Chapter 1 - Fear

- Brooke, Peyton, I've already asked you to pay attention. You don't want me to call your moms and make them come here, do you?

- Sorry, Mrs. Kim – the two nine-year olds looked at their teacher with the most innocent faces they could manage.

- Alright, let's carry on then… we were talking about fractions. You have a square divided in six parts – the teacher explained, drawing a square on the board as she talked – if we wanted two thirds of it, how many parts would we get?

A little girl raised her hand immediately, and the teacher smiled.

- Haley, can you tell the answer?

- Four! – she smiled, proud, and the teacher nodded.

Brooke looked at her. How could she possibly know that? It didn't make any sense to her, and apparently to many other people in class. The bell rang and Peyton gently tapped her back.

- Enough with daydreaming!

- Oh! Look who's talking, Ms. 'I-don't-care-about-classes-cause-I-have-my-funny-drawings'? – she said, trying to talk like her friend.

- Come on, you couldn't stop laughing with the one I made of Mr. Ford on my mom's clothes.

- Yeah, that was good! – she laughed at the memory.

They both walked out of class, to their lockers to dump all their things there. It was their last class of the day.

- Brooke, hey – her best friend Dana came happily to her – you wanna go to my place?

- Yeah, sure! – she turned to Peyton and waved goodbye – See you tomorrow!

Peyton waved back and the two girls walked away with linked arms. Brooke liked going to Dana's place. She liked her best friend's parents better than her own. Brooke's parents were never around, even when they were home. They were always working, or they had more important things to do than talk to her, or play with her. So she didn't even have to ask them to go somewhere after school. She'd been to Peyton's place once or twice, and her mom seemed pretty cool too. Her dad was away all the times she was there. Peyton was nice, she and Brooke had become friends a few months ago, when they were put together on a school assignment. Peyton had this edgy temper, sometimes she was all happy and the other day she'd be grumpy and barely talking to anyone. Well, at least her drawings were the funniest thing, they always made Brooke laugh, even when she was a little sad. Which was rare, by the way, since Brooke was probably the cheeriest kid in school, and everyone seemed to admire her. She dressed like the girls in junior high, but the boys in her grade were too dumb to think about anything other than playing basketball all the time. Putting a ball through a hoop? What was so exciting about this thing anyway? Sure, she liked watching the guys play, cause they looked hot, but it still seemed pretty stupid to her.

Peyton, on the other hand, was quiet and didn't really open up to people. In that sense, she was Brooke's total opposite. While Brooke had a million friends, was always talking and asking for advice or chatting about anything. Peyton would be by herself, working on her drawings. Of course, she'd then go to Brooke and her friends and crack them up with what she liked to call 'her art'. She wasn't popular like Brooke, but she wasn't a geek either. It was weird when they became friends, no one thought they were anything alike, and maybe that's why they liked being around each other.

Brooke was supposed to go to Peyton's house after school the next day. Both girls were outside of school, waiting for her mom to pick them up.

- That's weird, she's always here when the bell rings – Brooke noticed Peyton was a little nervous as she said that.

- Really? Well, she must've had something else to do. She'll be here in no time – Brooke nodded reassuringly.

About 20 minutes had gone by, and they were basically the only kids there now. Peyton was definitely nervous now, and Brooke was just saying a bunch of stupid stuff to take her mind off of it. Actually, Brooke thought Peyton was overreacting, that's what parents did, they were late, so she wasn't really worried and didn't understand where her friend was coming from. And then Peyton saw her dad coming, with a weird look on his face. Her heart sunk as she looked at him. He came closer to her and put his hands on her shoulders, but she instantly pulled away, next to Brooke.

- Dad… what's going on?

- We need to talk, baby.

- Where's mom? Why isn't she here?

- Look… your mom… she couldn't come – his eyes were full of tears as he saw the look on the little girl's eyes – let's go home and we'll talk ok?

- Brooke was supposed to come home with me – she was facing down now, and Brooke was quiet, just listening to them, afraid of what was gonna happen to Peyton's mom.

- I think it's better to take Brooke home, I'm sure she'll understand, right Brooke?

Brooke just nodded, quietly and looked at Peyton, not knowing what to say. She knew it was something really serious, and she was worried. So Brooke took Peyton's hand and walked with her to the car. No one said a word till they got to Brooke's home. Brooke hugged Peyton.

- Call me later if you wanna talk, ok? – and then she turned to Larry – Bye, Mr. Sawyer, thanks for the ride.

He smiled sadly and she went to her house. She saw her friend's car driving away. Larry and Peyton got home and she looked straight into her father's eyes. She looked angry and scared at the same time. She didn't know why she was angry at her dad, but she was.

- Dad… what happened to mom? – her voice was weak.

- Honey… there was a car accident. She's at the hospital – he lowered his head.

- What? But… she… she's gonna be okay, right? – she was already crying.

- Yeah honey… she will – he hugged his daughter tight, cursing himself for not telling her the truth. That her mother was not okay, and there was no way to know if she was gonna get out of this one. How could he tell his little girl that her mother could die?

- Can we see her?

- Yeah – he half smiled – but she's not awake right now, ok? I thought I'd stop by at home to get her some stuff she'll probably need when she wakes up. Do you wanna take a shower or rest a little.

The girl shook her head.

- I just wanna see mom.

Should I go on with it? I always thought it'd be cute to think of them when they were kids. It'll be focused on Peyton and Brooke, specially the whole thing with Peyton's mom's dying, but I'll also mention the other characters. I'm still not sure how that's gonna be, I just liked the idea and started writing it today. Please review!