Taylor lay in her bed, feeling foolish about her earlier breakdown. Sure, everything had been smoothed over; she had spoken to Anna and Ryan, but it still made her feel idiotic to have broken down like that in front of him.

She lifted herself up onto her elbow and saw that it was eight-thirty in the evening. Sighing to herself, she flopped down back onto her pillow, slightly mortified that she was home alone on a Friday night. It was her own choice not to go to the movie with them, she told herself. The two girls who lived next store to her turned their music up loud and she could hear the excited shouts of two young men. Someone was going to get lucky tonight, she told herself, and it wasn't going to be her.

There was a knock at her door and she decided to ignore it; no doubt it was someone from the party next store seeing if Taylor was interested in joining them. She wasn't. There was another knock and Taylor was about to tell the person to leave her alone when she heard Summer's voice.

"You in there Taylor?"

"Just a minute." Springing to life, she opened the door in and let Summer in. "Hey Summer—I thought you had a dinner party tonight?"

"I do—I did. You just sounded so sad over the phone this afternoon—what happened?"

"Nothing." They sat down on her bed and Taylor chuckled as Summer gave her a look. "Okay I had a little melt down today."

"About Atwood?"

"Yeah—we were just talking and I don't know—we started talking about us."

"Brought back a lot of bad memories?" Taylor nodded and fell into Summer's hug. "Was he mean to you or something?"

"He didn't mean to be—I just needed to hear it and now I know."

"Know what?"

"That he loves Sadie—he's really completely moved on. I think I was using him as an excuse not to date; but now that I know he's really moved on."

"Now you can too—didn't you get some guy's number last night?"

"Yeah I did—and I'm kind of glad that I had that talk with Ryan now because otherwise I probably would have torpedoed whatever happened with Gregg."

"Are you and Ryan okay now?"

"I think so—we talked this afternoon and I apologized." She had told him she hadn't meant to have freaked out on him so much that morning; her period was approaching any day now, she had told him, and she was always extra sensitive right before then. "It's almost my period so you know I can get."

"Yeah—some of my best fights with Cohen was when I was on my period." They sat on the bed in silence and listened to the party next store. "Do you want to come with me to the dinner party tonight? We're doing Boca burgers."

"I think I'm just going to stay in. Do you have to leave soon?"

"No—I can get there whenever." Summer smiled and asked if Taylor wanted to watch a movie or go back to her dorm and help her do some Green Party protest planning.

"A movie might be nice—I have some new anime."

"You totally are the female Cohen—in a good way I mean." Summer asked Taylor how he was doing. "You know, I'm glad that you're friends."

"I know—if you can't look out for him, someone needs to."

"Ryan doesn't exactly like me anymore—does he?" She held up a movie for Taylor's approval. "I know I didn't make the Cohens very happy."

"It was really hard on him."

"He'll move on though—right?"

"Of course—I mean, Ryan found someone and now I'm officially in the dating pool with Anna."

"I know—it's nice." Summer slid back onto the bed with Taylor and looked at her friend, suddenly very serious. "I want to start dating again." Taylor felt her heart skip a beat; this was going to crush Seth.

"Oh—so soon?"

"Not soon—we've been broken up since May." She eyed her friend closely and saw the sadness in Taylor's eyes. "You disapprove?"

"Summer—I" Her friend's face looked hurt and lonely and as she did, she realized that this step had been no doubt inevitable. "I was just surprised for a second." She smiled reassuringly to the dark haired girl. "Do you like somebody?"

"There's this guy Matt—I know him through P.E.T.A. We get coffee from time to time."

"You think he's interested?" Summer wiped an errant strand of hair from her eyes and grinned; she was obviously warming up to the girl talk.

"He's made his interests known yes—I just haven't been sure if I was ready yet."

"And now you think you're ready?"

"Yes—I got so jealous hearing about you and Anna, meeting cute guys." She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know—I guess it made me realize that I missed dating and wanted to start seeing people again."

"Well if you're ready Summer—I say go for it." Maybe this was truly it, maybe this truly was the end of Seth and Summer? Taylor had been holding out hope that her friend would realize what she was missing with Seth and realize that she had been acting foolish in breaking up with him. Now, it seemed like Summer was in fact looking to strike out confidently in the dating world.

"Maybe we could double if it works out with your guy?"

"Sure—we could do that." As she watched her friend's happiness, she thought of how she was going to break the news to Seth. She really didn't want him to know, but at the same time, she didn't want him to find out while out on a night on the town. Keeping secrets from him was the best possible way to lose a friendship with him. "Is he going to be there tonight?"

"At the dinner part? No, I don't think so." Summer got down back onto the floor and started looking through Taylor's movie collection again. "I'm not going to go tonight either."

"Why so?" Summer held up another movie—something more girlie then the previous choice.

"Well all this talk about boys and dating has brought out the inner-girlie girl and I think we should have a total movie marathon."

"I like that sound of that Summer." Taylor watched as her friend turned on the DVD player and put the movie in. "Thanks for coming over tonight and for blowing off your party."

"I'd rather be here." She smiled; Summer sat down on the bed and watched Taylor as she started to busy herself with the microwavable popcorn.