Chapter 1: It's Not the End of the World

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

BROOKE

I stifled yet another strong, audible sigh of utmost frustration - one which had originated straight from the marrow buried deep within my very bones - as the echo of a very loud, very ominous crash reverberated off of the thin walls of my store emphasized by the likelihood that something very precious, and very expensive, was probably shattering into a million pieces across my floor as we spoke.

With carefully concerted movements, I forced my eyes to close as I began to collect an excess of oxygen into my lungs through a series of deep breaths that guided me through the motions of the fading crash as it transitioned into complete, absolute silence – silence that told me one thing and one thing only –

Somebody was trying to hide their guilt from my vengeful senses, and I had the slightest feeling that I knew exactly who that person was.

With a deep sigh, I released the white-knuckled death grip I currently had against my innocent sketching pencil, I relaxed my muscles as flaccid as they would possibly go, and I began to count.

"One,"

This little counting trick was one which I had managed to actually teach myself through the course of the struggle of raising a rebellious teenager… I had picked it up from an advice column in some parenting self-help book that I'd found myself mortifyingly forced to buy at a local bookshop that I could now never show my face in ever again.

"Two,"

But it worked well enough, really it did, and it kept my job relatively simple, which was the selling point, really… You see, the only thing I really had to do was count slowly enough to allow my mind to sink into such a lucid state that I actually began to believe my conscious when it repeated four simple words to me over and over again –

"It's not worth it."

"Three,"

Ninety nine times out of a hundred, it worked well enough so that although I still wanted to scream my head off to the point that the veins popped out of my neck and my blood pressure rose to a level that threatened an aneurysm, I didn't.

"Four,"

Five seconds until relaxing bliss, imagine that…

"Five,"

Five seconds to make it so that I wouldn't storm into the back room and rip a certain somebody's freaking face off.

"SAMANTHA!" I collected my best profession of a pissed-off tone into the back of my throat and released the monster within, begging myself not to get too carried away although unfortunately for me – no, unfortunately for Sam – the terrible day that I had already had, and was continuing to have, was gaining speed on me faster than I could run away from it.

I guess next time I'll have to try counting to ten.

From beyond the veil of protection, fashioned out of some thin dry wall and a few planks of wood, I heard a quick scurry followed by the emergence of a miniscule blonde haired boy with what appeared to be magic marker smeared like plotted highways along U.S. maps straight across his face.

He jogged briskly towards me, standing at attention front and center with his eyes pointed forwards, his hands in his pockets, and the best "I didn't do it" look that he could possibly muster plastered in his coached expression.

It wasn't working.

Behind him, Sam was dragging her sneakered feet slowly behind him, scuffing up the wooden floors so that the expression she wore, very similar to Jamie's in the moment, was working even less than his was.

Of course, Sam also had the disadvantage of being unable to pull off that six year old charm that always tugged at my heart strings and practically forced me to side with my godson.

"Sam, how many times do we have to have this conversation? Clothes over Bro's is a boutique, a very upscale, very prestigious boutique, not your own personal playground."

"Sorry," She grumbled miserably in her response, her body already turning strategically in an about face; her attempt to avoid anything more than a quick scolding. But I had caught her red-handed, and for that, I planned on emphasizing to her the fact that me, and the first drafts of my winter line due into corporate headquarters tomorrow by nine a.m. were not in the mood to be messed with right now.

"Come on, can't you see that I'm busy? Why don't you go and take Jamie out to the River Court or something?" There was a sense of a plea behind my voice, a factor that I was certain Sam had picked up on judging by the way she hesitated and shuffled her feet slightly before answering me.

"It's raining."

I rotated my head slowly sideways so that Sam and my eyes locked only briefly before she pulled away her stare. My eyes narrowed softly down towards her, the muscles surrounding my jaw twitching ominously in preparation to yell, to start a fight strictly for arguments sake, to unfairly release all of my pent up anger and exhaustion out on my foster daughter, but just before I was able to begin, I became distracted…

There was just something about her appearance, the way that her face set underneath the deep florescent glow of the numerous lighting panels adorning the ceiling that forced me to hold my gaze for just a little while longer.

It was a flash that lasted a mere second, and then, just as quickly as it appeared, that shining sheathe of pale skin and the glaze that clouded over her eyes faded…

It was a mere second later that I had finally managed to convince myself that I had simply just made the whole thing up.

"What?" She spoke harshly, apparently noticing my obvious staring before contorting her face in a manner that told me that she was waiting for my retort… a retort that never came. And now that I had actually allowed myself to let my guard down, even if it was just for that split second, I knew that I'd lost my opportunity.

I tried desperately to merely shake off the distractions, but they were flying right at me from every which direction, pelting me with curve balls that left me struggling to properly assess when exactly it was that I was supposed to swing…

I closed my eyes tightly, a desperate final attempt to gain control of the mounting frustration pounding a thin layer of aching across the entirety of the surface of my brain.

I began mentally combating this sudden and particularly vicious headache while simultaneously scrambling to figure out what it was that I was going to do with Jamie and the problem child… But of course, the thought alone was enough to make my head throb harder in a pain that originated at my temples and pulsated through to the back of my head, where it was left to radiate and osmose down the length of my spine.

"Nothing," I finally replied to her initial statement after what seemed like hours. "Just go… I don't know, do something else." And with an eye roll that made my head spin, Sam made the motion to turn away; her rush instantly reminding me of the fact that I had almost forgotten the most important rule – "An indoor activity, if you don't mind."

Hopefully she would get the hint that I was hinting towards a nice game of Candy Land rather than another round of Floor Hockey.

She shot me a glare, and trust me, by this point I was more than used to her characteristic expressions that have the words "fuck you" written all over them, except this time… well this time, something was different; off, even.

I mean sure, there was your average component to her look, the one that silently expressed to me something along the lines of – "Hey Brooke, I'm gonna go ahead and ignore everything that you just said and continue wreaking havoc on your store" but beyond that there was more…

I don't know, maybe this had something to do with that cold that she'd been developing these past couple of days now… that was my best guess anyway, I mean I couldn't help but notice the fact that she's been a little congested lately…

I swear to God if that kid gets me sick right now I will put her right back out on the streets…

Okay, maybe that was a little bit harsh… I'd probably just make her sleep in the trunk of my car.

"Fine, come on Jamie." She breathed through an exaggerated sigh, gripping the smaller child by the shoulder so that she could steer him away from me where they travelled back behind the counter, disappearing into the back room so that they could go off together and do God only knows what…

Whatever, as long as I couldn't see it, hear it, taste it, smell it, or… whatever it, they could do whatever the hell they wanted to.

Together, the dynamic duo fell out of sight and into an ominous silence that made me nervous although I'd decided to take full advantage of it while I could because let's be honest, with a rowdy six year old and an even rowdier teenager in my midst, silence was something that was difficult to come by, and you need to trust me when I told you that I did not take it with a grain of salt.

I sauntered back over towards the desk, slowly sinking myself back down into the chair attached to my cluttered work space, immediately pondering what it was that I should do next as I picked up my pencil, sticking the eraser into my mouth in an effort to aid my thought process and stared down at the sketch that I'd been working on for hours now although I still wasn't even halfway finished with it yet…

Of course, it should have been done days ago now, but that was beside the point.

Allowing the lead to slowly touch down on the paper, the contact sent a sudden jolt of electricity straight up my arm and into my brain as an ingenious idea sprang up into my mind…

I could alter the length of the sleeves, then poof them up a bit and crop the neck line to adjust… It was perfect I didn't know how I hadn't thought of it before…

In fact, I was just prepared to finally draw the entire thing out when I was rather abruptly thrown off course… again.

This time, the crash was even louder than that which had graced my eardrums before…

"SAM!"

Okay, to be fair here, I wasn't exactly one hundred percent certain that Sam was to blame here, but I was about ninety nine percent, and to me, that was enough.

I pushed myself away from my table with such force that my papers and sketching tools and other documents that were most likely extremely important, all toppled to the floor like a waterfall scattering loudly in its assurance of the fact that it had made as much as a mess as humanly possible.

Stomping as loudly as my body weight and my shoeless feet would allow me to, I broadened my stance and set my face sternly in an effort to make myself look as intimidating as I could be as I rounded the corner into the back room, only to find my anger instantly taper off, fading away into a feeling of utmost concern…

Pressed up against the wall, pinching the bridge of her nose with one hand and trying to catch the small pool of blood filtering out of it with the other was Sam.

"What the hell happened in here?" I'd asked the question, but as the words were coming out of my mouth, I found myself tripping over a stationary basketball in the middle of the floor; the offending object, I was guessing, responsible for the blatant damage to Sam's face.

"Seriously Sam did you honestly think that when I told you to partake in an indoor activity, I meant basketball?"

I jumped up directly in Sam's face, but the second I got close enough, I noticed the geyser of blood filtering through the cracks between her fingers and I instantly felt bad for yelling at all while all she wanted to do was stop bleeding…

"Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry… here." I tried to rectify myself, extending to her a wad of tissues that I'd pulled from my pocket; a gift that she accepted gratefully.

The softest of sniffles forced me to turn my head away from Sam, my eyes instantly locking on Jamie, who was huddled as tightly as he could possibly fit in the corner, looking very much so like he was trying to absolutely disappear into the plaster…

Oh how I remembered that age all too well… It came hand-in-hand with that "oh shit" feeling you get when you just know you're about to get in trouble… I only knew that because I still felt that way, every single day of my damn life.

"Hey buddy, what happened here?" I crouched at the knees in an effort to match his height but he averted his gaze as if the blank white wall was more interesting than my beautiful face…

As if.

I studied his features carefully for clues, watching as a single tear slipped slowly down his cheek so that I could feel my heart breaking instantly… Thank God that I didn't have any toddlers to look after, I gave into them way too easily…

My kids were going to be little terrors one day.

"I didn't mean to Aunt Brooke, I just wanted to pass it but Sam… she missed it."

"Hey Jamster, you know that I'm nowhere near the basketball star that you are… but maybe one day, right?" Sam smiled over towards Jamie through her bloody, tear-stained face in an effort to make him feel better, an effort, I am relieved to say, worked.

"Sorry Sam," He apologized feebly, trotting the handful of steps over towards Sam so that he could wrap his little arms around her waist and pull her into what was probably the cutest hug I have ever seen in my entire life.

"It's cool bud," She responded, hesitating only briefly before returning his embrace with the hand that wasn't attempting to stem the relentlessly bloody fountain still sprouting from each nostril.

He showed proudly, his bright, toothless smile to the both of us before releasing Sam, turning back towards me.

"Aunt Brooke, I'm hungry." His little attention span wandered off quickly now that it had been enforced that he wasn't about to get in trouble.

With a quick laugh, I found myself subconsciously glancing up at the clock on the wall through the corner of my eye, surprised to find that it was already 8:00 at night, and I hadn't even noticed… I guess I'd lost track of the time…

I'd forgotten to feed the children… Great, just add that to my resume and submit it to the mom of the year awards.

"Okay Jamie, how about you run out to the front real quick and grab my jacket for me… How does pizza sound?" I bribed him with pizza; silently communicating the bargain that I wouldn't tell his mother that he'd broken my foster daughter's nose if he didn't tell her that I'd forgotten to feed him.

"Yeah!" His voice rang excited in the enthusiasm sprung on by the promise of pizza, the single reply ringing in the distance as he bustled out towards the front of the store as fast as his little legs could take him, leaving me to take advantage of this imminently brief Jamie-free opportunity to turn my attention onto Sam.

"Are you okay?" I asked through a grimace, watching as she nodded, still clutching the ball of tissues up under her nose.

"Yeah, if you count having absolutely no hand-eye coordination okay," She made the attempt to laugh at her own joke, but considering the fact that she'd done it with a wince as she softly peeled the bloody tissue out from under her, it wasn't as affective as she probably would have liked…

"How does it look?" She asked skeptically, providing me with an indirect invitation to advance forwards towards her. I slowly maneuvered the three or four steps forward, squinting to adjust my far-sighted eyes as I brushed a few strands of hair out of the way only to reveal an already forming bruise making its darkened home directly underneath Sam's swollen right eye.

"You've got a pretty nice shiner already." I spoke through my teeth, trying to sound as sensitive as humanly possible about my prognosis, choosing to leave out the part where her eye would most likely be swollen shut and black and blue by the time she woke up in the morning.

"How about I take you and Jamie out to eat somewhere that might have a nice raw steak that you can slap on that thing…" Yes, that was my attempt at raw humor – no pun intended – I have after all, been told that I was a funny person once or twice in my life.

"You're hilarious."

See?

Okay, so it had been a sarcastic reply, but I counted those too.

"Do you think it's broken?" She changed the course of the conversation quickly, leaning away from my touch so that she could wipe her hair back into her face in a failing effort to cover up the offending bruise.

"No," I shook my head confidently. "It'll be fine; you're just going to be a little bruised up for a while."

"Great," She sighed, shooting me a look that told me that I might as well have just told her that her entire face was broken.

"Hey, it could be worse… Did I ever tell you about the time that I had a black eye on my prom night?"

"Really?" She perked up slightly, humored by my humiliation as if it had been the funniest thing that she'd heard in a while… Of course, I hadn't thought it too funny when it was happening…

"Oh yeah, it was a real nice one too…" I fell into vagueness, choosing not to mention how it was exactly that that black eye came to be about…

"What did you get punched in the face or something?" O-kay, now I'm definitely regretting bringing that topic of conversation up to begin with… I think that right about now would be a perfect time for a nice, reliable subject change.

"Hey are you hungry? I'm starving." She raised her eyebrow up at me, clearly taking my last of an answer as a blatant yes to her previous question, but choosing to follow my lead anyway because I had at least raised her with some values.

"Not really." She shrugged half-assed, and I immediately stared down at her with concern… I couldn't help but notice that she had been responding very similarly to that question for a while now, and considering the fact that I was quite certain that she hadn't eaten all day, well frankly I was concerned.

"Okay…" I retreated from starting something because I knew as well as she did that right now was not the time or the place, "Well do you still wanna come with us… just to hang out?"

"Um… I'm kind of tired actually," She responded awkwardly, pointing her eyes firmly onto the ground as she rubbed a hand back and forth over the top of her head, tangling her hair between her fingers, "I was thinking that maybe I could just… you know, go back home… If that's okay, I mean?"

"Got any homework to do?" I pushed her for an explanation, but nodded my head and shrugged a positive response to her question anyway.

"Nah," She replied as I knew she would, "I'm kind of tired, I was thinking about just going to bed actually."

I gave her another weak nod, pausing in my attempts to figure out whether or not I was merely making it up when I saw that she was apparently looking even sicker than she had looked before…

I don't know, maybe it just had something to do with the blood all over her face…

"Just make sure that you get some ice on that eye right away okay," I subliminally submitted to her request to be dropped off at home, "Actually now that I think about it I think that I might have a steak in the freezer… that might work better than ice."

"I will," She nodded her head albeit looking slightly disgusted towards the idea of icing her face with a slab of raw meat, pushing past me without another word in an effort to escape the cramped back closet of my store for the freedom of the outside world.

I hesitated to follow her lead but it was only brief. I forced myself to light a fire under my heels relatively quickly, stepping into the display floor where Jamie was apparently long ready, standing at the front door with my purse already draped across one arm and my jacket the other, extending the items to me in his apparent impatience.

"Are you ready to go Jamie?" I asked as a formality but I knew the answer before he'd even opened his mouth.

"Yeah, pizza!" His face brightened in a heartbeat, I just wished that I could mirror his excitement… I just couldn't seem to muscle past that growing worry for Sam.

"Alright, come on." I lead both him and Sam out of the door, locking it up in my wake.

Jamie climbed himself up and into my car parked directly outside, struggling to buckle himself securely into his booster seat before I was forced to intervene and take control as Sam made herself comfortable in the front passenger's seat…

"Seatbelt Sam," I scolded her briefly as I hoped into the driver's seat, barely even registering the slight glare she shot me before ultimately pulling the strap across her chest, my eyes glued to her motions as I finally turned the keys within the ignition and flexed against the gas pedal, directing my car towards the one place where Sam wanted to be right now;

Home.

SAM

I sunk down back inside of my otherwise empty house so quickly and quietly that I might as well have been robbing it or something…

Sliding the door shut softly behind me, I chose not to advance inwards immediately, instead pausing to relax against the wooden frame of the front door, cooled by the relatively fair weather that we had been experiencing here in Tree Hill, North Carolina for the past couple of weeks now.

Closing my eyes around the comfort provided by the slight dip in temperature, I allowed my knees to buckle around me, sliding into the most comfortable position that I could possibly muster considering the fact that I was currently resting against a solid slab of wood.

Exhausted, I released an audible exhale, rubbing my hands roughly over my face before being forced to an abrupt stop, an involuntary hiss of pain escaping from my lips as a sharp twinge shot its way through the every nerve of my face straight down my elongated spine…

Apparently I'd been stupid enough to actually forget for a second or two there that tonight I had become the lucky recipient of a brand new, incredibly stylish, and slightly sore black eye.

Great.

Crap that reminded me, Brooke had warned me back at the store to ice it the second that I got back home… or steak it or whatever…

Of course, usually, I preferred generally ignoring Brooke's personal advice column towards me just to be a pain in the ass and see how much I could mess with her before she really got pissed, but considering that this time around, doing just that would result in nothing more than an even more swollen, puffy faced mess decorating itself across my face, I figured I would listen…

So I followed Brooke's warnings, and I subconsciously found myself wandering over into the kitchen where I headed straight for the freezer and grabbed an ice pack before freezing briefly in my motions as a Ziplock-bagged slab of meat glistened in its taunting glow up towards me.

This was disgusting.

With a deep, slightly dramatic sigh, I gave my best eye roll to the dead cow in front of me before grabbing the offensive cutlet and slapping it over my face.

The pressure of the object against my rapidly expanding injury caused a quick stab of pain, and the chips of ice frozen to the unused food product hurt my head like a sudden brain-freeze moment, but I guess in retrospect, my head was already pounding to begin with so I couldn't complain too much…

I glided swiftly out of the kitchen towards the living room, throwing myself down onto the leather couch as hard as I possibly could while simultaneously grabbing for the remote control in the midst of my free fall.

The second that the TV turned on, freaking Brooke's VH1 top twenty music videos began blaring a hole through my ears so that the noise made my head spin…

Pissed at my own body for reacting in a manner that I definitely didn't approve of, I jabbed the power button of the remote control viciously, turning off the television once again.

Fuck this season. Fuck this cold.

I sank backwards down onto the couch, allowing my body to fall through the comfortable cracks and the cushions to mold perfectly into my body type… Easily the best part about living with Brooke was her ability to pick out some serious grade A furniture.

I allowed my eyes to slide closed slowly, fully prepared to fall asleep right here on the spot, but apparently, my body had other plans…

In the midst of a deep breath, the air flew down softly into my airway until it got stuck somewhere within the very depths of my trachea; stalling before it could ever effectively reach my lungs so that I literally began choking on it…

Flying upwards into a seated position in a desperate effort to clear my air passages, I coughed violently, feeling the phlegm that had seemed to originate from the very pit of my chest cavity itself slide upwards and out of my mouth.

If you were to ask, I probably would have exaggerated and told you that the fit lasted hours even though it couldn't have been any more than a minute that the coughing subsided into oblivion and I was forced up and onto my feet even though all I wanted to do right now was go to sleep…

I dragged my feet slowly past the clock dangling from the wall en route to the bathroom; it was 8:36 on a Thursday night and here I was getting ready to go to bed…

Nice, I always knew that I was a cool kid and all, but this might just be a new record.

Sulking into the tiny bathroom, I finally worked up enough courage to actually inspect the damage that Jamie had left on my face, figuring that now was as good a time as any considering I would have to face the facts eventually…

I was nervous to see what it would be staring back at me thorough my reflection, and when I finally gathered the guts to turn my face upwards and actually look in the mirror, I realized that I had had good reason to do so.

It was worse than I thought…

To use the word 'black' to describe the color around my eye would be a complete understatement. A purplish hue was slowly beginning to settle around the socket, navy undertones filling in for the blank spaces…

It carried across the majority of my face, only fading into a pinkish sort of contrast around the curve of my cheekbone.

Seriously though, what does it say about me that I'd allowed a six year old boy and a toy basketball to swell up my eye to the point that I couldn't even open it anymore?

Throwing the steak viciously down on the bathroom counter, I groaned audibly, not even caring if Brooke's dinner for tomorrow night went bad anymore… It was probably full of my eye fungus or whatever other nasty shit was floating around in there anyway.

I rolled my remaining eye towards the image of my own reflection in front of me… See? I was a fair person, I was even sarcastic to myself sometimes.

Forcing myself to rip my gaze out of the mirror, I turned away from the bathroom and back over towards my own bedroom, my motivation being the fact that laying in my own bed sounded so nice right now.

I was just… tired… so freaking tired… In fact, I was always tired lately, a fact that I was definitely sick of.

Throwing my jeans off of my aching body, I didn't even bother to change into a fresh shirt. Instead, I threw on a giant pair of sweat pants, flung my body down against the mattress, and found myself fast asleep before my head so much as hit the pillow below me.