A/N – Quite random, and I'm in a random mood, so random story. :P I'm having a good day today, I got to spend a lot of time by myself last night, think, cry, I showed every emotion I had in me because I was babysitting and the three kids were asleep. So I guess I'm feeling better, and random.

Disclaimer – I own nothing, I am just merely using the characters for my own entertainment.

Lovely Hart

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Wow, almost a year, and I was still the best-kept secret at Harbor High. That is, my identity was – or actually, the identity of Lovely Hart, who, in reality –
But I'm getting ahead of myself, which is why this sounds so confusing.
The whole thing started one bright fall afternoon in the office of the school paper, Harbor Heights. The first staff meeting of the year had just broken up and I was gathering my books together to leave. Along with the afternoon sun, the sounds of football practice filtered through the windows, meaning that my best friend Ryan Atwood, a second- or third-string quarterback or cornerback (I'm never sure which), was not going to be able to drive me home.

"Marissa, wait a minute. I have to ask you something important." Chip Hathaway, the editor of the Heights, walked toward me, his face solemn. We were now alone in the room, and for one wild moment, I thought he might be preparing to ask me something… personal. But I dismissed the idea almost before it took shape in my mind. Chip, a senior, who didn't 'bother with girls' – according to then-current rumors – was certainly not about to be bowled over by Marissa Cooper, junior reporter.

"Listen," he began, pulling over a chair, "I had an idea, and I think you'd be just the person to pull it off."

"Uh-oh," I said warily. "That sounds like you've just plotted the perfect bank robbery."

"Not quite," he grinned. He turned the chair around backward and sat astride it, his arms leaning against the back.
"I've been fooling around with the idea of an advice to the lovelorn column, and I think you'd do a great job with it."

"Advice? To the lovelorn? Me?" Since John never paid much attention to girls socially, I had to assume that he had no way of knowing that I was not exactly Harbor High's resident sex goddess.

"No listen," he explained, "I know you're a junior and it's not like I expect you have the experience to deal with the really heavy stuff –"

"Oh, thanks a lot," I said. And stop reading my mind, I added silently. My experience – or lack there of – is none of your business.

"It's just that I think you'd have the right touch for this sort of thing. Those sample columns you wrote when you tried out for the paper showed real potential. What I'd want is light, lively stuff, you know, bringing out the 'funny side of human foibles.' Of course, you could throw in a couple of serious ones too, if you think you can handle them."

If I thought I could handle them! Who spent hours on the phone, listening to the problems Summer and Holly brought me to solve? Who had the milk of human kindness flowing through her veins where most people kept their corpuscles? Whose shoulder was constantly damp from being cried on?
"Well of course I can handle it!" I said dignantly.

"Great!" Chip cried, clapping me on my temporarily dry shoulder. "I knew you could. Now listen, the first thing is, this has to be kept absolutely secret."

"What does?" I asked confused. "The column?"

"No, no, the fact that you're Lovely Hart."

"I'm who?"

"Lovely Hart. That's the name we're going to use for the column. 'Dear Lovely Hart.' Isn't that a great name?"

"Chip," I said gently, "that's not exactly one of your top ten names."

"Are you kidding? It's a terrific name."

"Chip, it's corny."

"Well naturally. It's supposed to be corny. Marissa, where's your sense of humor? The thing is mostly in fun anyway."

"Oh well," I said, "if it's supposed to be corny, it's a perfectly fine name."

"I knew you'd think so," he beamed.

"What are we going to do with the letters?" I asked suddenly. "I mean, the first issue? No one will know about the column –"

"Ah, that's what you think." He whipped a wadded piece of loose-leaf paper out of his pocket. He unfolded it and spread it out before me on the desk.
"Posters," he announced. "All over the school."

It read "Read 'Lovely Hart' in the Harbor Heights! Write to Lovely Hart c/o the Harbor office. Lovely Hart answers your questions, solves your problems, with snappy suggestions for happy solutions!! No names please – Lovely Hart wants just the facts. Lovely listens – so listen to Lovely!"

"Whoa," I said. "Kind of takes your breath away doesn't it? You don't think it comes on too strong?"

"It pays to advertise," Chip declared. "And if this doesn't bring in the letters – we'll make them up ourselves."

"What? But that's – "

"Only for the first issue," he hastened to add. "After that we'll have more letters then we know what to do with."

"Well…"

"But look," he went on gravely, "this whole thing has got to be kept quite. You can't tell anyone. And that's for your own protection."

"Good grief Chip, you make it sound as if I'm going to be one step ahead of a lynch mob."

"Well, see, you just don't know. This business of giving advice could get pretty sticky."

I shrugged. I couldn't really understand Chip's super cautious attitude about the whole thing. At the moment, the only problem seemed to be how to keep my alter ego under wraps.

"Not even my family?" I asked dubiously.

"Especially not your family!" he groaned. "Marissa, have you forgotten who your father is?"

Ridiculous as that sounds, I had. And I immediately realized the Chip was right – of all the people who mustn't know that I was Lovely Hart, my father was right up there at the head of the list. The head guidance counselor at Harbor High would probley not look too kindly upon his teenage daughter dispending solace without a license.

"And besides," Chip was saying, "you lose all the – the – mystery, if people know Lovely Hart is just Marissa Cooper."

"Oh yeah," I agreed, with a straight face. Doesn't have the same ring to it at all."

"You know what I mean," he retorted. "So you make sure no one – even on the staff – sees you pick up those letters. Better yet, I'll hold them for you as they come in. That way –"

Hey! Marissa! You're working late… Ryan said just to leave, you were already gone… but not me Marissa! I made him wait to come find you!" Seth, my best friend's foster brother rambled.

Chip leaped from his seat, practically knocking the chair over.

"Seth!" I gasped. Chip's leap and my gasp would have planted seeds of suspicion in all but the most innocent of minds. But Seth noticed nothing. I don't mean to malign Seth's mind, because he's a very dear person, and I've loved him like a brother ever since Ryan and me became close friends. But the fact remains that Seth being Seth, noticed nothing.

"Don't panic," I muttered to Chip. Seth didn't even notice that. His long legs brought him from the door to our desks in three strides.

"I told Ryan you'd still be here, being the workaholic you are, need a ride home?" he continued his rambling… typical Seth.

"Well I am, and I do," I replied cheerfully, once in my life glad Ryan didn't come to find me. I stood up and stretched, a little exaggeratedly, as if exhausted by a long afternoon of slaving over a hot typewriter… even if we didn't use those anymore… well we haven't used those since I was in school, but still.

Chip glanced out the window. The sun was low, and it would be dark in half an hour. "I didn't realize how late it was Sorry to keep you so long, Marissa."

"That's fine. Now I have a ride. So long, Chip."

"See you," he said. "Meeting Thursday."

"Need a ride?" Seth offered.

"No, that's okay." Chip waved us out of the room. "I have a car."

Seth and I walked to Ryan's car. Seth jumped in the back seat, something he always did when I was around, giving me the front seat.

"I told you Ryan! She was still here, her and her workaholic self!" Seth laughed.

"Shut up, Seth!" I yelled playfully, "What's up Ry?"

Ryan laughed in his deep voice that made small little butterflies form in the pit of my stomach, "Nothing much Riss. Where to? Home? Or your house? "

I loved the way he referred to his house as 'home' to me. "I want to go home, but I have to go to my house this time guys. Mom expecting me home."

"Awww Marissa! I wanted to beat you in another game of ninja's!"

"Ha-ha, nice one Seth" Ryan said sarcastically, sticking up for me. "She's the one who beats you every time."

"Meanness," Seth gave up and sat back down in the seat.

Ryan started to drive, keeping up a fairly constant chatter about Harbor's football prospects for this season, with Seth. Well Seth did most the talking, asking Ryan about the team. Seth never had been anywhere near the league of sports, so he had to live purely through what he could pry out of Ryan.

I barley listened. Besides being preoccupied with Lovely Hart, I really couldn't work up much interest in football. Oh I cared enough to want Harbor to win, on account of Ryan – I just didn't care to understand all the reasons why it would or wouldn't.

And now at the beginning of football season, Seth's head was filled with questions to ask Ryan, and Ryan's head was filled with nothing but all those questions and the answers, even thought at any other times of the years he was a perfectly normal individual who was interesting to talk to, he was my best friend. I couldn't blame him anyway, since at the moment my head was so full of my new project I couldn't think of anything else to talk about either. And since I was forbidden, on pain of who knows what, to talk about that, I simply didn't talk at all.

Which was just as well, anyway, since it would have been hard to work a word in edgewise.

"Thanks for the ride, Ry," I said as we pulled into the drive of my own house, not the house I wanted to be at. "How about you two coming in for awhile?"

"No thanks, it's really late, we'd better get right home."

"Okay; see you." I said as I leaned over to kiss his cheek as our sign of special friendship. Most people who saw us, thought we were a couple, and the rumors going around Harbor High was that, in fact Marissa Cooper and Ryan Atwood were an item. Though that wasn't the case. Ryan and I were just best friends, and despite the crush I had on him since he had moved here to Newport, we were just friends. Friends with benefits, most people whispered behind our backs whenever they asked us to our face if we were an item, but no benefits, really. Unless a kiss on the cheek was a benefit… anyway, he drove off, and I let myself in the front door.

A/N - I'm already working on chpater two now, so I should have this updated once or twice again before school starts on monday. Hope everyone had a Happy New Year!