Author- Emily-Grace Mendes (brookebynature)
Disclaimer- I don't own any of the characters that feature in this story, and I don't even own the title (but it came into my mind and I can't remember where I've heard it)
A/N- Okay so I was in a one-shot mood and I've been bored today, so I thought what better than to write a story? So this is what I came up with after listening to very depressing music (I don't even know why) and I hope you enjoy. xxx
This Is Me, Then
"Hey boy toy." It was all she knew what to say, adding a raise of one of the two perfectly-manicured eyebrows she owned, along with a small smile, a pucker of her glossy lips which somehow had him hooked.
And he can only respond with a shy smile, a powerless indication of the hold she still has over him, after their two failed attempts at a relationship that had produced nothing but a desire for someone else and an aching for what was mistaken as love.
He's with Peyton now, and the lies he's held behind cookie dough fights and kisses for their passed parents, the ones that could probably see beyond all of this, to the stolen nights of lust and betrayal with her former best friend, are as convincing as the want and need he'd held for her back when he was with Brooke.
A shot of the ball and it flashes through the net in the gymnasium, the same place she's stretching, just for him, as his girlfriend, (her former best friend,) looks on oblivious. Peyton claps and she just parts her lips slightly, dimples at the ready just to make his knees grow that much weaker.
"Have another shot." She mouths, eyes widened, apologies at the ready for when the time comes for her to leave his house, his bed, his arms, in a flurry of emotion that can't gather itself long enough for Brooke to figure out what it is.
He sees the irony of her statement and his blue eyes mirror the opposite of hers, narrowed and confused, yet all the while knowing exactly what she means. Peyton throws him the ball, just so that he can do what Brooke tells him (though she doesn't know that) with a wink and a smile for the guy she trusts more than anyone.
She bends over, stretching, right as he releases the ball from his hands, and it spins, misses, the harsh sound of the vibrating backboard echoing in his ears as the backdrop for her earlier words.
"Too bad."
She's smirking now, his turning away to face the opposite direction just another indication at how much she can make him feel. And he misses that, every second he's not looking at her, but he figures, that just maybe, that's the reason they're doing what they are: stolen kisses and nothing that doesn't involve passion, because now, the body (and the mind) of Brooke Davis are unfamiliar to him. And he loves that.
He wants to ask why she's doing this, why, after everything he did to her, she still waits for him, dressed in nothing but the most sexy underwear he's ever seen, or sometimes, dressed in nothing at all.
He wants to ask whether she really is okay, because even though he's screwed her over, (twice) he really does care, and not just because they're fucking as and when she feels like it.
"You know." She whispers in his ear as he's trying to listen to some new play Whitey wants them to run. He can't see her, as she backs away just as Nathan turns round, acts like she's picking up a dropped pom pom.
And then it's just the two of them again, everyone else concentrating on what they're doing to pay attention to the chief slut (both male and female) while Lucas does his best to keep the composure he's perfected so finely in front of her.
"You're just as good from behind."
She's gone back to her squad before Lucas can even respond with a flinch of his hand. He's sorry for the reaction of his body to her touch, yet if it didn't react that way, he's not sure whether he might die. It's too much like the way it was before anything happened, before she let him love her, and before he let himself love her best friend. Former best friend.
But she's there when he finishes practise, telling him she'll be in her car whenever he's done kissing Peyton. It's too much for her to watch them, so Brooke's keeping herself safe. It's better this way after all.
"Kiss me." She mumbles into skin that feels like it might melt away if her breath gets any closer.
"Undress me." Hands entwined and toes curling, hair beautifully messy and unkempt as he completes her instructions, wondering whether any form of conversation would arise between them after they were done.
"Fuck me."
Nothing echoes how is was before everything went wrong and temptation led him to Peyton, heartbreak led her to Felix's bed. Yet everything screams freshman year, back when he had no idea how to love, and she had no recollection of what the word even meant.
It's a blur of bed linen and sweat-covered skin, hands tangled in hair, clothes discarded with no thought for their positioning haphazardly on the floor, across items of furniture.
And he takes time for nothing but the slow fingering of her tattoo, rough hands tracing the outline of something so delicately inked, completing perfection on the body he just can't imagine living without.
It's when they're done, when she's in the shower (a ritual she's always kept) and he is content that she can't watch him thinking, that he allows time for wondering what she's thinking. He's never sure when it was that they came to a silent agreement about the two of them, or when the necessity to examine what she might be thinking came about. And Lucas isn't even sure whether he wants it there. But it is, and right now, as he listens to her stepping out of the shower, he knows that nothing means anything any more.
"What is this?" he finally asks with no response. He didn't expect one anyway. "Brooke?"
It's the first time he's used her name since he and Peyton got together, and now there was something that just didn't seem right about it. The right he had to call her anything at all was taken away when he kissed Peyton. And yet all Lucas wants to do right now is scream everything he's ever been accustomed to saying in her presence: 'pretty girl,' 'cheery.'
He shakes his head to remove all of this at the realisation that none of it matters anymore, because he's dating her former best friend, and he's supposed to be the good guy.
"Don't Lucas." And when the words leave her trembling lips she instantly regrets saying anything. Silence can cover up whatever it is that she's feeling, but a bad word choice, much like the one she's just emitted, says more than anybody ever wants to discover.
That's when he realises that there is something to uncover, something she might just want him to find out, something she might desperately want to tell him, and pride just won't allow her to. He's now not sure he even wanted to know in the first place.
"Don't what?"
Silence would be the best thing right now, and as much as she fights the string of words that want to leave her mouth, she looses.
"Don't try and get to know me again."
And she's angry because all of the strength and self-respect she's accumulated in the past few months is destroyed in that one instant. And it's him, yet again, that's made it happen.
"Why are you doing this?"
She's covering her body faster than it was uncovered by Lucas only moments ago, and all the while his words are echoing in her head, undiscouraged by her own silent voice, telling them to go away.
"Doing what?"
She's unable to stop whatever conversation they have going, and when Lucas sits up in bed, she knows she's going nowhere fast. His eyes are too much like the way they were when he used to show concern back when they were together, back when he was doing (almost) the same thing behind her back with Peyton.
"You're not 'you' anymore." He tells her, wishing that his feelings could make up their damn mind about what they wanted. He hates the fact that they're making him want to save the girl who he's screwing on the side, the same girl who probably needs to be saved because of him in the first place.
"This is me." She tells him, completing her redressing with the simple jeans skirt that had been making him want to rip her clothes off since school began that day. "Then."
And as she shuts the door behind her, the only thing is he's left with it the smell of her shampoo on his pillow. And Lucas suddenly gets it.
Everything that makes up Brooke Davis is the remains of what he left her with the two times he'd kissed his now-girlfriend when supposedly being the good guy to her. He's disgusted and ashamed and willing her to come back through the door. And he knows it's no good, because even if she did come back and he could tell her that he loves her, it won't make a difference.
Because she's living 'then.' She's living in a time before she was broken and miserable and hiding feelings that she didn't know she could have, from everyone. She's not the person she was; she'll never get that back, not really.
It's him that's her world, as much as she hates him (and herself) for it, it's not going to change any time school. So for as long as he can occupy her thoughts, and her bed and her body, she realises she has to live as her. Then.
So I was thinking of doing a sort-of sequel to this (another one shot) and I was wondering what you guys think? Keep a look out for it :) Please review xxx