The next morning the Cohen family breakfast was oddly quiet. Seth was ignoring Ryan, Lorraine wasn't talking to anybody, as she was listening to her iPod purposely to drown out her family members and Ryan didn't have much to say to Sandy and even less to say to Seth.

"Ryan, are your things packed?" Sandy asked in a harsh tone.

Ryan refused to speak and just nodded his head to indicate that his things were indeed packed and he was ready to move into the house.

"Good, what color do you want on the walls? The contractors are coming today to paint, and put all your new furniture in there," Sandy asked.

When Ryan just shrugged his shoulders and went back to reading the newspaper and sipping his coffee, Sandy joked "Okay, pink it is then, or maybe purple, what do you think Kirsten?"

Kirsten just blankly store at him, indicating that the sarcastic remark was not funny.

There was a beep outside and Ryan thanked god quietly. He could get away from this torture.

"It's Luke, c ya," Ryan sighed unhappily as he pushed out his chair and threw the coffee cup in the sink.

Lorraine followed Ryan off her chair and was headed for the door when her father called "and where are you going?"

"With Ryan and Luke, you really don't expect me to ride with him do you?" Lorraine asked, as she pointed to her brother who was sitting at the table reading a section of the newspaper.

"I am glad I am so loved around here," Seth mumbled to no one in particular.

Once Ryan and Lorraine were finally standing under the bright morning sun that was shining down in the Cohen's driveway, Lorraine finally spoke, "thanks so much, I owe you." She said to Ryan as she quickly landed a kiss on his cheek and ran to the escalade at the end of the driveway.

Ryan called after her, "I can't keep doing this Lorraine." As he jumped into Luke's blue truck and slammed the door.

School was like usual, uneventful and by lunch Ryan was beyond bored. Ryan was over the school thing. Last year he worked his ass off to receive good grades and make Kirsten and Sandy proud. Last year was the year that colleges really looked at grades, and Ryan was pretty sure that with a 3.7 G.P.A. junior year and his SAT scores, he could get into a pretty decent school next year. So when Luke suggested that they all just bail afternoon classes and go hang out at the pier, Ryan didn't think twice about it, he was in.

He knew that if the school called, he would be likely killed by Sandy but he was already grounded, what was another week?

They went down to the crab shack, grabbed some grub and then headed down to the beach. The beach was pretty deserted besides the dropout stoners who lived on the beach, and lived for the massive waves they could catch during the day and the mammoth parties that could put together all night long. Ryan really wasn't into the surfing thing and not so much for even the beach scene, but the guys decided to put together a game of sand soccer. They played until Ryan realized it was almost 3:00 and if he wasn't home by then, Sandy would most defiantly have his ass.

Luke dropped Ryan off and Ryan headed right for the kitchen when he got home.

He rummaged through the fridge basically ignoring Sandy's daily questions, but when Sandy asked "so what was going on with you and Marissa last night?" Ryan momentarily stopped moving things around in the refrigerator. "Nothing," he answered almost immediately.

"It didn't look like nothing," Sandy stated as Ryan realized that there was nothing that looked to appetizing in the refrigerator and moved onto the pantry.

"It was nothing," Ryan responded becoming aggravated, he tried changing the subject, "Is my room finished?"

"No, almost, they are just setting everything up in there."

"So, Marissa just happened…" Sandy started before Ryan let out a big sigh, grabbed a bag of chips out of the pantry and headed to the family room.

Ryan turned on the Playstation and took a seat on the coach with his chips and a controller.

"Don't walk away from me when I am talking to you," Sandy scolded instantly and then continued in a much louder voice once he saw what Ryan was beginning to do, "What are you doing, you're grounded, no videogames."

Ryan turned around and gave him a look like your kidding me right? And went right back to playing.

"Ryan, I'm not joking, turn it off, NOW!" Sandy said in harsh tone.

Ryan paused the game and turned around to face Sandy, "Why do you care now? I was playing yesterday and no one cared."

"Ryan, don't question me, just do what I say," Sandy said coming around to face Ryan.

Ryan knew he wasn't going to win this argument, so he got up threw the controller down as hard as he could and stomped out of the family room. Where could he go, that he was allowed to go and wouldn't get bothered? The pool house.

Sandy sighed and wanted to race after him but he thought that if he did he might feel the urge to put a hand on the kid, and that was the worst thing he could do. So he walked into his office and slammed the door and started on the pile of documents that were laying on his desk.

Seth began to think it was hopeless. Well actually that thought had crossed his mind many times but he never actually believed it. He never believed it when Ryan told him no matter how bright he made the flyers, or how big the lettering was, no one was going to notice or care about some comic book club. He should just give up, it was Ryan and Seth in the comic book club, well now, it was just Seth. Seth really couldn't even say what happened. After Summer broke up with Seth, Seth never wanted to do the party scene thing and Ryan was with Marissa at the party scene every night. Seth – Ryan video game time began to dwindle and Ryan started to bring over his new friends to play video games with. Ryan never actually joined in, in the mocking of Seth, but he didn't stop it either. They started arguing over stupider and stupider things and finally they barely ever talked to each other about what was going on in their lives. They had two separate lives now, Ryan had Marissa and Luke and his crew and Seth had work and Alex.

Seth continued to post up the bright neon colored comic book club flyers and pass them out to random people scattered around the school after school. It was when he was about to give up and was headed for the parking lot, when he caught a glimpse of a group of kids that actually might be remotely interested in the comic book club.

He headed for the group of three boys gathered around the dumpsters.

"Hey there," Seth began.

"Yo, whatcha ya got there?" The kid with a black clash t-shirt and pair of tight black dickies and a pair of DC skater sneakers asked pointing to the pile of neon colored papers in Seth's hand.

"Oh, just this new comic book club, I am introducing to Harbour. Thought you guys might be interested." Seth responded, giving a flyer to all three boys.

All three of the boys snickered, but then responded, "Yea, maybe."

The boy that originally greeted Seth got a zip lock bag out of his pocket and offered it to Seth, "You want some man? We just rolled it."

"Uh… naw.. I got head to work, but uh… Thanks," Seth said before turning around to start to walk away.

"Yo… where do you work?"

"Oh, just up at the Bait Shop on the pier,"

"Really, my sister manages that place, Alex."

Seth immediately turned around at the sound of that name. Alex, he is Alex's brother. Hmm.. can't see it at all, but his hair is dyed jet black.

"So do you work there to pay off Alex or something?"

Seth stood there dumbfounded.

"You know, she gets the drugs for you, you work there, and you don't have to pay her."

Oh, now I get it. But Alex is a drug dealer?

"Oh, no… it's not like that, I really just wanted free tickets to the shows," Seth chuckled.

"This kid is tripping, lets jet." One of the boys said that looked beyond high.

Seth turned around again and headed to the parking lot.

"YO, you want a lift?" Alex's brother called after him.

"Uh, thanks but I got a car." Seth responded pointing in the direction of his hummer.

Ryan must have fallen asleep in the pool house because the next thing he knew Kirsten was standing over him, shaking him and telling him it was time for dinner.

Lorraine, Seth and Sandy were already seated around the table, throwing food onto their plates when Kirsten and Ryan walked into the kitchen. Sandy shot a glance at Ryan that Ryan didn't miss. Ryan took the only seat left next to Seth. They still had not spoken since their scene yesterday at dinner. Seth was rambling about school and work like usual, he sat there quiet and so did everyone else, no one in the Cohen house could ever fill Seth's silence.