For Summer

[pocketfullowit]

By Seth's guestimation (God help him if he ever said that word out loud), he'd been on the island for roughly a month. This was more than enough time to become adjusted to island life and to become acquainted with island natives. There was no sipping piña coladas under the sun, but the clothing box was giving him these awesome Hawaiian shirts.

Comments

[queensparkle]

Summer had been calm in recent weeks. She had Seth (even though he wasn't quite her Seth) and she had Marissa (who she hoped would never realize why she was no longer in Summer's life) and not much else mattered. Pollution on the island was non existent, the clothes box was starting to be nicer and Summer missed life back home less and less.

She was laying out in her latest bikini (white with orange poka dots) when she heard Seth and she sat up grinning from ear to ear.

"That's the jukebox song!" She'd started to consider it her own personal theme song, always playing whenever she entered the room.

[pocketfullowit]

Summer. In a bikini. This was something Seth should have been used to by now, but every time it happened, he stared like a fifth grader "reading" Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Issue. If there was a centerfold of Summer, he'd steal all the magazines from people and lock them up.

As soon as he was able to collect his thoughts back into the correct brain, he smiled and joined his appropriately-named Summer. "I'm starting to think it doesn't play anything else," he commented. Not, by the way, not staring down. Much.

[queensparkle]

"I've heard it play other stuff, and I think it totally plays things for particular people. And since we're from California it totally makes sense that it's playing a song about California. I wonder if Atwood gets a Chino song, are there Chino songs?" She grinned at him, all the while desperately trying to ignore the missing years in their relationship.

"So, do you love the island or what?" Aside from the lack of video games, Summer figured that Seth should be in heaven.

[pocketfullowit]

Seth had still been contemplating this Chino song thing, and was about to point out that people from Chino didn't talk much, so you couldn't expect them to sing. Summer, it seemed, was more scatterbrained with that. That was so cute.

"Do I love the island?" he said, considering this question very seriously. He shrugged up one shoulder. "It's another island. Like home, but without my parents and Luke." And where Summer was something Seth hadn't quite put his finger on yet. Not in the literal sense, of course. Well, that, too, but that wasn't the point either.

[queensparkle]

"You know," Summer smirked a bit, "you spent a summer living with Luke. Completely pissed me off." There wasn't much about the future Summer was willing to share with Seth but this small tidbit was worth it.

It was sometimes easy and sometimes awkward to talk to Seth. Today it appeared to be on the easy side.

[pocketfullowit]

Why couldn't things just be easy? Why did this kind of subject always come up as if Seth had any clue what was going on.

"Okay," he sighed. "I know that there's this whole time travel thing happening, and some weird doppleganger business with Marissa, but Luke? Doesn't he spend his summers at some steroid camp, eating seaweed and working on his spray tan?" It was no surprise that he was perplexed, yet again. His wit was running dry in this place and that alone was an annoyance.

[queensparkle]

"His dad came out and then moved to Portland. And Luke had this whole sexual affair that I'm so not telling you about right now and ran away to Portland. Then when you skipped town you went there, for some gay reason. Why'd you do it Cohen?" Ranty Summer sometimes asked questions that her friends wouldn't have the answers to.

[pocketfullowit]

Not that Seth exactly wanted to hear about Luke and any sexual affair. The very thought of it had him pulling a face and raising a palm to stop her. Luckily, she did that herself.

When she continued, however, he kind of wished she'd just tell him about this affair. "Summer, why'd I do what?" he asked, more confused than ever. "How can I tell you why I did something I didn't actually do?" He liked it better when she talked about Brown.

[queensparkle]

"Well you did it eventually and like, it's still the same you. Just earlier." Summer used her own brand of logic which she was convinced made perfect sense.

"So it only makes sense that the you of now would know why the later you would choose to do something even if it's not something that the you of now would necessarily do." The unspoken duh at the end of her statement hung in the air.

"Tell me about Tahiti." The subject change was abrupt and her tone casual though in truth the young girl wanted to know more about the fantasies her boyfriend had before they were together. He rarely discussed them back home.

[pocketfullowit]

Seth gaped at Summer. It wasn't the first time, but as his brain tried to catch up with her subject changes, he realized that he really was a little bit slower than her and maybe that was why she got into Brown.

"Yeah," Seth feigned agreement. "That makes perfect sense." He gave a few confused shifts of his head, and blinked.

"I named my boat after you," he blurted as if that answered all Tahiti questions. The last time he'd said that in front of her, she'd said 'Ew.' It was the best 'ew' he ever remembered.

[queensparkle]

Summer grinned about the boat. The first time she remembered him telling her that was right before he vanished on the boat in question.

"The Summer Breeze, right?" She spoke a little softly though she tried to keep up the appearance of this being a casual conversation.

[pocketfullowit]

"The Summer Breeze," Seth confirmed. That's right, she knew everything, so why wouldn't she know he named his boat for her? In a way, it was annoying since that was still supposed to be a surprise.

In a moment of bravery, Seth inched a bit closer to her, noting the way her bikini strap looked against her tan shoulder and just sort of sat against her collar bone. "Did we ever go to Tahiti?" he finally asked.

[queensparkle]

"No," Summer shook her head watching him carefully, "I would have gone to Tahiti with you Cohen. You never asked." She spoke so softly that it could almost be said that she whispered the words.

Summer took a breath and returned to her normal casual speaking voice, pushing through her moment of nostalgia for events that had never occurred.

"Would Captain Oats come with us?"

[pocketfullowit]

He'd never asked. Not yet. He still had time. Sure, they wouldn't be going on the Summer Breeze, but they could still go.

"Summer," said Seth. "You can't expect me to leave Captain Oats behind. Who'll feed him and put water in his trough? And who's going to talk to him if I'm gone? He'll get lonely. He doesn't do lonely very well."

[queensparkle]

That was the Seth she remembered.

"Princess Sparkle could keep him company. I mean, they're so obviously made for each other. Princess Sparkle is my plastic horse." She said the last part offhandedly, filling Seth in on yet another part of her life. Her parents were divorced and her favorite toy was her plastic horse.

"Do you give him hay or jelly beans?" Summer couldn't recall if they'd ever discussed the eating habits of plastic horses before.

"Princess Sparkle likes jelly beans. Pink of course."

[pocketfullowit]

There were those scattered words again. He wondered if she only did that around him to confuse him, or if everyone was just as confused as he was.

"Wait," he said with a shake of his head as though trying to dislodge a thought from his brain. "You have a plastic horse?" He almost added too, but thought that sounded a little lame.