"Seasons Change"
By Sister Rose
Rated R
A/N: This is the chapter where things start to get particularly R-rated, so some of you need to bail now. Thanks!
The characters of "The O.C." belong to Fox, and no infringement of those rights is intended in this fictional work.
Chapter 17
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Summer sat in the middle of her four-poster bed, surrounded by fluffy peach pillows and three boxes' worth of used tissues. It didn't matter. They hadn't helped. She was still crying, over a useless man of all things. A two-timing skank of a man. Who had broken her heart.
Again.
Because she was stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Really stupid. Like Paris Hilton carrying around a stupid little dog in a stupid little pink case stupid. Like reality show contestant stupid. Like answering Nigerian scam e-mail stupid. That's how stupid Summer was. She was going to show up on the front of "America's Stupidest People." Of course, she was too stupid to know whether that magazine really existed, but if it did, she was stupid enough to be the cover girl for it.
She grabbed another tissue and honked again. She certainly hadn't cried this much when Zach had left. Of course, she had been the one to tell Zach to hit the road, but Summer still thought a divorce should account for more tears than a simple breakup.
For the second time.
For the second dumping.
Summer had never let anybody have a second try at breaking her heart. Most people didn't get one chance, and she couldn't figure out why Atwood had been the exception. Love certainly wasn't an adequate excuse.
Just because she did love that sorry excuse for a boyfriend. For an ex-boyfriend. With beautiful blue eyes she could drown in. With a neck just made for nibbling. With broad shoulders and strong arms to hold her when she fell.
Not that he had been there to catch her when she really fell, had he?
The telephone interrupted her paean of self-pity. The machine was full of calls from Luke and Seth and Theresa and that no-good rat Atwood. Summer listened to her outgoing message and then the announcement that the mailbox was full. She didn't care. She dropped her used tissue, reached for another celery stick and dipped it into the Cherries Garcia ice cream carton between her crossed legs.
Summer had made just two phone calls since -- well, since she learned the truth. First, she had called Martinez Landscaping and left a message to the effect that she no longer required any landscaping services. It had been a satisfying, strongly worded phone call. Then she had called in sick to work. That had been two days ago, and she was going to have to buck up and return soon. At least Summer was trapped in her house because she wanted to be, not because she couldn't get out, not like poor Mrs. Cohen.
She thought about poor Mrs. Cohen, stuck in a prison cell with none of the basics of life, including ice cream. Summer hadn't expected Mrs. Cohen to look so – stripped. Before prison, Mrs. Cohen had always looked perfect – not trendy, but sophisticated. In the slammer, without makeup or hair products, Mrs. Cohen's face had been dry and worn with creases, her hair limp and showing gray, not gold, above the blue jumpsuit. Mrs. Cohen had accepted Summer's offering of Kiehl's Cucumber Moisturizing Lotion quietly, with a small smile, before she turned all her attention to Seth. She hadn't even acted like she hated Summer, the way she used to do.
Summer hadn't liked seeing Seth that vulnerable. It had been bad enough with his dad, but at least then Seth had been able to hold back the tears. Well, hold them back a little. He hadn't been able to stem the tide when faced with his mother looking so – old.
Mrs. Cohen hadn't cried, not even when Seth did, until Seth brought up Mr. Cohen and how he believed in her and wanted to help her get out of prison. Even then, Mrs. Cohen kept trying to stifle the tears, ducking her head and wiping her eyes with her jumpsuit sleeve. When the other inmates kept looking over at them was when Summer finally realized that Mrs. Cohen couldn't afford to look weak. She had probably been an instant target, even in this softer country club prison environment, with her delicate face and high-profile case. Mrs. Cohen must have toughened up. When she figured it out, Summer started sniffling loudly herself, so that anyone looking at them would think it was just Summer crying, not Mrs. Cohen.
Mrs. Cohen had been able to produce a name – some guy named Lindsay – for Mr. Cohen to start tracking down. This Lindsay had gotten checks from The Newport Group for several years, but Mrs. Cohen didn't know anything else about him. She didn't think they would find the guy before her prison term was up, but she said it was OK for Mr. Cohen to start looking. And she had given Seth directions to a bunch of documents that she didn't think the prosecuting attorneys knew about, papers that might provide clues about where to find this Lindsay character. That had been a hope for Seth to take home from the hard day and a chore to keep Mr. Cohen out of trouble and off the bottle. She hoped they all got what they needed from the search.
It didn't matter to her any more. Even if it had mattered once.
She was done with them. And she was going to get over them. She was going to get over Seth's lies and Atwood's lies and Luke's lies and everyone else's. It was about time for her to be a grownup. People got lied to and dumped by their boyfriends all the time on "The Valley," and you didn't see them sitting in piles of used tissue. No, sirree, they got up and got on about their business.
They made choices and moved on. They didn't wallow.
Summer took another bite of ice cream on celery. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but after two quarts, it was beginning not to taste quite as delicious.
Summer took another bite to be sure. Yeah, she was done wallowing. She heaved herself out of bed and grabbed the carton and the bag of celery sticks. She carried them to the kitchen, and pitched them on top of the fateful peach ensemble in the trash. She watched the ice cream dribble down on top of the broken-heeled shoe, which was on top of some apples that had ruined when she started bingeing on ice cream. It seemed symbolic of her entire doomed relationship with Atwood. She wasn't sure exactly how it was symbolic, but she was certain it had to be.
At any rate, it was time to take out the trash before it got any nastier and before she had to look at that horrible bad-luck outfit any more. She was going to make choices before the choices made her. Or something like that.
Summer dragged herself back into her bedroom and changed into her rattiest shorts and a sorority tank top. She thought about her freshman pledge never to wear her sorority shirt unless she looked her best. She thought about her hair, unwashed for three days, and her makeup, unmade for two. Screw it, she thought. Her pledge sisters and her dad who had made her pledge and her mom who left her as a legacy to that chapter and Seth and Luke and Atwood and especially Theresa could all kiss her giant swinging donkey dick! So there!
Summer slapped one hand over her mouth, as horrified as if she had actually said what she had been thinking. She giggled a little then sighed – and didn't change clothes. She put on her garden flip-flops and went to the kitchen to pick up the trash. She walked out the door to the patio, smelly bag hanging from a plastic string in her hands, and ran into Seth's bony chest.
She didn't know what to say, so she immediately went on the attack.
"What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you," Seth said.
"What a surprise," Summer said. "I'm here at my own house, minding my own business. Why aren't you minding yours?"
"I was worried about you," Seth said. "You didn't answer the phone."
"No need to be worried," she told him. "Just because you told me Atwood wanted to marry me when he really just wanted to get back to his daughter. No need to worry. Nothing for you to worry about at all. Just go on about your business."
She tried to march past him, but he moved in front of her.
"I just want to talk to you," he said.
"And I don't want to talk to you," she said, moving again. When his body got in front of hers again, she handed him the trash. "Here. Make yourself useful."
She turned on her heel and marched back into the house, locking the door behind her. Ha! That would show him.
She peeked through the kitchen window curtains as he made a disgusted face. He must have caught a whiff of her spoiled apples. Too bad she hadn't thought to throw one at him. That really would have sent him out the garden gate.
She watched as Seth trudged out to dump her trash in the alley. He came back in empty-handed but with resolution written on his face. Well, he could just resolute himself all he wanted. She was going back to bed.
She toed off her flip-flops beside the four-poster and climbed in underneath the covers, scattering used tissues like a rain of dying swans. That's how she felt. Like a dying, snot-filled swan. She pulled the covers up to her shoulders and snuggled in, feeling the dark warmth surround her like a soft coffin.
She wasn't prepared for her warm safety to be ripped away from her. Seth stood over her in the bed, rumpled hair looking even more rumpled with his agitation. It flopped around in distress as he grabbed the rest of her blankets and pulled.
"Time to get up, Princess," he said.
"No!" Summer scrambled to retrieve her covers. They were soft and downy and peachy and warm and safe. Seth couldn't have them; she needed them. Her arms flailed as she reached for the disappearing blankets. Her desperate grab for the safety of her blankets and Seth's strong yank of them at the same time pulled Summer to the floor, her bottom colliding with unyielding hardwoods that had seemed like a good idea when she ordered them.
Feelings hurting, emotions hurting and backside hurting, Summer started to cry again. She thought she had been wrung dry, but apparently not. She wondered if she would ever be done crying.
She sobbed harder as she felt Seth's body settle beside hers and his long arm reach around her shoulders.
"There, there," he said, patting her on the arm awkwardly.
She hid her wracking face with the tail of her sorority shirt. Seth didn't need to see. He wasn't her friend anymore. He was Atwood's friend. Atwood had taken her love, her dreams and her pride. She had nothing left, no friends, no boyfriend, no family. She had gambled everything on her love for Atwood, and she had lost. She couldn't call anyone. She was alone in this big house, even with Seth sitting right beside her.
He pulled her face toward him and she felt herself leaning into his chest. The tears fell into his shirt and her arms went around his neck as she cried in his embrace.
Her face was red and hot and itchy when she finally stopped crying. Gross. She wiped the edge of her nose with the sides of her fingers and looked around for an unused tissue in an attempt to regain her dignity.
"Here," Seth said, handing her one.
"Thank you," Summer said politely. "Thank you for stopping by this afternoon. I appreciate your concern. I'll be fine now."
She blew into the tissue.
"That's nice," Seth said. "Are you ready to go?"
"Go?" Summer looked up from dabbing her face with the unused corners of the tissue.
"Yeah, I need your help," Seth said.
"I'm not really dressed for that," she said, carefully not looking at the giant wet stain on his shirt.
"You don't have to dress up," Seth said. "I'm about to make a real estate investment, and I need a financial professional to give me some advice."
"Seth, I only worked at that mortgage bank for a few months," Summer said. "I'm not really the best person to ask."
"You're the only person I know who can come look at this property and give me an unbiased estimate right this minute," he said.
Summer totted up the emotional support she owed him for letting him snot all over his chest and nodded.
"Just let me wash my face," she said, turning toward the bathroom.
"Make it fast," Seth said. "And don't bother to change clothes. I'm kind of on a schedule. It's a limited-time deal."
Summer came out of the bathroom, scrubbing at her face with a wet peach-colored cloth.
"Seth, you know I'm against limited-time offers on general principle," she said. "It's too risky. If the owner wants to sell that badly, then let the deal go."
"I'm hoping you'll make an exception once you see the property," Seth said. "At least come take a look?"
Summer folded the washcloth. She sighed and dropped it in the sink, looking around at her disaster of a room. She shook her head. Her whole life needed a scrub job. She was sick of living in peach and being fluffy. She was stronger than that.
"Let's go," she said, picking up her cell phone and her keys. She could call her housekeeper for an emergency cleanup while they drove. One step at a time to a changed life.
