The pact was a stupid idea; just something we did to say we did it. Well, that was my reason anyways. I thought it'd be cool to look back 20 years from that night and say to someone "the night before I graduated from high school, I made this pact with my friends." Nathan was drunk, Lucas was downing his 7th beer of the hour, and Peyton never outwardly cared about anything. The only one who was really into it – the one who proposed the idea – was Haley.
Haley was afraid. She used to tell me that when we would just be lying around my room, wasting time that never seemed to run out. She'd say "Brooke, one day we're going to forget each other, and soon we'll be 45 and our kids will look through out high school yearbooks and say 'mom, who were you friends with' and you won't be able to remember what we all look like, or even what are names are."
But two weeks before graduation, standing in my room, staring at the full-length mirror and making faces at my cap-and-gown clad reflection, Haley's voice cut through the silence. "We should make a pact." A sarcastic response was all I had to give her and she frowned subconsciously, which is something that Haley did often. She was going to have frown lines before she turned 30 is what I always told her, and that made her frown even more. But she was serious this time. Her frown didn't droop so much as it usually did, which meant that she was fighting between being serious and slightly hurt.
"Well what happens if after this summer, we never see each other again?" She put down the book she was reading – This Side Of Paradise – and looked me square in the eye. Well, as square in the eye as the mirror reflection would allow. "We need to make a pact and swear that 10 years from now, we're going to go right back to the same, spot or whatever, and…" She trailed off.
"And what? Dance around a fire in a circle? Listen to a mix CD with all our favorites songs on that would embarrass us at age 27?" She picked her book up angrily and gave a heavy sigh of annoyance before flipping open to the right page. "Haley, it's just that a pact is so ridiculously movie-cliché that it makes people want to gag reflexively." She ignored me and we didn't talk about it again until that night. And when she brought it up, I sighed and watched the rest of the crew take the idea into consideration. It didn't seem to go over extremely well, but the idea didn't flop either, and before I knew it, I was even agreeing to it.
We didn't sign the piece of paper in blood. But at the top of the page, Haley had me write the date, the time and our intention. I felt like I was visiting my dad in prison. And underneath all of that, Haley wrote out the pact:
"Ten years from now, on June 2nd 2014, except for a bed-ridding illness or death, all signers of the paper are required to appear at this tree off of Dagwood Path in Grace Overlook Park."
We all signed the bottom of it, the seven of us waiting to use the pen that seemed to ultimately decide our fate. It felt like we were making a promise we couldn't keep. Wouldn't keep.
Haley James
Peyton Sawyer
Lucas Scott
Brooke Davis
Nathan Scott
Someone broke a bottle of beer on the bark of the tree, and we all laughed a little. Haley checked her watch, squealed out that it was after midnight and grabbed my arm, pulling me to the car. We drove away and I looked at her, her eyes still lit up with excitement about what we had just done. I wanted to tell her that ten years from now, the two of us would probably be the only ones still talking to each other, but I didn't feel like breaking down her spirit. And she looked at me, smiled and said, "this is so going to work." I didn't tell her that it wouldn't.
And when we got back to Tree Hill, 10 years from then, it was only the two of us there. She squeezed my hand, partly reassuring herself, partly seeking comfort. I pulled her into a side hug and took a deep breath. "I love you," I said softly, and stopped myself from saying: "I told you so."