Title: Last Summer
Author: Kate Monster
Rating: PG-13... shouldn't be too bad
Summary: A long work-in-progress, and a prequel to Season One of The OC. During the summer of 2003, Theresa finds herself growing apart from Ryan as his life spirals further out of control. A story of friendship, loss, and growing up in the heat of a Chino summer.
Disclaimer: You know which characters aren't mine. And if you don't know, why are you reading this? Josh Schwartz is God, and Ryan Atwood is Jesus. (But then what does that make Theresa? ...Please don't answer that.)

Credits: Thanks to Mini Monster for the song inspiration. And thanks to Maud, Walter and AKA for going beyond the call of a beta. Song is by Meredyth Willson.

Good night, my someone

Good night, my love

Sleep tight, my someone

Sleep tight, my love

Our star is shining its brightest light

For good night, my love, for good night

Sweet dreams, be yours, dear

If dreams there be

Sweet dreams to carry you close to me

I wish I may and I wish I might

So goodnight, my love, good night

True love can be whispered from heart to heart

When lovers are parted they say

But I must depend on a wish and a star

As long as my heart doesn't know who you are...

-from Meredyth Willson's The Music Man

CHAPTER ONE: The Annual

The chattering in the cafeteria always reminded Theresa of cicadas, millions of ugly, screaming cicadas all going at once, and today it was like a fucking 7, 9 and 13 year invasion, all at the same time.

"Ohmigod!"

Around her, the sights of girls in too-short skirts with chunky legs, boys trying to look too old and too tough, all mixing in never-ending circles of screams and shrieks.

"Minerva! Minerva!"

The smell of stale, probably expired and unhealthy cafeteria food. Limp pasta and over-spiced meat and the slightly rank smell of spilled milk that hadn't been properly cleaned.

"I'm gonna miss you soooo much this summer, doll-"

Cracking walls and peeling paint, and the staircase uneven from generations of teenagers tromping up and down.

"Your ass is dead, you hear me? Dead!"

A room packed with far more students than its designers ever fathomed it would hold, a school far beyond any reasonable capacity.

"Hey, anybody see where my yearbook got to?"

A gray, dingy tile floor that never looked clean, no matter how much the fat, rude janitors pretended to mop it while looking at the chunky legs underneath the too-short skirts.

"You, you flunk again, you moron?"

A part of her really wouldn't miss this place for the summer.

Reflexively, Theresa clutched her own yearbook to her chest, scouring the noisy chamber with an apprehensive glance. Nowhere. He was nowhere to be seen. It'd be just like him to cut on the last day, too. He'd narrowly escaped summer school, so therefore, it wasn't like they could suspend him or –

She spotted what looked like the right head of hair. The right slouch, the right empty table. Satisfied, she swung the book as she wound her way through the crowd. Then she stopped. No. No. Why were there a billion kids at this school who all looked like Ryan, with the industrial haircuts and black jackets? No, there he was, alone, lurking at a different table, off in the far corner. She could see his profile, it was definitely him - though she still checked again as she approached. She marched up to him and promptly clonked him over the head with her 2002-2003 Husky. "Ow! Hey! What-?"

"There you are, you jerk," she said as she dropped her knapsack across from him. She plunked the yearbook down. "Hey. Sign this while I get food. What've you got?"

Ryan shrugged, still eying the yearbook warily to make sure she didn't plan on using it again. "Sandwich and a juice. The usual?"

"Uh huh. Wait here." She grabbed her wallet from her knapsack and pushed back from the table, jumping up. Ryan shrugged again and bent down over his sandwich.

In the mass of chattering locusts in the cafeteria line, Theresa weighed her choices carefully against her remaining lunch money. Two greasy slices of Pizza Hut – she could only stand to eat about one and a half, so she could force the second half on Ryan. A bag of Fritos, easy to divide, and a twenty-five cent Nutty Bar. She'd force one of the two sticks on Ryan out of politeness, and he'd accept. He'd moan about it, but he'd accept. But just to be polite. This was their routine, their game. The trick to it, she had learned long ago, was not to make him feel like a charity case, but like a hero for keeping the food from going to waste.

She carried the tray back to the table trying to tune out the cicadas, only to find him flipping idly through the yearbook. "Yeah, you done already?" She slid into the seat across from him and leaned forward to see what he was looking at.

He flipped a page and looked up. "Okay. So explain to me why the varsity basketball team gets four pages, and the drama club gets half of one?"

She grinned as she pried open her carton of milk. "You're not asking me that, are you? Seriously?"

"Seriously!" he assured her, his wide-eyed expression backing up his insistence. She could see the slightest hint of a smile beneath it all.

"Welcome to reality, Ryan Atwood. Six more inches and you could be a high school all-star." She held out the open bag of Fritos and he obligingly took a handful. "Maybe in a year or two."

"You know," Ryan said as he crunched on a Frito, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Trey stopped growing when he was fifteen. I might be done."

She eyed him critically, looking up and down. "Ooh. Hope not."

"Oh, now who's the jerk?" He tossed a Frito back at her and she caught it deftly, swooping it into her mouth and crunching it.

Theresa jutted her chin at the yearbook as she swallowed the chip. "So are you done? With the book, I mean, hopefully not the stunted growth spurt."

He looked concerned. "Uh-"

She waved the bag of Fritos around in frustration. "It's the last day of classes already, Atwood. Whadya waitin' for, college?"

"Are you kidding, have you looked at my transcript lately?" Ryan shook his head and snorted. "Look, I'll take it home, do it there."

"No. No way. It's a yearbook. A school yearbook. You have to sign it now. In school. So you have-" She checked her watch, then held up her wrist to show him. "Three hours and seventeen minutes. Where's yours, anyway? We'll trade."

"I, uh-" Ryan shifted in his seat. "I didn't really get one." He reached up to scratch behind his ear bashfully.

She shook her head. "Yeah, why? What? You didn't want to remember your unforgettable sophomore year doldrums?"

He offered up a cocky grin. "Something like that."

"Jesus. Okay. You gotta have something. Wait. I know." She dug in her purse until her fingers closed around the packet from Wal-Mart. She pulled it out and opened it as Ryan looked on with remote interest. "Here."

He stared across the table at the picture, recognizing it even from a couple of feet away. "Oh. God. The history class presentations? No. Wow. Why did you even keep that?"

"Because I made a fantastic Joan of Arc, that's why." Ryan rolled his eyes at her and she hurled the photo at him. "It's for you already! Highlight of tenth grade."

"Yeah," Ryan muttered as he picked it up and stared at it. "Not much of a year, huh?"

Theresa cracked up and tried to snatch the picture away from him. He clutched it to his chest, feigning offense. "Okay, so hand it over and I'll sign that for you in return for the yearbook."

Ryan stared at the closed book on the table, resigned. "I hate this stuff, Theresa. It's stupid." He held the picture away from her.

"So humor me."

"Like I even want anything to remember this year by."

"Ryan-"

But he was launching in to one of his tirades now. "Anybody who says high school is the best time of your life is either lying, or leading an amazingly pathetic existence."

She snatched the picture from his hands and shouldered her knapsack. "Oh, nice."

"What? What did I say?"

Theresa merely shook her head and stood, picking up her tray. She threw the Nutty Bar at him and he caught it with expertise. "Just meet me in the breezeway after final bell, and have that done already."

"Wow. Theresa. Sorry. Hey, what are you doing after school, anyway?" The Nutty Bar plastic wrap crunched loudly as his fingers peeled it off. She could still see the dirt under his fingernails even from this distance.

"Babysitting," she said, scowling at him.

"So can I come?" He broke off the top layer of the Nutty Bar and eyed her with his most hopeful expression.

"If you want," she said, her face not softening a bit. "You're not getting laid, though."

"Okay then." He licked some of the chocolate from where it had melted on the wrapper.

"Right. Bye."

So she had no reason to be annoyed with him. If he didn't like tenth grade, he didn't like tenth grade. So who cared if she did?

She passed through the swinging doors into the courtyard. The hot June sun was already beating down heavily, but she could stand it long enough to sign the picture for Ryan.

She slid into an empty picnic table and mindlessly munched on her pizza as she stared at the photo.

It had been a good year. For her. Sure, she'd grown apart from Becca - but it was only because Becca had decided she didn't like Ryan. And that was for the best, because Becca was boring, and stupid, and flighty, and stuck-up, and everything Theresa had decided that she wasn't meant to be. So it was fine. Really. She was better off.

Better off being friends with Ryan.

Or... or whatever she and Ryan were.

"Ryan," she scribbled in her large, bubbly handwriting. She stopped and took a bite of pizza from her other hand. Yes. That was his name. Now what did she want to leave him to remember her by? To remember everything they'd done?

What was a yearbook, anyway? Well, to a boy. Arturo never looked at his – she was pretty sure, though not certain, that they were shoved in a box in the attic somewhere. It'd be just like Ryan to not even read what she wrote. Still, she couldn't let him get out of tenth grade with nothing.

They had done too much together this year for him to forget. Grown so much closer. Inseparable, even. She couldn't imagine tenth grade without Ryan, Chino without Ryan, life without Ryan. Sex without Ryan. Theresa without Ryan. They were just things that went together now.

"Ryan"-

Ryan...

Ryan.

She knew what to say.

Because.

It wasn't that big a deal. It was only Ryan, after all.

Ryan-

Because you should never, ever be allowed to forget how good you were as Louis Quatorze. Because I was hot as Joan of Arc, and you better not forget that either. Because you're more than you give yourself credit for. Because everybody should have a friend who's always going to be there. I'm always going to be here. Remember fourth period trig, and Winter Dance (secret punch!), and four-leaf clover plants, and 2 a.m. at White Castle, and Pen-Ultimate Frisbee, and "YKWTFIT!" YKWTFIT now,

-Theresa