Our Love Is Like the Forbidden Flower

Summary- The last chapter

Disclaimer If it was mine, its not so lets just leave it at that.

A/N- Aww, my last chapter you guys! And yeah, I know that last chapter kinda jumped from scene to scene, nor have any scene dividers, so I'll fix that. Last chapter! Enjoy!

On with it...

"Aww!" Summer mused, looking over at Ryan, who's head was laying on Marissa's chest as they slept in the backseat of the car. "They're so cute!"

"Summer? Shh!" Seth demanded. "I can softly hear the music if you keep quiet."

Summer rolled her eyes and looked at a nearby car that was zooming past them. "Could you please go any faster?" she asked irratbly.

"No!" Seth snapped. "I'll travel at the speed I feel comfortable with."

"Well, I'm not comfortable with this speed!" she defended, taking control of the steering wheel as Seth slapped her hands away. "You're swerving!" he yelled in her ear, causing her to jerk back, taking the steering wheel and snapping it slightly as they finally swerved into a ditch.

Throughout this, Ryan and Marissa had woken up and were holding onto each other for dear life, Marissa letting out small squeaks. Seth finally relaxed into his seat, Summer holding the steering wheel in her hands. "Uh...oops!" she laughed awkwardly. "PMS," she explained.

"Excuses, excuses," Seth chipped in sarcastically.

---

"Cohen! I don't even want to talk to you right now!" Summer yelled into the phone, slamming it down on the bed. Marissa raised her eyebrows at Summer. "You wanna talk about it?" she volunteered. Summer shook her head violently and mumbled under her breath. "Not like I would expect you to understand."

Marissa raised her head from her pillow. "What did you say?"

Summer turned around. "I said, Not like I would expect you to understand. That's what I said!" she emphasized in a snappy tone. "Summer, what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing!" Summer retorted, pulling the covers off of her legs and getting out of the bed. "I thought this would be a good chance for us to catch up, us being in the same room together," Marissa explained to her.

"Yeah, well no thanks! I don't need your pity! Why don't you go where you want? With Ryan!"

"Because, he and Seth are spending time together," she started to explain again, grabbing Summer's forearm and spinning her around. "And I wanted to spend some time together with my best friend, you. Now what's wrong?"

Summer shook her head and lay down on the bed, Marissa carefully watching her. "I'm jealous..." Summer blurted out softly.

"Of what?"

"Of you. Ryan. You and Ryan."

Marissa seemed bewildered and laughed. "You're jealous of me and Ryan? Why?"

"Because, you know you two wanna be together, and know what you want. Me and Seth? I'm not so sure."

"You mean you wanna break up with him?"

Summer shrugged. "No. Maybe. I don't know Coop. See what I mean? You know you want Ryan. I don't know if Seth and I are meant to be."

Marissa sat down on the bed, near Summer's feet. "And you think me and Ryan..." she put up air qoutes, "Are perfect?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, it's kinda obvious that you two aren't that serious, you're just having fun. Why can't me and Seth be like that?"

Marissa's face fell. "You think that me and Ryan aren't serious?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "You don't look like it."

"Oh."

"Why? Are you?"

"Sum, this conversation is about you, not me." "Well, whatever." Summer tried to defend herself.

"I mean, Seth, he was there when my parents divorced, when my Dad got remarried, and Mom as well, when the Nana went through her chemo, I was there for him." Pause. "Me and Seth are more serious than you and Ryan."

"Sum, you know me and Ryan are serious."

"Really? I thought this was just a fling. Getting over Luke."

Marissa's eyes glared at her and she got up off the bed. "Don't make assumptions Sum," she snapped, taking her keys off the woodstand and storming out of the room, leaving Summer bedazzled in the hotel room all by herself.

---

"Hey Seth, can I talk to Ryan?" Marissa asked once inside Ryan and Seth's hotel room. Seth put down his comic book that he was reading and pointed to the bathroom. She nodded as if to say 'thanks' and started to head towards the bathroom. But she stopped and turned to face Seth, who had picked his comic book up once again and was reading. "You know, you might wanna be a better boyfriend and actually talk to your girlfriend."

Seth scoffed and slammed the comic book down on the soft bed. "Is that why you came here? To tell me to go talk to Summer? Well tell her no! I refuse to talk to her! She cost us all the money that we had to get the damn car fixed! And her lame excuse--"

"Seth!" Marissa cut him off. "I swear you two are like the same brain!" she said to herself more than him. "Why don't you two go talk. You have some serious issues."

"Noooo," Seth dragged out. "Summer is PMSing, which yeah, in a way, she does have issues."

"I think these issues are a little more than woman troubles Seth. She thinks that you two aren't meant to be."

"What? Why!" he asked disbelievingly. Marissa shrugged. "I don't know. This is why people talk. So go. Talk." She shooed him away, sending him out the doors and walking to the bathroom once again. She smiled as she opened the door and saw Ryan bending over the tub, trying to get the water handles to work. "Hey."

Ryan, obviously startled, bumped his head on one of the water knobs and jerked back. "Damn!" he whispered under his breath, rubbing his temple. Marissa giggled, but bent down to help him, rubbing his temple and looking at his head. "Sorry, did I scare you?"

Ryan nodded. "Yeah, was kinda surprised by human contact. Quite surprsingly, Seth hasn't spoken a word all day."

"Yeah, neither has Summer. Well, except when she snapped at me."

"You two got into a fight?" he questioned, sitting on the edge of the tub. Marissa shrugged. "I don't know, I sent Seth to go see what's wrong." She joined him on the edge of the tub, placing his chin in her hands and examining his face. Ryan surprised her by leaning in and kissing her gently. She giggled at first, but kissed back. Ryan started to get into it, and was leaning back when he finally realized that there was no support, he had already fallen in, his feet in the air.

Marissa started to laugh uncontrollably, waving her hands wildly at her side from laughing so hard. Ryan groaned, picking his head off of the tile wall and looking at her as she continued to laugh. "Okay, I guess it was pretty funny," he laughed, settling in the bath tub. Marissa slipped her flip flops off and twisted her body around so she was facing the tub. She got in, cuddling herself into Ryan's arms.

"Unexpected," he commented, stroking her arm with the tips of his fingertips. "But kinda romantic if you think about it," she explained better.

"If you're a sap," he joked.

She playfully slapped his chest. "Hey! I'm a sap!"

"Yeah, I knew that, sap." He retorted playfully.

Marissa couldn't stifle back the giggle that escaped her glossed lips. She closed her eyes, wrapping one of her legs around his as he did the same; so they were all tangled up into one each other. She snuggled in closer to him, watching his chest rise up and down. "How long do you think we'll last?"

Ryan seemed confused. "Uh...what?"

She lifted her head up from his chest and looked at him. "I know, I know, you're a guy, but you're also one of my best friends...and...I just wanna know, how long do you think this Ryan and Marissa union will last."

Ryan laughed, obviously not sensing how serious she was. "Marissa? Are you sure you're okay?" "Yeah, fine," she answered. "I just...I don't know, talking to Seth and Summer, they make it seem like we're not gonna be together."

"So you wanna get them back by making them talk to each other?" he laughed.

"No. It's..." she sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. "Never mind."

"Well, it's something obviously, but what?" he questioned.

She pasted a small smile on her face. "Don't worry about it 'kay?"

Ryan didn't let it drop. "If you're going to base our relationship on someone else's relationship, than...what's so special about it?"

She looked up at him. "It's not."

"Exactly. I think...I think we shared some pretty...some pretty great moments."

"We did...we still are."

"So than...if I based our relationship on my parent's, do you really think we would last? Or your parent's for that matter?"

Marissa shrugged. "It's just...easier when you see two people and look up to them. Like Kirsten and Sandy." Ryan chuckled. "See, Sandy and Kirsten aren't perfect either, and neither are we..." His head was lifting from the side of the tub as the shower head started to drop some water drops on their feet. "What we have here, I want it to last."

"Me too," she added.

"I never thought my life would be like this...But I'm glad it is."

"Me too," she repeated with a smile. "But...it's just, we're leaving for college soon...and I want you there with me..."

"I will. Don't worry," he assured. The shower head started spinning like crazy and started soaking them as Ryan tried to get up, Marissa held him down. "No, come on, this is fun," she giggled, tangling their feet in each other even more and getting on top of him, kissing him tenderly. Ryan started to hint towards getting out and moving over to the bed, but Marissa continued to hold him down, the water beading off of their clothes. "Better?" he asked, getting up so Marissa was in his lap. She laughed, wrapping her wet legs around his waist, and kissing him once again while Ryan closed the curtain with the hand that wasn't supporting her.

---

"Okay, so let' so tell them that they can have the room to themselves and I can get my stuff," Seth told Summer as they walked hand in hand back to Ryan and Marissa's hotel room. Seth put a finger to his lips and put his ear to the door, trying to see what was going on. He squinted his eyes as if something more was going on. He heard groans and moans coming from inside and immediately lifted his head from the door. "My ears!" he yelled. "My ears!" he yelled again, running away from the door. Summer giggled, following him as he continued to yell "My ears!"

---

Marissa lay in Ryan's arms, exhausted. She started to go through her purse and found the flower as she put it in her hair. "Tell me. What you told me that day." She told him, whispering every word with emphasis.

Ryan chuckled, stroking the side of her face with his hand. "I think you're the prettiest girl." She giggled and let out a sigh. "It's not always gonna be this perfect is it?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so." Pause. "But...we'll get through it, I promise."

She smiled up at him. "Promise?"

Ryan nodded. "I promise."

He always kept his promises.

He leaned in to kiss her plump lips, his fingers smoothly running over the flower that he had given her. It represented them.

It's colors not fading, just like their love would never fade.

END

Damn! I am officially the corniest person on earth. But I couldn't resist. So, I hope you enjoyed and thank you for reviewing, and sticking through me while I never posted. I'll try to get better. But I will do this, I won't start the sequel until I finish my other stories, and since I finished basketball on Friday, I'll defintely have more time to update! So uh...thanks again, and I'll just stop now, before I get emotional. This was the first story I ever posted, and also my longest running, so thanks! :) And I don't know if that was the greatest chapter, so...I don't know, tell me what you thought. And I also don't know what the sequel will be called, but I'm sure you'll find it.