Summer couldn't say that he didn't effect her – she wished she could but it would be a lie and she wasn't about to start lying to herself. Not when he had done that enough for both of them.
When the soft sand had become cold, hard ground Summer took it as a sign that she'd been standing still for too long. She was done waiting.
That was the day that Zach took her out for their first date, where they shared their first kiss, she didn't threaten any bodily harm and something seemed missing.
It wasn't enough to make her change her mind though.
A few dates with Zach turned into dating but she still refused to pour herself into their relationship. The next time someone did the leaving it was going to be Summer, and she was going to be fine.
Her plan worked up until the exact moment Seth returned from the sea and loved her again.
But Summer pursed her lips, held her breath and pretended that he didn't exist for a good while after that. She playacted a happy, healthy non-rebound relationship with Zach and she never, ever cried in front of anyone. And when she did cry it was definitely not about a certain boy who had left her with a letter.
Her letter was worn and soft around the edges from her desperate fingertips – but Summer had never read it. She didn't want his rejection tattooed on paper. It was too permanent.
She reminded herself every day that she wasn't being petty. If Marissa had gotten her way then the two of them would have been waiting by the pier for their men to return and sweep them off their feet. Summer wasn't like that though, she didn't love easily and she thought that Seth had coaxed a little piece of her heart away when she wasn't looking.
Or maybe a collection of pieces, small like glitter and all over him. That was the reason they always seemed to end up together, Summer didn't want Seth, she just wanted her heart back – once that was resolved then she could start to pretend she loved Zach.
Summer was usually a very rational person when it came to her emotions – rage blackouts excluded – but she started to sound crazy when it came to Seth. She hated it, but it's not like she could change herself.
All in all she would still say she loved him.
But she was working on it.
First she hid his letter under her mattress, because it was the only thing she hadn't dumped in his room. She held it over her Father's shredder for a good five minutes before deciding that it should live under her bedding. Besides, when she and Zach had sex it would be like the final insult to Cohen.
Next she came very, very close to deleting him from her cell. She rationalised later that she would need to know if he was calling her so she could ignore him – so Seth's number stayed in her phone. With a speed dial number. Three, because one was her Dad and two was Marissa.
After that she stopped trying to ignore him as much, she just let him be and focused on Zach. She didn't wish she was with Kirsten and Sandy when Zach's mother took them both out to lunch. She didn't feel guilty for the way her Father had treated him in the wake of her own humiliation. She just didn't think.
It was only when she was running away from Zach, out of the airport with none of her bags; desperately trying to hail a taxi that Summer realised she'd had the wrong plan all along.
She kissed Cohen and when she got home that night she burned his letter without reading it – because he had come home.
Lots of people left Summer Roberts, but no one ever came back. She knew that it was weak and tired and sloppy but soaked to the bone she didn't care. She was done lying to herself – pretending she would ever get her heart back, when she didn't really want it.