The Decisions We Make
Posted originally here at fanfiction.net
Characters: Brooke Davis & Lucas Scott (slight Brooke & Julian Baker)
Word Count/Rating: 1,116words/T
((XX))
There was a side to Brooke Davis that not many people had been allowed to see; a part of herself that she kept hidden from the rest of the world, so she was protected if she'd ever be hurt.
She had been hurt before in her life, by her mother and her father and their emotional neglect. I had never dreamt that I would be the next to hurt her.
(Lucas Scott, An Unkindness of Ravens)
Seventeen year old Brooke Davis, a popular senior and student president at Tree Hill High, stood in the centre of a quickly growing circle that had quickly formed in the student car park in front of the high school, shortly after the three o'clock bell freeing it's teenaged students for the day.
She felt the sting of hurt, humiliation and rejection; similar to the physical pain Lucas Scott felt spreading across his reddened cheek. He was devastated to know that he had been the one to finally break the hardened exterior shell of the vastly popular cheerleader, a claim that he had never wanted to be able to make.
"Broo…" Lucas held his palms out to the woman he loved; a peace offering of sorts that she was not about to accept.
"Don't." She seethed, taking several steps away from him. "Please, don't touch me. Don't say my name. Just…don't."
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen, you know how much I love you." Her plea didn't stop him from trying to reach her; he felt that if he could just get her into a tight embrace that he could make everything better.
"You didn't mean to sleep with her, or you didn't mean to get caught?" Brooke's laugh, a normally warm and flirtatious peal had turned into a bitter sound that almost sliced straight through the boy opposite her.
"Brooke, we didn't…"
"Stay out of this." Brooke snapped, turning her attention on someone else with a hard look in her eyes. "You are dead to me, I don't ever want to talk to you again." She glared at her former best friend; the one she'd shared everything with since the first grade; the one who had been there for her when her parents had abandoned her. "People who say they're my friend, would never do anything like what you've done; not even remotely. You're just a back0stabbing bitch Peyton."
"Just, stay away from me." She sighed once more to Lucas, rather than Peyton who had become invisible to her now, before pushing her way through the crowds of hormonal teenagers ready and waiting for a fight, and disappearing into the quiet Tree Hill afternoon.
Something changed in the vivacious teenager that day I'd betrayed her. She still laughed with her friends in the halls between classes, she still cheered for the school's basketball team in her blue and white cheerleading uniform every weekend; but she didn't trust again.
She finished out her school year, graduating alongside the rest of her class before disappearing into the world.
I know she's making her way out there, that's she going to be a success in whatever she does.
Brooke Davis is going to change the world some day
(Lucas Scott, An Unkindness of Ravens)
Twenty five year old Brooke Davis sat in the uncomfortable rows of chairs in New York's JFK airport, outside gate thirty five, waiting for the Air France airline to finally open the departure gates for her flight to Paris. As she sipped at the recently bought, and much needed, highly caffeinated drink from the nearby Starbucks she casually gazed at the paperback her fiancée had just picked up at the newsagency.
An Unkindness of Ravens
She remembered in the back of her mind that an 'Unkindness' was the collective term for the unwelcome black birds, a useless factoid she'd picked up as a teenager; as she dismiss the paperback as some mind-numbing reading, possibly the next project for the film producer; something for him to think about and plan on the plane while she was distracted with her final preparations for the Clothes over Bros Paris Fashion Week Show.
"What is it about?" She eventually asked, waving a hand in the direction of the book, just after the air hostess' voice had cracked over the speaker system, apologising that the flight to Paris would be delayed by a half hour.
"Some kid's memoirs from high school, it's pretty riveting." Julian looked up at her with a smile. "Some small town kid being a big shot basketball talent; his girlfriend's got your name."
"Brooke Davis?" The brunette laughed lightly. "How common is Davis?"
Julian laughed along with her, turning another page in the book before leaning over to kiss her cheek. "At least you didn't come from a nowhere town like Tree Hill."
Brooke had kept her life before moving to New York City to work in fashion a secret from the man she was soon to marry; so with her recently manicured fingers she reached out and grasped the book from his hand.
Glancing at the title of the novel again, her heart already sinking with realisation; she looked down at the smaller font announcing the author, already knowing the answer.
Lucas Scott
Her emerald eyes must have betrayed some internal emotion, because all of a sudden Julian was asking her what was wrong.
Ignoring his worried question, brushing him off, the fashion designer flipping through a couple of pages; starting to read the story of her teenaged years through the eyes of her ex-boyfriend, the heartbreak she had blocked from her heart in order to create her successful and popular clothing line.
I've done things in my past, things that I deeply regret, that I can't take back, no matter how hard or how long I wish. Every day, I wish though that I could have just one more chance to tell her that I love her.
Brooke looked back up, closing the book that just had her first real boyfriend's profession of his continuing love; forcing a bright and unworrying smile on her lips as she studied her fiancée's face.
She loved Julian, she was about to marry Julian. She had stopped loving Lucas a long time ago.
Hadn't she?
Suddenly, she realized with a slight panic; she didn't know if she would be able to get on the plane when the gates eventually opened, if she even wanted to get on the flight.
The famous movie producer who could give her the life she wanted, and deserved; or the charismatic author who she had loved as a teenager, who broke her shell and encouraged her to become the person she was today.