DISCLAIMER – I don't own the OC. I wish I did. One day, maybe. No? Oh. How sad.

SUMMARY – Summer attempts to study without Seth. It's not going well. Can the dictionary change her mind? SS drabble. It kind of came to me while I was looking up something in the dictionary. Read and Review please!

She had been studying for over an hour now, but Summer Roberts had only been able to come up with one conclusion that actually made sense to her…studying without Seth, it plain sucked.

She skimmed through her books, letting her eyes absorb the familiar words, but not pushing the meaning through to her brain. Occasionally, she would come across a word that she didn't know.

"Piquant," she muttered. "What the hell is that?" Summer wasn't a particularly bright girl, although she could do well when she applied herself, but she rarely did, and the dictionary was often her only friend during these lonely study sessions. And it wasn't even a particularly good friend, she thought to herself. All it did was mock her, with its big words and complicated meanings, dumbed down to short answers so that people like her could understand them. It was stronger and smarter then her too, and it liked to prove it, it weighed her arms down whenever she tried to pick it up, telling her, my brains bigger then yours, that's why I weigh you down. Or maybe your weak. Maybe your stupid and weak, have you ever thought about that?

Or maybe she was just paranoid.

Of course she was paranoid. Dictionaries don't speak, they don't mock. Dictionaries don't have brains. They are made up of numerous words and their meanings, eventually all fitting together, pages bound by tight leather.

She was just irrational. She had been ever since Seth had left. Even more so since he returned. Stupid or what? And studying just wasn't the same without him. So she had to turn on the dictionary. Pathetic.

Studying with Seth was actually fun. It hadn't started out as fun, but they had made it fun. She would go over to his house after school, and they would lock themselves in his room, surrounded by books, and cookies that Kirsten had bought from the store, because everyone knew that Kirsten couldn't cook. Summer was always bored when they started the revision. They would take turns to quiz each other. That got incredibly boring, and Seth had invented the game, that whenever they got a question right, they got a cookie. Whenever they got a question wrong, the other person got a cookie. This swung well for Seth in both ways, because not only did he get most questions right, but Summer got most questions wrong. And Summer started to pay a bit more attention. She smiled gloatingly whenever he pronounced her answer right, and chewed the biscuit slowly, teasing him. Then she kissed him and shared the crumbs. The game soon spread out to cover different food groups…chocolate, pudding, ice cream…anything sweet to take their minds off the bitter taste of books and learning.

Summer removed the heavy dictionary from the shelf and pushed it open, flicking through the thin, paper pages until she reached the "P's".

Piquant / adj. 1. agreeably pungent or sharp in taste or flavour…

She suddenly found herself longing to be sitting in Seth's room at that moment, playing the game. She attempted to slam the book shut, but instead only flicked to the "L" section. Smack there in the middle of the page, a word seemed to lurch out at her.

Love.

She shuddered. She hated that word. Awful, horrible word. Nothing but broken hearts; tears and lies. Did this big, heavy book know that?

Love / loved, loving–n. 1. a strong or passionate affection for another person…

Ha! Thought Summer. There, she was right, the dictionary knew nothing about it. It saw the outer appearance of what everyone thought was such a brilliant emotion. It wasn't really, she thought bitterly. Not what she knew as love, anyway. No…there she was, she was wrong again. The love she felt for Seth was one of the most beautiful things she had ever felt. It was knowing that not only had he loved her, but that she pushed him away, declined his love because of one little thing…that was what was bitter. That feeling she got…whenever she looked at him. Whenever she saw him, even caught just a slight glimpse of him, his smooth skin, his dark, curly hair, her heart pounded so hard that she could feel it in her ribcage and she longed to be closer to him, just to touch him. When she looked into his deep, chocolate brown eyes, she felt the world around her melt away, and she just wanted to disappear into them, to stay there forever. Whenever she was around him, there was always a slight pink tinge on her face, she felt flushed and nervous, yet, at the same time, she was at peace, she was relaxed, and she could just be herself…when she was with him. And when she kissed him…or when she used to be able to kiss him…she would completely dissolve. As soon as his soft lips touched hers, she melted, her heart would beat faster…yet slower at the same time. She was his, they were one, for the slight moment that their lips were pressed together, and the feeling remained even when the pulled apart. Stupid, sappy, clichéd love story, right? Usually, Summer would have thought something like that was just stupid, a fairytale. But it was her feeling it, and she couldn't fight it, no matter how stupid it seemed. The dictionary couldn't see that. The dictionary was only a book…for one minute, Summer felt smarter then the dictionary. Ha! Take that, you stupid, fat book! I know something that you don't! Then she realised that she had stuffed everything up, and that was the reason she was studying alone. She turned back to her books, but her mind soon wandered to when it was she and Seth, together in his room.

Summer had soon gotten bored of the food game. One day, as she had pronounced Seth's answer to be correct, she took her jumper off, saying, "Ugh, it's boiling in your room, Cohen, open a window or something." As she pulled the sweater over her head, her arms stretched and the singlet she was wearing underneath raised considerably, bearing her midriff. Seth stared, transfixed, and as she tossed the jumper aside, shaking her hair behind her back, he asked her: "Sum? Have you ever seen "Billy Madison"?"
Summer had grinned at him. She knew exactly what he was talking about…and she needed a new game to help her study. Food was getting annoying.
"Okay…I've had my turn…Now it's yours."
Seth was successfully down to his boxers by the time that Summer was just removing her skirt. The game wasn't over yet, but both the teens had had enough knowledge for one day…time for some fun, thought Summer. She moved towards him on the top of the bed on her knees. She kneeled before him and kissed him. As their lips parted, he muttered, "The game's not finished yet…"
"I'm sick of this game." Mumbled Summer, pressing her lips against his again. "It's already done half the work for us." She said, jerking her head towards their clothes in a pile on the floor.
Seth smiled.
"Let's play a new game." Said Summer. "I made it up. It's called…Teacher and Student." She kissed him. "I'm the Teacher…" she kissed him again. "…And you're the Student."
Seth looked up at her. "And what are you going to teach me today?"
Summer smiled as they removed what little articles of clothing they still wore.

That was back when she liked studying. That was when she looked forward to getting homework every day, just so she could go over to Seth's house, and he would help her. They could play their games, and she could just be with him.

She didn't like studying by herself. She wanted to study with Seth again. She wondered if he was having the same problems as her…trapped in a lonely room with nothing but a big, heavy book for company.

Summer cast a look towards the dictionary. "You're not really going to help me, are you?" she asked it. No surprise, it didn't answer her. "I didn't think so," she sighed.

That stupid book didn't know what love was. Summer knew what love was. Love wasn't something that could be downsized into only a couple of words on a piece of paper. You can't explain an emotion as deep as that. Love is something that belongs to the heart, she thought.

She had been a complete idiot. She had left Seth…the only person she ever loved.

One more look at the leather bound book, still flipped open to its definition of "love". It's a wrong definition, thought Summer.

One more thought about Seth, sitting alone in his room, probably talking to Captain Oats. Just as pitiful as her, sitting alone in her room, comparing herself to the dictionary. Maybe they could be pitiful together.

One more flashback to the games they had played together, rolling around on his bed, their skin grazing together and their bodies moving in perfect synch. The way she melted when she kissed him.

That did it. She stood up, slamming the dictionary shut, and was rewarded with a satisfactory "bang". She threw it on the floor and walked out of her room.

She was headed over to Seth Cohen's house. She was going to apologize to him. She would kiss him and he would hold her gently in his arms and stroke her hair as she listened to his heartbeat in his chest.

Then they would play a little game of Teacher and Student.

And she would prove to the dictionary what the true definition of love was.