A/N: This (admitted brief chapter) is from Seth's perspective, and serves as the (real) finale to part one, both in this fan fic and in excerpts from Anna Karenina. Don't worry - it will cheer up soon! The next (l-o-n-g) chapter is already in progress and will bring on the romance! Please read and review - the reviews help inspire me to update quickly!

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Seth felt sick. He watched Tom spin Summer around the dance floor and he saw all the things that he'd wished for himself and Summer, realized in the actions of someone else. This must have been what Summer felt when she saw me with Anna, he realized.

No wonder she's scared.

He watched as Tom touched Summer's cheek and couldn't stand it any longer. He slipped out of the club, glad that he'd driven separately from his parents. He had to get home. He opened the door to the Range Rover and slid inside, sitting still for a moment. A car drove past him, illuminating the interior of the vehicle and lighting up the pile on the passenger seat. Seth reached over and pulled out a book.

Anna Karenina.

He smiled wryly, recalling his conversation with Summer about the novel, reading to her as she drifted off to sleep. I'm such an idiot, he berated himself - if I hadn't been too scared to just be honest with the girls, to tell them that I wanted Summer, this never would have happened. He flipped open the book to a random page and read, his eyes squinting in the semidarkness.

"And I don't get on with other people. Pride, they say. No, I have no pride. If I had any pride, I should not have put myself in such a position." And Levin pictured to himself Vronsky, happy, good-natured, clever, and self-possessed, certainly never placed in the awful position in which he had been that evening. "Yes, she was bound to choose him. So it had to be, and I cannot complain of anyone or anything. I am myself to blame. What right had I to imagine she would care to join her life to mine? Whom am I and what am I? A nobody, not wanted by any one, nor of use to anybody."

Seth sighed and spoke aloud to himself. "Well, that's just great." He began to shut the book when he paused. He slid a piece of paper inside the volume to mark the page before placing it back on the passenger seat.

Slowly, he began to drive home.

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Seth pushed open the door to his room and fell backwards onto his bed. He kicked his shoes off lazily, watching as they soared across the room.

"Damnit," he muttered as one shoe knocked over a shelf of papers from the edge of his desk. He eased himself off the bed and started picking up the loose papers. His brow furrowed as he looked them over. Childlike drawings were scattered across the floor, signed by a large "Mr. Seth" signature at the bottom. He examined the folder and pulled a yellow post- it off the front cover.

"Seth - found these while cleaning out my office. Thought you might want to look at them before they go into the Great Unfinished Scrapbook Archives. Love you. - Mom" Seth settled down on the floor, stretching out as he sorted through the papers. He smiled at the drawings of Star Wars characters, a hobby he'd continued to this day. Next came renditions of the Cohen's house, his dad surfing, his mom wearing a business suit, a little boy with puffy brown hair on a skateboard. Ah, even then the Jewfro was in full effect, he grinned.

He stopped as he picked up the finally drawing, the smile fading from his face.

The mermaid had been carefully drawn, and a light pencil outline was barely visible beneath the surface of the colored markers. A small bit of green and blue glitter still clung to her tail, and she shone softly in the dim light. Her long dark hair partially concealed her face, and she looked at Seth with wide eyes. It was impossible to read her expression, and Seth wondered what he'd intended her to feel, all those years ago, when he'd drawn it. Was she just about to smile? He wondered. Or was she on the verge of crying?

Although, he realized, when mermaids cry, no one can tell. The ocean soaks up all their tears.

The drawing was more mature than the other ones, and Seth squinted at the bottom of the picture. A caption had been written in pencil and then erased, but the writing was still visible.

"To Summer - I really like you. I hope that since you're a mermaid in this picture, you won't have to turn into one in real life, because I don't want you to swim away. - Seth"

Seth looked up, glancing around his room. He strode over to his bed and grabbed the copy of Anna Karenina he'd brought in from the car, turning pages frantically, looking for a passage.

"The study was slowly lit up as the candle was brought in. The familiar details came out: the stag's horns, the bookshelves, the looking-glass, the stove with its ventilator, which had long wanted mending, his father's sofa, a large table, on the table an open book, a broken ash tray, a manuscript book with his handwriting. As he saw all this, there came over him for an instant a doubt of the possibility of arranging the new life, of which he had been dreaming on the road. All these traces of his life seemed to clutch him, and to say to him: 'No, you're not going to get away from us, and you're not going to be different, but you're going to be the same as you've always been; with doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to amend, and falls, and everlasting expectation, of a happiness which you won't get, and which isn't possible for you.' This the things said to him, but another voice in his heart was telling him that he must not fall under the sway of the past, and that one can do anything with oneself."

I'm not giving up, he vowed. Seth picked up Captain Oats and spoke to the horse. "You and me, Captain Oats. We're going to get our girl - even if we look like total idiots in the process." Seth became aware that he was talking to a plastic toy. He set Captain Oats down. "Even if I look like an idiot, even if she breaks my heart - I know that there's something there - and I'm not giving up until she admits it."