Hey guys! So I haven't written in a long time, and I know that I've had a couple of stories that haven't gone very far, but I'm really excited about this one! So it's gonna take some easing into and it may be slow at first, but just bear with me. I hope you guys like it. Please review!

Also, I do not own One Tree Hill.

I've never been one for starting over. I've had way too many "fresh starts". After my mom died, my dad liked to move pretty much every six months, give or take a few weeks. And never anywhere that could be considered even a little interesting. To backwater towns, full of people that already knew each other, people that had families that had been best friends with the family next door for generations, people that looked at us like we brought the plague into their precious little village of judgmental cliques. I hated moving. I dreaded every time my father brought me into the living room of whatever run down shack we were living in at the time to tell me that we were once again uprooting our entire lives to move to some new place. I'd have to say goodbye to the friends that I had just barely had time to make, who had just started to accept me, just to do it all over again somewhere new. You'd think that I would have gotten used to it by the time that I was a junior in high school. I hadn't.
It happened just like it had every other time. My fifty year old father, who looked like he was much older than he actually was called me into the living room, where he was eating his millionth TV dinner in eleven years, and said, "Brooke, we're moving again."
I rolled my eyes. I should have known that it was coming. After all, everything had just started to get good in my life. It only made sense that he'd want to ruin it again. "Where to this time, captain?"
He cleared his throat, shifting in his arm chair. He opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it again. I didn't understand why he couldn't look at me. It was almost like he was nervous to tell me our new destination in our journey to completely ruin my life. "Tree Hill."

I gaped at him as if he'd lost his mind. Tree Hill had been the start of all of this. The place I lived in until I was five years old. The place where my mother had died. I didn't know what to say except for, "Why?"

He reached up to hold my hand and I pulled away from him, taking a step back. "Why, Dad?"

"It only makes sense, Brooke. You should know where you came from. Where your mother came from. We haven't been back since she died. Wouldn't you like to see your mother's grave? And the house you grew up in?"

I took a deep breath, but inside I wanted to yell at him. As calmly as I could, I said, "Yes, Dad. I would have liked to be able to ride my bike to her cemetery every day after I got out of school. I would have liked to have grown up in the house that I was supposed to. I would have liked to actually have a place that I could call home, rather than just a temporary residence that I come to every day to sleep and eat. But you didn't care about what I wanted. So I stuck it out. And honestly, now I don't even know if I want to go back."

It looked as if my words had been expected. Like he'd known how I felt about the entire situation before I even had a chance to tell him. "Honey, I got offered a job, back in Fort Bragg. Doing what I used to do."

I gaped at him again. "What?"

He began to repeat himself, but I stopped him. "I know what you said, Daddy. I just don't understand why you would take that job again."

Before my mom died, my dad had worked as an undercover agent of some sort for the military at Fort Bragg, which neighbors Fayetteville, a town that isn't too far from Tree Hill. No one actually knows how my mother died. The popular rumor for a while was that my father was cheating on her and didn't want to get found out. That he would rather be a murderer than have his family name dishonored. Another theory was that one of the families of the criminals that my dad killed decided that they would exact some revenge on my father. Both theories made it a little difficult for me to sleep at night sometimes, and no matter what the truth was it all went back to my father being gone all the time. My mother's death could be blamed on that stupid job.

"I was good at it, sweetie. I liked it. Now I know that you're upset and that you don't want to move again, but my decision is final. We leave tomorrow, so you should probably start packing."

I felt a scream bubble to my lips. I wanted to tell him that I wasn't going. That I wasn't going to change my life around to make him happy anymore. But I couldn't. He had finally made a solid decision, and once he does that, no matter how infrequently it happened, there was no changing his mind.

"Yes, sir."

I started up the stairs to my attic bedroom, but Dad called my name.

"I do love you, honey. You know that, right?"

I did know, but I was going to cry, and I didn't want it to be in front of him. I just nodded, and continued walking.

I flopped down on my bed the moment I reached my room. I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, but there was no time. I had work to do.

Since we moved so much, I pretty much only unpacked the bare necessities. Toiletries and a couple of pictures, my bed materials, and a couple of books were all I needed to put in boxes. I had grown to not even begin unpacking my suitcases of clothes. There was no point. I just pulled out what I needed, threw it in the laundry once it got dirty, and folded it right back into the suitcase once it was clean again. It minimized the pain of packing all the time.

As soon as I got everything packed away and had taken my boxes downstairs, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket, and hesitantly scrolled through to find my boyfriend's name. I hit the call button, and my phone chirped back, "Calling Felix Tagaro."

It rang three times before I finally heard a voice groan, "Hello?"

"Hey, baby."

I heard him shuffling around, probably to turn on a light and check the time. "Brooke, you know it's midnight, right? I have swim practice in five hours."

I didn't know whether to ease into it or just deliver the news flat out. I chose the latter. "Felix…I'm moving in the morning."

He was awake now. I had his full attention. "What? B-baby, why? I thought that you guys were staying here. I just don't under-"

He made me want to cry with how sweet he was. He truly did not want me to leave. "I can't really explain it, honey. We leave at eight, right after I pull out of school."

There was silence on the other end. I knew Felix though. He was pulling his hair and squinting. Finally he said, "I don't want you to leave, Brooke. I-I-I love you."

Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I held back a sob. "I love you too,Felix. I don't want to leave you, but we have to go."

There were tears in his voice as he asked, "What does this mean for us?"

It was my turn to be quiet. "What do you want, Felix?"

"You."

It was one simple word, but it made tears fall faster down my face than anything else possibly could have. He sounded absolutely torn apart. And it was all my fault.

We talked for a while longer, but there was no changing the situation. I was was staying. We were going to try to make it work long distance, but I had a feeling that we both didn't have high hopes. The last time that I would see him for the foreseeable future was the next day at school.

I stayed up late that night, thinking, and when I woke up the next morning, it felt as if the whole thing had been a dream. Reality hit me the moment that I got down the stairs though. Dad was doing the usual "I'm really sorry that I'm ruining your life again, so here's a home cooked breakfast" gig. It was upsetting to smell bacon sizzling in the pan. I almost burst into tears all over again, but I knew that I had to hold it together, not for me, but for Joe. I owed it to him.

Dad and I ate breakfast in silence, as was our custom, and loaded the car and headed to school. Felix was waiting for me as soon as I got out of Dad's Focus.

"Baby," he whispered into my hair. "I'm going to miss you so very much."

He held me tighter than he ever had as he spun me around. My leather boot clad feet flew up and for a moment I smiled.

"I know, baby. I know."

He held my hand as I walked up the steps into our high school. My dad waited for me to get back to the car. I had done this enough that I knew how to withdraw from school with my eyes closed. I hated knowing I could do that.

The ladies in the office seemed very sad to see me go. I had skipped Spanish in the office enough that we had all grown rather close. Felix was by my side the whole time, and as we walked to the car, he paused at the top of the stairs. "I love you, Brooke Penelope Davis."

I let the tears fall for what felt like the millionth time that day and said, "I love you too."

"We can do it, right? Long distance? We can do it, right, baby?"

I smiled. "We can. But I have to go."

He pouted. I could see from the bags under his eyes that he hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and swim practice had kicked his ass. I kissed him on the lips, and squeezed his hand. "Goodbye, Romeo."

He smiled back. "Goodbye Juliet."

When I got in the car, Dad asked me, "Are you okay, sweetie?"

I sniffed as my nose started running. "No, I don't think I am. But I will be."

He patted me on the back and we drove off towards Carolina. I took a deep breath. It was nine hours from Diamond, Ohio to Tree Hill, North Carolina. Only nine hours to go.