If I am unaware of love, I live drably. If I become intoxicated with love, I live in dreamland. If I recognize love, and shake his hand then comfort, dreams, and sometimes intoxication become mine to drench in and give away as well.
Nellie Curtiss
Letters
Brooke's never been good at forgiveness.
The letter stares at her from Peyton's outstretched hand like a bad omen and she knows without looking that it's from Lucas. Lucas is the only one she knows that will write a letter because that's the way he is, Steinbeck, Whitman, and Fitzgerald into one brooding teenage boy.
She loves letters and Lucas knows that, but that doesn't mean she's good at forgiveness.
She remembers the night she told him too. There was a party, that party, the one where she dragged Peyton to with a smile on her face that was ready to crumble. She told him a lot of things that night and a lot of things were happening that day—
Sometimes she wonders if she was ever aware of telling him everything.
But she told him. Something about the honesty of letters and how you could really see the person's heart. Words can always be manipulated, but there's only one meaning.
She wonders if that's exactly what he's doing, manipulating words into a perfect excuse— one with four dimensions and impossible to question.
"I'm sorry," Peyton starts to read when she doesn't take the letter from her hand.
Brooke wants to cry.
"I'm sorry for putting you in that dark place."
The words sound so foreign slipping from Peyton's lips, but she can almost see Lucas writing them.
"I didn't want to be the one to put back those shadows in your eyes."
Brooke's never been good at forgiveness, but Lucas nearly changed that—
Lucas nearly changed her.
"I'm sorry Brooke."
Peyton doesn't ask any questions when she starts to break even though Brooke knows she wants to. Peyton's never seen her mask fall.
Brooke's never been good at forgiveness and she's not willing to try just yet.
Even though she knows, she's ready to.
Finished.