Summer sat in the car, feeling her pulse get slower and slower. What is wrong with me, she wondered. Every time she imagined Seth's hands running up her skin she felt her bloodstreams turn to ice. So this must be what Julie Cooper feels when Caleb wants some, she shuddered at her own thought. Then she realized what that meant.

"Oh my God. I don't think I'm attracted to Seth anymore." She felt her heart slow further down as she realized what this meant.

She had to talk to someone. Someone who listened. Someone like Coop. She quickly pushed the keys into the start roughly and felt, rather than heard, a blast of emo music from her sound system. Even when he wasn't with her, Seth was suffocating her. She quickly shoved one foot on the brake and one foot on the accelerator and hoped to god a passing cop wouldn't recognise her and stop her.

She finally pulled up outside Coop's palace…or prison. Suddenly she hesitated – the house looked so foreboding, so sinister. She imagined it swallowing her up into darkness.

"I'm losing my mind." She muttered to herself, and then laughed. What's the first sign you're going mad? Talking to yourself. The second sign you're losing your mind? Waiting for a reply. She pulled herself out of her car and stumbled up the driveway. Why are my shoes acting so weird? She thought, they're brand new dammit. Then she realized, she had put them on the wrong feet in her haste to get out of the house. She contemplated stopping to fix it, but hurriedly ignored it as she saw someone running down the driveway. It was DJ.

"DJ!" she called, "hey! What's up?"

"You tell Marissa I quit." he snapped, before stumbling into his car and speeding down the driveway like he was finally free. She raised her eyebrows, and kept walking up the long driveway. Then she saw Ryan getting on his bike. Her heart sank.

"Oh God Ryan, what's happened?" she asked the second she reached him. He stopped untangling his bike chain and thought for a second.

"Marissa needs-" he said with an unusual sneer, "- time."

"For what?" she asked innocently, sliding on a coat of cherry lipgloss.

"To work out if one is better than two or not." He snapped, fixing his chain and zooming down the drive in a smear of broodiness.

"O-kay." Summer cried, entering Marissa's room jubilantly, "What the hell is going on between the hot hot yard guy in the yard who is hot, and Chino?"

Marissa looked up, tears slicing pathways in her cheeks. Then she reached over and took a swig of angry gin and she began to choke.

"Jesus Coop it can't be that bad!" Summer snapped in a single breath, "What happened?"

"I for-I for-" Marissa didn't finish her sentence. Summer prompted her.

"You for what?" she demanded.

"I forgot that I'd arranged to meet up with Ryan today." Marissa choked.

"So?"

"So I was having sex with DJ when he arrived!" she snapped.

"Oh shit."

"Could say that." Marissa smeared away a tear, "I can't believe how stupid it's all been! Why did I have to have them both be here! Why did they have to both know I was with them both or – or…What now, Sum? What now?"

"Well." Summer didn't know what to say. And she told Marissa exactly that.

"Tell me the truth." Marissa suggested.

"The truth?" Summer hesitated. The truth was a harsh thing. And Marissa wasn't as tough as she acted.

"The truth." Marissa said stubbornly.

"Fine." Suddenly, something deep inside Summer snapped. She felt words bubbling from her mouth in a manner that can only be described as insane.

"You are a spoilt, snotty, cruel, plastic brat." She found herself hissing, "And I'm disgusted to even know you! How can you keep screwing everything up so perfectly? You're a whore for audiences, you think you own Newport, but then you just sit there, with your head up two guys asses as once, and then you whinge cause one of them realized you were still FUCKING THE OTHER ONE!"

Marissa looked devastated and Summer felt slightly guilty. But she felt something else, too. She felt satisfaction. For crushing Marissa's joy. What kind of a friend am I? She asked herself. But she felt glad too. Maybe Marissa could now see what it was like to be human.

"Summer Roberts, I hate you." Marissa choked, "Get out of my house."

"Gladly!" Summer snapped. She tucked a flyaway hair behind her ear and stormed off, "This is a crappy house anyway!"

As she reached the door, she realized Marissa was talking. Using her poor-little-me voice.

"What are you going to do?" she quavered.

"I-" Summer glared at her, "Am going to go cheer up Chino. God knows he's probably blaming himself for your actions. Trust a good person like him to fall in love with you. You're a slut, just like your mother."

She felt guilty after saying this, but soon forgot, as a tenth of a second later Marissa retaliated in her usual insane way.

Her mouth was gaping like a fish and she was fast at reacting.

"Get OUT GET OUT!" she began screaming. She then picked up her bedside lamp and threw it at Summer. It shattered on the wall next to Summer's head. She looked disgustedly at the crumpled figure sobbing on the bed and left.

"Bitch." Summer muttered, getting into her car, "Coop's officially become a loose cannon."

Then she rested her head on the steering wheel for a minute. After a while she put the keys in the ignition and drove away. But she didn't know where she should head off now – maybe she could actually visit Chino?

Yeah, she thought that's what I'll do. I'm sure he won't mind seeing me and God knows he needs to be cheered up. All that brooding's unhealthy.

The prospect of playing mother duck appealed to Summer immensely

Yeah, she decided, I don't think he'd mind seeing me.