The Star Crossed Lovers Gig

"I can't see him, Summer."

Marissa keeps her head buried halfway in the closet she's poking through as she turns her friend down flatly. Even so, she knows exactly what she'd see if she turned around. Summer's hands are on her hips, her head cocked to the side, one foot tapping impatiently as waits for further explanation.

"And why not?" Summer explodes when a few minutes have passed and Marissa hasn't volunteered any information. "He's your boyfriend, Coop. He cares about you."

"Was my boyfriend," Marissa corrects her, still sifting through hangers. She needs a new wardrobe. Every outfit she owns belongs in her old life and she's not the same person she used to be. "Before I killed his brother."

"To save him," Summer points out. "Ryan knows that you only did what you had to do. He's grateful to you, you saved his life."

"And he saved mine with his testimony." She knows what would've happened to her had Ryan not come to her defense. Sandy was always careful to skirt around the issue's edge, but she could hear the underlying meaning of his lawyer-speak. "We're even. We're over."

Summer rolls her eyes at that particularly dramatic statement. "Please, you and Ryan have been "over" like, seventy two times. It's never lasted more than a month."

"Stop it." It's the closest Marissa's come to yelling since everything happened and they both stiffen at the raised decibels. "I appreciate your concern but, really, it's between Ryan and I."

"Not if you won't even talk to him, it's not," Summer argues, stubbornly refusing to back down.

Apparently, she's obtained some of Seth's superior nagging skills since entering into a relationship with him. Which makes sense, because the only reason Marissa's still standing is that she's channeling Ryan's characteristic stoicism. It's strange how much of each other they all make up.

"I'm not going to have this conversation with you, Summer," Marissa says, and there is a tone of finality in her words. "I don't have to explain myself. It's my choice and I don't want to see him. Please don't push me."

Summer lets it drop, but only because if they get into a fight, Marissa is all the less likely to go along with her plan, when she devises one. Summer likes things neatly arranged, gift-wrapped in shiny paper and pretty bows. Ryan and Marissa are two dangling strings and she firmly believes that if she can tie their loose ends together again, everything else will fall into place.

XXX

"I can't see her, Summer."

Unlike her best friend, Ryan meets her eyes steadily as he says it. On his tongue, the words are not a denial, but a confession. Whereas Marissa's can't is interchangeable with won't, Ryan's is a long-suffering sigh, an admittance of defeat.

Summer strikes the same fighting stance she took against Marissa's argument, fisted hands on jutted hips, her toes transmitting Morse code to the floor. "And why not?" she demands for the second time that day, not understanding why no one will help her rebuild their ruins.

He shrugs, at a loss. "Julie isn't letting me within ten feet of the house."

"So?"

"So it's not just that, Summer." Ryan sighs and collects his thoughts. "It's not just her mom. I've called her cell phone. She doesn't answer and she doesn't return my messages. It's her decision."

"Yeah, that's what you both think," Summer mutters darkly. She broods for a few minutes, her brows knitting together, and then Seth enters the room and does a double take.

"Whoa. Summer, you look like Ryan," he proclaims, pressing a kiss to the crease in her forehead. "You guys have been spending way too much time together."

Ryan chuckles uncomfortably and wonders why his skin suddenly feels too tight. Ever since the other night, when Summer's fingers touched his knee and ignited his veins, he's felt oddly guilty around Seth. It's not like he's done anything wrong, but still. Being attracted to the only girl his brother's ever loved – even if it was only for an instant – feels like a betrayal.

"I was just trying to convince him to go out with Marissa this weekend," Summer says smoothly, confidently, but her eyes linger on the boy in question as she shifts into her boyfriend's waiting arms. "Don't you think it'd be good for them?"

"Yeah, great idea," Seth enthuses. "We haven't had any fun in awhile. What if we caught a movie? Oh, or hit the Bait Shop? I feel like I haven't been there since … I worked there that time."

"Cohen." Summer's withering glare shuts him up. "It's not a group activity. Ryan and Marissa need some alone time to sort things out."

"That, too." Seth nods along, not wanting to point out that Ryan and Marissa 'alone time' usually has the outcome of, well, a shootout. Motionless bodies and open wounds all around. "You should do it, man. You're probably the only person she wants to talk to."

Summer gives Ryan a pointed look, as if to say, See? Even Seth gets it. Understanding the unspoken message, Ryan relents. "Okay. If you two are actually agreeing on something, you must be on the right track. I'll give it a try. If Marissa agrees."

Thinking back on the conversation she'd had earlier with her best friend, Summer only nods grimly. "Oh, she'll agree," she promises. "Seven o'clock, Friday night. It's a date."

XXX

To keep up appearances for Julie, Summer picks Marissa up and drops her off at the diner. Ryan is waiting outside, slouched against a telephone pole, and he leans into Summer's window as Marissa lets herself out. "Thanks for helping out with this, Summer," he says earnestly, "Did she – say anything on the way over?"

"Just that she was excited." Summer tells herself the lie is for a good cause. It had taken some major cajoling to get Marissa to come and she'd been oddly silent on the ride. "Good luck, Chino."

Then she pulls away from the curb, leaving Marissa on the sidewalk and Ryan in the street, standing a strange distance apart. Wondering why she ever agreed to this, Marissa is the first to speak. "So, uh, how have you … been? With everything?"

"I'm okay," Ryan answers truthfully. Because it's ridiculous that they be standing so far apart, he inches closer. "How about you? The trial … it must have been tough."

"It's over now." She shrugs. Funny how with everything they have to talk about, she can't think of a thing to say. "I'm sorry, Ryan. About Trey."

"No. I am. He shouldn't have … he shouldn't have," Ryan finishes lamely. Even he doesn't know if he's referring to what his brother did to Marissa or him or both. "It's better this way, I think."

It's the first time they've acknowledged the corner they'd unwittingly turned that night. Nothing will ever be the same again. It's a different world now and Trey's death will always weigh on Ryan's shoulders, lurk in the edges of Marissa's nightmares.

But they're both still breathing, hard as it sometimes seems, and that has to count for something. There is a few feet of concrete and a world of tragedy between them, but their eyes are meeting for the first time in months and neither is looking away. That has to count for something, too.

Marissa works up a smile as Ryan moves past her to hold the door and they cross the threshold at the same time, perfectly in step, and the hope that blossoms in her chest counts for more than anything else.

"How'd it go?" Summer asks eagerly, when Marissa has climbed back into the car an hour later.

Her friend smiles a little, the first upward motion her lips have made in months. "Good," she replies vaguely, like she is harboring a secret close to her heart. "It went really good."

And Summer smiles, too, because her best friend is on the road to recovery and she chauffeured her there, but then she looks in the rearview mirror and her grin falters. Ryan is shrinking, fading from her sight as the horizon and Marissa's grin swallow him up, and she doesn't think she should be this sad about leaving her best friend's boyfriend behind.