Fairy Tales and Love
By: Sari
Summary: Lindsay doesn't remember the day she started to believe in fairytales. One-shot.
Lindsey isn't sure when it started. One day, she had been a little girl playing with Barbie and Ken dreaming up stories of romance and fairytales and then it felt like a day, but really it was years when her own fairy tale had happened. He had walked into her life, all sadness and broken hearts with a book that touched her and eyes that looked into her soul and she knew that'd she'd forever be in love with this man—even when she knew he probably wouldn't love her back.
It was bliss though, for those two years that they had fought over editing and eventually fell into bed with each other. Lucas was gentle and kind and he loved with what he had left of his heart. She understood; she knew she couldn't be that epic love that Lucas and Peyton once was. Haley tried to placate her, sympathetic smiles and hushed apologies—"Lindsey, he doesn't mean to space out like that. Sometimes, sometimes he just forgets that he has you."
Lindsey knows that Haley really means to say is that—"Lindsey, sometimes he regrets that you aren't her."
But, Lindsey wants her fairy tale, even if this isn't her fairy tale prince. She wants her little white house and the caring group of friends. She's found that in Tree Hill. She's fighting for what she can rightfully say now is hers. That little blonde bitch isn't going to come back in town and steal this from her. She can't, she won't.
"Lindsey…" Peyton waves a hand in front of the woman's face one day when they pretend to be friends for the sake of Lucas—everything, always for the sake of Lucas. "Lindsey, you win okay? Is that what you wanted to hear? That Lucas chose you?"
She laughs, because she never thought the myth about blondes were true, but apparently Peyton doesn't seem to notice that she's a complete idiot. So Lindsey informs her, bitterly—sarcastically, that no, she has not won anything. Winning would be if Lucas truly had gotten over Peyton and had proposed to her because he wanted her, not to forget someone else. Winning would have been if Lucas still didn't write novels about unrequited love, and modeled characters after his one true love. Winning would be when Lindsay finally felt like when Lucas looked at her, he didn't see next best, he saw the best.
She tells Peyton this, and tries not to cry when that hopeful glint sparks in Peyton's eyes once again.
Sitting in her office Lindsay looks out at New York City. She doesn't know when this started; when she began thinking of her life in fairy tales waiting for her prince to come. She knows now that Lucas may not be her prince, and this quite possibly isn't her tale. But she does know that she'll take what she can get.
Love, Lindsey laments spitefully, is fucked up if it makes her stick around doomed to be a consolation prize in some teen drama.
She knows, the saddest part, is that she sticks around with false smiles pretending everything is okay, that everything will be alright.