it’s lukewarm, but it still helps. It makes her head feel a little less foggy, at the very least.
Ryan is on the floor on the other side of the bed, sleeping. She really doesn’t want to wake him up and deal with everything, definitely not, but she feels bad about leaving without saying anything. She settles for digging out her lipliner and scratching out Thanks in flamme rose red on the damp-ringed napkin, then tucks it back under the edge of the empty glass.
Summer gathers up her purse and keys and eases her sore feet into her skinny heels, teeters toward the Cohen house. It’s really early, the sun’s barely up, and she’s dying for something more to drink, so she sneaks into the kitchen and rummages through their refrigerator. There’s a quart of milk, and a bottle of vitamin water in the door that, when Summer opens it, smells suspiciously like vodka. Must be Kirsten’s, she thinks, frowning.
She quickly puts that back and finds what she’s looking for: a carton of orange juice. Just as she shuts the fridge door, she hears footsteps.
"Ryan?"
Oh crap, oh crap, it’s Mr. Cohen. For a second she flails, trying to decide if she should make a run for it, or else try to improvise some cover story. Normally she thinks she could pull off the latter, but then she remembers that Mr. Cohen is a lawyer, and even worse, a really really good one.
He comes ambling in and finds her with her hand frozen on the refrigerator handle. He’s in a long t-shirt, sweats, a little scruffy and rubbing sleep out of his eyes.
"Summer, is that you?" His head cocks to the side, bushy eyebrows crinkling with confusion.
She sees it in his face as he takes her in-- her messy hair, eyes circled in smudged mascara, the rumpled skirt, the hickey mark evident on her neck-- the dots are connecting, and it’s like he sees right through her. It’s like he knows.
Summer panics. She abandons the juice and bolts.
"I-- I gotta go," she says breathlessly, and hears Mr. Cohen call her name, but she rushes out the door, doesn’t stop running until she’s reached her car, dives into the front seat and starts it up with shaking hands.
She gets home and takes a shower, washes the sand out of her hair, stays under so long her fingers turn pruny and gross. Her stomach is still cramped and her teeth still ache from all the crying she’d done the night before.
She curls up under her thick covers and turns on the Food Network, where a big-boobed Italian woman is cooking up a lentil bruschetta with basil and pecorino. The thought of eating alone makes her queasy, so then she flips through the channels and stumbles across an episode of M*A*S*H*. And that just reminds her of Ryan.
The universe is totally fired.
Finally she turns the television off completely and pulls the covers all the way over her head, thinks she feels another crying jag coming on, but it dies somewhere in her throat and only makes her feel like she’s going to throw up.
It’s not like she gives a fuck if people think she’s a whore or whatever, for the most part, but for some reason she can’t stand the idea of Mr. Cohen standing there and giving her that look, that disapproving, disappointed look, even though she deserves it.
And she does, she does deserve it, and worse, because she’s fucking with both of his boys--literally and figuratively--and Summer’s no idiot. Everything in her life was so much easier when Ryan was just Chino and Seth was just some dumb faceless dork, before Marissa had to designate Ryan as her Personal Savior, before Seth stood on tables and openly declared his love and she ignored her instincts and took his sweaty hand in hers when he offered it, back before when she didn’t have to care about anyone’s feelings except Coop’s and her dad’s.
She wishes sex could just be sex, that she could be with Ryan and not have things be so complicated, but they have to be, because he’s Ryan, and then there’s Seth, too, you can’t have one without the other-- and she loves them both and hates that there has to be a choice at all, and that no matter what people are going to get hurt. Fuck.
**
Marissa doesn’t call Summer to hang out like she said she would, and she doesn’t call the next day to apologize. She doesn’t call at all.
Summer’s not really that upset about it. Vaguely annoyed, maybe, but mostly she doesn’t even care. Her best friend isn’t her best friend anymore and she doesn’t even care, how fucked up is that?
**
So that leaves Ryan--assuming he doesn’t like, totally hate her now. And if he does, fuck him, okay, it’s not like she needed rescuing or whatever, she didn’t even know he was there. And how did that even happen, anyway?
Whatever. If he’s going to be a dick, or act all stupid about it, she wants to know now so that she can tell him to fuck off properly.
When she lets herself into the poolhouse, Ryan isn’t there, so she decides to wait. She puts a CD in the stereo by some band she’s never heard of, someone called Simply Red, then curls up in the middle of Ryan’s bed, on her side. The music is kind of melancholy, but not like slit-your-wrists Conor Oberst emo crap melancholy. It just makes her feel--tired. Like, in her bones.
"Are you-- are you brooding?"
Ryan is in the doorway, looking up at her from underneath his eyebrows, like he’s amused.
"Shut up." Summer pitches a pillow at him and watches it bounce harmlessly off of his chest. "I do not brood. I was just-- waiting."
Waiting, for a lot of things. For him. For her life to change. For things to start making some fucking sense.
God, this is what hanging out with Chino gets her: way too much maudlin introspection and morosity. Morosity? Moroseness? Whatever.
The mattress sinks with his weight as he sits down next to her, and she adjusts herself so her cheek is resting on his thigh. He brings one of his hands down and starts to pet her hair. It feels really good.
"I don't think Marissa and I are friends anymore," she confesses. "Also, I think I turned Seth gay."
Ryan’s hand stills. "You… turned him gay?"
"And Zach, too. Maybe."
"Seth… and Zach?" he asks dumbly.
"I saw them." She traces the edge of her thumbnail in a circle across his denim-clad knee, worries at her lower lip. "Together."
"Saw them--doing what, exactly?"
"They were--leaning, and stuff! I’m not an idiot. I know what’s going on, okay?"
"You thought you saw me and Lindsay, though. Before."
So he’s got her there. She did run away before they actually did anything--maybe she’s been watching too much of The Valley lately. Maybe she was imagining things, or just too drunk. Maybe--
Okay, so none of that is convincing her otherwise.
Seth and Zach. When she stops to think about it, it clears a lot of stuff up, weirdly. And maybe--maybe that means it’s not her fault, why Seth stopped wanting her when he finally had her, why it was such a no-brainer for him to leave Newport last summer, because he loved Ryan more. Not just as a pseudo-brother, but more than that, maybe he’s like in love with Ryan, for real. Like he thinks about Ryan in the way that she does, about having him, his hands and his mouth and his cock.
That thought makes her feel kind of sticky and hot.
Summer pushes herself up off Ryan’s lap, looks him in the eye and says, "I’m not Coop, okay?", and Ryan laughs a little and says, "Believe me, I know," and she’s kind of insulted, so she snaps, "Fuck you, Chino," and is about to storm off, but he catches her wrist and pulls her flush against him, kisses her soundly.
"I didn’t mean--" he sighs, and shakes his head. "I like that, okay? I like that."
She studies him carefully to make sure he’s being sincere, and then says, "Fine, okay, whatever," and lets him kiss her again.
He buries his face into her stomach, and then between her thighs, works her with his mouth. She arches off the bed, pushing out her chest; it’s like yoga poses, like she's doing the ardhachandra-whatever-- the half-moon one-- except on her back. She tries to focus on her breathing, where you empty out your lungs but keep your abdomen still the whole time, which is trickier than you’d think. Her knees give way after a while, so Ryan holds her up under her ass as he licks her out. For a second she thinks she might pee, but then she’s coming, coming, and she can’t remember any of her breathing techniques anymore.
**
Caleb Nichol thinks Ryan is a dirty hoodlum out to scam the Cohens out of their money; Ryan tells her this a few nights later at some magazine fundraiser gala whatever that Julie Cooper and Kirsten host at the Cohens’. He says it like it’s a joke, but his voice is kind of rough around the edges, like it pisses him off in all truth.
Summer thinks that if Caleb really feels that way, then he is an idiot. If Ryan was a dirty hoodlum for real, would he be hanging around and going to school in Newport? No. He would have stolen all of Mrs. Cohen’s best jewelry, which is probably worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a laptop, and an SUV, and bailed in the middle of the night ages ago. Duh.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he deadpans when she shares her take on the situation, and she smirks in return.
Ryan cleans up nice--looks sharp in his suit, but not too sharp, pretty but not too pretty. He looks like he fits right in. Julie Cooper, on the otherhand, is dolled up in Valentino’s extravagant signature red gown; everything about her is overdone, trying too hard. She screams new money. Summer always thought the Valentino collection was on the tacky side anyway.
Marissa’s around, somewhere--Summer saw her briefly, but Coop looked like she was sulking and was nursing a flask, and Summer felt weary just looking at her, so it wasn’t like she was going to go out of her way to approach her or anything. Lindsay is here with her band geek, who is such a downgrade from Ryan that it’s seriously laughable. That girl is an idiot.
Seth and Zach are standing together in a corner, eating finger sandwiches and ignoring her. Which is fine, because every time she glances over at them, she thinks about Seth’s hand on Zach’s neck, and imagines them kissing and rolling around and jerking each other off, and her face heats up.
Plus, she has Ryan for company, so that doesn’t totally suck. She makes fun of everybody else’s outfits, and he talks about the vaulted ceilings and the Sistine Chapel. Summer makes sure not to stand too close to him, but sometimes she gets kind of caught up in the cadence of his voice, and they end up really close.
He’s in the middle of explaining how Michelangelo actually painted standing up, not on his back like most people assume, when suddenly there’s shouting and the sound of tinkling glass shattering.
Summer snaps her head around and sees Kirsten, wobbling a little on her feet as she yells something at Sandy--something about college, and true love, and a name, like Regina or Rebecca or Roberta. Sandy’s face is wet and dripping, and Summer quickly realizes that Kirsten must have thrown the wine into his face before lobbing the glass onto the ground.
Ryan automatically swoops in, sets a hand on her shoulder, and Kirsten whirls on him immediately.
"Don’t," she flings at him, viciously. "Don’t. I am not your mother."
He recoils as if she slapped him, and takes a few backward steps as Haley hones in, maneuvers Kirsten away and into the kitchen. Sandy’s busying himself with mopping off his face with a napkin, and Seth is nowhere to be found--actually, Summer looks around and realizes that Zach is MIA, too, the both of them are probably holed up upstairs, geeking out over comics, or making out, or both, at the rate things are going these days.
Ryan disappears out one of the doors. Summer presses past a group of Newpsie trophy wife gawkers, who are trading scandalized whispers full of barely-contained glee at the dramatic scene unfolding before them, probably already planning out the wording of the gossip to swap over late brunches the next morning with the ones who were unlucky enough to not witness the drama firsthand. If the stepmonster ever snaps out of her Xanax haze, she will be so pissed that she missed this.
She follows him, finds him outside. He’s standing next to the SUV. He kicks the tire, twice, slams one closed fist into the door. Normally she’d be all, what the fuck, oh my god, chill out, get a grip, Chino-- but then he just stands there, shaking, lost. Something about that, like, tugs at her.
Summer walks up to him from behind, presses the full length of her body against his back and clasps her arms tightly around his waist. Her face is buried in the folds of his shirt, against the knob of his spine. He smells good. Warm and clean.
She stays like that until she feels the tension slowly leave his body.
"What, no ‘Get a grip, Chino’?" he finally says, but he doesn’t sound pissed. "I must look… really pathetic."
"Get a grip, Chino," she mumbles against his shirt. "Does that help?"
"If I say yes, will you let go?"
**
Three days later, Kirsten gets sent off to rehab, after Caleb strongarms her into it. Summer thinks it’s funny that Mrs. Cohen pulls one Coop in public and they ship her away in the blink of an eye--but no matter how obviously and dramatically Marissa falls apart, no one ever thinks to do anything on her behalf.
Actually, that’s not funny, it’s just sad, is what it is. Summer pities Marissa, because Julie Cooper is in denial and Caleb doesn’t care about her enough to intervene, but she refuses to feel guilty--it’s not her responsibility to stop the train wreck that is Coop.
Ryan and her sit outside at lunch. He looks worn down, and tired, and he tells her that it was really emotional, that there was a lot of crying involved. She wonders if that means that Ryan cried, too, but it’s not like she’s going to ask.
He says that Seth is going to Pittsburgh for awhile, to stay with Anna, until after spring break. That surprises her--Seth stills talks to Anna? Weird. But of course he can’t deal, of course he’s leaving, that totally makes sense. The same way Ryan’s reaction to everything is either guilt or fists, Seth’s default is to run away from his problems like a little bitch. Figures.
"We’re supposed to visit, in a few weeks," Ryan says slowly, and looks down at his hands, and then past her shoulder. "Would you maybe--?"
It takes her a few seconds to understand what he’s hinting at, and then she gets it.
"Sure," she agrees, sipping her latte. "Yeah, sure. I’ll go."
**
Rehab seems a lot like a luxury resort to Summer. There are gourmet chefs, and a gigantic outdoor pool with a waterfall, and the rooms are huge (with vaulted ceilings, she points out to Ryan, and is impressed with herself for remembering)--the bedsheets are 500 thread count, at least. She decides immediately to convince her father that she has a crippling shoe addiction that can only be cured at a place like this.
Caleb was the first one to visit, and Mr. Cohen has to work and is coming up by himself the next day, and Seth is still in Pittsburgh, so it’s just Ryan and Summer. She comes over early in the morning, before Mr. Cohen leaves-- he totally knows what is up, but he smears a poppy seed bagel for her and jokes a lot and doesn’t look at her like he’s disappointed or anything, not once. Maybe he even, like, approves-- which is unexpected, but hey, she’ll take it.
Before they go, Summer stops by her house and changes her outfit five times; Ryan sits on her bed, flicking through one of her old issues of Vogue without reading it, and every time she comes out of her closet in a new one, he tells her she looks fine. But he’s a boy, so what does he know? How do you dress for a visit to rehab?
Eventually she settles on what to wear, but then Ryan wants to have sex when he sees her in it, so she ends up having to change her outfit again afterward. So really, it’s completely his fault that they’re running late.
Kirsten hugs her, briefly; she smells like laundry soap, and when she pulls back Summer can see that though her hair is neatly arranged, her face is freshly scrubbed and she isn’t wearing any makeup at all. She looks older, and tired, but not unhappy.
Summer sticks around for a couple of minutes, then waits outside to give them time to talk. When she comes back in so they can leave, Kirsten gathers Ryan all up in her arms. She rests her chin on the top of his head and then kisses his hair, whispers something Summer doesn’t quite catch--probably "I love you," she thinks, because during the whole drive home, Ryan’s eyes are wet, and he stares out the window and blinks a lot.
**
They take her Bentley and drive to the pier. Summer carries her heels in one hand as they head down the boardwalk to an empty spot. She winces a little when she sits down--she’s wearing a Vera Wang skirt, one of her favorites, and after this it’ll probably be ruined. It would be dumb to complain about that, when Ryan is like really upset, over real stuff, and she’s tough, she can suck it up and sacrifice a skirt in the name of being a friend. But when did she ever care about her problems sounding dumb?
"My skirt is like totally ruined," she complains.
He shrugs. "Sorry."
That’s Ryan, always apologizing for crap that isn’t even his fault. Whatever. She waits until he extracts a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, and holds out her hand. He lights one for himself and uses the tip to light hers. She takes a long pull from it, gazes out at the sea.
"My mom--" she starts, then stops. "I was really young, when she died. Sometimes it’s like I’m actually…"
Summer trails off, hesistant. The wood planks are cool under her thighs. Ryan turns his head and stares at her for a long time. That’s kind of, like, unnerving, but she takes another drag and continues.
"It’s like I’m glad, or something. That all I remember is the good stuff. She died before she had a chance to, like, fuck up and make me hate her." Why is she saying this, to him? She doesn’t even like to think about it. God, she’s a horrible person. "God, I’m a horrible person."
"No, you’re not," he says firmly.
It’s sort of an intense moment, and Summer’s afraid he’s going to be all, We should talk, or, I can’t do this anymore, or worst of all, I’m in love with you--but then she thinks maybe that wouldn’t be the worst, maybe she wouldn’t hate it if he said that at all. Her chest feels tight when she looks at him.
Instead he bumps his shoulder against hers, and kisses her temple, like everything’s okay, or at least is going to be-- and she closes her eyes and thinks that maybe it is.
++
A/N: The title is stolen from Conor Oberst, which is ironic or something since Summer hates him in this story. For the record, Ryan is listening to “Wanted Dead Or Alive” in the first part, and toward the end Summer puts on “Holding Back The Years.” Anyway, I like this story a lot more than the first one, though the ending is kind of lame. SORRY, WORLD.
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 09:41 pm (UTC)is this a love letter to me? ryan smokes camels and listens to bon jovi and IS BADASS?? the universe is fired!!! the teenage orgy!!! the drugs!!!!! this is everything good about o.c. fic in the whole world, you know that right? EVERYTHING GOOD!!! ♥ ♥ MY LOVE CANNOT BE TEXTUALLY RENDERED.
plus also i like the ending. <3<3<3
no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 10:01 pm (UTC)As I wrote this, I thought, "Will anyone appreciate this as much as Anna? ANSWER: UH, NO!!!!!!!". And then I ended up throwing in EVERY OC FIC CLICHE EVER.
I am so so so glad you liked it!!!!!
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Date: 2007-06-09 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 11:55 am (UTC)Thanks for reviewing! :)
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Date: 2007-06-09 10:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 12:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 10:44 pm (UTC)...But I really do like it. You make Ryan/Summer seem like they belong together, and couldn't belong with anyone else.
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Date: 2007-06-11 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 11:03 pm (UTC)Camel Lights - man, I used to smoke those. Still miss them.
And I laughed at the passing Paris Hilton reference - accidentally timely, I'll bet.
And - look, you gave them a happy ending...
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Date: 2007-06-11 12:04 pm (UTC)Thank you for the comments! I appreciate it.
The Paris Hilton reference was, indeed, accidental, but I left it because it was too perfect. THERE IS JUSTICE. THERE REALLY IS!!
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Date: 2007-06-09 11:25 pm (UTC)No seriously, I love this. It's sweet and sad and Summer is awesome and Ryan is kickass and I don't think the ending is lame at all.
I like the way it ends.
<3
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Date: 2007-06-11 12:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-10 12:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 12:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-10 01:00 am (UTC)The ending leaves a little bit to be desired - then again I probably only say that to get you to write another part :D
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Date: 2007-06-11 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-10 02:15 am (UTC)I love that you've incorporated so much of canon and tweaked it just so to fit with characters, characters who encompass so many familiar and irresistible traits. Their interactions just reel me in, and, again, you've found a way to make the simple and ordinary extraordinarily unique. There's something about breaking down a moment into all of it's composite parts and letting it unfold while witnessing and absorbing the characters' impressions and reactions. By employing that method, nothing is mundane and interest is always piqued and heightened. You make Ryan and Summer so absolutely fascinating and breathe such life into them that it's impossible not to be drawn into their world and utterly invested- even in the muffin flavor and choice of CD.
Thanks again for the attention to detail that never fails to transport the reader to another place. You even went so far as to take some real emotional risks with the weightier topics that involve family, self-image, relationships, rejection and so many of the traumas that linger just beneath the surface until they're occasionally released for public display, or for private examination. This is a great blend of the same voices from the first story and a deeper exploration with more layers and pain too. It's an evolution of sorts that develops just as Ryan's and Summer's relationship does and as the perceptions are altered.
I hope it keeps chugging along. You've found a real niche.
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Date: 2007-06-11 11:59 am (UTC)You post at TWoP, yes? I used to lurk in The OC forums and remember your really insightful posts in the Ryan threads. Oh, Ryan, definitely my favorite character on the show.
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Date: 2007-06-11 03:49 pm (UTC)I did post at TWoP when the O.C. forums were live, and not just "read only" as they have been for about the last month I think. I didn't post as much in the episode threads during the last two seasons, but I did try to post fairly regularly in the Ryan and Ben threads. Thanks for remembering my ramblings! You have most awesome taste if Ryan is your favorite- IMHO!
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Date: 2007-06-10 03:41 am (UTC)Thanks so much for this.
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Date: 2007-06-11 11:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 12:40 pm (UTC)And yours is great.
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Date: 2007-06-10 05:08 am (UTC)Not making sense? Yeah...there's alot of that on a Saturday night.
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Date: 2007-06-11 11:54 am (UTC)Not making sense? Yeah...there's alot of that on a Saturday night.
Ha! Oh, I hear ya!
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Date: 2007-06-10 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 11:52 am (UTC)Thank you for commenting! :)
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Date: 2007-06-10 01:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-10 01:53 pm (UTC)I hope there is more soon!!!!!!! Thanks for sharing with us!
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Date: 2007-06-11 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-10 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 11:40 am (UTC)Thanks for commenting! :)
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Date: 2007-06-11 12:24 am (UTC)With this you pretty much sum up season 2! I just loved this and the previous Summer/Ryan story. Summer is so sad and lonely here, something I really didn't think about while watching the actual program that year. I love how she's (of course) most hurt by Marissa rather than Seth, which feels so authentic. Fine fine story and writing! Thanks for this.
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Date: 2007-06-11 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 11:30 am (UTC)ANYWAY, THANK YOU, GIRL!!!!!!
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Date: 2007-06-14 01:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-19 09:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-21 01:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-21 11:46 pm (UTC)Summer's left surrounded by losers who are all dry humping each other to house music.
I hate it when that happens! ;P That section's great, though. It feels very TRUE. It's emotional without being over the top in the least, and omg. Summer. That is the Summer I loved.
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Date: 2007-07-10 10:56 pm (UTC)Standing sentinel above him is Ryan, shaking out his fist, the shadows from the bonfire flickering over his face strangely.
That's one hell of an image, there. *sigh* Anyway, loved this piece.
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Date: 2007-07-15 03:52 am (UTC)You did a great job with Summer's voice and her development. My favorite scene was the one after Ryan hits the car and she just holds him.
I wish we could have had one more season to see if Ryan and Summer could have been a reality! But I guess we're have to live with fanfic...oh, darn ;)
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Date: 2007-07-15 02:48 pm (UTC)Would you ever consider doing a recap from Ryan's POV?
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Date: 2007-07-17 04:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-18 05:11 pm (UTC)