Going Home-chapter 4
Title: Going Home
Chapter: Chapter 4
Fandom: One Tree Hill
Pairing: Brooke/Peyton and Brooke/Haley (friendship for them!)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I really, really don't own, so please don't sue.
A/N: Don't hate me after reading this chapter! Most people seemed to hate this chapter, maybe because I dared to bring in one het pairing or because Lucas is just that hated...I don't know, but give it a chance please? Comments are kinda nice if you feel like leaving one;)
A/N 2: I draw a lot of comparisons between Brooke and Haley in this chapter and yes, it was done purposefully! I was going to start a story about Haley seperately, but gave it some thought and thought I'd just give her a side story in this. This way I get to write about both the characters I love the most on OTH.
Haley's point of view.
Every morning I wake up and I see the same face reflected in my bathroom mirror. I see a woman, a mother, a teacher. I see sad eyes in a hopeless face. I see Haley James Scott.
It wasn't always like that.
Once, a very long time ago, I saw a very different thing when I looked into a mirror. Once there was a girl, a simple and happy girl. The girl had secret dreams and ugly poncho's, she had text books and school. She had Lucas and Karen and a cafe where she spent most of her childhood in.
That girl was Haley James and I miss her.
Somewhere along the line I lost that girl. Between a marriage, an almost music career and a baby, I left the girl I once was behind. I lost myself in a first love. I gave up and compromised for the sake of that love. Now what do I have to show for it?
I have a husband that's nothing like the boy I fell in love with. I have a marriage that's disintegrating before my very eyes and I'm so tired of looking for ways to hold it all together. I'm tired of constant fights and I'm tired of looking into his angry, broken face.
I'm tired of hearing how he lost everything when I'm right in front of him. When his son is in a room drawing pictures of his hero, of his daddy. When he ignores the things that's really important in this world, that really is the measure of a good life.
I'm just so, so tired.
At least I have my son, he's the only good thing that's come from the last four years of my life. My Jamie, my beautiful blue eyed boy who makes all of this worth it. I don't think I've ever loved anything or anyone as much as I love my son. It's why I'm still here in Tree Hill, why I'm still married to a man I don't think I can love anymore.
Of course there's one more thing holding me in Tree Hill, but God knows I won't admit it. I won't think it and I won't ever acknowledge it. It would hurt too many people, could potentially destroy a family and a bond that was hard fought for. It could mean losing the most profound friendship of my entire life.
So I stay. I stay and I fight for, but mostly with, my husband. I teach and I play with my son and try to distract him from the fact that his father can barely bother to look in his direction. I wake up each morning and look in the mirror and see Haley James Scott and wish that I knew as a girl what I know today as a woman.
I wish I never lost Haley James. I wish I never met Nathan Scott. I wish I had listened to my best friend back then. I wish my heart had realized what it knows now. I wish...
I wish I had fallen in love with the right brother from the start.
God forgive me for thinking it, for me being weak enough to even admit something that should never have been admitted, but it's true.
I love Lucas Scott.
I always have and I always will. The only difference is today I know that I'm very much in love with him. I think I always loved him like this, that he was always meant for me, but I was young and I'd loved him for most of my childhood and never knew the difference.
When I met Nathan it was just so sudden and new and so very exciting. It wasn't anything like the steady, calm sort of love I felt for Lucas. So I took that feeling on face value, labeled Nathan my first love and gave him my all blindly. I was too young to realize that that sort of passion, that sort of fire eventually burnt out. Nathan was the flash flood and Lucas was the gentle flowing river. One came and went soon enough, the other was a constant that cut into the earth and left it's mark over time.
I finally noticed the grooves and curves that Lucas left on my earth. On my life and heart.
So you would think it strange that I'm here, in a kitchen, fighting to keep Brooke Davis from taking Peyton from him. You would think I would want her to break them up, to make Lucas available. You would think that this would be the perfect opportunity for me to act on my feelings, to finally make the right choice and be with Lucas.
Thing is he's happy with Peyton and I made my bed, so I get to sleep in it. I can't and won't help hurt Lucas to make myself happy. So here I am in a kitchen fighting with one of my best friends so that he can stay happy and I can stay miserable. So that two brothers don't end up hating each other again. I won't turn them into Keith and Dan.
“Brooke Davis, what on God's green earth do you think you're doing here?”
I twist her ear just a little, conveying my displeasure at her showing up here like this.
That and the fact that I can smell the alcohol a mile away! She should know better than to be drinking at eleven in the morning. We're all supposed to be grown ups now and that's not very...grownup of her.
“And are you drunk?!”
She squirms as I clinch her captive ear a little harder and then gives me her patented Brooke Davis 'you-can't-resist-me' smile.
“Drunk? Me? Never! Now onto the more important things, like aren't you glad to see me? I mean I'm all hurt now! We don't see each other for years, years Haley and you aren't even a little glad to see me now?”
She gives a fake hurt look, her large hazel eyes almost tearing up a bit, but I'm not falling for it. I have a four year old son that can give a puppy dog look that could break your heart, so she's going to have to try harder than that to get some sympathy out of me.
“Glad? I'm supposed to be glad that you show up here hours after I call you and tell you Peyton and Lucas are getting married? I'm not stupid, Brooke. I may be many things, but I'm not that so you can drop the innocent act with me. Spill it, Missy!”
She sighs, her shoulders slumping and I feel a little pang of guilt for being hard on her. After all, I know better than anyone else how this must hurt her. I was there when she got her heart broken, I saw the aftermath of Lucas and Peyton getting back together. A part of me wants to drag her into my arms and just hug her, promise her everything will get better, but I'm not that naïve anymore. Things don't work like that, no matter how much you wish it did.
The best thing I can do for her right now is be realistic and stop her from doing anything stupid that could get not only Lucas and Peyton hurt, but Brooke herself too in the end. She's my friend too and I'll protect her from anything, even her own impulsive nature.
“You want me to spill it, Tutor Girl? Fine, I'll spill it all for you!” For a minute I think she might turn mean, like only a very drunk Brooke could turn mean, but she surprises me when her whole face and voice go soft, sad. “I just...I just miss this place. I miss the old me and I miss my real friends and I miss Peyton so much it breaks my heart.”
She turns away from me, leans against a counter as I process her words. As I recall staring into a mirror and missing the old me, the old Haley James. I find myself quiet as I wait for her to continue, a part of me immediately recognizing a little bit of me in her, or a little of her in me if you will.
“When I got your message...I...It broke my heart. I'm not going to lie to you, Hales, it really broke my heart, but that's not why I came back. I'm not happy, haven't been for the longest time and that message and that feeling was just the last straw. I needed to come back, don't you see? Here...here I can be me again, Haley. I can be happy and I can be with people I love. I just want that feeling back and Peyton, however I manage to keep her in my life, is a very important part of that.”
She sighs again, her hands coming to cover her face as I suspect tears are seconds away from spilling down her cheek like rainwater down a window. I'm next to her in a second, because don't I understand what she just said better than anyone?
Don't I know about keeping the person I'm very much in love with in my life in whatever way possible? She wants Peyton back, her best friend Peyton that she lost a long time ago. At least I've been fortunate enough to have Lucas in my life for these last four years, but Brooke's been alone all that time. Alone and apparently completely unhappy.
So I give a sigh of my own, because this could be trouble like only Brooke Davis can be trouble, but I've always loved her regardless of that and now is no different. So I sigh and I hug her close and smile a little, because...well...Brooke's back.
Brooke Davis who's crazy and beautiful and who washed dishes in a strip club to pay for my bachelorette party. Brooke Davis who made my wedding gown and who turned out to be my other best friend even though I judged her in the beginning. Though the judging thing was pretty mutual in our case.
“Brooke, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you've felt so alone all this time and I'm sorry that the first thing I did when I saw you was shout at you. You didn't deserve that. Okay?”
She pulls away a little and sniffles, the back of her hand wiping the tears from her cheek and for a second or two she seems just like a lost little girl. Maybe that's what she's always been really.
Then she smiles and her still watery eyes find my own and I think that it'll be good to have Brooke back. She always made my life a little more interesting, a little more fun. Maybe what Haley James Scott needs is a little fun.
Would be a nice change...
“Okay. You're forgiven, but only 'cos I'm so generous and great. That and I kinda don't have a place to stay and thought you could put me up for the night?”
I roll my eyes, something I remember doing a lot around Brooke and then I can't help smiling. She's still so damn...disarming!
“Fine, but don't do anything that could end up scarring my son in your drunken state. And no walking around in your underwear like you used to do when we shared the apartment! My neighbor's son has a telescope in his room and I think he uses it for things other than star gazing.”
I ignore the fact that Nathan might not be happy that I let Brooke stay the night, but I doubt he'd even notice. He's probably too immersed in self pity and bourbon. Besides, it would do Jamie good to have someone else in the house, maybe help distract him from what's happening with Nathan at least for a little while.
Actually, Jamie will probably be ecstatic to finally meet Brooke. She sends him random gifts throughout the year. From little things like the latest animated movies on DVD to his own swing set and slide that she had shipped out from L.A for him. It took Lucas, Mouth and Skillz almost six hours to get it all set up in the back yard, because Nathan was at an away game that weekend.
Even then, before his accident, things were wrong between us. We had already started to drift and his accident just brutally thrust that fact in my face.
So maybe having Brooke around would at least help distract me from that fact as well.
“So you've got a little pervert for a neighbor? God, he's not related to Tim or something, is he?”
Well, he does have the same beady eyes that are spaced too close together...
“Uh...no, I don't think so, but you never now. Tree Hill's gene pool isn't all that big after all. I mean how many Scott's are running around these days?”
Brooke gives a head nod and a smile, but before she can say anything the door to the kitchen is pushed open and Peyton hesitantly steps in.
Peyton whose got her hands buried in her jeans pockets and can't seem to take her eyes off Brooke. Immediately I feel the atmosphere change, unspoken words hanging around them and in this room so thickly it could choke you.
“Am I interrupting, or are you guys done doing...whatever it was you were doing?”
She flicks her eyes over towards me for a second, but then they're back on Brooke. I don't know if the look Peyton gives her is filled with apprehension or relief, but it still makes my stomach flip with worry. I'm the only other person that knows about what happened between them the summer after graduation and the knowledge mostly feels like a weight on my shoulders.
It's something I've had to keep a secret, something I've had to hide from the one person that I've always shared everything with. This is the one lie, even though it might be by omission, that exists between me and Lucas.
Still, they obviously have to talk. As much as I hate to leave them alone in a room, especially with Brooke drunk and overly emotional, I take a step away from Brooke and give Peyton a small smile.
“We're done, she's all yours.” We all three cringe at the phrase and I feel like slapping myself on the forehead, but in the end I settle for just giving a small, uncomfortable smile. “Come get me when you're ready to head home.”
Brooke nods her head, but her attention is already drifting towards Peyton still standing nervously in the middle of the kitchen, so I just leave.
Back in the cafe I find Mouth, Lucas and Jamie sitting in a booth drinking milkshakes and stealing fries off Peyton's plate. Jamie spots me first and gives me a toothy grin, his upper lip having acquired a pink mustache.
“Hi mommy, does the pretty lady still have her ear? Mouth said that at the rate you were going it might have ripped off!”
Mouth blushes as my eyebrows shoot up and I'm pleased to see that my 'Mom' look is as affective as always. Lucas laughs and leans over to clear the milkshake mustache off Jamie, then gives him a smile.
“Don't worry, sport. Your mom wouldn't really rip anyones ear off, that would make a mess and you know mom's don't like messes.”
Jamie nods his head like that makes perfect sense and goes back to his milkshake. Mouth wisely enough just stays quiet as he makes a grab for more fries and Lucas gives me the same smile he's given me since I was eight years old.
That slow Luke smile that crinkles his eyes a bit, that lazily stretches his mouth up and reminds me of water balloon fights and miniature golf on the very roof above our heads.
“So Hales, what was all that about?”
I duck my head, afraid that the person that knows me best in the world will easily pick up on the lie I'm about to tell, on the lie that I'm forced to keep on telling from know on.
“Oh, just me chewing Brooke out for disappearing for so long...and for showing up so completely trashed when she does decide to visit.”
Lucas gives a laugh and shakes his head, his expression clearly fond.
“Yeah, that's Brooke for you though, right?”
I smile and nod my head, but I'm already worried about what's being said in that kitchen. Worried about the way that Peyton looked at Brooke, worried about how almost broken Brooke had sounded earlier.
Then I catch my own reflection in the napkin dispenser, the clear, shiny metal harshly showing me what I've now come to loathe seeing...
Haley James Scott looking back at me.