When the Sky Comes Crashing Down

Summary: Graduation is in three months, and already people are deciding whether to lock up their hearts and throw away the key, or open their hearts up and let themselves fall hard and fast. This fic will be BL JP and NH by the end most likely. Takes place after eppy 4x07.

Disclaimer: I don't own One Tree Hill or the actors (sadly).

Meant To Live

Fumbling his confidence and wondering why the world has passed him by
Hoping that he's bid for more than arguments and failed attempt to fly
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?

Peyton smiled as she read the called ID from her phone where it sat vibrating on her desk. Putting down her sketchpad and flopping down on her bed she answered the phone.

"Hey Luke. Just can't stay away can you?"

A short laugh came over the line. "Keep dreaming. I was just making sure you were ok," he said in a more serious tone. "I didn't see you after the game."

Peyton's smile faded and she crossed to her desk again where she picked up the sketchpad and eyed her most current drawing. It was of a girl in a cemetery, crying over a faceless grave. "Yeah. I'm fine. I just wasn't really ready to handle that many people."

"Well do you want me to come over?"

Peyton paused before responding. Derek had driven off early that evening, only after making sure she was ok. "No, it's fine. I'll be fine."

"Ok, well call me if you need anything, ok?"

"Yeah sure, thanks," she responded before clicking off. Turning up the volume on her stereo, she plopped down on her bed with her newest drawing. Switchfoot blasted through the speakers as she picked up the pencil and began to draw again.

We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside

In her first draft, it was Ellie's name on the grave. The next was her mom. Then Keith, then Brooke, then Jake, then Lucas. Her wastebasket was full with crumpled pieces of paper as she tried to sketch out what in her life she truly missed the most. And she couldn't. So she left the grave faceless. And began instead on the girl's tears.

The red dress was lying in her lap as Brooke furiously ripped out the seams that bound the edges of the material together. As she ripped she cried, until the dress was no more than a rag in her lap. 'A rag just like my life,' she thought bitterly as she wiped away a tear and stood up from the bed. Making her way across the messy room, which was strewn with clothes, she hadn't picked up and sketches for designs that had found there way to the foot of Rachel's bed. She reached the bathroom where she found a cool washcloth and dabbed her blotchy eyes and red cheeks with water.

She was beng stupid, really. She knew it herself. She went out with him for what? A month? She hadn't even really liked him. Well, that wasn't true. Of course she liked him. She liked holding his hand, she liked kissing him, she liked the sex. But truthfully, maybe that's all this had really been about. The sex. Looked like that was all it was about for him.

"Brooke!" came an exclamation from the bedroom. Brooke dried her face and returned to the room where she found Rachel fingering the remnants of the dress. "What did you do to this?"

"She was wearing it," said Brooke in a mumble, as she lay down on the bed and buried her face into the pillow.

"This is one of your best designs."

"I don't care," responded Brooke with a defeated sigh.

"You do care. What you shouldn't care about is that jackass," said Rachel, throwing the dress at Brooke's head.

"What, I'm not allowed to wallow?" asked Brooke with a grumble as she sat up and threw the dress to the end of the bed.

"Not over a guy like that."

Brooke sighed. "It just keeps happening."

"Maybe you don't satisfy them enough," said Rachel with a smile.

"That's funny, really hilarious."

"Ok, I'm sorry. Look, Brooke. Nick and Lucas are two completely different guys. Nick is one sleazebag who obviously just sleeps around. Lucas is a good guy who just made a mistake."

"Mistakes happen Rachel. People forgive. But that doesn't mean the same mistake should happen again."

Rachel rolled her eyes and went to her dresser as Brooke belted out on her normal tirade.

"I mean, yeah, I forgave them for what happened last year. But it happened again. And everyone keeps telling me 'it was a mistake, forgive them.' But I already forgave them once."

"Well, Brooke, you got what you wanted," said Rachel as she brushed out her hair. "You're not with Lucas anymore. So obviously you can't get hurt anymore." Those were her last words before she left the room, and left Brooke to sit and wonder why, if she was protecting herself, did she feel so hurt anyway?

Dreaming about Providence
And whether mice and men have second tries

The Rivercourt was lit up even against the dark light when he arrived there. Letting the basketball bounce across the cold pavement, he made his way towards the basket, where, with his eyes closed, let the ball swoop through the net and bounce back to his feet.

"What, do you live here or something?" Lucas looked up to see Nathan approaching the court. "Do you ever leave?"

Lucas smiled slightly and picked up the ball from the concrete, turning it around in his hands. "Come to ask for forgiveness?"

"Not really," said Nathan taking the ball from Lucas and tossing it into the net. "Just came here to clear my head."

"You know, for awhile there you actually had me going that you were a good guy."

"So your judging just by tonight that I'm not?"

"Come on, Nathan! That guy is dangerous, you know that!"

"I don't need your lectures Luke."

"Well then explain to me how stupid you were that you had to throw the game."

"I didn't throw the game." Nathan's voice was raised. "It was just a little point-shaving. We still won."

"That's not the point. The point is that you would put yourself above your teammates and the game we all love."

"Oh, I see. So this is all about you and how you had to embarrass yourself by missing those free-throws."

"I didn't say that."

"You might as well have. Look, some of us have bigger problems than looking good in front of an audience. I have a wife and a baby on the way, and we are thousands of dollars in debt. Now unless you have a better option of how I could have helped out my family, no, I'm not going to apologize." Nathan tossed the ball hard to Lucas and gave him one last look of disgust before turning his back to his brother and walking away from the lit up Rivercourt.

Lucas watched him until the darkness swallowed him up, and then it was just him and the court alone again.

Maybe we've been living with our eyes half open
Maybe we're bent and broken

It was some random bar again. No, not a random bar. The bar. She passed the table where they had played pool. Passed the stools they had sat on joking around. Passed the hallway where they had first kissed. She needed to get out. Get out of this place that reminded her all too much of him.

"You're not with Lucas anymore." The words still stung into her asthey had earlier that night, before Rachel had dragged her from the bed and told her that she needed something to get her mind off the guys in her life.

With more guys. That's where Rachel was now. In some back room fooling around with some random guy that she probably would never bother to ask the name of. And that's where Brooke would be, had she been the old Brooke. But she wasn't the old Brooke. She was the Brooke who had been through more than enough heartbreak. And with the exception of Nick, sex wasn't going to do it this time.

All she really wanted to do was get out of the club and go home and curl up in bed.

Home. Like she really had a home. Living with another high-school senior girl who took her out and got her drunk ever night was not the most comforting living situation Brooke could be in. But then again, living with her parents never had been either. Drunken fights which normally ended in more than one expensive sculpture being shattered. They also normally ended in Brooke running off to the nearest club as the fight escalated in her house, and letting herself drown her sorrows in alcohol and guys. Sex.

When she had gone on her responsible escalade at the end of junior year and had begun to turn her life around with a steady boyfriend and a new position as Senior Class President, there were no more clubs and drunken nights for her. During those fights she would run of to Felix's and he would comfort her. With sex.

The only home she could really think of was living with Haley. And the nights where Lucas would come over with a pizza and the three of them would sit huddled on the couch, Brooke lying in Lucas' arms, feeling warm and safe. And those were the only times that she felt she didn't need to prove herself to a guy by sex.

"You're not with Lucas anymore." Right. She wasn't with Lucas anymore.

Maybe it was time for a drink.

We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?

So you guys, that was the first chapter. Tell me what you think!

Song entitled Meant to Live by Switchfoot