Shadows of Summer
Chapter One: Spring

Inside the soul of every person is a deep, dark corner. This corner is plagued with darkness, blackened in by shadows of their past. Every living human on this planet has this shadowy corner; for some it might be just a misty grey, but for a number of others it's a darkness so deep that in one singular moment, their soul could erupt these shadows into the clear all at once, the person's past spewing out for all to see.

Summer Roberts. What was there to say? She was gorgeous; her silky, raven hair made more than half the female student body of Harbor School obsessively jealous, and her skin was flawless as sin. That is, if sin was flawless.

She had everything. Her bombshell appearance, her money, her lavish lifestyle, her prime choice of boyfriends (although her last – Seth Cohen – wasn't necessarily something the other girls were so envious of), and her seemingly perfect life. But what these people didn't know was that Summer didn't enjoy what she had. She was bitter and resentful. She didn't appreciate what she had.

It wasn't that she was ungrateful, really. Before she had been the sweetest little girl. She was never a snobby child; she always valued everything she owned and was never greedy. That was, until two days after her sixth birthday.

Nobody knew what had happened that day, what Summer kept bottled up so deeply inside her. It was something she had never bestowed upon herself to release to anyone. The only people that knew were her father, mother, stepmother, and Marissa. She had come this close to telling Seth, when they were still together, but she decided that she wasn't ready. It was a difficult subject for her, and it was the worst experience of her life.

She wanted to be able to talk about it, to let out her emotions. It was just so hard – nobody she knew had gone through the same thing. Before the incident, Summer had been such a cheerful girl. She loved life. She lived it to the fullest. If Spring were a name, her mother probably would have named her that because of how joyful she was, even right after birth.

Summer often thought about what her life used to be like. The first six years, anyways. Every day was an adventure to Summer, and she never took anything for granted. Her life was... well, perfect. Not the fake perfect that she fronted now, but really, truly perfect.

Now Summer had her popularity to hide behind. To use as her façade. If the event had never occurred, Summer wouldn't be popular now. She wouldn't pretend to have friends that weren't really her friends. She wouldn't be so fake. She would be the real Summer Roberts, the Summer she wanted so badly to be. She would have been happy.

Popularity and happiness were not synonymous, as anyone outside of the in-crowd mold might have chosen to believe. At least not in Summer's case. She would have given anything at all to be happy again. She'd give up popularity in a heartbeat. Hell, she'd give up her heartbeat to change what happened....

But as her dad used to say when she was younger, what happened, happened. There was no changing that. It wasn't Summer's fault, and there was nothing she could have done to prevent it. Summer wanted to believe that, but somehow she could never really convince herself.

She just held everything in. It was a difficult task, even she could admit that. Occasionally something would set her off (or sometimes, nothing at all would set her off) and she'd just snap at the person. She called these little bouts "rage blackouts." Which, technically, they were sort of blackouts of rage. The blackness from the shadows in her soul. Her memories. Her old life.

Sometimes Summer had trouble understanding why she thought this way and couldn't get over something that had happened almost twelve years ago. Then, of course, she would regret even thinking that. Of course she thought that way. Of course she couldn't get over it. Even at six, it was a traumatic enough experience to stay with her throughout the rest of her life.

Summer considered her life tainted. It was soiled, ruined. Emptiness filled her. She didn't understand why she deserved to even live. Why was she lucky enough to have something so special as life? Why was she so deserving?

She suffered from depression. She didn't show it, though. It was a hidden depression, one that she only displayed when she was alone. Which was often. After it happened, she tried to allow herself to get close to people. But her mom left, and her father started to drift away. Marissa used to be there, but lately she had found "better" things to do. Even when Seth filled the void that Marissa had left, it didn't matter. Things were always so rocky with Seth, not to mention that Summer could never muster enough strength to finally just tell him.

Sometimes her depression went too far. Summer tried not to think about suicide, but she couldn't always prevent the thoughts from coming. She never wanted to be one of those people, but her depression distorted her rational views. She had cut herself a few times, but she could never do it deep enough to actually kill herself. And she never did it on her wrists. She wanted to hide her depression, so she would drag the blade across her thighs. She thought she deserved to feel the pain.

She had only done it a few times when Marissa caught her doing it. Marissa had almost started crying, telling Summer that it was dangerous and that it wasn't worth it; Summer really wasn't to blame for what happened and cutting herself wasn't going to change anything. Marissa suggested therapy, but Summer wouldn't hear of it. Any kind of professional help would have made Marissa ease up, but Summer wouldn't oblige. Finally, she promised to stop her dangerous habit, and had so far held true.

Besides her little spurts of release, the cutting and the rage blackouts, Summer was still holding all of her pain inside. Little did she know that everything was about to change. And change isn't always good.

to be continued...