'Approaching Normal' - Chapter Eight
OMG, story update. Well, the good news is, I have two more chapters in the can, and I'll post the next in a week. The bad news is that I'm not writing at a particularly fast clip these days because I actually have a job at which I like *gasp* working. I'll try and be speedier with things, but I can offer no promises.
Hope you all enjoy, and please feel free to let me know what you think.
Prologue *** Chapter One *** Chapter Two *** Chapter Three *** Chapter Four *** Chapter Five *** Chapter Six *** Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight - Getting What You Give
‘You’re never better than what you put out there for the world to see and share.’
He had to go there, didn’t he? Well, of course he did, and why would I expect that he wouldn’t? That would be unfair and a disservice to both of us. But…I’m not - I don’t know how to answer the questions that he is asking me. Why am I here? Why did I feel the need to find out what had happened to him over the last few years? Why didn’t I just leave well enough alone and head back to California in ignorant bliss?
He’s staring at me patiently, waiting for my answer, and I think in some ways, he knows how hard it is for me to answer this. I’ve never been the best with my feelings, I suppose, and now after all this time, of course everything is more closed off. Maybe he can even tell the extent of that better than I can. Wouldn’t surprise me! Much, anyway.
“I don’t know where to start, Nathan. Oh, hell, I’m not even sure if I know what to say, okay?” I sigh, nervously twirling a lock of hair around my fingers. “It’s not pity, and maybe part of it was curiosity, but it’s not just that either.”
“Okay,” he agrees seriously. “Just tell me why you came here? I’m sure Luke would have told you if you had pushed him hard enough.”
Well, I can’t contradict that. I’m sure that, if I had pushed hard enough, eventually Luke would have spilled the story he seemed to think that Nathan should be the one to share. And rightfully so, as it turned out.
Looking up at him, I say the first thing (okay, first truth, several well-intentioned fibs pop to mind quicker) that comes to me. “I wanted to know if you were okay,” I answer honestly. “Things just seemed so off between the conversations we had at the club and Peyton’s house and the things I heard from Lucas and Skillz that I just…needed to know. That’s why I asked Luke to tell me, and that’s why when he wouldn’t, I came to you.”
He nods at that. “Fair enough, I guess.”
“What do you want me to say?” I ask in something of a small voice, mainly because I know what he wants. But I don’t have that to give him right now.
“I don’t want you to say anything that isn’t the truth,” he admits, looking a little defeated as he manages to give me a lopsided smile that is endearing in ways that it absolutely should not be. “I wish that your truth was different, but what can I do, right?”
For a second, I almost wonder where he gained this maturity, but that’s more than a little obvious, I guess. Five years is a long time, but these years have been far longer for him than probably most anyone else. I just feel like he’s never going to cease amazing me.
Taking a deep breath, I nervously drum my fingers on the table as I try to gather my thoughts. “I - I can’t pretend that I don’t…care, Nathan. Maybe I still know you well enough to sense that things hadn’t always gone well for you, and maybe that’s why I asked Luke. I don’t know.”
“You…don’t know,” he repeats, smirking slightly while running a frustrated hand through his hair. “I’m not really sure what to say to that,” he sighs. “God, Hales. How can you not know?”
“I don’t know, Nathan! I didn’t expect to come back here and see you, and I didn’t expect that college was anything less than a heaven of basketball and girls for you!” I try to explain, unsure how to put everything into words. “I don’t know, I guess it was just easy to figure that everything was cake for you because you’re so…you.” Lame, so, so lame.
He raises an eyebrow at that. “I’m so…me?” he grins, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “That’s a little existential for you, isn’t it?” Now it is my turn to arch an eyebrow at him. “Okay, fine, I don’t know what existential means, but it sounds like it might be that.” Grinning, I pick up my glass, swirling the water around in it slightly. “That’s a new habit,” he comments lightly, staring at my hand.
Shrugging, I glance up at him. “It’s not really a habit. I don’t know why I was doing it, actually.”
“I see,” he nods, smiling at me widely. “That’s, uh, I don’t know how to say this, Hales, but that’s kind of strange.”
“You’re teasing me?” I ask, blinking at him as my mind yells ‘danger, danger!’ at me. “That’s a little inappropriate for ex-spouses, don’t you think?” Oh, my. Did I just make a divorce joke? That’s very…unlike me, in many, many ways.
From the look on his face, he doesn’t know how to take that either. Furrowing his brow, he stares at me intently. “I’m not sure how to take it.”
“Well, that’s good,” I sigh tiredly. “I’m not exactly sure how I meant it, to tell the truth. I’m sorry, you must think I’m absolutely insane.”
“Yeah, but you always were,” he grins. “It’s just comforting to see that some things will never change, apparently.”
I - are we flirting? No, we can’t be flirting. Not after everything that’s gone on today, this week, and oh, the last five or six years. I - surely, I wouldn’t be so foolish as to flirt with my ex-husband, right?
Wrong, I totally am. I am flirting with him with very little apparent regard for any one of the ten million reasons why I should not be flirting with him. What the hell is wrong with me? I know better than this. I’ve already figured out that I haven’t gotten over the divorce yet, and here I am dangerously close to giving myself a slew of new and more complicated Nathan issues to take back to California with me. And they say I’m the smart one. Honestly, it’s like my brain has dissolved and there is nothing left to keep me thinking clearly.
“Hey, you okay there?” he asks, snapping me out of the dazed thoughts I’d fallen into. “You got all pale there for a minute.” He groans, shaking his head at me as he takes me by the elbow, leading me to an oversized chair in the family room. “I knew I shouldn’t have kept you out in the sun so long. I’m sorry, baby, I wasn’t thinking.”
Unsurprised and surprisingly unresisting when he kneels in front of me, his hands rubbing lightly up and down my acutely bare legs, I know my eyes are probably wide and confused as I stare up at him. “It’s not the heat,” I mutter, suddenly feeling the embarrassment of the situation set in. “Maybe I should get going now.”
“Don’t,” he countermands softly. “Stay with me, Hales. Spend today with me. I know you’re leaving Tree Hill soon, so just give me today. I promise to be a perfect gentleman, if that’s what you want.” He tips his head to the side, shooting me his most charming smile. “Just give me the chance to prove that I’m not the same stupid, selfish jerk that I was five years ago.”
“I already know that,” I tell him, my voice as soft and quiet as his. “Nathan, you don’t have anything to prove to me. I hope you know that. It is stunningly clear in terms of where you are now that you are so very far from either stupid or selfish. I meant it when I said I was proud of you, and you should be proud of you, too.”
I can tell he doesn’t believe, but I can also tell that he appreciates the sentiment. “Just stay with me today. I know you’d planned on helping Peyton, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind you taking a break, right? Stay, baby. Stay with me and we can talk and hang out and do whatever it is that you want to do.”
Sitting up straight, I manage to find a bit of my resolve again. I know what he’s asking for if I stay, and I also know that if I stayed, I would be giving it freely. I just can’t do that; I cannot put myself in that position. “I can’t, Nathan,” I sigh, not without regret. “It’s just for the best if I go now. For both of us.”
He drops back so that he is sitting with his legs folded under him. He’s disappointed in me, and that hurts. It hurts worse that I could have imagined it hurting, and - how is that happening? I had defenses built up, and they’re all gone now, vanished in what feels like a blink of an eye. All the more reason to get up and get out of here, fast.
“Yeah, okay,” he nods, moving to stand up. “If you’re ready to go, I can walk you out to the car.”
“Thanks, but you really don’t have to do that,” I smile, following suit and standing. “Well, I do need to go now.” Glancing around, I smile at the changes he has made to this house. “I love what you’ve done with the place,” I tell him. “If feels very ‘you’.”
As we walk towards the front door, he reaches out and takes the water glass I’m still holding from me, setting it on a table near the door. “Thanks,” he nods, something of a satisfied smile on his handsome face. Oh, hell. I have to stop doing that! “I definitely needed a fresh start when I moved in here, so as I can, I’ve been replacing all of Dad’s things. Well, I got rid of everything first, and I’ve been replacing them since. Guess what the first thing I tossed out was?”
That’s an easy one. “Um, let me guess: Dan’s ode to self trophy and memorabilia cases?” I ask, laughing when he makes a ding, ding, ding noise. All of a sudden, we are standing on the porch together, and things get awkward again. “Well, um, I should go then.”
He gets a pained look on his face, but nods and shoves his hands in his pockets. “You take care of yourself, Haley. If you ever change your mind or, I don’t know, lose it maybe, give me a call. I’d love to hear from you.”
“Yeah,” I agree, taking a deep breath. It isn’t likely to happen, though, and we both know it. I think. I couldn’t because it would be too hard to hear his voice and know that was it. There wasn’t anything more than hearing his voice. I couldn’t stand having that, just that. “I’m glad I got to see you, Nathan. And I am so damn happy that you are doing well. I hope you know that I really mean that.”
Reaching out, he wraps his arms around me, holding me to him. Reciprocating immediately, I wrap mine tightly around his neck. “Thank you,” he murmurs sounding choked up, his lips up against my ear and sending shivers down my spine. “Thank you so damn much for believing me, for knowing I wouldn’t do that. I - you have no idea how much that means to me, baby.”
His show of emotion prompts tears of my own to fill my eyes, but I manage to keep them from falling as I turn my head to press a lingering kiss to his cheek. “You never have to thank me for that. I know you, and I knew right away that it wasn’t possible.” He lifts me slightly, so that my feet are dangling in the air as he turns his face toward mine. Our lips are mere millimeters apart, and neither of seems inclined to break eye contact. “What are we doing?” I breathe out, nervously needing to fill the silence.
”Hugging,” he replies, squeezing me a little to prove his point as he says this. “You are giving me a goodbye hug, but I’m giving you an ‘until you come to your senses, this is a reminder of how great we are’ hug.” He sets me down, taking a half step back. His hands move up to cup my face before gently tucking the messy curls I’m sporting behind my ears. “I know you don’t want to hear this, that you want to go back to California and forgot that me and the rest of Tree Hill even exist, but I’m not going away. I won’t let you forget me, and I definitely won’t let you forget us.”
“Like I could if I wanted,” I scoff softly, still staring into the endless blue of his eyes. “We’re both just different now. Our lives are different, and we don’t really know each other anymore.”
He drops a quick peck to my lips. “I think you’ve proved you still know me. And Hales, I still know you, too. I know that you were scared spitless to come back here because you were afraid all the feelings you’ve denied all these years would crash back on you. I know that none of the things that are so intrinsically you have changed, either.”
This time, I initiate the kiss, rising up on my tiptoes to press my lips to his. It is far longer and more intimate than the one he gave me. “I guess that’s a more sufficient goodbye, huh?” Releasing my grip on his neck, I step back as a heartbreaking sense of loss fills me. “Take care of yourself, Nathan. Or maybe just keep doing what you have been doing.”
He lets me go, following me down the steps without saying anything else. Seeming to know what I need, he doesn’t come any further than that. Every time I turn around, he just smiles at me, his eyes twinkling again. He doesn’t say a thing until I’m in the rental car, rolling down the windows to let the heat out, and then….
“I’m not going away,” he calls, still grinning at me. “What we have isn’t going away anytime soon, either, Haley Scott! Might as well accept and embrace it because you and I? We are meant to be, baby!”
With one last frustrating, maddening, devastating, and insanely gorgeous smile, he turns and walks back into the house. As the door shuts, I snap out of my Nathan induced haze and manage to fumblingly get the key into the ignition and start the car. I only get a scant few miles before I have to pull over when my emotions overwhelm me and I’m damn near tears. Well, near the tears that accompanies the nasty, horrible, hiccoughing, gulping, awful-looking sobbing that comes around once in awhile.
I am just feeling so completely overwhelmed. Now that I’m out of Nathan’s really distracting presence, a few realizations hit me. One: no other man has ever attracted me even a fraction of the amount that Nathan attracts me. Two: Nathan Scott still, and possibly always will, knows how to get under my skin. And three, most depressing and most important: not only am I not over the divorce, but I’m not even over him. Which really ruins a lot of the fool’s gold mirages I’ve set up for myself the last five years.
I still love him. To make matters worse, if I’m not still in love with him, it clearly wouldn’t take much for me to be there again. Oh, damn. Of all the things to happen while we were here, this is far and away the worst. No one wants to be in love with someone who lives three thousand miles away from them, right? More to the point, no one wants to be in love with their ex-spouse, particularly when said ex is three thousand miles away.
Damn it, what do I do now? Things can’t go forward with Nathan and I, not now. Furthermore, it is unreasonable to think that, if not now, there will be a time in the future for us. Why would there be? We already had our chance, and in our own ways, each of us blew it. If that isn’t a conk on the head from the universe saying ‘give it up’, I don’t know what would be.
Brushing away the few tears that manage to fall, I glare at my reflection in the rear view mirror. Why is this happening now, of all times? How have I managed to turn my life completely upside down in less than a freaking week? I start med school in three months, so it doesn’t seem out of proportion to get upset about these things. Unfortunately, this is an added stressor that I just don’t need right now.
Gathering up the tattered shreds of what remains of my composure, I pull myself a little together before re-starting the car and driving straight back to Peyton’s house. She is sitting on the porch, her long legs stretched out in from of her as she reclines back on her elbows. She waves at me as I get out of the car, sitting up more as I get closer.
“How was it?” she asks as I drop down next to her. “Everything you hoped for and then so much more?”
“Bitch,” I mutter, rolling my eyes. “It was awful,” I answer succinctly. Pausing a second to let that sink in, I then add, “Wonderful. Yes indeed, it was an infuriating dichotomy designed to mess with my mind and heart. It was about as upsetting as you’d imagine. Aren’t you glad that you asked?”
Her eyes grow wide with all of this information, and she is sitting up ramrod straight by the time I finish. “Well, it certainly sounds eventful, at any rate. What happened, are you okay?”
Nodding, I close my eyes and try to force my body to relax. “I’m okay,” I assure her. “A little confused, but otherwise fine. Nathan, on the other hand, I think it’s damn near a miracle that he gets out of bed every day. Honestly, I wouldn’t blame him if he moved to Timbuktu where no one knew him. You know?”
Peyt furrows her eyebrows at that. “Uh, no, I don’t know. That’s kind of the issue here, right? I don’t know, so you fill me in on things, and then we discuss them in hopes that you regain a tiny bit of what was once your special Haley version of sanity.”
“Honestly, Peyton,” I sigh, dragging a hand through my curls. “It’s so…horrible, what he went through. And I’m just so proud of him that I can’t even say.”
If she is surprised by that, she hides it pretty well. “What happened?” she asks, not even pretending to hide her obvious curiosity. “Was it Dan?”
Funny how anyone who knows them immediately comes to that conclusion. “Dan happened, of course,” I tell her, my tone underlying the blatant obviousness of that. “But how do you feel about living in a world where Dan Scott is not the worst thing that happened to Nathan, beat out by a fairly healthy margin.” She waits for me to explain that, staring at me expectantly. “God, Peyt, some girl - “ I start, cutting myself off with a bitter shake of the head, “No, not some girl, some bitch accused him of raping her.” I barely even hear Peyton’s gasp I’m so worked up again. “She recanted after a few weeks,” I tell her, angry tears filling my eyes. “You know that the damage had already been done by then. No one believed him, Peyt. Even once that girl told the truth, people still treated him like….like…he was guilty. Like he was a monster or a pervert.”
“Oh, crap,” she breathes, her hands covering her mouth. “Did he get kicked off the team? Because you know they couldn’t do that, not legally!”
“No,” I sigh, brushing a few of the more persistent tears away. “He left on his own, sort of. He was helped along by the way people still doubted him even after the truth came out. I just, I wish I had known.”
She raises an eyebrow at that. “Why? What could you have done, dropped out of school and ran back here to hold his hand?”
Rolling my eyes, I draw my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs. “Of course not. But if I’d known, maybe I could have done something for him. I could’ve called or emailed him. Sent him a damn letter. I don’t know, I could’ve done something to let him know that someone believed him, that someone knew him better than that. He should have known that there was at least one damn person out there who just knew he wasn’t capable of that.”
“Luke never said anything,” she murmurs, most likely thinking aloud. This is something of a topic I haven’t let myself mull over much yet because I don’t know how I feel about it. “Did he at least call Nathan when this was going down?” I shake my head. “I’ll kill him,” she breathes, shaking her head.
“That’s about how I feel,” I admit, finally letting my irritation - no, my outrage with Luke escape. “I - I don’t understand why he wouldn’t contact Nathan at a time like that. I mean, set the bad things aside, at least for five minutes, and help your brother out.”
She nods wearily. “I don’t know, Hales. That is so unlike Luke not to do anything, but obviously….well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough, huh?” I nod my agreement, fully intent on interrogating Luke the second he walks through the door. “Not even his friends at Duke believed him?”
I shrug, my chin bumping on my knee in the process. “It doesn’t sound like it. I mean, maybe some didn’t think he did it, but he didn’t get any kind of vocal support from anyone. God, Peyt, my heart just breaks for him,” I whisper as I choke up again at the injustice of it all. “I can tell he never had anyone to talk to about it, but he’s still doing really well. He has a job with the PUD, he’s taking correspondence classes to finish off his degree, and he even helps out at the café when he can. I’m just so damn proud of him.”
Leaning back on her elbows again, she watches me closely. “Well, when did you realize that you were still in love with him?” she asks, not mincing a single word.
“On the way back here,” I admit without hesitation. If I can’t talk about this with her, who could I possibly talk about it with? “I didn’t even realize, didn’t even have a clue until I saw him again. And then, to see how he’s changed, to see how he’s matured and know what he has overcame. It’s just…he amazes me.”
“Okay, well,” she breathes out, considering me closely. “How does that make you feel?” Crossing my eyes, I stick my tongue out at her until she throws her hands up in the air. “Fine, stupid question, I get it. Really, though, what happened? Ooh, did you do it?”
“Peyton!” I huff in exasperation. “What is wrong with you?” She doesn’t respond other than to grin impishly at me. “Of course I didn’t have sex with him. It wasn’t about that, and what do you think I am, stupid?”
She sighs, reaching a hand out to playfully shove at me. “What was it about then? What happened?”
“He asked me to give him - us - another chance or to at least think about it,” I confide, hugging my legs tighter as I rest my cheek on my knee. “I said no, of course,” I tell her to forestall the obvious question. “I mean, what else could I say, right?”
“Wow, that’s intense,” she murmurs quietly. “Are you okay? I mean, really okay with everything. Just the stuff about the rape accusation is a lot to take in, but being asked for another go-round by your ex-husband? You are okay, or as okay as possible, right?”
I nod, because how can I not be okay? And I am, I think. Nothing has really changed except I might have a deeper understanding of some of my own issues. Of course, I can’t maintain a relationship if I still have feelings for Nathan. I suppose it is no great shock that it was easier and more pleasant when I thought my problems had merely to do with being plagued by being such a young divorcee.
Looking at Peyton, I sigh. “How the hell did this happen? I am not supposed to still be in love with him, Peyt. I should be over him, only worrying about starting med school in a couple of months. Ships have sailed!” I exclaim. “The sun has set, time has gone by, blah blah blah.”
“Okay, if you are done with the stupid colloquialisms, can we move on now?” she asks with a roll of her eyes. Deflating a little, I motion for her to continue. “What did he say when you turned him down?”
“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” I sigh, dumbly thinking that she’ll let it go there. Of course, her glare quickly convinces me otherwise. Fine then. “He told me wasn’t going away this time. He said that what is between us isn’t going anywhere either. He was smiling like a fool when he said that, by the way. Can you believe his nerve?”
Snickering a little, she shrugs. “Nathan Scott really said those things about the two of you not being over?” Tiredly, I nod. “Wow. Well, I have to tell you, Hales. That’s fairly romantic. Aside from the foolish smile, obviously.”
Romantic? Ugh, really? It wasn’t romantic, it was unhinged! “Romantic would have been, oh, I don’t know! But it isn’t my unhinged ex-husband professing that our love isn’t going to end or whatever,” I grump.
She rolls her eyes at that. “Haley, that was romantic and you know it. I suppose that it coming from an ex-spouse that you have been failing to move on from for half a decade now takes away a little of the sparkle. Still, it is pretty sparkly. Not too shabby.” When I open my mouth to protest, she smirks as she asks, “Why is it so hard to admit that it was romantic and maybe you liked it a little?”
“Because it scares me! It throws everything out of order, and it makes me think and wonder about things that I should not be thinking or wondering about anymore. It scares me, Peyt, because it puts everything back exactly where it was five years ago, and that isn’t where I want to be.”
“Maybe things wouldn’t be the same this time around,” she shrugs. “Look at how many times it took Luke and me before we finally made a go of it. We had more false starts and pointless stops than most people could stand. It was worth it, though.”
Giving her my best irritated face, I ask, “Where is this coming from, anyway? I thought you were anti-Nathan.”
She laughs, stretching her arms above her head. “I figured that if you were back to loving Nathan that I was probably supposed to be nicer, too. Honestly, best friend solidarity. I hate who you hate. Well, except Jolly, I think he’s hilarious. Awesome entertainment for a weekend in the ghetto that is your campus.”
“You’re a brat,” I smirk, fighting the urge to laugh at her reference to one of the guys in the apartment next to mine. It is a losing battle though, as both of us succumb to the giggles. When we finally calm down, I glance over at her as my thoughts turn serious again. “Did you know? I mean, could you tell that I still had feelings for Nathan?”
She shrugs, not breaking her gaze away from mine. “No, I didn’t know it was like this. Of course you still had some feelings for him, that’s only natural, but I hadn’t realized the extent of them. Not surprising, I guess, since you hadn’t realized them either…”
Fair enough. She did know right away today that things, that something had shifted in me, so I guess I can only reasonably expect her to pick up on what I give her. Still, though!
“I have to start all over again,” I whine in my most pitiful voice. “I have to get over Nathan again, basically from scratch. I don’t know how to do that, Peyt.”
“Maybe you are being deliberately obtuse and missing the obvious answer,” she suggests, watching me carefully for a reaction. “Maybe you don’t get over it.”
Taking a deep breath, I try not to scream out my frustrations. “That is not an option and you know it,” I snap back at her. “We live on opposite sides of the country, I have freaking med school to focus on, and on top of that, he is my ex-husband. It’s just crazy to even consider anything happening between us!”
She reaches out, patting me on top of the head and ignoring the glare that move earns her. “You’d rather make yourself miserable and not even consider taking what you want? Hales, I - you need to do what is best and right for you, and I don’t know. I guess that I’m worried that you’re going to ignore all this and try and forget it. But it doesn’t work that way.”
Huffing in irritation at the truths in her words, I rock back and forth slightly. “It’s sort of hard to ignore,” I admit tersely. “I know this is a big deal, and okay maybe I need to give it more thought, but come on! There are a million reasons to just not think about it until it goes away. Because it will go away eventually.”
“I know,” she agrees with a small smile. “Well, I don’t know that it will ever really go away, but I do know each and every one of the million reasons. I want you to be happy. That is all that I care about in this. If Nathan is the person who makes you happy, then I’m all for that.”
“You are freaking me out,” I sniff, unfolding my legs to stretch them out in front of me. “I am not mentally or emotionally equipped to handle any kind of relationship right now, and I am particularly incapable of handling a long-distance one with Nathan Scott. You get that, right? It makes sense?”
She nods, her gaze softening into something more akin to sympathy. “I do get it, on some level. Still, Hales, I don’t want you to shut yourself off and miss out on something great because of it.” I raise my head, ready to protest that but she continues on. “I don’t even mean Nathan, necessarily. You could meet some amazing junior doctor in med school this fall, and I know you’d stay away from that if you’re still hung up on Nathan.”
I smirk a little at that. “Wouldn’t that only be fair? Obviously trying to have a relationship with one person while you have feelings for another would only end in disaster.”
“Then I guess you need to make a decision you can stick to: either permanently, irrevocably end things with Nathan - in your head and heart as well as his - or pursue things with him,” she states plainly, but still sympathetically. “You are right about it being a disaster if you don’t work this out. My thing is the person that stands to hurt the most in all this is my very favorite person in the world, and I don’t like that. So I’m worried about you. Sue me.”
“Thanks, Peyt,” I whisper, incredibly touched by that. “You’re the best friend I could ever have. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate having you so totally on my side.”
“Always,” she grins in return. “Besides, I am just glad that I’m getting the chance to return the above and beyond best friend favor. You’ve always been so amazing for me, especially when Luke and I were trying to figure things out. I really want to be at least half as good for you as you were for me.”
Returning her smile, I nod. “You’re better,” I promise loyally, meaning it a thousand times over. “I really do not know what I would do without you and your help in all this. Well, aside from going insane because that would be my number one priority.”
Standing up, she glances up at the house. “Only two days left here. Then it’s back to LA and no more Tree Hill for me. Back to being fifteen hundred miles from my boyfriend.”
“What are you going to do about that?” I ask, watching as a car slows to a stop, parking across the street. No one gets out, and I don’t know why it catches my eye.
“I don’t know,” she sighs, turning to follow my gaze. “Maybe we’ll have to consider our options soon. He likes Austin, but I like LA, too. And you’re in LA. I think that should count for something.” She glances between me and the car again. “Why are you staring at that car?”
“Dunno,” I admit with a little laugh, trying to focus back on her. “Well, why don’t you invite Luke to LA? Maybe he just needs the push to realize that you want that to happen, too. He’s kind of dense sometimes.”
She smiles at that. “He is, yes, but he’s my dense man.” Shaking my head, I playfully roll my eyes at that. “I don’t know. What if he says no?”
Ah, now we get down to the heart of the matter. She’s afraid he’ll say no, or that he doesn’t want to make things more permanent between them. Why she’d have that fear is beyond me, but it is just so her. Just so Luke and Peyton, really.
“He won’t,” I assure her confidently, glancing back to the car when the door slams shut. A girl is standing next to it, her back to us. “He loves you, Peyton, and if you asked, he’d be there in a second. And if you asked to move to Austin to be with him there, he’d be finding a bigger apartment so that you could have a room for an art studio.”
Her eyebrows shoot up at that. “Really? We haven’t really talked about it much. I just don’t know that it’s like tha…oh, hell, no!” she grounds out, staring at the girl now crossing the street. It is Brooke Davis, now sporting waist-length, light brown hair, and I cannot believe I didn’t recognize her right away. Peyton and I exchange a Look before she starts stomping across the street to meet Brooke.
“Peyt,” I caution her, trying to get her to stop. I don’t think that either of us really needs a confrontation right now. “Don’t hit her.”
“It’s your turn for that,” she reminds me without turning around. “I’m just going to pin her chubby ass down for you.”
Oh, hell. I know it is inappropriate, but I can’t help laughing. This whole thing is ridiculous, and of course Brooke is here. Honestly, why we hadn’t expected it is beyond me. Still laughing - and inwardly cursing myself for it - I follow her out into the street. “Peyton, come on. Let’s just go back in the house.”
She glances back, rolling her eyes at me. “Now, why would we do that? When we have such a lovely guest here to see us. We can’t be rude to the little whore, can we?” Uh, no…can’t be rude at all. Right. “Maybe she’s not here to see us, though. Maybe she’s here to ‘service’ one of the neighbors.”
Of course, all that is said for Brooke’s benefit more than mine, but I can’t help getting a thrill out of it. Brooke is like my nemesis somehow. She probably doesn’t really realize that, but it doesn’t change how I feel.
“So you’re going to be a bitch then?” she snaps with a raspy voice at Peyton. She glances my way, shooting me a tentative smile. “I just came to say hi. It’s been a long time.”
“And yet strangely not nearly long enough,” Peyton grits out from between her teeth. “What are you doing here?”
She pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her back pocket, packing it before pulling one out to light it. “I just said why I was here,” she shrugs, the smoke billowing from her lips explaining the extra raspy quality in her voice. “I heard you were in town, and I thought it would be nice to see two of my closest friends from high school. Not that either of you were very good friends to me, of course. You totally abandoned me.”
Peyton and I share a glance that basically asks: is this for real? Does she seriously think we owed her some kind of friendship pact? Maybe she is crazy.
“I don’t think that either of us has much to say to you,” I tell her, staring her straight in the eye. I barely even feel bad when she blanches at that. “We aren’t friends now, and we haven’t been for a long time. I won’t speak for Peyt, but I don’t want to renew our friendship, either.”
“But - but - I don’t get it,” she exclaims softly, her eyes wide. “What did I ever do to you?”
Peyton makes a scoffing noise, her face incredulous as she stares at her ex-best friend. Ever the little actress, Brooke’s eyes fill with tears, but they don’t faze me in the least. “You kissed my husband. You tried to get him to sleep with you. You did all that while you were still trying to pretend to be my friend. You’re selfish, crude, completely oblivious to the feelings of anyone who isn’t you, and you’re as fake as Britney Spears’ parenting skills. You’re as bad of a friend as bad can get. If I wasn’t so completely over your friendship because of what you did to me, I’d still be completely over you because of the things you did - well, tried to do - to my best friend,” I tell her plainly in a surprisingly calm and rational voice.
Brooke rears back, obviously stung by my words. But I don’t even care. I don’t care if they hurt her or make her feel bad. This isn’t kindergarten and I don’t have to play nice. There’s no reason why I should.
“I think that about says it all, Brooke,” Peyton tells her, pointing towards her car. “You should just go. There’s just no place for you here.
“But I was your best friend,” she whispers to Peyton, her lower lip quivering, tears soon spilling down her cheeks. It’s like watching a movie, almost. “You can’t just cut me out like this.”
“You cut yourself out, Brooke,” Peyton sighs, looking more irritated than anything else. “I mean it, just go. I am not your friend now, nor do I have any interest in rekindling what friendship we used to have. If you could even call it that, considering how you acted in it.”
Throwing her cigarette on the ground, she glares at us as she stamps it out. “I thought friends were supposed to forgive each other for their mistakes. I guess you two are too good for that, huh?”
I shrug. “Guess so.”
“Well, that’s just great!” she nearly screeches, actually stomping her foot on the ground like a three year old having a temper tantrum. “I cannot believe this is how the world works. I mean, I give and I give and I give of myself, and this is how you two treat me? Unbelievable!” she marvels, glaring at us one last time before continuing her stomping across the street and into her car. We stare at her as she drives off, neither Peyton nor I saying a word to each other.
But the second we look at each other, it’s all over and we burst out laughing.
Maybe not everything about coming home is so bad. Because that was pretty fun.
Hope you all enjoy, and please feel free to let me know what you think.
Prologue *** Chapter One *** Chapter Two *** Chapter Three *** Chapter Four *** Chapter Five *** Chapter Six *** Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight - Getting What You Give
‘You’re never better than what you put out there for the world to see and share.’
He had to go there, didn’t he? Well, of course he did, and why would I expect that he wouldn’t? That would be unfair and a disservice to both of us. But…I’m not - I don’t know how to answer the questions that he is asking me. Why am I here? Why did I feel the need to find out what had happened to him over the last few years? Why didn’t I just leave well enough alone and head back to California in ignorant bliss?
He’s staring at me patiently, waiting for my answer, and I think in some ways, he knows how hard it is for me to answer this. I’ve never been the best with my feelings, I suppose, and now after all this time, of course everything is more closed off. Maybe he can even tell the extent of that better than I can. Wouldn’t surprise me! Much, anyway.
“I don’t know where to start, Nathan. Oh, hell, I’m not even sure if I know what to say, okay?” I sigh, nervously twirling a lock of hair around my fingers. “It’s not pity, and maybe part of it was curiosity, but it’s not just that either.”
“Okay,” he agrees seriously. “Just tell me why you came here? I’m sure Luke would have told you if you had pushed him hard enough.”
Well, I can’t contradict that. I’m sure that, if I had pushed hard enough, eventually Luke would have spilled the story he seemed to think that Nathan should be the one to share. And rightfully so, as it turned out.
Looking up at him, I say the first thing (okay, first truth, several well-intentioned fibs pop to mind quicker) that comes to me. “I wanted to know if you were okay,” I answer honestly. “Things just seemed so off between the conversations we had at the club and Peyton’s house and the things I heard from Lucas and Skillz that I just…needed to know. That’s why I asked Luke to tell me, and that’s why when he wouldn’t, I came to you.”
He nods at that. “Fair enough, I guess.”
“What do you want me to say?” I ask in something of a small voice, mainly because I know what he wants. But I don’t have that to give him right now.
“I don’t want you to say anything that isn’t the truth,” he admits, looking a little defeated as he manages to give me a lopsided smile that is endearing in ways that it absolutely should not be. “I wish that your truth was different, but what can I do, right?”
For a second, I almost wonder where he gained this maturity, but that’s more than a little obvious, I guess. Five years is a long time, but these years have been far longer for him than probably most anyone else. I just feel like he’s never going to cease amazing me.
Taking a deep breath, I nervously drum my fingers on the table as I try to gather my thoughts. “I - I can’t pretend that I don’t…care, Nathan. Maybe I still know you well enough to sense that things hadn’t always gone well for you, and maybe that’s why I asked Luke. I don’t know.”
“You…don’t know,” he repeats, smirking slightly while running a frustrated hand through his hair. “I’m not really sure what to say to that,” he sighs. “God, Hales. How can you not know?”
“I don’t know, Nathan! I didn’t expect to come back here and see you, and I didn’t expect that college was anything less than a heaven of basketball and girls for you!” I try to explain, unsure how to put everything into words. “I don’t know, I guess it was just easy to figure that everything was cake for you because you’re so…you.” Lame, so, so lame.
He raises an eyebrow at that. “I’m so…me?” he grins, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “That’s a little existential for you, isn’t it?” Now it is my turn to arch an eyebrow at him. “Okay, fine, I don’t know what existential means, but it sounds like it might be that.” Grinning, I pick up my glass, swirling the water around in it slightly. “That’s a new habit,” he comments lightly, staring at my hand.
Shrugging, I glance up at him. “It’s not really a habit. I don’t know why I was doing it, actually.”
“I see,” he nods, smiling at me widely. “That’s, uh, I don’t know how to say this, Hales, but that’s kind of strange.”
“You’re teasing me?” I ask, blinking at him as my mind yells ‘danger, danger!’ at me. “That’s a little inappropriate for ex-spouses, don’t you think?” Oh, my. Did I just make a divorce joke? That’s very…unlike me, in many, many ways.
From the look on his face, he doesn’t know how to take that either. Furrowing his brow, he stares at me intently. “I’m not sure how to take it.”
“Well, that’s good,” I sigh tiredly. “I’m not exactly sure how I meant it, to tell the truth. I’m sorry, you must think I’m absolutely insane.”
“Yeah, but you always were,” he grins. “It’s just comforting to see that some things will never change, apparently.”
I - are we flirting? No, we can’t be flirting. Not after everything that’s gone on today, this week, and oh, the last five or six years. I - surely, I wouldn’t be so foolish as to flirt with my ex-husband, right?
Wrong, I totally am. I am flirting with him with very little apparent regard for any one of the ten million reasons why I should not be flirting with him. What the hell is wrong with me? I know better than this. I’ve already figured out that I haven’t gotten over the divorce yet, and here I am dangerously close to giving myself a slew of new and more complicated Nathan issues to take back to California with me. And they say I’m the smart one. Honestly, it’s like my brain has dissolved and there is nothing left to keep me thinking clearly.
“Hey, you okay there?” he asks, snapping me out of the dazed thoughts I’d fallen into. “You got all pale there for a minute.” He groans, shaking his head at me as he takes me by the elbow, leading me to an oversized chair in the family room. “I knew I shouldn’t have kept you out in the sun so long. I’m sorry, baby, I wasn’t thinking.”
Unsurprised and surprisingly unresisting when he kneels in front of me, his hands rubbing lightly up and down my acutely bare legs, I know my eyes are probably wide and confused as I stare up at him. “It’s not the heat,” I mutter, suddenly feeling the embarrassment of the situation set in. “Maybe I should get going now.”
“Don’t,” he countermands softly. “Stay with me, Hales. Spend today with me. I know you’re leaving Tree Hill soon, so just give me today. I promise to be a perfect gentleman, if that’s what you want.” He tips his head to the side, shooting me his most charming smile. “Just give me the chance to prove that I’m not the same stupid, selfish jerk that I was five years ago.”
“I already know that,” I tell him, my voice as soft and quiet as his. “Nathan, you don’t have anything to prove to me. I hope you know that. It is stunningly clear in terms of where you are now that you are so very far from either stupid or selfish. I meant it when I said I was proud of you, and you should be proud of you, too.”
I can tell he doesn’t believe, but I can also tell that he appreciates the sentiment. “Just stay with me today. I know you’d planned on helping Peyton, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind you taking a break, right? Stay, baby. Stay with me and we can talk and hang out and do whatever it is that you want to do.”
Sitting up straight, I manage to find a bit of my resolve again. I know what he’s asking for if I stay, and I also know that if I stayed, I would be giving it freely. I just can’t do that; I cannot put myself in that position. “I can’t, Nathan,” I sigh, not without regret. “It’s just for the best if I go now. For both of us.”
He drops back so that he is sitting with his legs folded under him. He’s disappointed in me, and that hurts. It hurts worse that I could have imagined it hurting, and - how is that happening? I had defenses built up, and they’re all gone now, vanished in what feels like a blink of an eye. All the more reason to get up and get out of here, fast.
“Yeah, okay,” he nods, moving to stand up. “If you’re ready to go, I can walk you out to the car.”
“Thanks, but you really don’t have to do that,” I smile, following suit and standing. “Well, I do need to go now.” Glancing around, I smile at the changes he has made to this house. “I love what you’ve done with the place,” I tell him. “If feels very ‘you’.”
As we walk towards the front door, he reaches out and takes the water glass I’m still holding from me, setting it on a table near the door. “Thanks,” he nods, something of a satisfied smile on his handsome face. Oh, hell. I have to stop doing that! “I definitely needed a fresh start when I moved in here, so as I can, I’ve been replacing all of Dad’s things. Well, I got rid of everything first, and I’ve been replacing them since. Guess what the first thing I tossed out was?”
That’s an easy one. “Um, let me guess: Dan’s ode to self trophy and memorabilia cases?” I ask, laughing when he makes a ding, ding, ding noise. All of a sudden, we are standing on the porch together, and things get awkward again. “Well, um, I should go then.”
He gets a pained look on his face, but nods and shoves his hands in his pockets. “You take care of yourself, Haley. If you ever change your mind or, I don’t know, lose it maybe, give me a call. I’d love to hear from you.”
“Yeah,” I agree, taking a deep breath. It isn’t likely to happen, though, and we both know it. I think. I couldn’t because it would be too hard to hear his voice and know that was it. There wasn’t anything more than hearing his voice. I couldn’t stand having that, just that. “I’m glad I got to see you, Nathan. And I am so damn happy that you are doing well. I hope you know that I really mean that.”
Reaching out, he wraps his arms around me, holding me to him. Reciprocating immediately, I wrap mine tightly around his neck. “Thank you,” he murmurs sounding choked up, his lips up against my ear and sending shivers down my spine. “Thank you so damn much for believing me, for knowing I wouldn’t do that. I - you have no idea how much that means to me, baby.”
His show of emotion prompts tears of my own to fill my eyes, but I manage to keep them from falling as I turn my head to press a lingering kiss to his cheek. “You never have to thank me for that. I know you, and I knew right away that it wasn’t possible.” He lifts me slightly, so that my feet are dangling in the air as he turns his face toward mine. Our lips are mere millimeters apart, and neither of seems inclined to break eye contact. “What are we doing?” I breathe out, nervously needing to fill the silence.
”Hugging,” he replies, squeezing me a little to prove his point as he says this. “You are giving me a goodbye hug, but I’m giving you an ‘until you come to your senses, this is a reminder of how great we are’ hug.” He sets me down, taking a half step back. His hands move up to cup my face before gently tucking the messy curls I’m sporting behind my ears. “I know you don’t want to hear this, that you want to go back to California and forgot that me and the rest of Tree Hill even exist, but I’m not going away. I won’t let you forget me, and I definitely won’t let you forget us.”
“Like I could if I wanted,” I scoff softly, still staring into the endless blue of his eyes. “We’re both just different now. Our lives are different, and we don’t really know each other anymore.”
He drops a quick peck to my lips. “I think you’ve proved you still know me. And Hales, I still know you, too. I know that you were scared spitless to come back here because you were afraid all the feelings you’ve denied all these years would crash back on you. I know that none of the things that are so intrinsically you have changed, either.”
This time, I initiate the kiss, rising up on my tiptoes to press my lips to his. It is far longer and more intimate than the one he gave me. “I guess that’s a more sufficient goodbye, huh?” Releasing my grip on his neck, I step back as a heartbreaking sense of loss fills me. “Take care of yourself, Nathan. Or maybe just keep doing what you have been doing.”
He lets me go, following me down the steps without saying anything else. Seeming to know what I need, he doesn’t come any further than that. Every time I turn around, he just smiles at me, his eyes twinkling again. He doesn’t say a thing until I’m in the rental car, rolling down the windows to let the heat out, and then….
“I’m not going away,” he calls, still grinning at me. “What we have isn’t going away anytime soon, either, Haley Scott! Might as well accept and embrace it because you and I? We are meant to be, baby!”
With one last frustrating, maddening, devastating, and insanely gorgeous smile, he turns and walks back into the house. As the door shuts, I snap out of my Nathan induced haze and manage to fumblingly get the key into the ignition and start the car. I only get a scant few miles before I have to pull over when my emotions overwhelm me and I’m damn near tears. Well, near the tears that accompanies the nasty, horrible, hiccoughing, gulping, awful-looking sobbing that comes around once in awhile.
I am just feeling so completely overwhelmed. Now that I’m out of Nathan’s really distracting presence, a few realizations hit me. One: no other man has ever attracted me even a fraction of the amount that Nathan attracts me. Two: Nathan Scott still, and possibly always will, knows how to get under my skin. And three, most depressing and most important: not only am I not over the divorce, but I’m not even over him. Which really ruins a lot of the fool’s gold mirages I’ve set up for myself the last five years.
I still love him. To make matters worse, if I’m not still in love with him, it clearly wouldn’t take much for me to be there again. Oh, damn. Of all the things to happen while we were here, this is far and away the worst. No one wants to be in love with someone who lives three thousand miles away from them, right? More to the point, no one wants to be in love with their ex-spouse, particularly when said ex is three thousand miles away.
Damn it, what do I do now? Things can’t go forward with Nathan and I, not now. Furthermore, it is unreasonable to think that, if not now, there will be a time in the future for us. Why would there be? We already had our chance, and in our own ways, each of us blew it. If that isn’t a conk on the head from the universe saying ‘give it up’, I don’t know what would be.
Brushing away the few tears that manage to fall, I glare at my reflection in the rear view mirror. Why is this happening now, of all times? How have I managed to turn my life completely upside down in less than a freaking week? I start med school in three months, so it doesn’t seem out of proportion to get upset about these things. Unfortunately, this is an added stressor that I just don’t need right now.
Gathering up the tattered shreds of what remains of my composure, I pull myself a little together before re-starting the car and driving straight back to Peyton’s house. She is sitting on the porch, her long legs stretched out in from of her as she reclines back on her elbows. She waves at me as I get out of the car, sitting up more as I get closer.
“How was it?” she asks as I drop down next to her. “Everything you hoped for and then so much more?”
“Bitch,” I mutter, rolling my eyes. “It was awful,” I answer succinctly. Pausing a second to let that sink in, I then add, “Wonderful. Yes indeed, it was an infuriating dichotomy designed to mess with my mind and heart. It was about as upsetting as you’d imagine. Aren’t you glad that you asked?”
Her eyes grow wide with all of this information, and she is sitting up ramrod straight by the time I finish. “Well, it certainly sounds eventful, at any rate. What happened, are you okay?”
Nodding, I close my eyes and try to force my body to relax. “I’m okay,” I assure her. “A little confused, but otherwise fine. Nathan, on the other hand, I think it’s damn near a miracle that he gets out of bed every day. Honestly, I wouldn’t blame him if he moved to Timbuktu where no one knew him. You know?”
Peyt furrows her eyebrows at that. “Uh, no, I don’t know. That’s kind of the issue here, right? I don’t know, so you fill me in on things, and then we discuss them in hopes that you regain a tiny bit of what was once your special Haley version of sanity.”
“Honestly, Peyton,” I sigh, dragging a hand through my curls. “It’s so…horrible, what he went through. And I’m just so proud of him that I can’t even say.”
If she is surprised by that, she hides it pretty well. “What happened?” she asks, not even pretending to hide her obvious curiosity. “Was it Dan?”
Funny how anyone who knows them immediately comes to that conclusion. “Dan happened, of course,” I tell her, my tone underlying the blatant obviousness of that. “But how do you feel about living in a world where Dan Scott is not the worst thing that happened to Nathan, beat out by a fairly healthy margin.” She waits for me to explain that, staring at me expectantly. “God, Peyt, some girl - “ I start, cutting myself off with a bitter shake of the head, “No, not some girl, some bitch accused him of raping her.” I barely even hear Peyton’s gasp I’m so worked up again. “She recanted after a few weeks,” I tell her, angry tears filling my eyes. “You know that the damage had already been done by then. No one believed him, Peyt. Even once that girl told the truth, people still treated him like….like…he was guilty. Like he was a monster or a pervert.”
“Oh, crap,” she breathes, her hands covering her mouth. “Did he get kicked off the team? Because you know they couldn’t do that, not legally!”
“No,” I sigh, brushing a few of the more persistent tears away. “He left on his own, sort of. He was helped along by the way people still doubted him even after the truth came out. I just, I wish I had known.”
She raises an eyebrow at that. “Why? What could you have done, dropped out of school and ran back here to hold his hand?”
Rolling my eyes, I draw my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs. “Of course not. But if I’d known, maybe I could have done something for him. I could’ve called or emailed him. Sent him a damn letter. I don’t know, I could’ve done something to let him know that someone believed him, that someone knew him better than that. He should have known that there was at least one damn person out there who just knew he wasn’t capable of that.”
“Luke never said anything,” she murmurs, most likely thinking aloud. This is something of a topic I haven’t let myself mull over much yet because I don’t know how I feel about it. “Did he at least call Nathan when this was going down?” I shake my head. “I’ll kill him,” she breathes, shaking her head.
“That’s about how I feel,” I admit, finally letting my irritation - no, my outrage with Luke escape. “I - I don’t understand why he wouldn’t contact Nathan at a time like that. I mean, set the bad things aside, at least for five minutes, and help your brother out.”
She nods wearily. “I don’t know, Hales. That is so unlike Luke not to do anything, but obviously….well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough, huh?” I nod my agreement, fully intent on interrogating Luke the second he walks through the door. “Not even his friends at Duke believed him?”
I shrug, my chin bumping on my knee in the process. “It doesn’t sound like it. I mean, maybe some didn’t think he did it, but he didn’t get any kind of vocal support from anyone. God, Peyt, my heart just breaks for him,” I whisper as I choke up again at the injustice of it all. “I can tell he never had anyone to talk to about it, but he’s still doing really well. He has a job with the PUD, he’s taking correspondence classes to finish off his degree, and he even helps out at the café when he can. I’m just so damn proud of him.”
Leaning back on her elbows again, she watches me closely. “Well, when did you realize that you were still in love with him?” she asks, not mincing a single word.
“On the way back here,” I admit without hesitation. If I can’t talk about this with her, who could I possibly talk about it with? “I didn’t even realize, didn’t even have a clue until I saw him again. And then, to see how he’s changed, to see how he’s matured and know what he has overcame. It’s just…he amazes me.”
“Okay, well,” she breathes out, considering me closely. “How does that make you feel?” Crossing my eyes, I stick my tongue out at her until she throws her hands up in the air. “Fine, stupid question, I get it. Really, though, what happened? Ooh, did you do it?”
“Peyton!” I huff in exasperation. “What is wrong with you?” She doesn’t respond other than to grin impishly at me. “Of course I didn’t have sex with him. It wasn’t about that, and what do you think I am, stupid?”
She sighs, reaching a hand out to playfully shove at me. “What was it about then? What happened?”
“He asked me to give him - us - another chance or to at least think about it,” I confide, hugging my legs tighter as I rest my cheek on my knee. “I said no, of course,” I tell her to forestall the obvious question. “I mean, what else could I say, right?”
“Wow, that’s intense,” she murmurs quietly. “Are you okay? I mean, really okay with everything. Just the stuff about the rape accusation is a lot to take in, but being asked for another go-round by your ex-husband? You are okay, or as okay as possible, right?”
I nod, because how can I not be okay? And I am, I think. Nothing has really changed except I might have a deeper understanding of some of my own issues. Of course, I can’t maintain a relationship if I still have feelings for Nathan. I suppose it is no great shock that it was easier and more pleasant when I thought my problems had merely to do with being plagued by being such a young divorcee.
Looking at Peyton, I sigh. “How the hell did this happen? I am not supposed to still be in love with him, Peyt. I should be over him, only worrying about starting med school in a couple of months. Ships have sailed!” I exclaim. “The sun has set, time has gone by, blah blah blah.”
“Okay, if you are done with the stupid colloquialisms, can we move on now?” she asks with a roll of her eyes. Deflating a little, I motion for her to continue. “What did he say when you turned him down?”
“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” I sigh, dumbly thinking that she’ll let it go there. Of course, her glare quickly convinces me otherwise. Fine then. “He told me wasn’t going away this time. He said that what is between us isn’t going anywhere either. He was smiling like a fool when he said that, by the way. Can you believe his nerve?”
Snickering a little, she shrugs. “Nathan Scott really said those things about the two of you not being over?” Tiredly, I nod. “Wow. Well, I have to tell you, Hales. That’s fairly romantic. Aside from the foolish smile, obviously.”
Romantic? Ugh, really? It wasn’t romantic, it was unhinged! “Romantic would have been, oh, I don’t know! But it isn’t my unhinged ex-husband professing that our love isn’t going to end or whatever,” I grump.
She rolls her eyes at that. “Haley, that was romantic and you know it. I suppose that it coming from an ex-spouse that you have been failing to move on from for half a decade now takes away a little of the sparkle. Still, it is pretty sparkly. Not too shabby.” When I open my mouth to protest, she smirks as she asks, “Why is it so hard to admit that it was romantic and maybe you liked it a little?”
“Because it scares me! It throws everything out of order, and it makes me think and wonder about things that I should not be thinking or wondering about anymore. It scares me, Peyt, because it puts everything back exactly where it was five years ago, and that isn’t where I want to be.”
“Maybe things wouldn’t be the same this time around,” she shrugs. “Look at how many times it took Luke and me before we finally made a go of it. We had more false starts and pointless stops than most people could stand. It was worth it, though.”
Giving her my best irritated face, I ask, “Where is this coming from, anyway? I thought you were anti-Nathan.”
She laughs, stretching her arms above her head. “I figured that if you were back to loving Nathan that I was probably supposed to be nicer, too. Honestly, best friend solidarity. I hate who you hate. Well, except Jolly, I think he’s hilarious. Awesome entertainment for a weekend in the ghetto that is your campus.”
“You’re a brat,” I smirk, fighting the urge to laugh at her reference to one of the guys in the apartment next to mine. It is a losing battle though, as both of us succumb to the giggles. When we finally calm down, I glance over at her as my thoughts turn serious again. “Did you know? I mean, could you tell that I still had feelings for Nathan?”
She shrugs, not breaking her gaze away from mine. “No, I didn’t know it was like this. Of course you still had some feelings for him, that’s only natural, but I hadn’t realized the extent of them. Not surprising, I guess, since you hadn’t realized them either…”
Fair enough. She did know right away today that things, that something had shifted in me, so I guess I can only reasonably expect her to pick up on what I give her. Still, though!
“I have to start all over again,” I whine in my most pitiful voice. “I have to get over Nathan again, basically from scratch. I don’t know how to do that, Peyt.”
“Maybe you are being deliberately obtuse and missing the obvious answer,” she suggests, watching me carefully for a reaction. “Maybe you don’t get over it.”
Taking a deep breath, I try not to scream out my frustrations. “That is not an option and you know it,” I snap back at her. “We live on opposite sides of the country, I have freaking med school to focus on, and on top of that, he is my ex-husband. It’s just crazy to even consider anything happening between us!”
She reaches out, patting me on top of the head and ignoring the glare that move earns her. “You’d rather make yourself miserable and not even consider taking what you want? Hales, I - you need to do what is best and right for you, and I don’t know. I guess that I’m worried that you’re going to ignore all this and try and forget it. But it doesn’t work that way.”
Huffing in irritation at the truths in her words, I rock back and forth slightly. “It’s sort of hard to ignore,” I admit tersely. “I know this is a big deal, and okay maybe I need to give it more thought, but come on! There are a million reasons to just not think about it until it goes away. Because it will go away eventually.”
“I know,” she agrees with a small smile. “Well, I don’t know that it will ever really go away, but I do know each and every one of the million reasons. I want you to be happy. That is all that I care about in this. If Nathan is the person who makes you happy, then I’m all for that.”
“You are freaking me out,” I sniff, unfolding my legs to stretch them out in front of me. “I am not mentally or emotionally equipped to handle any kind of relationship right now, and I am particularly incapable of handling a long-distance one with Nathan Scott. You get that, right? It makes sense?”
She nods, her gaze softening into something more akin to sympathy. “I do get it, on some level. Still, Hales, I don’t want you to shut yourself off and miss out on something great because of it.” I raise my head, ready to protest that but she continues on. “I don’t even mean Nathan, necessarily. You could meet some amazing junior doctor in med school this fall, and I know you’d stay away from that if you’re still hung up on Nathan.”
I smirk a little at that. “Wouldn’t that only be fair? Obviously trying to have a relationship with one person while you have feelings for another would only end in disaster.”
“Then I guess you need to make a decision you can stick to: either permanently, irrevocably end things with Nathan - in your head and heart as well as his - or pursue things with him,” she states plainly, but still sympathetically. “You are right about it being a disaster if you don’t work this out. My thing is the person that stands to hurt the most in all this is my very favorite person in the world, and I don’t like that. So I’m worried about you. Sue me.”
“Thanks, Peyt,” I whisper, incredibly touched by that. “You’re the best friend I could ever have. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate having you so totally on my side.”
“Always,” she grins in return. “Besides, I am just glad that I’m getting the chance to return the above and beyond best friend favor. You’ve always been so amazing for me, especially when Luke and I were trying to figure things out. I really want to be at least half as good for you as you were for me.”
Returning her smile, I nod. “You’re better,” I promise loyally, meaning it a thousand times over. “I really do not know what I would do without you and your help in all this. Well, aside from going insane because that would be my number one priority.”
Standing up, she glances up at the house. “Only two days left here. Then it’s back to LA and no more Tree Hill for me. Back to being fifteen hundred miles from my boyfriend.”
“What are you going to do about that?” I ask, watching as a car slows to a stop, parking across the street. No one gets out, and I don’t know why it catches my eye.
“I don’t know,” she sighs, turning to follow my gaze. “Maybe we’ll have to consider our options soon. He likes Austin, but I like LA, too. And you’re in LA. I think that should count for something.” She glances between me and the car again. “Why are you staring at that car?”
“Dunno,” I admit with a little laugh, trying to focus back on her. “Well, why don’t you invite Luke to LA? Maybe he just needs the push to realize that you want that to happen, too. He’s kind of dense sometimes.”
She smiles at that. “He is, yes, but he’s my dense man.” Shaking my head, I playfully roll my eyes at that. “I don’t know. What if he says no?”
Ah, now we get down to the heart of the matter. She’s afraid he’ll say no, or that he doesn’t want to make things more permanent between them. Why she’d have that fear is beyond me, but it is just so her. Just so Luke and Peyton, really.
“He won’t,” I assure her confidently, glancing back to the car when the door slams shut. A girl is standing next to it, her back to us. “He loves you, Peyton, and if you asked, he’d be there in a second. And if you asked to move to Austin to be with him there, he’d be finding a bigger apartment so that you could have a room for an art studio.”
Her eyebrows shoot up at that. “Really? We haven’t really talked about it much. I just don’t know that it’s like tha…oh, hell, no!” she grounds out, staring at the girl now crossing the street. It is Brooke Davis, now sporting waist-length, light brown hair, and I cannot believe I didn’t recognize her right away. Peyton and I exchange a Look before she starts stomping across the street to meet Brooke.
“Peyt,” I caution her, trying to get her to stop. I don’t think that either of us really needs a confrontation right now. “Don’t hit her.”
“It’s your turn for that,” she reminds me without turning around. “I’m just going to pin her chubby ass down for you.”
Oh, hell. I know it is inappropriate, but I can’t help laughing. This whole thing is ridiculous, and of course Brooke is here. Honestly, why we hadn’t expected it is beyond me. Still laughing - and inwardly cursing myself for it - I follow her out into the street. “Peyton, come on. Let’s just go back in the house.”
She glances back, rolling her eyes at me. “Now, why would we do that? When we have such a lovely guest here to see us. We can’t be rude to the little whore, can we?” Uh, no…can’t be rude at all. Right. “Maybe she’s not here to see us, though. Maybe she’s here to ‘service’ one of the neighbors.”
Of course, all that is said for Brooke’s benefit more than mine, but I can’t help getting a thrill out of it. Brooke is like my nemesis somehow. She probably doesn’t really realize that, but it doesn’t change how I feel.
“So you’re going to be a bitch then?” she snaps with a raspy voice at Peyton. She glances my way, shooting me a tentative smile. “I just came to say hi. It’s been a long time.”
“And yet strangely not nearly long enough,” Peyton grits out from between her teeth. “What are you doing here?”
She pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her back pocket, packing it before pulling one out to light it. “I just said why I was here,” she shrugs, the smoke billowing from her lips explaining the extra raspy quality in her voice. “I heard you were in town, and I thought it would be nice to see two of my closest friends from high school. Not that either of you were very good friends to me, of course. You totally abandoned me.”
Peyton and I share a glance that basically asks: is this for real? Does she seriously think we owed her some kind of friendship pact? Maybe she is crazy.
“I don’t think that either of us has much to say to you,” I tell her, staring her straight in the eye. I barely even feel bad when she blanches at that. “We aren’t friends now, and we haven’t been for a long time. I won’t speak for Peyt, but I don’t want to renew our friendship, either.”
“But - but - I don’t get it,” she exclaims softly, her eyes wide. “What did I ever do to you?”
Peyton makes a scoffing noise, her face incredulous as she stares at her ex-best friend. Ever the little actress, Brooke’s eyes fill with tears, but they don’t faze me in the least. “You kissed my husband. You tried to get him to sleep with you. You did all that while you were still trying to pretend to be my friend. You’re selfish, crude, completely oblivious to the feelings of anyone who isn’t you, and you’re as fake as Britney Spears’ parenting skills. You’re as bad of a friend as bad can get. If I wasn’t so completely over your friendship because of what you did to me, I’d still be completely over you because of the things you did - well, tried to do - to my best friend,” I tell her plainly in a surprisingly calm and rational voice.
Brooke rears back, obviously stung by my words. But I don’t even care. I don’t care if they hurt her or make her feel bad. This isn’t kindergarten and I don’t have to play nice. There’s no reason why I should.
“I think that about says it all, Brooke,” Peyton tells her, pointing towards her car. “You should just go. There’s just no place for you here.
“But I was your best friend,” she whispers to Peyton, her lower lip quivering, tears soon spilling down her cheeks. It’s like watching a movie, almost. “You can’t just cut me out like this.”
“You cut yourself out, Brooke,” Peyton sighs, looking more irritated than anything else. “I mean it, just go. I am not your friend now, nor do I have any interest in rekindling what friendship we used to have. If you could even call it that, considering how you acted in it.”
Throwing her cigarette on the ground, she glares at us as she stamps it out. “I thought friends were supposed to forgive each other for their mistakes. I guess you two are too good for that, huh?”
I shrug. “Guess so.”
“Well, that’s just great!” she nearly screeches, actually stomping her foot on the ground like a three year old having a temper tantrum. “I cannot believe this is how the world works. I mean, I give and I give and I give of myself, and this is how you two treat me? Unbelievable!” she marvels, glaring at us one last time before continuing her stomping across the street and into her car. We stare at her as she drives off, neither Peyton nor I saying a word to each other.
But the second we look at each other, it’s all over and we burst out laughing.
Maybe not everything about coming home is so bad. Because that was pretty fun.