Wishing
Chapter One- The Kids Across The Street
Nathan stood outside the gym of Tree Hill High School. He was the basketball coach there, but liked to spend his free period watching the kids across the street at Tree Hill Elementary play outside during recess. Looking for kids that in the future would probably be on his basketball team. Or little girls that would definitely be cheerleaders. Sort of comparing groups of ten year olds to his old friends.
All of his friends had left. They had all had their chance with something. He'd sometimes read articles online during his lunch breaks about them. Or catch a story about them on the news in the teacher's lounge and casually look on. Some days he saw a little girl across the street who read all of recess, books by his brother. It made him feel proud to know the author.
Or seeing little girls wearing fashions created by Brooke Davis, though geared for a more older audience, the clothing labels were very distinctive on the ten-year-olds' clothing.
He could see the girls gossiping about Haley James, her latest CD and where her tour was going to next, secretly hoping it'd play the local club, TRIC.
He'd see kids carrying around binder's with Peyton's unmistakable artwork as their designs, or her work as book covers, or even designs on book bags and clothing. They were hers, and there was no denying the pictures.
Then there would be boys discussing Jake's latest movie, repeating some of his lines. Bragging about who had seen it the most times. Then they would get up in the 30s for the movie that only came out two days ago, that's when they knew the other was lying. They couldn't possibly have.
He heard a lot of his gossip about his friends, and knew of their success from the kids across the street at Tree Hill Elementary. It made him proud that he knew all of those people, and a little angry that those kids didn't know that the roots of their favorite stars originated in the very same small town that they live in. If he said anything, to any of his students, well, they would say he's a liar and trying to act cool.
That day, it was fall, October 23, 2016. The school year hadn't started but a couple of months ago. He was standing outside during his free period watching the kids. He had always wanted kids. He though he and Haley would have kids someday. That, sadly, didn't happen.
One girl was screaming, not like a horror scream, but an excited scream. For the first time, Haley James would be playing in TRIC. Nathan thought she was lying. He Hadn't heard that. He would have heard in the local news that she was coming.
"Lily, stop it, you know she's not, don't be going getting everyone's hopes up," a blonde girl was saying.
"Lily ain't lyin'" another girl said, she had light brown hair.
"How do you know, you're just gonna stick up for the lies your sister tells."
"It's the truth," the Lily girl shot back, "Me and Jas gots an email from her tellin' us so."
"The poor James girls think just cause they share the same daggone last name, theys related and they get emails from her, you guys is funny," the blonde was yelling back.
Nathan assumed that the girls names were Lily and Jas James and the blonde wasn't a friend of theirs, but they all idolized her. He felt kind of embarrassed for listening in on a bunch of ten-year-olds' conversations. He looked at his watch, well, it was time for him to go in for his gym class. He hated how they had mixed classes this year.
The boys came in the gym quickly, they loved gym, it was their best class, they dressed, and participated. The girls strolled in whenever they wanted and usually sat on the bleachers and did each other's hair or nails, and rarely dressed. Nathan sat by the group of girls watching the guys play a game of basketball.
The girls were gossiping about Haley James coming into town, and how after school they were all going to get tickets. They would stand in line all of tomorrow to get tickets for the show a couple months away, tickets were going on sale at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning.
Nathan couldn't help but to butt into their conversation, "I know Haley, personally," he said.
They looked at him, then one of them spoke, Allisha, "Liar, we know the stories, you've never left here. You grew up in Tree Hill, you went to this stupid school, and never left. You can't know her."
"But I do."
"Prove it," another girl, Sam, demanded, stopping braiding Allisha's hair.
Nathan reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, and flipped through until he found the picture of Haley and him. He took it out and showed them.
Allisha took the picture, studied it close to her face, then shoved it back to him, without letting the other girls see it, "It's fake," she declared.
"Okay, well, when I'm invited backstage, we'll see who doesn't know Haley James."
"You? Backstage? Ha, she doesn't give backstage tours."
"Like I need her to give me a backstage tour. I'm in good with the owner, she's my brother's mother."
"Coach Scott, no offence, but you suck at lying, you seriously can't expect us to believe Karen Roe is your brother's mother."
"Believe or not, it's the truth."
Karen's Café had been chained up and down the eastern coast, with help of Andy. TRIC was one of the biggest clubs on the eastern shore. Her café, and TRIC helped to put Tree Hill on the map. Everyone knew of Karen, but no one knew Karen. She still loved small town living, but loved getting compliments from Florida, or Maryland, or South Carolina, it made her feel good. Deb was the manager of one of them, and she and Karen had gone through a lot of people to find the best ones to work there.
"Coach Scott, sorry, but you are like the least coolest person ever," Allisha said, looking at him pitifully.
"Look up there on that wall, tell me who has the highest scoring record? Who's jersey is up there, number so great, it was officially retired?"
"23, Scott, so?" Allisha said, not caring.
"That's me."
"Liar, you couldn't play basketball if your life depended on it," she said, growing tired of listening to him make up excuses on how he's cool.
Nathan got up and walked over to the boys playing ball, and joined a team. The girls watch for a while, his slam dunks, three pointers, foul shots, heck, he could make it from behind half court. It felt good to play again, even though he really wasn't supposed to. He wished there was someone he knew that wasn't famous that could back his story.