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Summer POV

"Has Ryan said anything yet?" Kirsten asked.

Seth and I shook our heads. We were sitting at a table at Ryan's party, drinking champagne and bobbing our heads to the music. The party had been in full swing for a couple of hours but considering the frown Ryan had been sporting since he arrived in Newport, we weren't sure we were even allowed to enjoy ourselves.

Kirsten moved closer to us and whispered, "But Anna's here, isn't she?"

I looked around the room. "She is?"

Kirsten squinted at the area behind us. "I could almost swear that I saw her sitting over there."

"Is her hair really short?" I asked, keeping my thumb and my finger about two inches apart.

She nodded. Reflexively, I turned around and searched for her. So I was right! I'd seen someone that I thought looked a lot like her in a simply cut black dress but when I smiled at her and she looked through me, I figured that I'd made a mistake.

"When Ryan came alone, I thought that meant she wasn't coming but if she came, how come she decided to sit by herself?" I thought aloud. It made no sense. I turned to Seth and tapped his arm. "How come you haven't found out what happened?"

Bored, he shrugged and took a sip of his drink. Disgusted by his response, I rolled my eyes and looked back at Kirsten.

"I'm going to look for her, okay?"

---

It didn't take long for me to find her sitting alone and staring down at the tablecloth. When I sat next to her, she looked up and smiled as she recognized me. The last time I met her, she hadn't been wearing her signature bright high school make-up, but she was wearing make-up. This time, other than some lip gloss, her face was completely bare – it was so not the way to get your man back.

She drummed on her glass with short bright red nails and said, "Summer, it's been a while." Her voice was so flat and unemotional that I couldn't help but reach across and hug her.

"So how come you ignored me when I smiled at you earlier?"

Looking genuinely surprised, she said, "I'm sorry, I didn't see you."

"No problem – it's cool. So what's going on?" I asked, sounding as happy as a high school cheerleader. A party wasn't the right place for all that gloom.

"Nothing much –I'm just trying to enjoy the party."

"Yeah? Then why don't you come and join us?" I asked, pointing at our table. Her eyes followed my finger and settled on Seth's, who at that moment, chose to turn back and look at us. He nodded and sent her a tight smile.

"No, I think I'm fine where I am," she replied as Seth turned back to his table.

"But how much fun can you have all alone? Come on, let's go," I said, standing up and pulling her hand.

She slowly shook her head. "You should get back to him. I really am fine here."

The poor girl looked so miserable that I had no choice but to sit back down. My curiosity was piqued – I really wanted to know what had happened between them but I chose to shut up – not that I thought she'd tell me if I asked.

For the next twenty or so minutes, I prattled along, talking about anything and everything. She smiled and nodded, but I knew she wasn't really listening because her eyes had that faraway look of someone whose thoughts were anywhere but where they were supposed to be. She was giving me one of her fake smiles when her face froze.

I turned around to see Ryan's back and his hand firmly across his co-worker, Carly's, shoulder. They were standing in the middle of the room talking to some people I didn't recognize.

"I'm sure it's nothing," I said, keeping my eyes on them.

"It's fine. It's none of my business anyway."

"What do you mean?" I asked, spinning my head so fast it almost broke off. Why wouldn't it be her business? If I found my boyfriend's hand draped across another woman's body, I sure as hell would make it my business.

She shrugged, trying hard to look away but every time she took her eyes off them, there appeared to be a force field that made her look right back.

As I watched her bloodless face twitch and skinny hands fidget, I couldn't help but feel for her. From the way she acted and the things she said, it looked like she and Ryan had broken up for good. We all assumed that they'd had some kind of fight but I figured it was just one of those little big fights that couples had from time to time. But I wasn't so sure anymore. Since high school, even though we'd never been the best of friends, I'd come to care about Ryan and after seeing all the shit he had to go through to be with Anna, it was a real shame that it had ended so quickly.

"I heard you've got a new job," I said, hoping there was a way that we could pretend that we weren't watching the scene ahead of us.

"Yes, I do. How do you know?"

"Seth. Who else?"

"Seth knows?"

"Yes, Ryan told him." I glanced at her.

Nodding slightly, she said, "That's nice." Before I could say anything else, she gulped the rest of her champagne, stood up and with her eyes boring holes into Ryan's back, said, "It was nice to see you again, Summer, but I have to leave. Take care."

---

Even Marissa and Nick's arrival did nothing to improve my mood – it was hard to have fun with the celebrant looking as miserable as shit. After a while, when Seth's nonchalance had completely driven me up the wall, and Marissa had failed to get anything out of Ryan, I decided to take a stroll to Anna's brother's house. I didn't really know why I was even going there or what I was going to say but I was sick and tired of feeling uncomfortable at the party, plus I'd had enough of watching Marissa and Nick play 'We're So In Love.'

I stepped into the house as her sister-in-law turned around to get her. Other than a few furniture changes, the place looked pretty much as it had when her parents still lived there. The sound of dragging feet caused me to look at up and without a word, Anna motioned for me to follow her. Shortly after, I found myself walking into her brightly colored room, with walls covered by paintings of numerous types and shapes. Across from the door was a caricature of Seth surfing on a cracked board with my name written boldly across it. I walked up to the framed drawing.

"This is new," I commented, sliding my fingers across the glass.

"As new as a nine-year old thing could be."

"Hmm... as I remember, it was his boat he named after me, not his surfboard."

She chuckled. "I know. I was just very pissed on that day."

I took the bowl of red grapes she was holding out to me then sat on the sofa next to her closet. I pulled one off the stem and bit into it.

"The party couldn't have been that boring," she commented.

"It wasn't. You know Kirsten throws the best parties. I just needed some fresh air."

"Well, this is as fresh as it gets," she said, pointing to the humidifier. It was a lame joke but we both laughed, I suspect, in an attempt to ease the tension.

It was over an hour of not exchanging many words as we watched infomercials, when my cellphone went off. I felt her eyes on me as I checked my caller-id. I'd almost finished typing up the text message I was sending to Seth to let him know I was alright when she said, "Did I ever tell you about Alex?"

I shook my head. "Who's Alex?"

"My fiancé."

"Oh." Information about him was vague but I knew it had ended badly.

"Yeah, I was really in love with him. At the time, you couldn't have convinced me that he wasn't my 'one true love,'" she smirked, "to me, he was perfect. Did I ever tell you that he was in a relationship when we met?" I shook my head. I noticed that she had that faraway look again. "Yes, they'd been together for about five years – since high school."

"Wow."

"Yep. You know how I met him?"

I shook my head once again. I didn't want to point out that I didn't know anything about him so she didn't need to keep asking but I kept my mouth shut. She was obviously having one of those moments and I didn't want to ruin it.

"Beginning of my Sophomore year -his Senior year- he was handing out flyers for Planned Parenthood. I've always been a little suspicious of guys who support abortion so I questioned his motives. We started talking and before I knew it, I'd tumbled over and fallen for him."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It was as just corny as it sounds. And guess what happened?" I didn't have a clue. "Twenty-eight days, five hours and 34 minutes to our wedding, he called to say that "he couldn't do it anymore" – those were his exact words. He couldn't do what? Love me? Marry me? Was he overwhelmed by the wedding? Did I do something wrong? What? I needed answers so I drove to his house and waited for him. By the time he showed up, I didn't even matter. He was an ass, anyway."

She was chuckling, trying to pretend she was fine but I could see the pain in her eyes.

"Wanna know who he left me for?"

"Who? His ex-girlfriend?"

She shook her head. "No. I think I would have preferred that. Meredith. That's her name. She wasn't a close friend, but she was a friend. And six months later, she married him – in the church we were supposed to get married in. Do you know that she didn't invite me to the wedding?" I told her I didn't. "Can you believe that? They invited everyone but me. And you know how it is when a couple breaks up - mutual friends take sides so, some of my friends didn't attend their wedding in my support."

"Wow." It was quite a story, although not particularly unique.

"Yes, can you believe that? Do you know what hurt the most?"

"What?"

"After the night I spent on his stoop, he never called me again. Not even to see how I was doing, or anything. He said he was sorry when he dumped me but I never heard from him again – they just moved on with their lives, never caring about the shit they put me through. I was in fucking hell and they were having fun and babies. Can you believe that shit?"

I could. Sometimes it was best to just leave some things alone. But I didn't say that. She obviously needed a friend and for that night, she was stuck with me.

"And boy did I hate them – sometimes I think I still do. I don't think I hated them because they were together... I got over that. It was just the way they acted, like... like, oh, forget it- I don't think I can explain it."

I wouldn't have understood it if I hadn't heard Seth whine countless times. She hated them because the pursuit of their happiness had robbed her of hers. And then she'd turned around and found herself doing the same thing to someone else. It must have sucked to be her.

She picked up the remote control and started flicking through channels. "For a while, I thought –" Her sentence was cut short by the appearance of Brian's Corner on the screen. "Granted, 3:13am," she said, looking at her watch, "is not Prime Time but it's always great to see them on MTV."

I agreed – it was pretty exciting stuff. And I was glad that something was putting a smile on her face.

"Have you met them yet?" she asked.

"Yes, they were at the party."

"Really? I figured they would be. Isn't Jake just so totally hot?" She sang along with the song for about a minute then said, "Do you know Ryan isn't their manager?"

"He isn't?"

"Nope. He discovered them –he's the A&R guy for the label. And he wrote some songs for this album – including this one – and he's their executive producer, but he's not their manager. Somebody else is getting 15% for that."

"Amazing."

"I know. He can be pretty obsessive. When he wants something, he really goes for it and he definitely wants them to be successful."

"Well, he staked his reputation on them so I guess it makes sense."

She nodded. "Yeah... but you were right though."

"About?"

"Remember how you warned me not hurt him?"

"Who? When?" What was she talking about? And what did it have to do with the band?

"At Marissa's wedding, you told me not to hurt him."

Oh, so it had nothing to do with the band. "Who?"

"Ryan, Seth... at the time, I didn't know who you were talking about. We were in the bathroom and you just told me not to hurt 'him.'"

"I did?" I thought about it but for the life of me, couldn't remember the incident she was referring to. But from what I could gather, since for a long time I'd suspected that she'd end up with Ryan, I figured I must have been talking about Seth.

"I thought that you must have been talking about Seth since we were together but now, I realize that you must have meant Ryan." She reached across and gently took my hand. "I really didn't think that I was hurting him, but now I see that I was so consumed... I mean, that's why I came tonight but..." She cleared her throat and shrugged. "It doesn't matter anyway – I hurt him." She exhaled. "Not just him - both of them. I'm really sorry."

I didn't know what she was smoking that made her think she owed me an apology but I scooted over anyway and wrapped my arms around her.