My words, my plot and my effort. It's just not my show.
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No note, no call, just gone.
He furrowed his dark brow and bit at his thumbnail boredly.
Where is everyone?
He wondered just before a piece of his nail shot up to nick just below his eye.
His head slightly jerked and he almost let himself laugh but knowing what would come didn't make it feel right.
Today Seth Cohen will take his own life.
Today Seth Cohen will finally be free.
It was absurd to think of suicide, as being "free" but that was how he felt. Just like the house he was empty inside and just like the emptiness of the house, he didn't understand why.
So, he sat and listened to his lungs filling with air and then the air escaping through his mouth. He didn't breath for a moment, in a sense wanting to feel what it felt like to be dead. Within a few seconds his cheeks flushed and his head felt heavy. Slowly, he drew in a shaky breath. He stood up from his bed, letting the corners of his mouth curl slightly at the familiar groan it would always make.
He would miss that.
The sound of the front door opening and banging against the wall made Seth's stomach do a flip.
They were home now.
He wiped his face, adjusted his shirt, and slapped on a wonderfully fake smile, before making his way out of his room. He unhurriedly walked down the stairs, where Marissa Cooper's playful screams echoed throughout the house.
He watched the two lovebirds flirt from afar for just a moment before making himself known.
"What's so funny?" He asked unnecessarily loud, his caramel eyes upon Marissa trapped in a fit of laughter.
"Oh, nothing..." She told Seth between giggles, placing her petite hand on her sore-from-laughter stomach, "I better get going..." She said after catching her breath.
She turned toward Ryan, wrapping her arms around his waist.
"I'll see you tonight?" She asked Ryan vivaciously and even though she had her back toward Seth, he just knew that her perfectly shaped eyebrows would be raised and her perfectly white teeth would be sinking into her lower glossed lip.
God, he hated her.
Nodding once, Ryan brushed his nose against hers as they both leaned in for a long, hard kiss.
"I love you," She told him softly, just for him to hear and he told her back just as secretively.
Marissa offered Seth a wiggle of her thin fingers over her way out and Ryan watched her until she was out of his sight.
"So..." He began, now turning his attention to Seth once his "first choice", as Seth would often refer to Marissa, was gone,
"What have you been up to all day?"
Oh, just planning my death.
Seth thought sarcastically
"Oh, nothing..." He said exaggeratedly cheery, throwing his arm across his stomach, obviously mocking Marissa.
He laughed to himself but Ryan didn't seem to find the roasting of his girlfriend as funny as Seth did. In fact, he turned on his heels and began to head for the pool house.
"What did she mean just then?" Seth asked randomly.
Ryan turned back to Seth, and merely blinked that his question.
"I'll see you tonight?" Seth mimicked with an effeminate voice, lifting his brows up high while pulling back his lip to reveal some of his bottom teeth on the opposite side.
Ryan couldn't help but laugh.
"She meant she'll see me later tonight at the dance..."
By the blank expression on Seth's face, Ryan continued.
"...at the school"
"I know where it's at, okay? I'm not stupid." Seth spat back.
Ryan's blue eyes widened a tad while his muscular arms came up to cross at his chest. Seth scoffed at Ryan's classic Chino badass pose, and mumbled something under his breath.
"What?" Ryan asked.
When Seth continued to mutter inaudible words, Ryan took a step toward his best friend.
"What?" Ryan demanded again, sounding the way you would think Luke Ward would if someone questioned his sexuality.
"When did you and Marissa decide to go?" Seth spoke softly, never taking his eyes off his feet.
"Last night..." Ryan answered with uncertainty in the voice, "Why?"
He noted Seth's jaw muscle throbbing and the forgotten plans he had made with Seth two nights ago suddenly came back to him.
"Oh, man" Ryan said, running his fingers through his sandy blonde hair, "I forgot"
Seth nodded unsurprisingly with fists rolled up tightly at his sides.
"We can go tomorrow..." Ryan suggested pitifully after a moment of silence on both ends.
"Tomorrow..." Seth repeated to himself with a harsh laugh.
Seth, who was well aware that by tomorrow he'd be dead still let the next few words about to come out of his mouth without the least bit of remorse,
"Yeah... tomorrow, it is."
And with that, he nodded his head, gave Ryan a toothy Seth smile, turned around and made his way out of the house.
Of course, Ryan went after him.
"Wait, where are you going?" Ryan asked, standing in the doorframe.
"Just because you made other plans doesn't mean I have to change mine."
"You're still going?"
"I keep my promises." Seth told him firmly with a hint of anger in his voice.
A pause...
"I'm really sorry, Seth."
And he was sorry and Seth knew that he was sorry but he just didn't have sympathy anymore not even for Ryan.
"Whatever, I'll have more fun without you."
Seth's words were like daggers into Ryan. For as long as Ryan has known Seth he could immediately tell when Seth was lying to him or anyone really and just then he wasn't lying at all.
"I didn't think you liked that kind of music..." Ryan pointed out, ignoring Seth's previous remark.
"You don't know a lot of things about me, Ryan."
Now, that last comment made Ryan worried. Not so much the sentence but how it was said. Ryan had noticed a dawdling but potent change in Seth over the past couple weeks.
The bond between the two brothers had somewhat weakened. They hadn't spent as much time together, as Ryan wanted but with schoolwork, a job, and a girlfriend. Ryan's time was fleeting.
Okay, so, I know what you're all thinking:
"Seth wants to kill himself because Ryan has been giving him the cold shoulder?"
Please, Seth isn't that pathetic.
Contrary to popular belief, Seth Cohen's world does not revolve around Ryan Atwood. In fact, Ryan's recent brush-off's barely symbolized as the peanuts on which topped the cake of Seth's problems.
And, no, this isn't some sort of gay jealousy thing. Though, that would have been more intriguing, don't you think?
This is teenage angst. Pure and true hatred of one's self.
Things happen to Seth Cohen on a daily basis and he doesn't say a word. Things like a couple bullies teaching Seth a lesson in the locker room when no one is around to witness. Things that you just can't run away from because feelings always make their way back to you.
A thing like humiliation can bring a grown man to tears but Seth was no man. He was a kid. A poor little rich kid, who wanted nothing more then to be liked and accepted.
So, now at his wit's end, he's come to decision of ending his life. He's waited for his parents to go on their much needed vacation, leaving him and Ryan alone for the weekend. He's even imagined himself doing the whole, "Goodbye, cruel world" thing. Though, he'd probably skip that part.
Wanting to spend his last night on earth with his brother, Seth was fuming but then he thought that maybe it was better this way. Why would he want to give Ryan this happy delusion of himself and then rip it away like some sick joke?
It's better this way.
He thought as Ryan told him to be careful and to call home when he could. The boys hugged and Seth had held onto Ryan a little longer then usual but Ryan didn't suspect any foul-play.
Why would he?
Seth had also, as casually as he could, told Ryan that he loved him and though Ryan eyed him oddly he still told him that he loved him too, of course adding a, "man" at the end.
Now, it's around seven in the evening and Seth has finally pulled out of the drive way for a half an hour drive into Corona.
And, Ryan, still in the doorway, watches Seth drive away into the night until he's no longer in his sight.