Disclaimer: All characters and situations from One Tree Hill are properties of Mark Schwahn, Mike Tollin, Brian Robbins, Joe Davola and Mark Perry for Tollin/Robbins Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television. No copyright infringement intended.

Summary: Lucas realizes after a summer spent with Peyton that she's the one that he's wanted all along.


Life goes on but for me it seems to go the other way
nothing worked out for a while then it all just seemed to change
A Year to Forget, Useless I.D.

Chapter One: A Year to Forget

The full moon shined brightly, casting an eerie glow across the water. I sit a few yards away from the shoreline watching the waves beat against the water's edge, lost in thought, not in recognition.

I left her house the hour before. She was carefully tucked away in her bed, dreaming, I was sure.

I was confused. So confused. She had kissed me and I really didn't know what to do, or think, or, hell, even how to act.

We were no longer strangers, something that we had spent the last six weeks overcoming together. I longed to be part of her life again. I wanted to help her through Jake's departure and this new onslaught of information and this woman claiming to be her mother.

She was hesitant to let me in at first and really I couldn't blame her. Since I had come back from Charleston I had been on a mission to better myself. I had spent that time wrapped up in my own shit, my own problems, that I didn't care that she had problems of her own.

Here one night was when she'd released all her demons. She broke down in my arms and it was that moment that none of my problems, none of the pettiness that I had been enduring compared to what she had gone through.

That night was when we turned everything around.

Most of our time since then had been spent here at the beach.

Today, for instance, we'd come and while she sunbathed I jogged up and down the beach. She warned me not to run too much, that I had a weak heart to think of. I found it endearing the way that she fawned over my heart condition, making sure that I never overworked myself. We bonded over the intracies of the things that we wanted to keep hidden from everyone else.

It was yet another bond we shared.

We didn't speak of the past. We didn't even speak of the future. There was only the present. The summer was all that mattered to the both of us.

I'm sitting here watching the crashing of the waves against the shoreline, thinking about her just as I have every night since the summer began.

Forcing myself to my feet, I cross the beach to the shoreline, letting my feet dip into the moist sand at the water's edge.

This wasn't how I had pictured my summer. I had put myself out there to Brooke, only to be rebuffed.

We were better off as friends. I knew it deep in my heart, but I had led myself to believe that we could start anew. That she could get past the betrayal.

I was running. I knew it deep down, but I never admitted it until now.

Like I had done before, I ran for Brooke when things with Peyton got too sketchy.

She pushed me away, wanting to find solace with Jake and Jenny so I let her do that. She was the one I longed to be with, but I hadn't quite found it in myself to believe that I actually deserved her.

Until it was too late.

She had fallen in love with Jake and somehow I blurred the lines of friendship with Brooke.

But now we had a second chance.

All I had to do was figure out where we went from here.