A/N: I'm baaaack! Yay! After a few weeks, I bring you the (hopefully) much-anticipated sequel to The Difference. I am telling you right now, this story is full of angst. I must say that I thought I didn't not do a good job on TD at all, I just reread it (and cringed every thirty seconds at the horrible writing), I mean, it barely even had a plot! This story will be sooooooooo much better; it's not plotless, although some of you are going to hate me at the end of this chapter. So, without further ado, I present to you Chapter One of Life Was Perfect.

Life was perfect.

Life had been perfect for almost seven years, now, ever since the birth of Madison Olivia Atwood, her daughter. Life had gotten, if possible, even more perfect about a year after that, when Marissa had married Ryan, the love of her life. Marissa was no longer a Cooper, and truthfully, she was thankful. Her mother was not on top of her favorite people list, although her father almost redeemed the Cooper name. It was just so much… better, being Marissa Atwood, although Summer had deemed any possible nickname from it (mainly "At" and "Wood") stupid, and had continued to call her Coop for the last six years.

Speaking of Summer, Marissa realized that she needed to go see her, now. Madison had been over at the Cohen's for a play-date with six-year-old Katie, her best friend. Marissa wondered what her daughter was doing now, and realized, without even having to thing, that the most likely answer was chasing Katie's three-year-old brother, Evan, with Summer's cosmetics. Every time Maddy went over there (which was quite often), Marissa offered to stay and help get the lipstick out of her nephew's face, and was usually taken up on the offer. Last time she had checked, there were now six empty make-up remover bottles in their rarely used recycling bin.

Marissa grabbed her keys, and headed out the door, blowing a kiss to the framed picture of Ryan on their wall.

She stepped outside, locking the door, and jogged next-door, to the (second) Cohen mansion. Marissa had to smile every time she looked at her or Seth's house. The day Seth had turned twenty-one, he had been informed that when his grandfather died, he had not left all his money to Julie Cooper-Nichol, but had left his millions and millions of dollars to one Seth Cohen of Newport Beach.

Needless to say, Seth now had a restraining order against Marissa's mother. Not that anyone cared, mind you. Julie was finally out of their hair, and Maddy wasn't too upset that she never knew her maternal grandmother. She had three other grandparents that loved her: Jimmy, Sandy, and Kirsten, naturally.

Anyways, Seth had immediately taken the fortune and bought large mansions, across the street from his parent's house, for his family and the Atwoods. He never really got why his grandfather left him the fortune, but Marissa supposed that Caleb thought that Kirsten and Sandy had enough money as it was. And now, so did Seth. He would never need to set foot in an office again, but he had decided that he wanted to work. Summer wasn't exactly thrilled when shelearned that her husband was writing another graphic novel, but he promised her this time he would never hire any employeesnamed Zach. Seth worked at home, though. Speaking of the Cohen residence...

The thing was, Marissa thought, as she rang the Cohen's doorbell, that maybe… maybe it was just too perfect. Life had been absolutely wonderful for the last seven years: would it last much longer?

Marissa shook off that notion, she was just being paranoid. If anything, things would get better, not worse.

She was snapped out of her musings by the door opening. Summer ushered her inside.

"The usual?" Marissa asked.

"Surprisingly, no. Last night, Seth had a looooooong talk with Evan, explaining why make-up was a bad thing and pointing out good places to hide if the girls approached him with my lipstick again."

"So what'd they do?"

Summer led her into the family room, where about sixty blonde dolls lay, in extremely mismatched clothes.

"Barbies?"

"Yup."

Marissa felt a tug at her shirt, and looked down at a small blonde girl, looking anxiously up at her.

"Hi, Mommy! Guess what? Today, I played Barbies with Katie and it was soooo much fun and we had one be you an one be Auntie Summer and one be me and one be Katie and then we had the blonde Ken be Daddy and the brown one be Uncle Seth and the little one be Evan and they were all a family and I had lots and lots and lots of fun!" Madison pointed out which doll was which person as she chattered.

"That's great!" Marissa noticed that the doll that was supposed to be her was wearing a bright orange top and dark khaki-pants. Yikes.

A small dark-haired girl, who looked to be about five but was really six, approached them.

"Hey, Katie," Marissa said, bending down and giving her niece a hug.

"Hey, Aunt Rissy? We were wondering…" Katie said, taking her thumb out of her mouth.

"Can we have a sleepover? Please?" the girls said together.

Summer looked warily over at her best friend. "Not tonight, girls," she said.

Marissa agreed. "You have school tomorrow."

"You guys are no fun," Madison pouted.

"I know," Summer said. "Come on, Katie, it's almost six. Let's go make dinner."

Katie defiantly stuck her thumb back in her mouth.

Marissa picked up her daughter. "Let's go, Maddy."

Madison pouted, but allowed herself to be carried away by her mother. "Bye!" she yelled over her mom's shoulder.

"Bye!" Katie yelled back.

Marissa put Madison down as soon as they stepped inside. Looking at her watch, she realized Ryan was probably home, and judging by his car in the driveway, he was.

She went upstairs looking for her husband.

"Ryan?" she asked, knocking on their bedroom door. No one answered. She pushed it open, and her eyes widened in shock.

Ryan was lying on their bed, shirtless, his chin covered in lipstick stains. And he wasn't alone. His secretary was on the bed next to him. Marissa vaguely noticed that the collar of his shirt, which was lying on the floor near the hamper, had red all over it too.

"Oh, my God," she said softly, and Ryan looked up.

"Damn," he muttered.

Life was perfect- up until now.

A/N: So? What'd ya think? I probably will not be posting any more chapters for a week, as I am banned from the computer til next Wednesday. Review!