A/N: No one's been reading this, but oh, well. I needed to update.
Ryan is back.
Marissa doesn't know what to think. Part of her wants to see him. Part of her doesn't. Then there's a tiny little fraction of her that wants to see him, just so she could see Seth.
But she knows that Ryan doesn't want to see her. She was the reason he left, after all.
She found out he'd returned when her mother paraded into her room carrying a basket of laundry (even though her mother didn't even know where the laundry room was) and casually brought it up.
Marissa checked her voicemail the other day. There werenine messages from Seth. She hasn't replied to any of them yet, and doesn't intend to. Sometimes she thinks it's creepy. Sometimes, she even thinks it's sweet.
Summer has stopped talking to her altogether, too. She tries to catch her eye in the halls at school, anyway, but Summer never returns her glance. Marissa can't blame her. If her best friend had snuck off with her boyfriend then Marissa would probably never talk to her again, either.
Actually – she realizes – that already has happened to her, two years ago with Luke and Holly. She tells herself that her situation was different - much, much different from that. That she and Seth had actually felt something between each other. That Luke and Holly were only attracted to each other because it was forbidden. Or something.
She pretends she isn't being hypocritical.
Marissa also sees Seth Cohen at school. She tells herself he isn't watching her. She used to think it was cute. She used to want to catch his eye. Now, she just thinks it's creepy.
She's taken down the Cosmo Girl drawings he'd given her months ago. They were too dangerous. Her mother had sometimes eyed them suspiciously and they had already destroyed her friendship with Summer. Now they lay hidden underneath her bed, where they would sit in the dark and gather dust until spring cleaning rolled around.
A few weeks ago Seth had a left a message on her cell phone that asked her to meet him at the beach. Marissa knows that Seth thinks she didn't show up. She actually did. She'dgone early but left before he even got there. That way, if she ever decided to turn on her phone and talk to him, she wouldn't be lying if she told him she did go to see him that night. Because she did go to see him.
She sits by the pool on a lounge chair. The sun is long gone and the wind tickles her hair. Her mother has popped outside a few times to ask her why she wants to go swimming at the end of November but she doesn't answer. Eventually she stands up. Walks over to the pool and dips her toe in. The water is cold. She jumps in. Water splashes. Marissa hopes that Seth Cohen will be too busy playing video games with Ryan so that he'll forget to call her, and washes away every bit of him throughout the chlorine -but she still feels the bitter sting it leaves in her eyes.