A/N: Obviously, I don't own any of the characters or the Death Cab For Cutie song lyrics within this chapter. If you'd like to know what the song sounds like, you can listen to it at the band's website: I also apologize for the weird formatting – italics doesn't post well here!
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Seth had felt sick all day. He'd called Summer's house over and over again, but it was obvious after 6 hours of getting the busy signal that Summer had taken her phone off the hook. He lay on the poolhouse couch, staring up at the ceiling as Ryan entered the room.
"Seth." Ryan shook his head and looked down at him. "What were you thinking?"
"I wasn't." Seth moaned and rolled over to meet Ryan's disapproving eyes. "I didn't even know her mother was-" he paused and corrected himself, "is dead. I though she was in Europe or something. And then I have to come back here and coax it out of my mom, who finally tells me about the suicide, the drowning." He pulled a pillow up to his chest. "How was I to know? I had no idea."
"Don't tell me." Ryan turned and left the poolhouse.
Seth sat on the edge of the bed. Nothing had changed, he noted ruefully. He had thought he'd made a new start in 2004, but this year was just the same as the last – screwing up and hurting Summer. But maybe this time, he could fix his mistake.
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Summer pulled her hair back into a ponytail and straightened her flannel pajamas. She'd been sleeping most of the day, and was now huddled up in her room. She'd pulled in the television from the master bedroom and was watching a John Cusack movie marathon while eating a pint of chocolate ice cream. She flicked the television off and went into her study.
She picked up one of the small photographs that cluttered a shelf. Her mother smiled back at her, frozen within the silver Tiffany frame. Summer quickly pushed the photograph back into it's place and ran her fingers over the spines of the books of the shelves. She closed her eyes and stretched her arms over her head.
A gentle rolling of music startled her.
"So this is the new year,
And I don't feel any different."
Summer paused. The music was vaguely familiar.
"The clanking of crystal,
Explosions off in the distance."
The music reverberated through her, a primal knowledge that pulled her towards the window.
"So this is the new year,
And I have no resolutions."
Seth Cohen stood on her front lawn, a stereo held over his head.
"For self-assigned penance,
For problems with easy solutions."
She opened the window. Her eyes met his. He had been crying too.
"So everybody put your best suit or dress on
Let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
As thirty dialogues bleed into one."
She looked at him and her eyes glazed over. She recalled dancing with him on his sailboat, they way he'd looked at her with such admiration, how he told her that he loved her.
"I wish the world was flat like the old days
Then I could travel just by folding a map
No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways
There'd be no distance that can hold us back."
He felt the space between them and ached to hold her again, to apologize, to promise to never hurt her again, to let her know that she could trust him.
"There'd be no distance that could hold us back."
She wanted to run to him.
"There'd be no distance that could hold us back."
She closed the window and slid to the ground, alone in the empty house.
"So this is the new year."
"So this is the new year."
Seth looked up at the closed window, not breaking eye contact with the glass, willing her to appear again.
"So this is the new year."
"So this is the new year."
But she didn't.