Peyton was hanging out in her room listening to music while waiting for Brooke. The two of them were going to go to the mall. Peyton was thrilled that things were getting better between her and Brooke, they were friends again and had spent a lot of time together in the last 2 weeks since Lucas had left. They had decided not to read the letter he had sent them so as not to cause trouble between them again and now things were good. Peyton was thinking about all this when she heard a knock on the door, she turned around thinking it was Brooke.

-"Hey you're earl…", "Oh! Hi Haley". Peyton was a bit uncomfortable. She hadn't seen Haley since Lucas had left.

-"Hey Peyton. Do you have a minute".

-"Eh! Yeah sure. I'm waiting for Brooke but yeah"

-"Maybe I'll come back later, I mean if you're waiting for Brooke and all".

-"Come on Haley what's up?", asked Peyton. She was a little worried, Haley was acting weird, well weirder than usual.

-"Hum, I got this letter this morning, from Lucas." Haley looked up at Peyton whose smile had now completely faded.

-"Haley, I don't want to…"

-"I know. But the thing is that in the letter he asked me to give you something, a letter, and well I think he knows you well enough because he asked me to make sure that you actually read it, and well I called him and told him a would so here we are." Haley finished.

-"Hales, I…"

-"Look, I promise all you have to do is read the letter and then go on with your day, I mean it's not like you're still in love with him or anything. You have nothing to lose. Right?" Haley questioned,

-"Yeah. I mean I'm so over him", Haley knew Peyton was lying because she wouldn't look at her.

-"Fine, Then read the letter," Haley challenged Peyton. She knew she shouldn't have pushed but she had promised Lucas and she did not want to let him down. Their friendship was already hanging on a thread as it was with him in Charleston.

-"Fine", and with that Peyton took the letter Haley was holding out to her.

-Peyton,

I'm sorry I had to go through Haley to get you this, but I assumed that after the way I treated you, you wouldn't want to hear anything I had to say. Before I left, I left a letter for you and Brooke on your door, but I don't know whether or not you read it so I'm going to say it again. I'm sorry. I made I lot of mistakes, I guess my life changed so fast I did not deal with it very well, but that's no excuse for hurting you. I want you to know that this was the last thing I wanted. I was scared, of you, of us, of what I knew we could be. Even after I told you I wasn't scared anymore. I still was and that's why I screwed everything up. I know that there is nothing I can do to make you give me another chance, but I still want to change. That's why I left, I want to become a better man, a man that would be good enough for you. When I am, I'll come back for you, when this time come I hope you give me another chance. Until then I would love to keep writing to you about stuff, it makes me feel closer to you, so I'm asking you, if you don't want me to, all you have to do is send back this letter to the return address on the envelop and I'll get the message and stop writing to you. So I guess this is it, that's all I wanted to say I'm sorry for hurting you and I hope to write to you again.

I love you

Yours forever

Lucas xoxox

-Peyton read the letter over and over again until she was snapped out of her trance by the sound of somebody coming up the stairs. She looked up and realized that Haley wasn't there anymore. She did not have time to contemplate this fact because she realised that it was probably Brooke coming up. She looked back at the letter in her hands. She knew the right thing to do would have been to tell Brooke about it, but instead Peyton ran to her record collection and tucked the letter into one of the album before going back into the room to find Brooke standing there.

-"Hey best friend. Ready for the mall"

-"Hum., yeah, I was waiting for you", Peyton answered hopping that Brooke wouldn't realise the state she was in after reading that letter. Unfortunately, she did.

-"Peyton what's wrong?" Brooke asked sincerely. Peyton felt worse looking at Brooke, but she was scared of what Brooke would say if she did show her the letter or tell her anything about it. Brooke was still not completely over the betrayal and Peyton understood that, but she felt that this was something personal between her and Lucas.

-"Nothing. It's just Haley was just here and she left kind of quickly", she felt horrible for lying to Brooke after all the pain it had caused before but she just couldn't let Brooke in on her feelings about Lucas.

-"What was up with that by the way? One day you guys don't speak at all and then first thing I know you guys are like best friends".

-"We are not best friends. You're my best friend, but Haley's my friend. She's just easy to talk to, she's great. We just haven't spent much time together lately, that's all. I miss her."

-"Hum, I'm sorry. Her and I never really talked to each other much, but maybe the three of us could do something. That way I could get to know her." Brooke was being so understanding Peyton wanted to cry. How could she lie to her, again. Part of her was angry at Lucas for putting her in that position yet again. That's when she realised, Lucas had not told her not to mention the letter to Brooke, in fact he had not mentioned Brooke at all. He was not the one putting her in that position, she had put herself there. She was the one who backed off from telling Brooke about her and Lucas' relationship and she was the one who was now lying to Brooke about him. Part of her wanted to leave all of this behind and move on, have fun with Brooke and forget everything about Lucas, but the other, the other part of her, could only think about the fact that he had said he loved her. And that part of her was dying to find out if he meant it and more so how she felt about it and if it changed anything. But she could not do this now, not with Brooke there. She would have to think about this later.

-"Thanks. I'm feeling better now so why don't we go shopping".

-"Ok then, let's go. Brooke happily agreed", and with she took Peyton's hand and led her out of the room while Peyton threw one last look at her room thinking about the letter. She definitely would have to get this letter out of her head for a few hours if she wanted Brooke to believe that she was fine.