WARNING, READ: The following chapter has some not-so-friendly things in it. It mentions self-injury, suicide attempts, drug use, and alcoholism along with a small mentions of death from illness. If you are uncomfortable with any of those issues and don't want to hear about them, do not read the following chapter. I'll give you a "cheat sheet" next chapter, so you won't miss anything from the story. Thanks.

Kirsten decided it was her turn to call Summer. It was a Sunday. She figured she could just talk to her today. She didn't want to pressure Summer into talking about anything, and the summer was unfortunately not moving too quickly. She picked up her office phone and dialed Summer's house number.

"Hello, Roberts house," a man's voice answered. Kirsten automatically knew it was Neil. Great.

"Hi, Neil, it's Kirsten Cohen. Is Summer home?" Kirsten replied. She knew Summer was home, where else would she be?

"Yes. I'll go get her for you," Neil sighed.

After a few seconds, Summer answered the phone. "Good morning," she greeted, sleepily.

"It's noon," Kirsten corrected.

"Fine, good noon," Summer said cleverly.

Kirsten ignored her comment and continued to ask if Summer wanted to come over today and eat lunch. Coming over to talk sounded to odd and distant to Kirsten.

"Um, okay. Want me to make it?" Summer suggested.

"Seth told you about my cooking, huh?" Kirsten asked.

"Yeah, and if you could not, like, touch any food, that'd be good,"

Kirsten took another bite of her Stouffer's Lasagna. Summer had made some for the both of them. Kirsten didn't bother to tell her Sandy was the only one who ate the lasagna.

"No!" Summer said with a frustrated sigh.

Kirsten looked up from her food. A small, red sauce stain was on the bottom of Summer's yellow, striped shirt. "It'll come out," Kirsten said calmly.

"But it's Ella Moss and was three-hundred dollars!" Summer shrieked.

Kirsten smiled slightly. She got up from the table. "First, you need to stop spending so much money on clothes. And second, I can get Rosa to wash it now if it means that much, I guess you can wear one my shirts…or Sandy's," she suggested jokingly.

Summer frowned. "I guess it's just sauce…" she sighed.

The walked into the living room and sat down on the couch, with some distance between them. "So, here's an idea," Summer began.

Kirsten nodded as her signal to continue.

"I ask you a few questions, and you can ask me a few, anything. Nothing is off limits. We can go on or if it gets boring, stop," she finished.

Kirsten agreed, seeing as this was a way for her to learn more about Summer. She already knew the story, but she didn't know what was a rumor and what was the truth. People in Newport ate up a story like this, and it sickened Kirsten, really.

"You can start," she said.

Summer took a breath in. "How are you so calm about Seth and Ryan being gone?" she asked bluntly.

Kirsten opened her mouth, but then paused to think out her answer. She wanted to be honest and open up, because if she didn't, how would Summer do the same to her? "I'm not," she stated.

She continued, "There's an amazing amount of stress I manage to keep hidden. I guess a part of me is calm about it because I have Sandy there. He's always been very mellow, sort of, when it comes to things like this. He's been telling me things like Seth will probably come back early, he just needed sometime to cool off, and that Ryan's always been very mature, and that he'll come to us if he needs help, but while I'd like to, I don't think I believe all of that. I still… I have doubts,"

Summer was surprised. She thought Kirsten had this perfect life, and it was obvious she didn't. She knew it'd be good not to push any further, but she did. That was just something Summer did. "What doubts?"

Kirsten saw that one coming. Now she had opened a can of worms, it seemed. "Some doubts at work. My father's putting pressure on me a lot, I feel like I have to impress him. He's never really been the same ever since my mother passed away…I'm not saying he was a great father to begin with, but now I feel like it's a responsibility to make him happy. But also I have self-doubts about parenting. I was never too welcoming to Ryan, I feel like I pushed him away. I can't help but think that's why he left and Seth, he was a loner, and I felt responsible for that. Like, I did something wrong that made people not accept him…" she stopped.

"I'm sorry, I was rambling," she finished.

Summer wasn't sure how to respond. She was officially out of questions. She took the chance to be maternal to Kirsten, in a way. "I know how it feels to want to impress your dad. I mean, that's the reason I broke up with Seth for a little. But, you don't have to. But I guess it's different for you, so you might want to impress him as your boss, but outside of that, you don't have to. I guess I realized that," she said shakily. She felt weird giving someone older then her advice.

"And…Ryan's a hero. He wants to be, and he will be. When he sees someone that needs to be saved, he's going to save them. He left to save Theresa, you have to know that, okay? And it definitely wasn't your fault Seth was alone. We ignored him, everyone did. It was wrong, it was mean, but it's just…nobody was bothering to think about him. And…" she paused again for breath, "God, I was terrible," she came to her own realization, that when Seth said everyone ignored him, she was one of them. Did he think that she would ignore him again?

"Thanks. It's nice to have someone to tell all that to," Kirsten told her honestly.

Summer smiled. "It's nice to actually give advice. Um, you can ask now," she said.

Kirsten took a deep breath in. The next topic wasn't going to be happy or friendly or anything she wanted to see a girl that young go through, but she was going to bring it up. "What happened to your mother?"

Summer sat, dumbfounded. She didn't know what to say. She wasn't sure if she was ready to tell anyone this story. It took a lot. She tried not to think about her mother a lot. She and her father never mentioned her, and nobody else knew. But she couldn't keep it inside forever and she knew that. It was time.

"When I was around six or seven, my dad started to not be home a lot. My mom, she never liked being alone. And a little first-grader wasn't that great of a friend I guess. So, she started going out at night, and being little, I thought she just went out with friends, you know? But, but, she would go and pick up guys or whatever and get drunk and have sex with random people most of the time butI think sometimes she'd snort coke and do heroin but not that much. I'm pretty sure she was an alcoholic and a drug addict, I mean, nobody ever told me but, I saw some papers, um, so…my dad found out and they fought a lot. Um, but, my mom stopped going out after a while, and stayed home and would drink," Summer took a breath and swallowed, "and she'd cry, and it scared me so, so much. Sometimes she'd tell me she wanted to die when she was really drunk, and…she wanted to leave me and my dad 'cause she just didn't care…and…I guess she got sick of being alone a lot, I mean, I know she had her friends but…one night, she got out this knife and, she was really drunk, and I just watched her, and she cut…she cut her arms…I think she meant to slit her wrists but was too drunk to, to get it right,"

Summer eyes were about to overflow with tears and Kirsten felt a deep pit in her stomach for making her tell the story. "You don't have to do this…please, don't do this," Kirsten whispered, putting her hand on top of Summer's, comfortingly.

Summer flinched, but didn't pull away. She shook her head and wiped a tear that had rolled down her cheek. "I want to," she whispered, looking down.

Kirsten nodded. It was even painful to watch her go through saying it. She couldn't imagine her living it.

"When she was in the hospital, she went to a psychiatrist and basically, they said the best thing for her to do was leave. And, so she woke me up one night and told me she was leaving, I was like, nine. I never saw her again, and every time I'd ask my dad would say she's getting better…so, I stopped asking. I...I…I really miss her. I know she wasn't too great of a mom but…she was when I was really little and it's just…I don't know. I'm sorry," she finished.

Kirsten sat in silence. She rubbed Summer's hand and watched her wipe tears from her eyes.

"This is kind of stupid, for me to just blurt out my life story, right?" she asked through tears, and then sniffled.

Kirsten shook her head. "I'm so sorry…I had no idea. I'm so sorry, but…" she got up from the couch, "I might--hold on,"

Summer waited patiently and cleared up her tears. She regretted even mentioning her mother. She wasn't ready. It was too much, nobody wanted to know about it.

Kirsten returned in about fifteen minutes with a piece of paper with writing on it. She handed it to Summer.

"When your mother left, she called me a few days later and I traced back the number, but we never talked. I don't know if you can still reach her there, but if you ever wanted to…" she trailed off, at a loss for words. She couldn't imagine why Summer would want to visit that memory.

Summer nodded and got up from the couch. "I think I just want to go home, and sleep," she said quietly.

Kirsten nodded and gave a whispered, "Okay. Do what you need to," and walked her out of the house.

She had learned more then she had ever wanted.

She felt awful.

A/N: Sorry to do this, but I'm leaving on the twenty-sixth for a seven week trip and won't be back until mid-August, meaning all my stories will be on hiatus. Don't worry, it'll get happier when I come back! This chapter was probably the hardest fan fiction I have ever had to write. Getting it across that Summer was opening up and why and what she would say and how...it was all very hard. I can't say I'm completely satisfied with this chapter, but I'm happy with my effort. Please, please give me a review and some feedback, I'd like to know how I can improve. Thanks for reading!