The Anchor l The O.C.

The Pilot

Sam's POV

My name is Sam Atwood and my life sucks.

It starts with my family:

My mother, Dawn, is an alcoholic who spends pretty much every waking moment drunk. And then she could become just as bad as my father and all those other men she dates. My father, Frank, is prison and has been since I was nine years old. He was convicted for robbery, though there are a bunch of other charges he should be in there for. Like, domestic violence, child abuse, rape, ect. He used to have a few drinks and then beat up my mom; it was just her at first. But then he started to do it to me and my brothers. Then I was eight years old when he raped me. The only ones who know are my brothers. Well technically, after dad was arrested I did tell my mother, but I'm sure by now she's forgotten. But it's for the best. One minute she didn't believe me and the next she was telling me it was my fault. Then there are my mother's multiple boyfriends over the years after my father got arrested. They are all scum. They would sit around all day getting drunk and beating the hell out of me and my brothers if we pissed them off; that wasn't too hard to do. Some of them also liked to do things to me. My oldest brother, Trey, is a criminal. He's gotten arrested a couple times but has gotten off lucky. He was able to come home. He always gets me and Ryan into shit. One day, going along with his stupid shit Trey does is going to come to bite us on the ass. Finally, My twin brother, Ryan, is the only one that makes my family redeemable. He protects me. He is the only one that cares about me more than himself. He's my best friend. He's the only one I trust completely. We're almost always together. He'd do anything for me and I'd do anything for him.

But even with Ryan, my family, which now consists of my mother, Trey, Ryan, and my mother's boyfriend A.J., sucks.

We live in this dump in Chino, California. I'd rather be anywhere else; but I know I'm never going to get out of here. I remember when I was little, I used to dream about getting out of Chino and actually having a decent life. But I lost hope in that a long time ago.

I accepted the fact that this is my life and it sucks.

Sometimes I wish I could just end it.

...

One night, Ryan and I were walking with Trey. He apparently wanted to teach us something. I didn't know what, but I had this feeling it was probably illegal. I knew I probably shouldn't have gone, but I wasn't going to stay at the house. A.J. had already had his third beer for the night so I figured whatever Trey wanted to do couldn't be as bad as whatever A.J. could do, right?

"I'm your big brother. If I don't teach you guys this, who will?" Trey says as he goes up to a car and smashes the window. Ryan and I looked at each other; we both knew this wasn't a good idea.

"I don't know, Trey." Ryan shakes his head.

"Quit being a little bitch and get in!" Trey yelled as he got into the car. Ryan slammed the door to the driver's side and started running over to the passenger's side.

"This is a bad idea." I said, running after Ryan. I knew that he knew it was too.

"Come on, get in! Ryan! Sam! Let's go!" Trey yelled.

I had a really bad a feeling about this and that was confirmed as we watched as a cop car backs up and the sirens are turned on.

"Damn it!" Trey says as he manages to get the car to work and starts driving away. Ryan and I run after him and manage to get into the backseat. Trey starts speeding up as the cop behind us starts chasing us. But we are cut off by another cop car; basically we were screwed.

"No, no, no, no, no." I said, shaking my head. This is really bad.

"Police! Put your hands up! On the dash where I can see them! Now!" One cop yelled, walking towards the car followed the others. Trey, Ryan, and I did what they said.

It seemed I was wrong; this was worse than staying home.

...

Ryan and I were in juvie. We were separated for a while into different sides of the prison as we are different genders. We had no idea what happened to Trey but I'm pretty sure he's going to be in jail for a while. I mean, he did steal a car and have a gun on him. Ryan and I were brought together into a visiting room the next day. We were uncuffed and we met by a man with dark hair, holding some files; I guess that would be our lawyer. They said we would be appointed an attorney.

"Ryan?" He looked to Ryan and then to me. "Samette?" I rolled my eyes at hearing that name. Legally, that's my name; Samette Atwood. I hate it. Apparently the story goes, when my mom was pregnant with Ryan and I, she thought she was having twin boys. They were shocked that they had one boy and a girl. When they told them 'it's a girl' he said 'Damn it!' so they decided to call me Samette; Sam for short. It's some sick joke that my mom came up with while she was high off pain meds. But it stuck.

I hate my name.

"It's Sam." I corrected.

"I'm Sandy Cohen. The court's appointed me as the public defender for you both." I looked at the man as he extended a hand out to me and then to Ryan when I didn't take it; Ryan didn't either. We both sat down next to each other without speaking.

"You could do worse." Sandy added as he sat down across from us. He opened the files, putting them on the table. "You okay? They treating you alright?" He then asks and I almost want to laugh. We are in juvie. How do you think you get treated in here?; the people here certainly aren't nice.

"Where's our brother?" Ryan asks.

"How is he?" I ask.

"Uh, Trey is over 18. Trey stole a car; Trey had a gun in his pants, an ounce of pot in his pocket, a couple of priors. I'm guessing right now, Trey's looking at three to five years." He tells us and I pretty much saw that coming. I didn't know he had pot, but I don't know why I'm surprised because of some of his friends.

"Anyways, Trey isn't my concern." Sandy says. "This your first time in lock up?"

He looks both of us over and we both nod.

"I'm assuming you both don't want to come back." He adds and I nodded, though I can't make any promises because unfortunately, I'm an Atwood. My family can always find a way to get me and Ryan into these kind of situations.

"Now your grades aren't great." Sandy says, looking between our files. Well that probably had to do with the fact that we stopped going to most of our classes and doing any work. But there was no use in school; Ryan and I are going to be in Chino for the rest of our life.

"Suspended twice for fighting" He trails. Maybe it wouldn't have happened if the people at our school weren't such assholes.

"Test scores, 98 percentile?" He looks at us, shocked at the results. "Ryan, Sam, if you two start going to class...are you two thinking about college?"

Ryan and I snorted.

"Have either of you given any thought to your futures?" Sandy asks. Sure, I have given thought, but I knew that neither Ryan nor I were going anywhere. "Look, I'm on your side here. Help me out."

"Modern medicine is advancing to the point where the average human life span will be 100." Ryan says and glances at me.

"And I read this article which said Social Security is supposed to run out by the year 2025, which means people are going to have to stay at their jobs until they're 80." I continued.

"So we don't want to commit to anything too soon." Ryan finishes and in return, Sandy chuckles. At least someone found the two of us funny.

"I can plead this down to a misdemeanor. Probation." Sandy tells us, getting back to the matter of our situation. I guess that's a good thing. "But know this: Stealing a car because your big brother told you to is stupid, and it's weak. Now that's two things you can't afford to be anymore."

"Two more things." Ryan responded.

"Do you want to change that?" Sandy asks. "Then you have to get over the fact that life dealt you a bad hand. I get it. We're cut from the same deck. I grew up, no money, bad part of the Bronx. My father was gone; my mother worked all the time. I was pissed off. I was stupid."

I seriously doubt he could compare his family to mine. I doubt he's ever had the crap beat out of him. I also seriously doubt he's ever been raped.

"And look at you now." I responded.

"Smart kids like you two, you've got to have a plan. Some kind of dream." Sandy said. I used to have a dream, but then I grew up. I realized it's never going to happen.

"Yeah sure." I said, in disbelief.

"Let me tell you something. Where Sam and I are from, having a dream doesn't make you smart. Knowing it won't come true, that does." Ryan told him. It didn't matter what we wanted. Our dreams aren't going to come true. We're nothing. We are nothing. Sooner or later, we had to accept that. We'll be lucky if Ryan and I aren't like Trey when we are twenty-one.

Sandy didn't say much more to us after that. But he got us released out of juvie into our mother's custody; though that didn't really do much to comfort me. We got our belongings and we were waiting outside. Sandy had decided to stay until our mom arrived.

"My office will contact you to remind you both about your hearing." Sandy told us.

"We'll remember." Ryan said.

Suddenly our mother's car turns around the corner and then stops, half way up on the sidewalk in front of us. I guess mom was still driving drunk.

"Unbelievable!" Mom exclaims as she gets out of the car. She was pissed and I wasn't surprised. I was starting to wonder if I'd be safer in juvie than at home. "What kind of family I've got, huh? What the hell did I do to deserve this family?"

I ask myself that same question.

"Mrs. Atwood? I'm Sandy Cohen, Ryan and Sam's attorney." Sandy steps forward towards my mother.

"You should've let them rot in there!" My mother replies. "Like their father is doing and like their older brother is gonna. Let's go Ryan! Let's go Sam!" She gets back into the car. I guess she was ready to get back home and open another bottle. I was sure when we got home, A.J. was going to kick our asses or something.

I don't want to go home.

Ryan and I slipped our hands into the pockets of our jeans as we took a step towards the car, looking down at the pavement.

"Ryan. Sam." We both turned to face Sandy. "I'm going to give you two my card. My home number. If you need somebody, if things get to be too much, call me." I looked at him and down at the card as I slipped it into my pocket. Was this guy for real? It was nice; why was he being so nice to us?

"Let's go!" Mom yells, becoming impatient.

"Alright!" Ryan yells back and pulls me along. We had to get home to our wonderful life in Chino.

We got home and like usual, A.J. was sitting on the couch with another beer in his hand, watching a football game. All he does is sit around all day drinking. When he's not doing that, he's screwing my mother, beating the crap out of us, or touching me. My mom pushed past Ryan and I, going into the kitchen and pouring herself a drink. Ryan and I remained silent.

"I can't do this anymore." Mom eventually spoke after pouring herself a second drink.

"We're sorry." Ryan says and I nodded. Though I didn't know what we really had to be sorry for; we didn't steal the car.

"Ryan, Sam, I want you both out of my house. I want you both out!"

"What?" I asked; was she really kicking us out?

"But mom, where are we going to go?" Ryan asks. It's not like we really had anywhere else to go.

"You heard your mother. Get your stuff and get out." A.J. told Ryan. "But I think it'd be okay if Sam stayed."

"You are such a perv." I shook my head.

"What was that bitch?" A.J. turned around. I guess he pulled his head out of his ass long enough that he heard me.

"You leave her alone." Ryan stepped in front of me. "This isn't even your house."

"You a tough guy now?" A.J. stepped closer to Ryan.

"Ryan don't." I pleaded. I knew if A.J. was pushed enough that he would start beating the crap of Ryan and maybe even the both of us.

"A.J. stop. Ryan, you and Sam need to just leave." Mom said as finished her second drink. Once again, she was doing nothing to stop him. All she would do is stand there and drink; she never stopped them.

"Why don't you worry about your own kids, A.J.? Instead of freeloading off my mom and touching my sister." Ryan pushed it. A.J. then started to beat on Ryan.

"STOP IT!" I screamed.

Ryan punches A.J. back and then I kicked him in the knee. That's when he grabbed me leg, making me fall. He then pushed himself up and kicked me in the stomach and in the face. A.J. then drags us to the bedroom Ryan and I share. We pack a few things into our backpacks and then we leave the house quickly before A.J. could start beating us up again.

Ryan and I get on our bikes and we go into town where we find a payphone to us. Ryan tries calling a few of his friends from school; none of which can give us a place to crash.

"Looks like we're homeless." Ryan comments.

"You know, you could call him." I said, handing him the business card we got from our attorney only a few hours prior. I mean what do we have to lose at this point?

"I don't know." Ryan shakes his head. I rolled my eyes and I went to the phone. I called the number. At this point, we had nothing else to lose.

"It's Sam Atwood. Our mom kicked us out of the house." I said and I didn't have to say anything much more before he agreed to come get us; I was actually kind of surprised. I didn't think he'd agree to come get us. I told him where we were and we waited about twenty minutes before he pulled up.

"I told you." Sandy said after he rolled down the window. "You could do worse."

Ryan and I got into the car. He got into the front passenger seat and I got into the back. Sandy drove out of Chino. I leaned my head against the window and shut my eyes as my head was starting to pound. But not for too long. I didn't want to fall asleep. As we got out Chino, wherever we were, it actually looked nice. The ocean for one was beautiful. Eventually after it got dark, Sandy pulled into a gated community and then a driveway of a big house. Was this really where he lives?

"This is a nice car. I didn't know your type of lawyer made money." Ryan commented.

"No, we don't. But my wife does." Sandy replied. I wonder what she did and what she was like. Ryan and I took off our seatbelts but Sandy stopped us from leaving the car. "Um you know, why don't you two stay here for a minute? I'll be back."

I guess he had to tell the wife that he decided to bring two of his clients home with him.

Sandy takes the keys from the car and then hesitates; is he afraid we'll steal the car?

"It's no fun if the key's in the car." Ryan joked. Sandy left the keys in the car and then went inside the house. We sat there for a minute but then left the car, walking to the end of the driveway. Ryan lit a cigarette and I took in a breath of air; I felt like I could actually breathe. It didn't smell like Chino; that's a good thing. The neighborhood didn't look too bad either. We looked to our right and noticed a girl standing in her driveway next door.

"Who are you?" The girl asks, looking directly at Ryan.

"Whoever you want me to be." Ryan replies and I almost snort.

"Can I bum a cigarette?" She asks and Ryan hand her one. She holds it up to his which was sticking out of his mouth. She then takes a puff. "You don't smoke?" She looks at me.

I shook my head. I tried it once and hated it.

"Thanks." She then says, looking back to Ryan.

"And who are you?" I ask her.

"Isn't obvious? I'm the girl next door." She laughs. "So what are you two doing here, seriously?"

"Seriously?" Ryan asks and we look at each other; I wonder if he'll tell a story or lie. "We stole a car."

"Really?" The girl seems intrigued.

"Well actually our brother stole a car." I corrected.

"He crashed it. Anyways, he's in jail. We got out but then our mom kicked us out." Ryan continued.

"She was pissed and drunk." I added.

"And now Mr. Cohen took us in." Ryan finished.

The girl laughed. "So you're their cousins from Boston, right?"

So we told the truth and she doesn't believe it. Well, if I lived her life I don't know if I would've either. These people I'm sure living that life that's like living in a bubble. No bad stuff ever happens here. I guess it is better that she doesn't believe us; it's not like we'll be here long anyways.

"Right." Ryan nodded; he'd leave it at that.

"Hi Marissa." We turn around to see Sandy. At least now I know her name.

"Hi, Mr. Cohen. I was just meeting your niece and nephew." She replies.

"Right, my favorite niece and nephew: Sam & Ryan. All the way from Seattle." Sandy says and well that may have just thrown that lie out the window.

"Seattle?"

"Dad lives there. Mom lives in Boston." Ryan comes up with quickly.

"So we're really excited about your fashion show fund-raiser for tomorrow night." Sandy quickly changes the subject.

"Really?" Marissa questions.

"No."

Marissa laughs and I smiled a bit; well that was honest. I don't know if the girl was excited about it herself. I looked over at seeing a car pull up calling out for Marissa; I guess that would be the boyfriend. The cute ones always have a boyfriend. She gets into the car and they drive off.

"Let's go inside." Sandy tells us after Ryan puts out the cigarette. We walk into the house, taking in the surrounding. This place seemed to be bigger on the inside, it felt weird. It was big and it looked amazing. Sandy leads Ryan and I outside to back, past the pool and into what looked like a small house.

I guess it's a pool house.

"This is where you two will be staying." Sandy says. "Also, this is the queen of the manor herself, my wife, Kirsten."

"Hi Ryan. Sam. Welcome to our home." She says. She seemed to be very nice. I didn't understand why these people were being so nice to us; usually people aren't. "If you two need anything, Rosie can help you." I guess she is like their maid or something.

"Thank you." I said.

"Thanks very much." Ryan says.

They left us alone after that. The bed was big so I guess we could share the bed. We shared a small bed in Chino for most of our childhood, so this was nothing compared. This is really nice.

While Ryan fixed the bed, I went into the bathroom. I lifted my black tank top and saw a big bruise on my stomach that was fresh. I had other healing bruises and cuts on my arms and face. At least I don't have a black eye this time. My face and stomach still hurt from the beating, but I'd get used to it. I have had much worse than what I got today.

I won't cry.

I splashed water on my face and took a breath. It would fine. I tried to convince myself out that. I left the bathroom and laid down on the right side of the bed. I shut my eyes, feeling exhausted, I just wish I would be able to sleep through the night.

Ryan's POV

Sam woke up screaming a little past two in the morning. At least it was earlier than the night before. This has happened every night for the past few years. Sam has night terrors and I'm always here for her; someone had to be. I rubbed her back to calm her downâ€"or at least stop the screaming.

"You're okay." I told her.

"Sorry." She apologizes; she always does.

"Want to talk about it?" I ask.

"You know the answer." She replied; she never does.

"I'll get some water, okay?" I told her. I left the pool house and tried to carefully enter the main house without making a sound. I don't want to disturb anyone. I walked into the kitchen and the lights were on. I see Sandy standing at the stove.

"Couldn't sleep?" He asks.

"I did for a bit."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, my sister just has bad dreams. So I'm getting some water." I explained. I didn't really want to go into detail about that; it wasn't my business to tell.

"Would you want to try some tea? It might help her sleep. It always helps Kirsten." Sandy offers and I reluctantly nodded, only because I knew he had already been making some. Otherwise, I wouldn't have bothered. "Does she have bad dreams a lot?"

"Yeah." I shrugged.

"Is she okay?"

"She will be." I said. I was used to this.

"Do you two need anything else? It's not a bother."

"We're fine." I insisted. They had none enough already. A few minutes later, he handed me a cup of tea and brought it back to Sam. She drank some of it before going back to sleep. I stayed awake until I was sure she was asleep, like I did every night.

Sam's POV

Ryan and I woke up in the morning. We stood outside the pool house, just looking around. It was quiet here. We weren't used to the quiet; it was nice. After a while, Ryan and I went into the house. We wandered into the living room where we found a boy, probably around our age, sitting on floor, playing video games. That must be their son.

"Hey." He said.

"Hey." Ryan repeated. I just waved, shyly.

"Want to play?" He asks, looking over to the TV. I hadn't really ever played video games, well I hadn't played one in years. I remember they were fun. Ryan shrugs, but the two of us sit down on opposite sides of the boy as he then handed us each a controller. He then started a multiplayer game.

"I'm Seth." He tells us.

"Ryan."

"Sam."

Ryan nor I knew how to play this game but by the second game we had an idea. Seth was better than us, mostly because we still were learning what to do.

"Oh, looks like someone is trying to be a hero, but he got a little cocky." Seth says, in a trash talking tone. He then killed Ryan in the game. "What happened to your head, dude? Did someone die?"

"So did you." I said as I then managed to kill Seth's character.

"Hey wanna play grand theft auto? It's pretty cool. You can steal cars…" He trails off as I give him a look. I wasn't sure if he knew about that's sort of how we ended up in jail. I can vouch for the fact that stealing cars isn't cool. "Not that that's cool or uncool...I don't know"

I chuckled amusingly. Seth seemed excited; it might because he had some people to play with. I got the feeling he didn't have many friends.

"I see you three have met." Sandy says as he walks in. "Now Seth what are you doing inside on this beautiful day? Why don't you show Ryan and Sam around?"

"Yeah because it's so great here." Seth replies sarcastically. I'm sure that there was more to do here than in Chino; at the very least there is more stuff to do here that's legal.

"What do you guys do around here?" Ryan asks before I could.

Sandy then gives us some suggestions and then Seth suddenly jumps up with an idea after hearing his dad mentioning that he was going down to the beach to surf. Apparently Seth had his own boat. I wouldn't mind seeing it. We went down to the harbor and Seth showed us his boat 'Summer Breeze'. Seth wanted to take Ryan and I out sailing on it.

"C'mon, it'll be fun." Seth urged.

"You two have fun." I said. I was terrified of water. I don't swim. I don't get into pools, unless it's shallow, and I don't get into boats.

"Sam, please it'll be fun." Seth apparently was not satisfied with my answer. I don't get on boats. I don't get in the ocean.

"Sam, it'll be fine." Ryan urged, trying to get me on the boat.

"We'll only go out a few feet." Seth offered.

"I'm feeding you both to the sharks first." I growled as I finally walked onto the boat. I sat down in the middle of the boat and held onto something. We didn't go very far out, thankfully. We just kind of sat there on the boat as it drifted a few feet out. I mean, it was okay, it'd probably be better if I was someone who wasn't afraid of water, or drowning.

"I have this plan. I don't know what you guys would think but next July, I want to sail to Tahiti. With the trade winds shifting west, I can do it in 44 days. Maybe even 42." Seth tells us.

"That sounds really cool, man." Ryan replied.

"What do you think, Sam?" Seth asks.

"You don't want to know my opinion." I said. Personally, I thought it sounded insane, but I'm not the best judge on this subject. "Try asking someone who isn't afraid of the water."

"Yeah, I'll just hit the high seas and catch fish off the side of the boat. Grill them right there. Just total quiet; solitude." Seth says.

"Won't that get lonely?" I ask.

"I'll have Summer."

"I think that's kind of implied." I laughed.

"No, not the boat. It's the girl the boat's named after." Seth explained. Oh, that made more sense. That's actually kind of sweet.

"She must be stoked." Ryan says.

"She has no idea." Seth says.

"What?" I ask. This was confusing. So he was taking Summer with him but she had no idea about this boat or anything? How did this make any sense?

"I've never talked to her before." Seth explains. I guess that makes this whole trip plan, a dream, in which he takes the girl of his dreams with him. It'd be interesting to see who this Summer is; maybe Ryan could convince Seth to talk to her.

Soon after that, at my request, we docked the boat. We had just gotten back to shore when Sandy found us, clearly after he had finished surfing.

"Hey, I thought we'd head over to the fashion show around seven." Sandy said. Oh right, I had forgotten about that thing that girl Marissa was throwing. I think she invited us well Ryan to that.

"Yeah, have fun." Seth said. He seemed to like the idea of going as much as I would.

"Seth, it's a new school year."

"It's the same kids dad." He replied. "Why do we need a fashion show? Every day is a fashion show for these people." I laughed as I could see the potential in that being true.

"Yeah well, Ryan and Sam have to go. Marissa invited them." Sandy said.

"Marissa invited them?" Seth looks at us.

"She invited Ryan." I said. Though I was almost completely sure she had a boyfriend, she seemed to like Ryan.

"Seriously? I've lived next door to Marissa pretty much my entire life. Literally, like forever. Her dad almost married my mom even, and she's never even invited me to a birthday party." Seth pouts. Wow, that seemed to be pretty heavy stuff.

"That's not true. They didn't almost get married." Sandy said; of course he'd deny that. I wonder what the story with that is.

"Maybe Summer will be there." Ryan said.

"That's interesting. She is Marissa's best friend. You said 7:00?" Seth nodded and then turned to his dad whom nodded.

"You can count me out." I said.

"You should go too." Sandy said.

"I wasn't invited and it's not like I have anything to wear." I said. I didn't really want to go. And I'm not sure my tank tops and t-shirts accompanied by some ripped jeans would be appreciated by these people. I'd be fine staying in the pool house by myself; I might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

"I'm sure Kirsten can loan you something." Sandy offered.

"No, it's fine." I said, not wanting to be a bother.

"Sam. You and Ryan have to go. Please, I cannot suffer through this thing alone." Seth said, practically begging me.

"You can't make me go alone either." Ryan added. Seriously? Were they all ganging up on me about a stupid party? Ryan and I aren't even supposed to be here. It's not like anyone would miss us or at least me. But I guess I had no choice in the matter.