Title: Puppet

Rating: PG, maybe PG-13 ish.

Disclaimer: I own nothing... although owning Adam Brody would make me one happy lady...! Or teenager, whatev.

Summary: Summer drabble...This is before Ryan came to Newport, when Seth was still "EW" and Marissa was still with Luke. This is really like a prequel, I guess you could say.

Summer Roberts awoke in the middle of the night to a lightning strike that lit up her entire room, which was soon followed by the pounding sound of thunder. Getting out of her bed, she walked over to the window and stared out of it.

As the rain began to fall, her thoughts began to rise.

Watching the rain hit her window, she let her mind wander. For the past few years, Summer had wondered if there was anything else out there for her, besides the weekend parties, endless hook ups, mindless jocks, and backstabbing friends, aside from Marissa.

Sometimes, when she'd look out of her window and into the street, she'd see a boy. He was often out there, on his way to something or maybe he was coming back, Summer was never sure... But, he was out there almost everyday at the same time. He would be on his skateboard, wearing a novelty tee and a zip-up jacket. Whenever she'd see him, a smile would form on her lips...

At school, Summer had to pretend to dislike the boy, and join in the taunting that only created humiliation for the other boy...

"Seth Cohen." Summer allowed his name to roll off the tip of her tongue in the sanctuary of her own bedroom.

When she was alone at night, she often thought about him. In her room, she was free to be her and free to find him attractive...

In those nights, she'd often pretend what it would be like to be able to talk to him without everyone taunting her, too. She wondered what it would be like to be with someone who didn't think that the world revolved around the beautiful people of Newport. She liked to think that with him, she could be herself and not have to be who everyone else wanted her to be...

Shaking her head at the last thought, she stared out into the never-ending darkness, watching as the rain's drops became larger and the lightning became louder and the thunder began to sound like sonic booms or bombs dropping.

Sitting in the seat under her window, Summer leaned her back against the wall and brought her knees to her chest and began to reflect...

Years ago, when she was still in elementary school, Summer believed that nothing could ever go wrong, because in Newport everyone had money. And when people had money, they had power. Along with that power came happiness.

Only then, Summer hadn't known that getting the newest toys and pretty dresses every weekend didn't mean happiness.

When her mother left, she slowly became aware of that very fact, and she suddenly became very sad. Her father stopped paying attention to her, leaving more and more for business trips. She got more and more presents though... Some of the presents she received were breakable....

When Summer got things that would break, she would grin. Because Summer enjoyed breaking things. The shattering sound was music to her ears. Summer learned at a very young age what "anti-depressants" meant.

When Summer became older, she thought the happiness came when boys started to pay attention to her. But that hadn't lasted either...

But during the same time Summer realized that boys paying attention to her didn't make her happy, she found out that to be loved, she had to pay attention to them back....

Summer got sucked into the world of superficial love when she was 14. She realized that to be loved, she had to be who they wanted to be.

And being who they wanted her to be meant laughing when she needed to, smiling when she was supposed to, wearing as few articles of clothing as possible, showing enough skin to get boys to notice her without being called trashy. Talking to the people they wanted her to talk to, and pretending that boys like Seth Cohen, who would make you get butterflies just by flashing you dimpled-smiles, didn't exist.

Being whom they wanted meant becoming their puppet.

And becoming their puppet meant losing her chance to be happy....

Only, Summer didn't know that she had the option of not being the puppet... But she would figure it out. She'd figure it out a lot sooner then she'd think.