A/N: Short again. Maybe I'll treat this fic as a place to post drables, Seth/Marissa or otherwise, but we'll see…
Reviews are lovely, thanks!
/
Take me out tonight
Because I want to see people and I
Want to see life
'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' - The Smiths
..
Marissa calls him one morning and invites him over to her house. She says she bought a bunch of new LPs, maybe he wants to listen. He teases her slightly about the invitation, she threatens to withdraw it and half an hour later, he's in her room, fawning over her collection.
They put on The Smiths and lie side by side on her bed. It should be weird but it's not.
"So, I take it Summer was busy this morning," Seth comments, knowing that usually it would be his ex-girlfriend sprawled on this bed.
"Plans with Zach," Marissa mutters.
"What a surprise," he says sarcastically. She rolls her eyes.
"How's Alex?" she asks, changing the subject.
"Terrific," he confirms. She raises a questioning eyebrow. "Well, she hasn't made out with any guys or girls recently, so I'm taking that as a positive sign."
Marissa laughs, "That's always a good thing."
"I actually can't believe she hasn't dumped me already."
He expects her to teasingly agree with him, but she surprises him when she says, "I can believe it." He gives her a bemused look.
"Marissa, are you trying to tell me something?" he tells her with false seriousness.
"Ew, Cohen," she says catching his drift. "I do not like you like you."
"Stranger things have happened," he mumbles. Hearing him, she grabs a pillows and whacks it on his head. "Okay, okay, I take it back. What was your point?"
"Look, there aren't really that many nice guys around," she explains. "And when you aren't obsessing over Summer, you are sweet. So you know, from that perspective, and objectively speaking, I can see the appeal."
A smirk plays on his lips, desperately wanting to taunt her for the last remark. But he fights it and instead says, "Thanks." He feels like he should return the favour, compliment her in some way but then she's already heard everything before.
"I'm really sorry about the things I said before," he tells her uncomfortably after a while. She seems confused. "You know, before, the day Ryan was leaving for Chino."
"Oh," Marissa says. Between everything that had happened since, she had mostly forgotten about that debacle.
"It was a really shit thing for me to do. And it wasn't true, what I said. I was just pissed off, which isn't an excuse, just...yeah, I'm sorry."
Marissa nods, silently accepting his apology. "For what it's worth, I didn't mean what I said either."
"Yeah, but what you said was kind of true. I was just, wrong."
Marissa gets a wistful look on her face. She glances at Seth, shrugs slightly and tells him softly, "Thanks."
Usually, it's moments like these when he would break out a joke or a sarcastic remark. But he's getting used to the quiet, even starting to like it. He throws her a shy smile disguised as a smirk and she returns it. They both lie there, listening to the music and staring up at the ceiling. He thinks this could be classed as brooding, even though it's not really. Well, it's not how Ryan broods. Ryan always seems so tortured when he broods and right now, he feels calm. Yeah, he's mulling over Summer and Marissa's probably thinking about Ryan, both of them wondering 'what-if'. There Is A Light That Never Goes Out echoes in the background and he pictures them as two lonely souls; they could fit in a Kerouac novel, with all their heartache and discontent. He should feel angst-ridden but it's really not so bad with her next to him.
She asks him if he's written the Ginsberg essay and suddenly they're debating poetry and fretting over essay structures and harsh marking by teachers. She laughs and smiles, and he begins to believe that, maybe, he makes her a little less tortured too.