Disclaimer: I do not own any of the O.C. characters. They belong to Josh and Fox. I do own Celeste though, and the odd characters that will make appearances here and there. Don't own the songs mentioned or used in this chapter.
AN: I found that I'm going to have to play around with the Season Three storyline a bit, well a lot, to have this go the way I want... so... Jimmy left, Julie hasn't lost the house yet, Charlotte is already gone. The 'Dean of Discipline' is still around. That should be it for now...
After helping clean up the kitchen, Celeste headed towards her room. Once she was inside she turned on her music, and quickly changed out of her pajamas and into a pair of dark blue jeans and a pale yellow tank top. Celeste pulled the ponytail out of her hair, and let her brown hair fall around her shoulders. Turning her music up the song changed and one of her favorite songs began to play.
"I never promised you a ray of light. I never promised there'd be sunshine everyday. I gave you everything I have. The good. The bad. Why do you put me on a pedestal? I'm so up high that I can't see the ground below." Celeste sang along, as tears began to sting her eyes. She quickly changed the song. No, she couldn't listen to it, not anymore. It brought back to many memories. The song reminded her to much of who she was trying so hard not to be anymore. It surprised her how easily a song she loved, could bring tears.
A knock on the door pulled Celeste out of her memories. "Yea?"
"Mind if I come in?"
"Not at all Summy." Celeste replied turning off her music.
The door opened and Celeste smiled at her cousin as she came into the room. "I just got off the phone with Marissa. The gangs meeting at the diner. Marissa's bring a couple of her friends from Newport Union."
"I thought she went to Harbor with you."
"She use to. After an incident this summer and at the beginning of the year, her and Ryan were kind of kicked out."
"Let me guess, they got kicked out for really stupid reasons?"
"Basically..." Summer trailed off, not really wanting to go over the reasons that got her best friend and Ryan kicked out of Harbor.
"So these friends of Marissa's, guys or girls?"
"Guys."
"Oh really. They cute?"
"You could say that." Summer smiled at Celeste.
"I see, you're not going to say what you think, 'cause you got a boyfriend."
"Exactly."
Celeste shook her head, "So we gonna go, or what?"
"I was waiting on you." Summer laughed.
Picking her sunglasses up off of her night stand Celeste smiled, "Mind if we walk? I want some fresh air, and yesterday I was cramped up in the car most of the time."
"Not at all, we'll just be running a little late." Summer shrugged as they left the room.
"About time the two of you got here." Marissa said as Summer and Celeste made their way to the booth everyone was sitting at.
Summer slid in to sit beside her boyfriend and looked at Marissa, "It's all Celeste's fault."
"Yea, ok, blame the cousin." Celeste said rolling her eyes, pulling a chair over to the table. Turning it around to lean forward on the back of the chair she added, "It's not like you told me that it was going to take that long to walk here. Considering the first time I came here I got a ride, it's kind of hard to tell how long it's going to take to walk."
"You could of asked," Summer shrugged.
Celeste rolled her eyes again and looked at Marissa, "So you going to introduce me to your friends?"
"Of course," Marissa replied. "Celeste, Johnny and Chili. Johnny and Chilli this is Celeste, Summer's cousin."
"Nice to meet the two of you," Celeste smiled.
"You too." The two of them replied.
Turning to Chili Celeste mused, "Chili, that's an odd name. Is it a nickname or something?
"My real name's Dennis," Chili shrugged.
"I see..." Celeste trailed off.
Conversation soon began to pick up around the table, Celeste found herself zoning them out. "Celeste." She suddenly heard Ryan's voice.
"Yea, what?"
"You kinda zoned out there." Summer mused. "Your cell phone's ringing."
"Oh..." Celeste trailed off and looked at her cell phone sitting in front of her. 'Candice's cell' the call display read. "I don't think I'm going to answer it this time," she said out loud.
Summer looked over at Celeste's cell phone, "But isn't that your friend's name?"
"Yea..." Celeste trailed off, "I just... don't really want to answer my phone right now."
"Does this have anything to do with the call you got yesterday?" Summer questioned as the cell phone stopped ringing.
"No," Celeste replied turning away and looking at Johnny and Chili. "So you guys go to Newport Union with Marissa right?"
"Yea," Chili smiled at Celeste.
"What's it like there?" Celeste questioned tilting her head to the side. "Public school I mean. The last time I was in public school was when I was six...I think."
Johnny was about to answer when Celeste's phone started ringing once agin. But the name that came up on call display made her freeze, 'Steve's cell'. Tilting her head to the side she said, "Huh," before picking up her cell phone. She flipped the cell phone open and asked, "What can I do for you Stevie?"
"Don't call me that." The voice on the other end replied.
"You know you love the nickname," Celeste stated. "But look I can't really talk I'm with my cousin and her friends. So make it fast."
"You've never been one for patience." Steve mused.
"Just get to the point of your call Stevie." Celeste laughed.
"Is there anyway you can get back here?"
The smile that had been on Celeste's face disappeared. "Our lovely friend put you up this call didn't she?"
"She's your friend, not mine. Tony's my friend. So do you think you'll be able to get back here anytime soon? Preferably in the next few days?"
"No Stevie. I... I can't. Not for awhile."
"But CeCe..." Steve's voice held such a pleading tone.
"No, that doesn't work. Not anymore. I gotta go. I'll talk to you later." Celeste snapped her cell phone shut and looked at the group. "So...um...anyone hungry?"
"Who was that?" Summer questioned.
"A friend, and don't' give me that look Summer."
"I'm not giving you any look Celeste." Summer stated.
Celeste rolled her eyes and stood up, "Anyone else hungry? I think I'm gonna go get something. I'll be right back."
As Celeste turned to head to the counter, Chili jumped and said, "I'll come with you."
Celeste turned and smiled at him, "Kay."
Summer watched her cousin walk away with Chili. Something was up. Celeste was hiding something, and Summer was determined to find out what it was. Summer knew her cousin well. She knew when Celeste was hiding something from her. She felt Seth poke her. Looking at her boyfriend, Summer asked, "What'd you do that for?"
"To get your attention." Seth stated.
"I got some nachos." Celeste stated as Chili and herself came up to the table. "Didn't really know what's good around here, and Chili wasn't any help in telling me."
"Nachos are fine." Marissa smiled at Celeste.
"Good." Celeste said taking a seat. "So I was thinking all of you should come over for dinner tonight. I volunteered to make it, and the only thing I'm good at making is always too much for only three people to eat."
"Sounds like fun." Chili stated.
"I thought so." Celeste laughed. Glancing at the others she asked, "So any objections to dinner at Summer's place?"
"It's your place now too." Summer glanced at her cousin.
"Kay. So any objections to dinner at my place?"
Celeste's hair was thrown up in a ponytail, as she worked around the kitchen. The others were all in the living room, watching some type of movie, Celeste hadn't bothered to ask. She preferred music over movies, which was why she had brought her small stereo into the kitchen. Right now she was listening to Natasha Bedingfield's song, 'I Bruise Easily' as she mixed a bunch of things together. The one thing she had learnt from her mother, how to cook. Ok, so she only knew how to cook one thing, but that didn't matter to her. It was her mother's recipe that Celeste had imprinted on her memory. It was only there because the day her mother had taught her it was one of few good memories Celeste had of home.
Her uncle Neil and cousin Summer had no clue about the things that went on at her home. They didn't know her mother had cut herself off from the outside world. They didn't know the only reason Celeste was here was because she had left the boarding school- for more then one reason- and her father didn't want her at home.
Her father. He was an asshole, a complete and utter asshole. When Celeste had been a kid, he was her favorite person, aside from her mother. But as she got older he seemed to distance himself from her, and it hurt. It hurt her enough to cause her to rebel against him, which caused him to send her to the boarding school.
Shaking her head Celeste went back to cooking. There was no need to reflect on the past, she had to look towards her future. Celeste thought about it for a moment, her future didn't really seem that bright at the moment. Maybe that's why she was such a 'live by the moment' type of person. Her friends back in England had taught her that. People always took their lives for granted. 'To live your life to the fullest you have to live each day like it's your last day on earth.' That was Tony's motto.
"Need any help in here?" Celeste heard a male voice ask from behind her.
Turning she saw Ryan standing in the door way, "No. I've got everything under control. Plus there's no way I'd let anyone know the secret ingredients, my mom would kill me."
"And what exactly are you making?"
"One of the easiest things in the world to make.." Celeste paused. "Spaghetti. Except I'm making my mom's famous spaghetti sauce. It takes a couple hours to make though."
"I take it your mom's a good cook then."
"She has her weak points. She can make these really good, big, elegant meals. But as soon as you ask her to make a frozen dinner, she freezes. My mom has always preferred to spend hours in the kitchen instead of a few minutes. You can tell when she has a bad day, 'cause that's when you get the big dinners." Celeste shook her head and looked at Ryan, "You should head back into the living room, so that I can add the secret ingredients."
Celeste watched as Ryan left the kitchen. It was time to get to work. Her uncle was going to be back from work in an hour or so, meaning she had to get cracking with dinner.
"This is awesome." Seth said with a mouthful of spaghetti.
Summer hit her boyfriend on the arm, "Don't talk with your mouthful Cohen."
Seth swallowed his food, "Sorry."
Celeste laughed to herself. She could tell her cousin really liked Seth, mainly by the way she looked at him. "So Celeste, how's your mom doing?" Celeste heard her uncle question.
"She's doing good." Celeste replied looking up at her uncle. It wasn't a complete lie. Her mother was doing better then usual. Over the past few years Celeste had watched her mother go from a carefree, lively woman to someone who only got out of bed to eat something and go to the bathroom. What had changed her mother so much, Celeste was still unsure about. Celeste had already decided that, since Neil and Summer didn't already know, she wasn't going to tell them about what her mom was like at the moment. She wanted them to think that everything was still ok at her place. "She wanted to drive up here with me and my dad and stay a couple days to make sure I was settled in, but it was a no go. She had to work and my dad didn't have time to hang around."
"That's too bad." her uncle replied.
"Yea." Celeste sighed, looking down at her plate.
"Johnny, Chili, I haven't seen the two of you around here before. Where do you boys go to school?"
"They go to school with me Dr. Roberts." Marissa replied for them.
"Speaking of school, I need to get a few things for it still." Celeste jumped in. "Do you think you can drive me to the mall tomorrow great uncle of mine?"
"If you're willing to leave early, I don't see why not."
"Why would I have to leave early? And how early are we talking about here?"
"I have a surgery at eight tomorrow."
"Oh," Celeste bit her lip, "Guess I don't need you to drive me there then."
"Seth can drive you and me." Summer offered her boyfriend.
"Great..." Seth trailed off.
Summer hit Seth on the arm, "Don't sound so upset. It'll be fun."
Celeste shot up, her breathing labored. Where the hell was she? Glancing around the dark room, her memory came back to her. She was at her uncle Neil's place in Newport. Last night she had made dinner, and had Summer's friends come over. She was ok, she was safe. Her breathing returned to normal as she rubbed her forehead. Celeste hated it when she had dreams like the one she had just had. She hated the dreams that felt so horribly real.
Lying back down on her bed, Celeste looked over at the clock. 3:02 a.m. The glowing red numbers stared back at her. Celeste closed her eyes and tried to get back to sleep. She couldn't let her dream get to her. She couldn't let seeing everyone she loved die in a dream get to her. She found her attempt to fall asleep again was useless. The sounds all around were keeping her up now. The wind outside. The ticking of the clock on her wall. The hum of her laptop in her bag. Her laptop. She completely forgot she had that. Celeste knew that as soon as she looked at it she was going to have many e-mails. Most of which she knew she wasn't going to want to open.
Celeste willed herself to fall asleep. She felt tired but she couldn't fall back asleep, and it was driving her insane. Opening her eyes, Celeste looked at the night stand beside her bed. She was sure her mp3 player was somewhere around. Celeste spotted it on the floor by the night stand. She picked it up off the ground, and put the earphones in her ears. Quickly searching through the songs, Celeste picked one and pressed play. Music always seemed to help her fall asleep. The beat of the music filled her ears, and Celeste found her eyes slowly closing.
Silence. That's what Summer woke up to the next morning. She thought that she would hear her cousin moving about or something. Summer sat up in bed and stretched. The sun beamed through her window, warming her up as it hit her. Today was going to be a good day.
Summer was about to get out of her bed, when the phone rang. Reaching over Summer grabbed the cordless from her night stand. "Hello?"
"Hey Summer."
"Cohen," Summer smiled to herself. "I miss you."
"Miss you too."
"So you ready to spend the day shopping with me and Celeste?"
"About that..."
"Don't think about skipping out buddy. You're our ride there and home."
"Why don't I just drop you off and pick you up?"
"No, you're coming with us."
"But..."
"No."
"Can I bring Ryan?"
"Sure, I'll call Marissa and see if she wants to come with us."
"Okay. Love you Summer."
"Love you too, Seth."
Summer hit the end button to the cordless. Yawning she dialed Marissa's home number and hit talk. Summer patiently waited for Marissa or Julie to answer, but all she got was the answering machine. Hitting end again Summer dialed Marissa's cell phone number. This attempt also failed, all she got was Marissa's voice mail. 'Might as well leave a message,' Summer thought to herself.
"Hey Coop, it's Summer. We're all heading to the mall. Call my cell as soon as you get this message." Summer hit the end button once again and put the phone back down. Where was Marissa? Summer was usually able to get a hold of her. Sighing she got out of bed, and left her room, heading across the hall to the bathroom, running into Celeste who was leaving the bathroom.
"I thought you were still sleeping." Summer mused.
"No, I've been up for like two hours." Celeste laughed, "I had a shower and ate some cereal. I've been waiting for you to get up."
"You could have woken me up." Summer replied.
"I'm not that mean." Celeste smiled. "So when are we going?"
"In a while."
"That means I have some time to check some e-mails."
Summer nodded, "I'll get you when I'm ready to head out."
"Sounds good to me." Celeste replied heading towards her room.
Summer watched her cousin leave, before heading into the bathroom. Today was going to be interesting. Celeste was an impulse shopper, which always had proved to be interesting. When they were kids Celeste had always had such a random collection of things she'd bought. To say the least it entertained Summer.
Celeste lay on her stomach on her bed. She typed away furiously on her laptop. Fifty-two e-mails. Twenty of which were junk mail. Another twenty were forwards. Leaving twelve actual e-mails. After deleting the forty unimportant e-mails, she skimmed over the names who sent her the twelve e-mails. Candice, Steve, Anna, Steve, Steve, Candice, Tiffany, Candice, Eric, Gavin, Faith, Rose, Candice, Steve, Tony. Celeste froze. Tony? But Tony... he couldn't of possibly sent her an e-mail. Celeste checked the date the e-mail was sent. It was sent three weeks ago. Why hadn't she seen the e-mail before? She always checked her e-mails. Pretty much every day. Sometimes she checked it three times a day. All her other e-mails had been sent in the past two days. The majority of them from Candice and Steve, they just wouldn't leave her alone it seemed.
Biting her lip Celeste pondered whether or not to open the e-mail from Tony. She was afraid of what it could say, and why she hadn't seen it before. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Celeste clicked on the e-mail. When the e-mail opened Celeste's eyes glazed over, she didn't know if she could read the e-mail. She'd been so mean to Tony, so horrible to him. Celeste rubbed at her eyes and focused on the words, she had to know what it said.
To: celestewalker89
From: tjhotboy
CeCe...Celeste...I'm sorry. I figured since you won't listen to me in the hallways, you won't answer my calls, and you won't listen to Candice, I'd send you an e-mail. I made a mistake and I know that. I made promises and I broke them. I did things that I wouldn't even forgive myself for. But, please, listen to me and believe me when I say I'm sorry.
Remember the first day we met? I "accidently" tripped you in the hallway, and you later "accidently" spilt your bloody coffee on me. We had a hate/hate relationship, and then things changed. We have my sister to thank for that. You can't say you weren't happy about how things turned out between you and me then. You can't say you didn't thank my sister everyday.
I know you probably can't forgive me for what I've done, what I've said. But you were just as bad. You did things that were worse as a means of payback. So why don't we say we're even? Why don't' you give me a second chance CeCe? Please. I still care about you a lot. If you don't ignore this e-mail, and read it, write me back. Call me.
Celeste chocked back a sob, as she quickly sat up, closing her laptop. Why hadn't she seen that e-mail before? Why couldn't she have had the chance to reply? She swapped at the tears escaping her eyes. She had to stop crying before Summer came ro say she was ready to go. Celeste didn't want her cousin to see her like this. She didn't want to answer the questions Summer would probably ask. Closing her eyes Celeste took a few deep breaths trying to calm herself down.
"Celeste, I'm ready to go! And Seth will be here in a minute." Celeste heard her cousin call from outside her door.
"Kay. I'll be out in a few minutes." Celeste replied, getting off of her bed. She looked at her small mirror and fixed her hair. At least her eyes weren't red and puffy from the tears.
Sighing Celeste picked her bag up off of the floor and left her room. Celeste looked at Summer and smiled, "So you ready to spend some money?"
Summer returned her cousins smile and replied, "I'm always ready to spend money. You still an impulse shopper?"
"I was never an impulse shopper." Celeste replied. "I just bought, and still buy, things I think I could, and can, use."
"Like the Winnie-the-Pooh toaster?"
"That was just cute, and I thought it would be cool to have." Celeste shrugged.
"Uh huh. What about the chocolate maker? Or the remote control motorcycle."
"Ok the chocolate maker came in handy, and the remote control motorcycle was entertaining."
Summer shook her head, "I can give you a longer list."
"No that's ok." Celeste replied. "I still say I'm not an impulse shopper."
"We'll see about that." Summer laughed.
The sound of a car horn outside made Celeste grin. "Look's like our ride's here."
The two cousins headed outside and Summer locked the door behind them. "I couldn't get a hold of Marissa." Summer stated as the two got into the vehicle. "I left her a message on her cell, it looks like it might just be the four of us today."
"Well this trip to the mall shall prove to be quite interesting." Celeste mused out loud.
AN: Thank you for all the reviews you guys. I'm glad you're liking it so far. Don't forget to leave a review for this chapter! I'm open to most ideas, you give me one and I'll make sure I try to fit it in.