A/N: Thanks for the feedback guys. It's really appreciated. I'm putting these chapters out really quickly and that's very unusual for me. So, I'll probably be going back to form soon. I just wanted to warn you guys.

...

Summer absentmindedly slid the nail polish brush over her toe nails. She was thinking. About Seth. A couple of months ago—a couple of weeks ago that would have been laughable to her. Now it wasn't.

She kept replaying the events of Tijuana, how she had actually had fun with him, how he had comforted her that night at the hospital. How much she had liked being in his arms.

Summer shook her head as if to rattle those thoughts out of her brain. What was going on with her? She couldn't have a thing for Cohen. That would just be all kinds of wrong.

When he had stopped her earlier that day, she'd almost greeted back, pleasantly even. Then she had remembered who she was and more importantly where she was. She couldn't have people thinking that she was actually friends with him, she couldn't have Seth thinking that either. Just because she had briefly let down her guard one night didn't mean that things were going to change. They weren't. Not if she could help it.

A knock on her door snapped her back to the present. "Yeah," she called.

Her stepmother popped her head in the room. "Summer, I need you to get ready. Remember we're having everyone over for dinner."

Summer rolled her eyes. "Mmhmm," she mumbled and her step mom left the room. She'd almost forgotten. Her uncle, aunt and cousin had decided a couple months earlier to move down from New York. Her uncle had gotten a better job or they were tired of that horrible snow or something. Summer didn't remember. All she knew was that she was being coerced into helping her cousin, Julia, fit in.

Summer snorted as a picture of a nine year old Julia popped into her head. A tomboy with blue eyes, mousy hair and those ungodly braces. Summer wondered if she'd have to offer advice on makeup and clothing as well.

She would try to be nice to the girl but she wasn't going to go above and beyond to help her fit in, that wasn't her job. Her thoughts wandered again and settled back on a curly haired guy with a boyish grin. She huffed in frustration until a thought hit her. She'd introduce Julia to Seth, and kill two birds with one stone.

That settled, she went back to finishing her nails.

…

Frantic fingers punched at the keys of a telephone.

"Hello."

"Coop?"

"Hey, what's up?"

"The bitch is gorgeous."

"Umm, what? Who?"

"My cousin, Julia. You know gawky Julia with the overalls. Overalls, ew. Anyway, she's like a totally different person."

"Oh, I see." Marissa grinned as she listened to Summer ramble on about her cousin. Summer didn't like competition and if Julia was as beautiful as she said then she was going to have a lot of it.

"Don't worry," she said, finally interrupting Summer's tirade. "The guys that will go after her you've already had in someway or other, or like, rejected. So, all she'll have is your leftovers."

"Yeah, you're totally right," Summer said smiling. "You always know what to say, Coop."

"No problem."

"So, you totally ignored Chino today. Are you just going to shaft him for the rest of the year?"

Marissa sighed. "No, well I don't want to but…I feel really dumb for even admitting this, I feel like he's going to come down hard on me for being with Luke after everything and I don't think I can deal with that."

"Well, I don't—shit. Coop, gotta go. I sneaked out in the middle of dinner to call and dad's calling me back down. Talk to you later, 'kay?"

"Yeah. See ya."

Summer hung up and left her room. As she walked down the hall and back to the dining room where her beautiful cousin sat waiting, she wondered if God was laughing at her.

…

Summer frowned as she watched Julia eat up the attention that was being given to her. All the kids were hanging outside on their lunch break and Julia was in the centre of it all.

Marissa turned to her and whispered, "You're right, she's gotten way prettier."

Summer rolled her eyes. "Whatever. She's not that special."

Marissa hid a grin at her friend's obvious frustration at Julia's popularity.


The ringing of the school bell a few minutes later finally put Summer out of her misery. Grabbing her purse and books, she stood up to go back into the school.

"Summer, wait up," Julia called as she and Marissa headed towards the walkway.

She turned and waited for Julia to finally catch up and as soon as she did, Summer continued on her way back inside.

"So everyone's been surprisingly cool," Julia remarked as they climbed the stairs into the building.

Marissa seeing that Summer wasn't going to respond to the comment felt the need to inject some reply. "Yeah, I think you'll like it here. Anyway, this is my class," she said, pointing to a room. "I'll see you in History, Summer."

Summer nodded and watched her walk into the class. She continued walking and Julia followed as they had the same class that period.

"So, there are a bunch of cute guys in this place," Julia said eyeing the student body as they walked down the hall.

Summer shrugged. "They're all right."

Summer waved to her friends, as they walked into their French class and walked over to sit beside them. Julia followed closely behind.

Julia was starting to irritate Summer with the shadow act but she kept a rein on her temper and didn't even roll her eyes when Julia sat directly beside her.

She was opening her notebook, poised to actually write notes if it meant not having to talk to Julia, when Julia leaned across and whispered to her. "He has to be the cutest guy I've seen so far. Definitely."

Summer followed the direction of Julia's gaze and her eyes widened incredulously. Seth Cohen shuffled into the room and took a seat at the back.

She shifted her incredulous gaze back to Julia, who was following Seth's every movement with her big blue eyes. "Seth? Seth Cohen?"

"Is that his name? Seth?" His name rolled off her tongue. "I like that. Introduce me to him."

Summer couldn't believe her ears. Julia wanted to meet Seth. She thought he was hot. Finally the initial shock wore off and Summer realized that this was exactly what she wanted. So why then did she suddenly feel so put out by her cousin's interest in him?

"Yeah, whatever. It's your social suicide."

Julia snorted and flicked her wavy, chestnut brown hair over her shoulder. "What is he uncool or something?"

Now it was Summer's turn to snort. "Putting it mildly."

Summer waited for Julia to respond but realized that her cousin had already stopped listening to her and was watching Seth surreptitiously under her lashes. "Whatever, that means no competition. Definitely introduce us," she finally whispered to Summer before she turned completely to the front and started listening to the lecture.

Summer felt like she had stepped into an alternate universe. Where was she? Who was she?

What the hell was going on?