From Here On In

Disclaimer: still own nothing

Setting: A week after Ryan and Marissa broke upon Valentines Day in season one (when he told her he couldn't trust her) Theresa doesn't exsist, Both Anna and Luke did but have already left Newport, Summer and Seth are together, Julie and Caleb are already married, Hailey and Jimmy are together, Marissa lives with her Dad and was never blackmailed by Caleb (I know that this is only loosely based on the actual events of the show but all will become clear, eventually!)

This is the prequel to 'Marissa's Choice', those of you who have read that will know how it all turns out in the end but I thought it would be interesting to explore how Ryan and Marissa became such good friends, enjoy! (hopefully)

I know this chapter isn't very long but the next one will be longer, I promise!

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Marissa laughed bitterly as she flung yet another picture of her and Ryan accross her room into the wastepaper bin and ripped another into tiny pieces before scattering it, like confetti over her head. The Clash played loudly in the background.

Marissa Cooper was definitely angry. Angry at herself for letting Ryan mess with her head as much as he had, angry at Oliver for turning out to be so, well, weird, angry at her stereo for not playing her music so loudly that her bedroom windows broke but mostly she was angry at Ryan, at least she pretended she was. Acting angry masked her true feelings, those of shame and heart break. Shame that she'd believed Oliver over Ryan and heart break over the fact that Ryan had broken up with her. Deep down she knew she deserved it, she would probably have broken up with her too but it still hurt, more than anything. But, she had come to the conclusion this morning, that after crying herself to sleep for eight nights straight, she needed to move on.

First step: get rid of everything that reminded her of him, photos, clothes (she seemed to have half of his entire wardrobe in her closet for some reason), and anything else she could possibly relate to him. She was meeting Summer later who could give them to Ryan via Seth, there was no way that she could take them over to the Cohen's without completely embarassing herself. She was suddenly interrupted by Summer who burst into the room looking less than pleased.

"Coop, we were supposed to meet an hour ago- what?" She shouted over the music then stopped herself as she surveyed the scene in front of her. There were clothes everywhere, the blinds were still closed, despite the fact that it was nearly three in the afternoon and Marissa sat in the middle of it all still in her pjs surrounded by what liked multi coloured confetti. Summer walked over to the stereo and turned it off.

"Oi!" Marissa said indignantly "I was listening to that."

"Yeah? Well now you're not." Summer said matter of factly walking over to the windows and opening the blinds. Marissa squinted as bright light flooded the room. "What are all these bits?" Summer asked bending down to pick up a piece of photo. Then she realised. "Oh my God Marissa," she said quietly "What the hell have you done?"

"I figured that seeing as he hates me so much I can hate him too." Marissa said sulkily picking up another photo and starting to tear it up. Summer snatched it from her.

"No!" She said forcefully, as if reprimanding a small child.

"Why not?" Marissa asked coldly.

"Because..." Summer looked around desperately trying to think of a reason other that wasn't simply 'because I said so.' She looked down at the photo. "Woah," she whistled "Ryan looks really hot in this one." Marissa stared at her wide eyed. She knew how hot Ryan was, she just didn't want to hear that right now, she was meant to be getting over him. "What?" Summer asked defensively "He does. Anyway," she said putting down the photo, out of Marissa's reach "That's obviously not helping -"

"You think?" Marissa asked sarcastically

"No, so we should go do something to take your mind off him."

"Like what?"

"Eat. You wanna go to Taco Bell?" Marissa shook her head "The Crab Shack?" She shook her head again. Summer sighed, she knew what Marissa really wanted to do and it was not fun. "Or... we could get pizza, rent Chicago and rant about Ryan." Summer suggested unenthusiastically. Marissa nodded slowly.

"Sounds great."

"Yeah, fab." Summer muttered. The eating pizza and watching Chicago was ok. The rant about Ryan part; not so good, especially seeing as it would be the fourth night in a row they had done exactly the same thing.

"We should probably tidy up first though."Marissa said standing up "This place is a tip."

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An hour later the girls were sitting on Marissa's bed eating pizza. The room was now tidy again and Summer had hidden the rest of Marissa's 'Ryan photos' in her purse, she had a feeling she'd want them back some day. Chicago was on and although Marissa was now in the middle of talking about Ryan, Summer was impressed that she had been able to watch a whole ten minutes of the film before Marissa started to talk about him. The previous record had been set on Thursday; six and a half minutes.

"The thing is Coop," Summer said through a mouthful of pizza after she had listened patiently for a while, making sympathetic noises in all the right places. Sure, she could understand why Marissa was upset but her rants were the same ones she had heard for the past week and they were getting a little old. She would never tell Marissa that though. She suddenly had a flash of inspiration and stopped herself mid sentence. "Why don't you just try and be his friend." She suggested. Marissa spluttered

"Yeah, ok." She said sarcastically "That'll be great. We have, like, nothing in common."

"Sure, you do." Summer said brightly.

"Like what?" Marissa challenged. Crap, Summer hadn't thought this far ahead.

"Seth." She said eventually.

"Who?" Marissa deadpanned.

"Oh, very funny." Summer shot back. "All, I'm saying is that from here on in you should try and be friends, it can't be that hard... then y'know..." She raised her eyebrows suggestively.

Marissa looked at her best friend doubtfully, she wasn't so sure, but at the moment anything was worth a try.

Hope you liked that, please review and tell me what you think, thanks!