Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter! I know that I am sort of slow when it comes to updating and school starts on Tuesday, but I really will try my hardest to get chapters up. So, please stick with me and this story. Read and review!

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Chapter 8

Summer had made her way up the her hotel room hoping to see Cameron sitting on the bed watching Breakfast at Tiffany's. It fit her mood right now. She slid her plastic hotel key into the slot and watched the light change from red to green. She walked in and noticed a piece of paper on the night stand.

Sum,

Went out with Kelan. Dinner and a movie. Be home around 11:30 and call me when you get in! I'll bring home ice cream or something and you can tell me about your day.

- Cam

Summer smiled and grabbed her cell and called Cameron. No answer. 'Huh,' she thought.

She walked into the bathroom and stripped her clothes off after turning the shower on as hot as she could stand it. She stepped in and thought about the events of the day and about what she had confessed to the Nana. She decided that once she got out of the shower, she would put on a pair of sweat pants and one of Seth's old vintage t-shirts that she had kept all these years, grab a vanilla latte from the Lenox Hill Coffee Shop, get a taxi and head to Battery Park, her number one destination for times when she needed to think.

Forty minutes later and Summer was making her way down the boardwalk with the lamp posts as guidance. She walked out on the pier and sat at the very end, legs swinging over the edge, and the wind blowing her hair all around. She pulled her sweater tighter around her shoulders and wondered what Seth was doing at that moment. 'Probably having a great time with Jenny and some romantic restaurant,' she thought bitterly. Little did she know, that was not the case at all.

Seth walked out of the restaurant, thoughts rushing in and out of his head. He most defiantly did not want to get married. He wasn't even ready. And the kicker for him was that Jenny was the one to tell him that she wanted to get married. He always imagined he would be the one to ask the girl to marry him, not the other way around. Sure, Seth Cohen was open to different things, but he wasn't so sure about the woman asking him, unless the both just knew it and there wasn't really a question of it being a question.

He looked up at the name of the restaurant again and decided to do a little walking through the meat packing district. After about 20 minutes of walking and replaying the events of the day, he remembered where someone told him to go incase he ever needed think.

He walked back to some of the familiar streets that he had been walking on several minutes prior and hailed a taxi that drove by.

"Hi. Battery Park please," Seth told the driver.

He nodded his head and drove off.

A couple of minutes went by and the taxi driver turned on the radio.

"Sorry, but do you mind turning that down?" Seth hated to be rude, but right now he could not take the 80's music that seemed to be making a comeback across the country. And right now, he was in no mood for Madonna.

"Sure," he reached for the knob and lowered the volume. A couple of minutes passed again and the driver said something.

Seth was once again snapped out of his thoughts and heard the last little bit of what the man had said, "going to Battery Park so late at night?" He took that as a why.

"I just need to think some things out. Also, someone told me that it was a good place to go and think."

"Ah, yeah. When I have time off, which is rarely, I like to go there."

"Oh."

"So, kid, everything okay tonight? You seem a bit disheveled."

Seth was really in no mood to talk, but for some reason he felt like he could tell this stranger.

"Well," he looked at the paper that was posted to the car visor and noticed the man's name and the small wallet sized picture of him with both thumbs up, he laughed a little to himself before continuing, "uh, Fonzie? You see I am here with my girlfriend for her job for 2 months. Actually, now that I think about it, she's my ex now, I think, but she told me that she wants to marry me and I don't want to marry her. And of course my ex-girlfriend who I am still in love with is here cause she works for the same company, what are the odds I know," he answered himself. "And today I got a call saying that my Nana was in the hospital and Jesus I am just so fucking confused!"

"Well, if you love this girl, what's her name?"

"Summer. Her name's Summer."

"Well, like I said, if you love her, go get her!"

Seth smiled at the man's words. "I wish it was that easy. But things are complicated."

"Love is complicated, boy, but one of these days you will kill yourself for not going after her. I know I did," Fonzie said as he reminisced.

"You had something like this happen?"

"Yeah, it was a ways back, during World War II. I was drafted over and I left a girlfriend who I loved behind. Before I left I broke her heart by breaking up with her and when I got back, I never called her or anything. Still to this day I regret never doing anything about it."

"It's never too late to call her."

"Your eating your words, kid. You need to call Summer. Work this out. You don't want to end up like me driving cabs around New York and wondering everyday what she is doing and if she still loves you, now do you?"

"No, I don't. Thanks."

"Sure."

"You know, Fonz, you could be a bartender. Your full of stories it seems."

"You are perceptive," he smiled. " I am a bartender. It's my day job."

"Ah, I see. Well, you can turn your 80's music back on now if you want. Thanks for the talk."

Fonzie silently nodded his head and reached to turn the radio back on.

Fifteen minutes later and they arrived at the entrance of the park. Seth reached in his brown corduroy pockets and pulled out 25 dollars and gave it to him and with the wave of his hand, he walked over to the railing and looked out into the water.

---

Summer had just made her way down to the benches that overlooked the Hudson River. She slowly sat down on the bench, latte in hand. Something was telling Summer to look down. Someone was standing by the edge behind the railing looking out. She had never seen anyone here this late at night before and she wondered if they came out to just think too. This was where she had been coming almost every night since she got to New York.

Her cell phone rang and she reached inside of her purse pulling it out. Cameron.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Sum, it's me."

"Hey, Cameron, what's up?"

"Oh, I just got back from the movie with Kelan and I didn't see you here so I thought I would give you a call. Where are you? Don't tell me your at Battery Park again."

"Yeah, I'm sitting on the bench right now."

"Summer! I told you not to go there alone at night. Something could happen, someone creepy could try and talk to you and then rob you!"

"Cameron, chill. I'm fine. I just got here, I'll be back soon."

"Okay, call me if anything happens."

"Okay, mom."

"Bye," Cameron said, acting like she didn't hear what Summer said.

"Hey, wait, did you get that ice cream you promised me in that note?"

"Yeah, mint chocolate chip, your favorite!"

"Oh good, okay I'll be home soon. I have some stuff to tell you. Bye."

"Okay, bye."

'God, she worries too much,' Summer thought.

Just asthat thought went through Summer's mind, she saw a man walking towards her at a sort of fast pace. 'Holy shit, go Summer, get your things together and leave. Fast!'

She was about to stand up when she heard a familiar voice.

"Summer?"

She saw that it was Seth and breathed a sigh of relief before saying, "Shit, Cohen! Give me a God damn heart attack! I thought you were here to try and talk to me and then rob me and run off!"

He laughed.

"Nope, just your friendly neighborhood pal Seth Cohen. I thought I saw someone that looked like you, so I thought I'd check it out."

Seth smiled cheekily.

"So, what are you doing here so late?"

"I could ask you the same question."

"I asked you first," she said as she put her right hand on her hip.

"Well, I remember someone telling me that this place was a good place to think. And that someone was you and you were right about this being a good place."

"Yeah, it is. So what are you thinking about? The Nana?"

"No, actually. I kind of forgot about that."

"Seth! We were just there like," she looked at her watch, "6 hours ago. And she's your Nana!"

Summer scolded him.

"Yeah, well I was at dinner with Jenny and she told me this huge thing."

"Continue," she said after a moment of silence.

"She wants to get married and I told her that I wasn't ready."

Summer now wished she could take back that scold. 'There is still hope!' she thought, a smile tempted to play on her face, but she quickly pushed it away.

"Oh, so what's the deal with you guys now?"

"I think we broke up, but I'm not really sure. I mean it's not like we can still be together if she wants something more that I am just not ready for."

"Yeah, true. So what are you going to do?"

"Well, I think I'll have to get a hotel room. I mean, I can't stay with her. But I need to stay in New York, at least for now, cause the Nana. But, once she gets better I guess I'll go home and try and find a job."

"Oh," Summer didn't mask her disappointment well.

"Yeah, and you never answered my question."

"I was just thinking about the Nana," she took a breath, "and you." She finished quietly.

"Good things, I hope," he joked.

"Always!" she joked right back.

They both smiled at each other.

"Thanks, Sum."

"For what?"

"For being here and going with me today to see the Nana."

"You know I'm here," Summer said, assuring him.

"I know. But, I had a really weird, but very enlightening taxi driver on the way here. You seemed to tell me a very good place to come and think, but you, Miss Roberts forgot to tell me about the wacky taxi drivers that would bring me here."

"Well, Mr. Cohen, tell me about this weird but enlightening driver," Summer said smiling.

"Well, he listened to really weird 80's music that you like to dance to," Seth smiled and continued to smile, "and he had a really funny picture of himself and he told me a really good story about someone he left behind when he had to go over for the war."

He stopped and held her gaze for what seemed like an eternity, but an eternity that he could spend his life in, a gaze that showed unknowing, respect, and love. He wanted to stay under that gaze forever.

"And he told me that love was confusing and complicated and to go after what you want," he placed her hand on her shoulder praying that she wasn't some hallucination. "Jesus, I want you Summer, so bad, but the truth is I'm scared, so scared. I even talked to the Nana about you."

She smiled too. This is what she wanted. "I talked to her about you too."

"You did?" He smiled

"I did."

"Oh, about how you wish I was back in Newport?" He asked, joking.

"No, actually, about how I wished you were here with me, not Jenny."

"Summer."

"Seth, don't say anything."

All of a sudden her mood changed from happy to sad. She walked over to the railing and leaned against it, disposing the rest of her latte into the river. Rivers never changed. Sure, they had different things that would float through them and they emptied out into bigger bodies of water, but they never changed direction. Summer wished she was like the river, constant, unchanging. And at that moment, she wished that for just one day her life wouldn't change direction and let other things in that would dirty it. And she knew at that precise moment that the one thing that would always be able to clean "her river", would be Seth Cohen.

He came and stood next beside her, shoulder to shoulder. He looked at her, she looked at him.

Her eyes going from his eyes to lips. He leaned closer and as soon as she was about to lean in, her phone rang. She closed her eyes and bit her lip. 'Typical,' she thought.

"Hello?"

"Sum! Where are you? You said you'd be home soon. The ice cream is going to melt if you aren't here soon."

"I'll be there," she said, irritated.

"Okay, bye."

"God, can't she ever get a telepathic message from me that I am having a moment with someone!"

He laughed. "No."

"Well, I better go. Cameron is waiting to probably tell me ever detail of her night."

"Yeah, and you wouldn't want to miss that, right?"

"Oh no, of course not," she said, smiling yet again.

"Hey! She sounds kinda like me." Seth said, putting the pieces together.

"Huh, I never noticed that," she said trying to cover up what had attracted her to Cameron in the first place. "Okay, bye."

As Summer leaned up off the railing, Seth's lips caught hers in a quick kiss, but long enough for her to loose her breath. They both pulled away and looked at each other for a minute until Summer remembered that she had to get back.

"I've got to go," she said in a quiet whisper. "Call me tomorrow and I can sneak into your room and get some clothes and stuff so you don't have to go back. Unless you want to."

"Great."

"Okay, bye."

She turned around and started to head back to the Hilton. Every once in a while turning around to see if he was still watching her and sure enough he was. He watched her each and every step, memorizing how she walked and how her hair blew with the wind. He smiled and with that, turned to walk the other way to get a taxi and find a decent hotel room for the night.

They each turned around once more at the same time and gave a final smile, each anticipating tomorrow.

Okay! So that was this chapter. Please review and leave me comments. Good or bad! And tell me what you would like to see happen. I always love to hear suggestions. Thanks for reading!