A/N: I know that this story was been done before by probably a few people after watching episode one but I figured I'd take my shot at it. Tell me what you think!

 

The fireworks exploded loud above her and she wished they would stop. She didn't see anything to celebrate about and all of the noise and color just pissed her off. Looking at all of the people who had come to commemorate America's independence made her even angrier. Had these people even been here for the last two months?

 "This summer was supposed to be all-time."

"Yeah, well, now it's all up in the air."

 

Up in the air is right. And everything was wrong. Ryan was not supposed to be in Chino with some pregnant skank and Cohen was not supposed to be in Portland or wherever the hell he was. Oh well, not like she cared. He screwed her over, big time. And she was pissed. She had been for the past two months.

Fortunately, she had a better way of dealing than her best friend who was at this moment, completely smashed. Only not smashed in the happy, buzzing way. No, she was smashed in the God-help-me-I'm-so-depressed-I'm-just-going-to-fall-over-and-empty-my-stomach-on-the-shoes-of-a-stranger smashed. Yeah, not pretty.

As Summer looked around at everyone in the backyard of the Cooper/Nichol's new mansion, she realized that she and Marissa had never really regained their social standing. Had they done so, they would not have had to crash Marissa's mom's Fourth of July barbeque bash thing. The Cohen's were there, though, and she spoke with Kirsten briefly. She seemed to be doing okay. As well as expected for a woman who just lost not one, but two sons.

She got up and as she did so, Marissa slumped over in a heap. "Oh, Coop. Come on, upsa-daisy."

"Where's Ryan?" Marissa managed to slur.

"He's not here anymore."

"Why?" Marissa was starting to get teary-eyed and Summer hated dealing with drunk-crying Marissa. She sat back down and hugged her quickly.

"He had to leave."

"Why?"

"He had to help his friend." These questions were easy to answer considering this was the routine she and Marissa went through every time she was drunk. 

"The pregnant one?" Marissa looked at her with big eyes.

"Yeah."

"She's a bitch." If Summer hadn't been super annoyed at the moment, she probably would have laughed at that. But as it was, she was super annoyed and just wanted to get away.

"Yeah. I'm going to go for a few minutes. I'll be back." Summer squeezed her hand and got up before Marissa could say anything else.

She walked away from the party, ignoring the way Marissa slumped over again, resting her head on the table. She looked out at the ocean waiting for the feeling of calm that always came when she looked at it. It never came though. There wasn't really anything inside of her that felt calm anymore.

Just then her cell phone rang and she glanced at the caller ID. Great, this was so not what she needed right now.

"What?"

"Well, that was pleasant." Seth's voice came through the phone.

"Not in the mood, Cohen." Summer's voice was sharp and quick.

"You're never in "the mood" anymore." Summer could practically see the air quotes.

"What do you want?"

"Happy Fourth of July?" Seth tried.

"Aw, Cohen. That's so sweet. I can't believe you took time out of your busy schedule to call your EX-girlfriend," big emphasis on ex, "to wish her a happy Fourth of July."

"Yes, well, I'm a compassionate person."

"I know. And maybe if you weren't in totally different state entirely, I would care!"

"Summer, do we have to do this every time I call?" Seth was on the verge of sounding desperate. "I already explained to you why I left."

"Oh, wait. I remember now!" Summer sounded like she had just been hit with a revelation. "You're a pussy and couldn't stand to live without your beloved Ryan."

"Okay, that was harsh," said Seth.

"Harsh?" Summer sounded just a little shocked. "You wanna talk about harsh with me? Okay, how about I give you everything, including my virginity, and then you just leave! Your best friend has to go and all of a sudden you can't stand the heat so you just ditch me! You just fucking ditch me!" She knew that she was yelling but she didn't care. She hoped she had walked far enough away from the party.

"I said I was sorry! What more do you want from me?" Now Seth was definitely sounding desperate.

"What more do I want from you?" Summer was on the verge of tears. "Cohen, I want you to come home." Her last sentence was just above a whisper.

"I can't do that. I'm sorry."

"Fine." Summer was wiping at the tears. "Then we have nothing left to talk about."

She could hear him calling her name as she took her phone away from her ear and snapped it shut. She stood there, wiping her face, not caring at all if she smeared her make-up. Who was there to impress anyway?

She stood there for a while longer before her cell started ringing again. This time, she didn't even have to look at the caller ID to know who it was. She opened her phone and pressed ACCEPT but she didn't say anything as she held it to her ear.

"Summer. I'm sorry."

And just like that she was sick of it. She was sick of him apologizing and she was sick of hoping for him to come back. She was sick of being the poor, pathetic girl abandoned by her boyfriend. She wasn't doing this anymore.

"Shut up, Cohen! Just shut the hell up! I'm tired of fighting with you!"

"God, Summer. You think I like fighting with you?"

"No. And that's why we're going to stop doing this to ourselves." Summer had every intention of ending this right here, right now.

"Summer, come on. Can't you just…forgive me?" She could not believe he had honestly just asked her to do that.

"You're shitting me, right?"

"No, I'm not shitting you."

"Cohen, you left me a note," she said remembering how she felt when she had found it. "A fucking note. And you somehow thought, in your extremely twisted most likely mentally unstable brain, that it would make it okay. I have news for you: it didn't make it okay! Nothing is okay!" At this point she was sobbing, her body shaking in time to them. "You screwed me over! You fucking screwed me over!"

"Summer, please." Seth sounded really upset. Like, seriously, seriously guilty. In fact, Summer wouldn't have been surprised if she found out he was crying. This, of course, only provided a tiny bit of consolation. "I couldn't stay there." Seth paused, like he was trying to choose his words carefully. "If I could've taken you with me, I would have."

"Well that's good to know. I feel a whole lot better now."

"Summer, just—"

"No. You know what? Fuck you, Cohen."

"Wait, just let me—" Summer cut him off again.

"Leave me alone. Just leave me the fuck alone!"

Seth made a cross between a sighing noise and grunting noise showing he was clearly getting frustrated that she wouldn't let him talk. "Please. Can't we…just let's talk about this?"

"No, Cohen. Don't you get it? I'm sick of talking about it."

"I can't take this!" Seth said, getting angry.

"Well don't piss me off if you can't handle the backlash!" Summer screamed into the phone, ignoring the few people that looked at her.

"Summer!"

"No! I have to go, Cohen. You can call me later but I wouldn't bother seeing as I WON'T ANSWER!" She shut her cell phone to the sound of his voice for the second time that night. Now she was pissed and her night was obviously ruined. Not that it wasn't before the phone call. Phone calls, actually.

She headed back over to the table that Marissa was occupying. She still had her head slouched over resting on the table. When Summer sat down, Marissa turned to look at her. Not lifting her head from the table she asked, "Where's Ryan?"