The Choice
Author: Sk8erGrl1
Summary: Seth had a choice. He blew it.
Disclaimer: The O.C and its characters do not belong to me.
Pairing: Seth/Summer, Seth/Anna
Spoilers: Spoilers for The Homecoming.
Author's Note: This is my first O.C. story. I got the idea right after watching The Homecoming. Please review and tell me what you think.
Seth lay on the floor staring up at the ceiling, Captain Oats with him. There was something about Captain Oats that seemed to hold significance in his life. Summer had rejected him and Anna had taken him in, kind of like Seth only now Summer wanted him too. It was the strangest thing to Seth Cohen how after lusting after Summer Roberts she finally wanted him. Only now there was Anna to think about too.
Sweet, smart Anna who loved comic books and sailing. From the moment he met Anna he knew there was something special about the girl, and he meant met as in actually had a conversation with her. He had been too wrapped up in his crush on Summer to realize just how special until she had walked out that door on him. Anna Stern had taught Seth confidence and had given him her heart knowing he liked Summer. What had Seth done? He'd left her in his bedroom with Captain Oats for Summer.
Anna had a wonderful sense of humor, something that Seth really valued because he needed that. He needed someone to understand him. They had fun together, they laughed at the New Port brats and their galas, and they talked about comics and sailing. They were alike in many ways. And his parents liked her too.
With Summer it was different. They had they're witty repartee, and Seth's memories of her from every year since the second grade. But Summer had kissed him that night by the pool at his grandfather's party, Summer had clutched to him upon seeing Marissa over dosed in the alley, she had kissed him again on the yacht and in the pool house that afternoon. Quite frankly Seth didn't know what to make of this. One day she was attacking him with her lips and the next minute he's the same old Seth Cohen to whom she adds the word 'ew' every time he's mentioned.
But Summer likes him now, likes him Seth Cohen. She even admitted it. Seth doesn't know if it's because she's finally really looked at him or because Anna is threatening her place as a goddess in Seth's eyes. Seth is sure that Summer knows that Seth has never looked at another girl the way he's looked at her, doted on her. Maybe Summer's new found affection towards him is due partly to the fact that Seth is beginning to see Anna differently and that means that Summer might lose the one admirer she could always count on to tell her how beautiful she is.
Seth probably shouldn't have invited Summer into the pool house, should have told her that Anna was there. He shouldn't have gone back after bringing Anna to his room to make out some more with Summer before finally returning to Anna. His butt ached from falling on the floor those two times and he knew some higher power was probably punishing him for messing up so badly, for using both girls.
For once in his life Seth had had two girls. Like he had told Ryan, for sixteen years of his life he had had no girls and now he has two. Or had two because both Anna and Summer had stormed out of his life and Seth wouldn't be surprised if neither of them ever spoke to him ever again. If his mother hadn't burned the turkey... He couldn't very well blame it on his mother because chances were Summer and Anna would've found out eventually.
Seth had had a choice. When he answered the door and found Summer there he'd had a choice, when he came back from the pool house and Anna had intercepted him he'd had a choice. Summer or Anna, Anna or Summer? Seth couldn't choose one or the other so he went with both of them. When they discovered each other he could've explained. He could've run after them when they ran out. But he hadn't. He'd blown it.
Instead he was sitting there alone in his room with Captain Oats, the smell of Chinese take-out wafting up to him from downstairs. "Hey man," he heard Ryan's voice. Marissa was with him, they were back from Chino and Ryan had a shiner that hadn't been there when he left. Seth sat up and joined them for Chinese food talking and laughing with them.
This had been one hell of a thanksgiving for all of them.