A/N: I don't own the OC. Never have, never will. Let that disclaimer ring true for the rest of the story.

This is my first story here so please be sure to give me feedback - good, bad, or ugly - so I can get a feel for how well this is going. Reviews are awesome. Everyone loves them. Don't deny it.

Also, this is most def. a Seth and Summer story (I really don't think I could write any other type of story) so although the following chapters will be dramaesque - I'm a rather huge drama queen -, I still lovemy childishfairytale happy endings.

Enjoy. And review. Thanks. And have fun.

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It was weird to suddenly realize your childhood and teenage growing years ended and you didn't get a chance to step back and say goodbye to them.

This is what Seth Cohen thought as he finally reached his apartment complex in downtown LA.

He didn't have a fancy Newport Beach life anymore – but that was to be expected seeing as he was only 20 years of age and refused to take his parents money, instead opting to take out loans and get himself a real job.

Or a real, lousy, not-very-good-pay internship with the law firm of Tankley & Sons.

It was summer – hot and humid in the 92-degree heat – and Seth was decked out in a well-to-do suit glancing in his briefcase for the keys. While he didn't exactly need a briefcase, he had insisted on getting one because he believed "people would take him seriously." His job included organizing files and getting coffee for balding men.

No one was taking him seriously at all.

"Where the fuck are my keys?" Seth muttered to himself as he put his briefcase on the ground and searched through it.

A young woman just about his age wandered up to the door, shaking her own keys in her hands, "Are you looking for your keys again, Seth?"

Seth looked up to see his neighbor, Bethany, smiling down at him with her dazzling white teeth and her beyond perfect blue eyes, "Yeah, can't find them in here."

Seth stood up smiling awkwardly at Bethany as she opened the door and let them in. He had been living in this apartment building for nearly two months now and knew he was not at all interested in Bethany in a romantic way. Yet she still continued to show signs of wanting more than a casual next-door neighbor friendship. While Bethany could not be constituted as a ditzy blonde (with straight blonde hair reaching nearly halfway down her back) seeing as she was interning at a local animal hospital while studying to become a veterinarian, he could never see himself dating another blonde again. Not after Anna or Alex. And definitely not when his "roommate" was plenty to keep him satisfied.

"So how was your day at work?" Bethany asked as they climbed the three flights to their floor.

"Good. The usual. Crabby men and uptight women asking for coffee all day long. Honestly – I think that's all do around there. Drink coffee."

Bethany laughed and touched Seth's arm flirtatiously, "Oh, I'm sure they'll have you doing some cases in no time."

Seth smiled and switched his briefcase to the opposite hand, causing Bethany's hand to come out of contact with Seth's arm, "So, umm… how was the animal hospital?"

"Oh, it's hard seeing all those animals hurt but just knowing I'm making a difference in their lives helps."

Seth knew she didn't do much at the animal hospital. Her job involving the animals extended about as far as weighing them. Weighing animals isn't exactly making a huge difference in their lives – but for some reason Bethany seemed to think so. Or at least she acted like it did.

"There was this puppy in there today," Bethany continued, "He couldn't have been more than six months. And he was throwing up and he couldn't walk straight. Even when we looked at him, his eyes couldn't focus on one single thing. He kept looking everywhere. Lord knows how dizzy he must have been."

"Guess that shows there's truth to the saying 'sick as a dog,' huh?" Seth replied, shifting uncomfortably.

Bethany giggled and returned her hand to Seth's arm as they reached the third floor, "Seth, you really are very -"

Bethany was cut off when Seth's apartment door swung open to reveal a stern looking Summer glaring between Bethany and Seth.

"Oh, hey Summer," Bethany smiled. "Seth here was just telling me -"

Summer cut her off, "I heard. I could hear you giggling two floors down."

Bethany's smile faded and Summer's glare intensified while Seth stood there awkwardly watching the exchange between his girlfriend and their neighbor.

"So, umm," Seth began, "I'll see you around, Bethany. Have a good night." Seth pushed Summer lightly back into the apartment as he turned around and gave Bethany a wave.

"Goodnight, Seth," Bethany smiled as Seth closed the door.

He turned around to see Summer staring at him with her arms crossed over her chest.

Seth stood there puzzled, still clutching his briefcase, "What?"

She didn't answer him and instead turned swiftly on her heel and into their bedroom and slammed the door.

Seth sighed as he set his briefcase down and reached up to loosen his tie. He sighed and walked the three feet to the couch, plopping down and switching on the television just in time for the five o'clock news.

Summer had been getting this way lately. Throwing glares and stomping off had recently become one of her favorites hobbies ever since they moved in together two months prior, right after finishing off their sophomore year at their respective schools in Rhode Island. She wasn't pregnant – he had made the awful mistake of asking her that the previous night in which she stormed out of the apartment yelling something about him being a dick – and it wasn't "her time of the month," as Seth liked to call it, because he hadn't found any grossly disgusting remnants in the bathroom trashcan lately.

That was one of the many things Seth was still getting used to when living with Summer. He wasn't fully prepared for the abundant amount of female products to overflow in the apartment. Sure, he knew Summer was female and would of course have these things but he just didn't really realize it until he was faced with living amongst them.

Summer had a job as an intern at a very low profile magazine company in LA. She had decided towards the end of her freshman year that she wanted to become a journalist, which at the time Seth hadn't taken seriously seeing as that entire year she had switched majors about five times since he had arrived in Rhode Island that second semester. But instead, she surprised him by seriously getting involved in Brown's school newspaper and yearbook their sophomore year while he, on the other hand, transferred to Johnson & Wales University, deciding that designing comic books was not what he wanted to do for the rest of his life, finding law much more intriguing. This decision greatly contributed to the overabundance of happiness from his father when Seth told him of his new plan and his parents graciously handed over the money for the new schooling. Granted, the University was a bit further away than the Rhode Island School of Design was to Brown (by three minutes), but his parents had agreed to let him get a car and bring it back with him to Rhode Island. This fact, however, still did not stop Summer from complaining that her boyfriend was too far to walk to if there was a blizzard and they couldn't drive. Fortunately, it turned out perfectly fine and it actually helped both Summer and Seth make more friends separately now that they weren't within walking distance from each other at all times of the day.

Which, during their freshman year they took full advantage of, almost always staying in Summer's dorm room seeing as her roommate only lasted the first semester before dropping out and Summer never receiving a new roommate the second semester. Summer deemed Seth her "new roommate" and they were practically inseparable that semester.

The first summer back from college was tough on them. Not only were they no longer "living together," but also it was the first time they arrived back in Newport to be greeted by accidental run-ins with other Harbor graduates of 2006. That summer was extremely difficult for Summer especially because everything seemed to remind her of the previous one where she spent the majority of the time wallowing in the sudden loss of her best friend, camping out at the Cohen's because Julie's wails numbingly filled her own house.

This summer she had come up with the fantastic idea to move into an apartment in LA for the four months and get experience in her chosen field of work. When she ran this idea by Seth, he had willingly obliged, not wanting to spent another summer wallowing in the loss of Marissa Cooper that would inevitably come from both his girlfriend and his brother. Thankfully, Ryan had also decided to move up to LA for the summer months along with his girlfriend of almost year, Lana. Lana was relatively tall, not Marissa tall but about 5'7, and had brown hair that only reached right below her ears. She was rather outgoing and talkative, much like Seth, but that suited Ryan well seeing as he had grown even quieter during the months following Marissa's death. Ryan met Lana on his semester abroad in Australia his sophomore fall semester and ever since Lana had been at his side.

And that made Seth happy. Because Lana was no drama. And Lana was happy and talkative. So now Ryan was too.

Just then, Seth's phone vibrated in his suit's pocket and he looked at the caller ID before flipping it open, "Speak of the devil and he doth appear."

"What?" Ryan questioned.

"I was just thinking about you."

Ryan laughed and then replied, "Well, I'm gonna take that in the non-sexual way and instead offer you and Summer an invitation to dinner with me and Lana on Friday night."

"Sounds like a date."

"You really need to work on the phrases, bro."

This time it was Seth to laugh, "Oh come on, you know you love them."

"Yeah, yeah," Ryan muttered. "Oh, and try mentioning this dinner to Summer earlier than Friday afternoon this time, okay?"

"So Friday morning?" Seth replied sarcastically.

"I'll see you Friday, Seth," Ryan ignored Seth's comment and hung up his phone.

Seth smiled at his phone and shut it. Yeah, Ryan was definitely happier.

"Seth!"

Seth, on the other hand, not so much.

Seth sighed and switched the TV off, "Yes, Summer?"

"Don't 'yes, Summer' me," Summer reappeared in their living room, "I've been waiting for you to come and apologize for the past twenty minutes and you haven't even once set foot anywhere near the hallway!"

"Well, actually I have because this apartment isn't that huge so me just coming to the couch is only about five feet away -"

"Seth!" Summer bellowed placing her hands on her hips.

Seth sighed and stood up from the couch, walking the short distance to where Summer was standing and placing a kiss on her forehead, "I'm sorry."

"What for?" Summer questioned, still angry.

Seth stared at her confused, "Umm… ahh… well, I guess for whatever it is I'm apologizing for."

"You're apologizing for something you don't know what you're apologizing for?" Summer asked pointedly.

"Well, that's what you wanted me to do, wasn't it?" Seth asked skeptically.

"No!" Summer yelled. "I wanted you to apologize for something you've been clearly doing for the past two months!"

Seth was starting to lose his patience. "What have I have been clearly doing for the past two months? Because, unfortunately, clearly for you is like, ah," Seth stuttered trying to think of an antonym for 'clearly,' which just wasn't coming to him, "ah… umm, not clearly for me!"

"Well, maybe you can go ask Bethany! I'm sure she'll know what you're doing that's upsetting me so much!"

"Bethany? This is about Bethany? Again? Summer, I love you!" Seth gripped Summer's shoulders.

Summer swatted Seth's arms away from her shoulders. "Oh my God, this is unbelievable! You always resort to that! Like it somehow sympathetically makes me feel better!"

"Well, it should," Seth quieted down as he flopped back down on the couch, giving up on ending this fight with Summer.

"So that's it?" Summer looked over incredulously at Seth as he turned the TV back on. "That's all your gonna say?"

"That's all I'm going to say," Seth replied, still staring at the screen.

Summer made a 'Humph' noise and began walking back to their bedroom as Seth spoke up again, "Actually," Summer turned around ready and expecting to argue a bit more, "Ryan called and invited us to dinner on Friday night with him and Lana. I told him we'd go."

"Well, that was nice of you to ask me if I was available."

"Yes, Ms. Pleasant."

"I hate you!" Summer stomped off to the bedroom and slammed the door for the second time that night.

And Seth was starting to get the feeling that it wouldn't be the last time Summer repeated that action or her last sediment tonight.