"What?" Ryan asked as they sat down to have lunch.
"What what?" Seth asked, without even facing his friend.
"What are you looking for?" Ryan took a sip from his juice.
"Nothing. Why?" Seth resumed to his tray of food.
"You are looking for something. Actually, someone. Just tell me."
"Summer." Seth lied. He was actually looking for Brandi, but couldn't see her anywhere.
"Oh, God." Ryan rolled his eyes and grabbed his sandwich.
"Ok, Ryan, listen, you gotta help me find someone." Seth leaned in and it looked like he was telling Ryan a secret.
"Who?" Ryan frowned.
"Well, remember..." Seth started but got cut off.
"There you are!" Marissa greeted Ryan and kissed him on the cheek. Summer was with her.
"Hey. Sit." Ryan said and pulled out a chair for her.
"Thank you." Marissa sat down and eyed Summer so she'd sit too. Summer just rolled her eyes and did as told.
A second after the girls sat down, Marissa and Ryan were already engaged on a conversation about what they would do that afternoon.
Seth opened his Coke and took a sip of it, still looking around to find Brandi.
"Are you pretending to ignore me, Cohen?"
"What?" Seth made eye contact with Summer for the first time.
"You're distracted, turning your head around... are you pretending to ignore me here? Because if you are, let me just tell you that I didn't want to be here, I'm only here because Coop asked me to join her, but if you want me gone, I can just..."
"No!" Seth exclaimed "Stay! I was..." Seth couldn't say to her that he was looking for another girl, so he lied "I was looking for this guy from my Comic Book Club."
"Comic Book Club?"
"Yeah. Ryan and I started one yesterday." Seth grinned.
"Good. Now you'll talk to someone about comic books that actually care about them. Instead of the time we were going out and I had to listen to you talking and talking about Superman and Wonder Woman non-stop. "
"Well, if you had a problem with that, why didn't you say so? I would have stopped!" Seth defended himself.
"I thought my annoyed face would be enough for you to get it, but I guess you were just too dumb to see it."
"Guess so." Seth spit out and then realized that he had actually agreed he was dumb. He went silent and started eating his sandwich.
.
'I'm at the library right now. I'm not having lunch today. I'm not at all hungry. I guess I lost my appetite this morning, when Seth came over to talk to me. He actually came to me for a conversation. How cool is that? Ok,that line just sounded phony and so Harbor High. But seriously now, we talked for a while and he seemed kinda interested in our conversation, but then that blonde friend of his showed up and gave him a piece of paperwith some girl's name and number. I didn't understand it. I thought he was dating that brunette girl that he ran to yesterday. Maybe he is dating that girl and also checking out some other girls. Men are just... douchebags.
Anyway... enough about it. It's settled that I'm not gonna fall for him. I've made up my mind after he took the piece of paper with the girl's number on it. If he's like that, then I was mistaken, he is not my type. But why can't I stop thinking about him? I hate it!
I said I was gonna stop writing about Seth and here I am still writing about Seth. I just miss my friends! I'm gonna call them today. See how everything's going. Maybe I can convince mom and dad to let me spend a weekend in New York. That would be so great!'
The bell rang. Brandi gathered her belongings and headed for the locker.
.
"Ok. So we'll all meet at the Riviera Mall at 5, ok?" Marissa informed Ryan as the 4 of them stepped into the halls.
"What do you mean by all?" Summer asked.
"The four of us, of course."
"Coop!" Summer exclaimed through her teeth.
"Come on, Summer, it's gonna be awesome! Just like old times." Seth placed his arm on her shoulder.
Right at that moment, Brandi was walking through the halls and saw the four of them, Ryan holding hands with Marissa and Seth with his arm around Summer. She bit her bottom lip, turned her head quickly around and headed straight into her classroom.
"Ew, Cohen. Get your hands off of me." Summer released herself from Seth's arm.
"What is this now, huh? You love when I put my arm around you and you know it."
"I used to, Cohen. Used to. Come on, Coop." Summer got Marissa by the wrist and pulled her so they'd head to their classroom. Marissa just waved at Ryan, who waved back.
"So... things aren't going as planned, are they?"
"Not really, but we're all gonna hang out tonight and you'll see it's gonna be great."
"I hope so, or Summer may just chop something out from you."
"Nice." Seth pretended to laugh a little.
.
Brandi was actually enjoying her Literature class. She liked to read a lot. This time she wasn't so happy about hearing the bell ring, but at least, she'd get out of Harbor. That was always a good thing for her.
She placed her books in her locker and headed out to the parking lot. When she was stepping down the stairs, she heard a call that made her stop.
"There you are. There you are. There you are!" Seth was running towards her with a big smile on.
Brandi was torn. She wanted to smile at him, and go meet him half way, but she couldn't. She didn't want to have anything to do with a guy that had a girlfriend and flirted with others. So she just turned around and continued her path down the stairs.
Seth held her wrist and she froze again. 'Jeez, why does this keephappening when he touches me?' she wondered angrily.
"Hey." Seth said "Were you running away from me?"
"W-What?" Brandi stuttered.
"You saw me calling out for you and coming towards you. Why did you walk away?"
"Oh..." Brandi didn't know what to say "I..." she looked down not to look at him while lying "I thought you were looking at someone else, so I kept walking." she smiled weakly.
"No, I was looking at you." Seth smiled big.
"Ok." she kept a weak smile "So..." she was confused 'What does he want?'
"Where have you been? I looked all over for you during lunch break, but couldn't find you. It was like you were playing hide and seek or something. Were you?" Seth asked playing, but Brandi didn't even hear that part, she only heard the part that mattered to her.
"You were looking for me during lunch break?" she bit her bottom lip. She had actually showed too much enthusiasm in her tone of voice. She was happy to know he was looking for her, but she didn't want to show it off.
"Yeah. We never finished talking, Ryan just barged in..."
"Ryan?" she frowned.
"Oh, yeah, my friend. Or brother. Well, actually, we still don't know what to call each other, because what happened was, he was from Chino and then my father, who's a lawyer..." Seth started to mumble and Brandi cut him off right there. She now knew that the blonde guy's name was Ryan. And that he was Seth's friend. Or brother. She didn't know. But really couldn't care less about Ryan.
"Listen, I have to go." she turned and resumed walking down the stairs.
"What? Wait." Seth ran after her "Brandi!"
"What, Seth?" Brandi stopped, so he would just talk and she'd be free to go.
.
Ryan, Marissa and Summer were all gather by Marissa's car waiting for Seth so they could go home.
"Who's that with Seth?" Marissa asked Ryan and pointed out to where the two of them were. Summer lifted her head up so she could see it too.
"No idea." Ryan answered.
"Who's that girl?" Summer asked and her voice showed a little jealousy. Ryan and Marissa picked up on that and looked at her "I mean..." Summer tried to fix it "Is that his new attempt at a relationship? Poor girl." Summer shook her head and crossed her arms. Ryan and Marissa looked at each other and smiled. They knew she was jealous. At least, a little bit.
.
"What? Aren't you gonna talk?" she tapped her foot.
"It's just that... Oh, cool, Green Day!" Seth exclaimed.
"What?" Brandi frowned.
"Your shirt. It's a Green Day shirt. I figured it was a band shirt when I saw you earlier today, but I didn't see what band it was. So, cool, Green Day."
"Yes. Cool. Green Day." Brandi wasn't trying to be kind at all. She didn't want this. She didn't want to be colleagues with Seth "Seth, talk." She just loved saying that name Seth. 'Seth, Seth, Seth' she thought while looking at him.
"We're going to the mall tonight."
"We?"
"Yes. Ryan, Marissa, Summer and I."
"Yes. And?"
"I was wondering, since you're new and everything, if you wanna join us. We have a pretty cool click and I thought you could join us."
"I hate clicks. Why would I join yours?"
"Oh..." now Seth was speechless. And he was never speechless. Brandi felt bad when she saw him looking down with a puppy dog face.
"Listen, Seth, I'm really sorry. I really just wanna go home right now."
"I see." Seth kept his head down.
"Listen..." Brandi was about to say something she knew she'd regret later "I really am not in the mood for the mall tonight. But we can do something else some other day." Seth just nodded. Brandi lifted his chin up with her right hand and his puppy dog look was even more irresistible than his regular one "Is that ok?" she was dying to hear a 'yes'.
"Yeah, sure." Seth half-smiled.
"I'm sorry, Seth."
"No, that's fine. You're not in the mood. I know how important it is to be in the mood to go to the mall. If you're not in the right mood, you can just ruin everyone's day and all. I know because it happened to me once and..."
"Good. Then you understand me." Brandi cut him off again. She didn't mean too, but she'd already realized that if Seth weren't cut off sometimes, he'd go on talking forever. And she just wanted to go home.
"Yes, I do." he smiled gently at her.
"Ok. So, bye." she waved at him before walking away.
"I guess I'll see you tomorrow, then?" he raised his voice a bit.
"You guessed right." she smiled and got inside her car. He watched her drive off before heading to Marissa's car. Brandi saw that from her mirror and had a huge smile on. She was alone in her car. Now she didn't have to hide her smile anymore.
.
"Who was that?" Ryan whispered at Seth when he got to where the three of them were.
"I'll tell you later."
"Ok. Got something to tell you later too about Summer. I'm guessing you're gonna like it." Seth just smiled and got in the back of the car with Summer.
The drive to the Cohen's house was strangely quiet, just some random talks going on between Ryan and Marissa.
"So, see you at 5."
"Sure. Bye." Ryan kissed his girlfriend and got out of the car.