Disclaimer: "The O.C." isn't mine. The violets are.
A/N: Post-finale.

Violets

The gardener gave her a small pot of violets when she was eight. He had a crush on her. Ew. Anyway, the flowers died. She killed them. Whatever.
The point is, Summer learned early that she was like poison. She killed beautiful things.
Seriously.
Take Marissa, the once beautiful, vivacious, queen of Harbor school. It took awhile with Marissa, years of friendship, but slowly she started to wilt. First with the drinking, and then with the discontent, and the Luke/Ryan fiasco, followed shortly by the Ryan/Oliver thing, after which there was the totally awkward Luke/Julie disaster, and ultimately the Ryan/Theresa mess. All of which could be traced back to Marissa, and ultimately Summer.
While Summer knew she wasn't actually responsible for Theresa getting pregnant and Ryan leaving town, none of it would have happened if Summer hadn't been around.
She wasn't sure exactly how that logic worked, it was too depressing to get into, but pretty much everything was Summer's fault. Which was nice, because of course karma came around to bite her in the ass.
Seth took off. No big surprise because Summer killed beautiful things, her relationship with Seth, hell, Seth himself. Summer was enough of a sap, enough in love to consider her relationship beautiful, and Seth, well, she had eyes. Even behind an artfully concocted geek exterior the boy was beautiful. Not ruggedly handsome, not sex on legs, but beautiful. Great cheekbones, eyes to drown in, a nose that was so perfect Summer's father had suggested using it as a model for his patients, and dimples. Those dimples that made Summer's heart ache and got her hot all at once.
Of course she'd end up destroying him too.
Summer had kept the dead flowers on her dresser for weeks. The maid hadn't removed them and Summer never really knew why.
Seth had told Summer once that he liked the scent of violets.
"What about dead violets?" She had almost asked but caught herself at the last possible moment. She was scared of what the answer might be.
Now she knew. She'd known since the day she'd dumped her plant in the garbage, pot, dirt, and all. Once the novelty wears off, no one likes dead things.