As always, a giant thank-you to 60schic for beta-ing and putting up with me. This chapter is also dedicated to sexycereal for nagging me, making me laugh, and also for the carrot icon. Carrots love.

Part 16

Summer was laying on her stomach trying to sleep, or think, or not think, or whatever. The knocking on her bedroom door was less than conducive to any of those things happening, but she was tapped out on people skills at the moment.

"Summer. It's me. Open up."

"Chino?" As much as she didn't want to see him, Summer didn't think even she was bitchy enough to force a guy fresh from a coma to stand outside her door for hours. "Coming."

"Hey," Ryan smiled awkwardly and shuffled into her bedroom.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm worried about you."

"I'm fine," Summer snapped. The dull aching need to cry seemed to be a permanent condition, as did the chronic pressure in her chest. Yeah, she was just terrific. "I'm not the one who just got out of the hospital. You didn't drive, did you?"

"Naah. Luke," Ryan explained gingerly lowering himself to the bed. "He'll be back in a bit, he wants to talk to you too."

"I don't need to talk."

Ryan cocked his trademark glare in her direction. Summer turned her bitchiest without actually looking mean expression back on him.

"It won't work on me. I'm immune to the Summer Roberts charm," he stated calmly.

"Well maybe I'm immune to the sideways glare of doom."

"Maybe, but you're not. So let's talk."

"Fine. About what?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe how you're pushing everyone who cares about you away?"

"I'm not."

"You dumped Zach. Your dad told me on my way in that he thinks you're avoiding him. You've got some weird arrangement going on with Seth that seems to consist of you hiding from him. And, you've been an utter and complete bitch to me since the second I walked in here."

Summer shrugged. "I didn't feel like talking to my dad. And I don't particularly feel like talking to you. I sort of figured you'd be all talked out after Alex anyway."

"Um, what?"

"I went by the Cohen's after school. I felt bad about what happened last night and I wanted to make sure you were okay. See if you wanted to," Summer rolled her eyes, "talk. But you seemed to have Alex's willing ear, so I left."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

An awkward silence followed.

"Summer, it wasn't like…"

"It wasn't like WHAT Chino? Like I'm being replaced? Because, yeah. It kind of, sorta is exactly like that."

"No." Ryan shook his head. "She's not involved. Alex didn't know Marissa, doesn't know you or Luke. She can just listen and not judge. I don't have to watch what I say around her."

"You don't have to watch what you say around me either."

"So I can tell you that I hate Marissa for giving me all these fresh nightmares? For all the shit she's put me through in the last year? I can tell you that?"

Summer winced and bit her lip. She ducked her head slightly. "Yeah, you can. Marissa, I loved her. She's dead. You're not. It… old shit doesn't matter."

Ryan sighed. "Yeah, Summer, old shit does matter. That's why I'm here. To talk about your old shit. And why you're pushing people away."

"I'm not."

"Seth of all people. You guys are finally… you love each other. Why can't you give in and be with him instead of pushing him away?"

"I'm not pushing him away!" Summer exclaimed. "He has a girlfriend. I'm trying to do the right thing for him and it's really, really hard!"

"Oh."

"Look, Ryan, truthfully, all I want in the world is to be comforted. But the one person I trusted to do that, the one person I trusted to always be there, is gone. So forgive me for finding it a little difficult to throw myself sobbing into someone's arms. I can't. I'm just not that kind of girl."

"That was Marissa," Luke says from the doorway. He looks sort of sad and soft, but also content, like he's made his piece with the world. Summer's never been at peace with the world.

"Yeah. It was. She was always the nice one. She always had my back."

"Like the time she kept that scrawny squirrel in a cage on the Cooper's dining table for months?" Luke teased gently.

"That was, like, fourth grade!"

Ryan looked between his friends curiously. "How did Julie handle having a squirrel living in her house?"

"She was fine with it… until it bit Caitlin and she had to get all these rabies shots."

"You're kidding."

"Marissa, um, was a really good friend." Summer said sheepishly.

"To all of us," Ryan confirmed.

"She just had some drama."

"The drama was part of the fun," Summer insisted reaching for Princess Sparkle.

The boys eyed her skeptically.

"Come on. Do you think the three of us would be sitting here if we hadn't gone through Tijuana together? And rescuing Marissa from the Psych Ward? And the Cooper's divorce?"

"And the drinking thing. And the shoplifting thing."

"And the Oliver thing. And the, um, Luke thing."

"And the running away thing. And the Ryan thing. And the drinking thing again," Summer concluded. "Yeah."

"Hey, that Marissa. Really brought people together," Luke commented snidely.

"She did."

"You see Ryan?" Summer turned to her friend. "I'm not pushing anyone away. I needed to think. You know, about Marissa and my feelings and everything."

"How's that working out for you?"

"I don't think I'm making a lot of progress."

"Me either."

"I keep turning it over and over and I'm not getting anywhere."

"I know the feeling. It's…"

"Too much?"

"Which is why we have each other," Luke grinned triumphantly at his friends.