Shit-fucking-mother of- fucking Christ-
Her mind belatedly processed the searing pain as she blindly grasped at her nightstand. Who is the brainless fuck that decided to create such a vile device and why the fuck did they make them so fucking ear splittingly loud?
Quietly seething and clutching her throbbing head, she cursed the God forsaken alarm, the impact from the collision with the headboard behind her- imposing onto her considerable pain.
As she lifted her arm, she was reminded of the previous night and quickly pulled down her sleeve. Three little red streaks on her left wrist were permanent records of the dark hole that penetrated her soul.
Not that it mattered anyway. Not to her. She's been floating in mindless abyss for the past two years. Feeling became a foreign concept and oddly enough- she was slowly learning not to mind.
Haley slowly pulled herself out of bed and mindlessly began to throw articles of clothing onto her fatigued body. A faded Fall Out Boy T-shirt flew on, closely followed by a pair of baggy cargo pants and battered All Stars.
A brush haphazardly ran through mid length, dark brown hair and a worn out baseball cap was pulled over her eyes. Hidden away, their hazel shine wasn't visible. They were clouded and dark, like the rest of her. Always guarded.
"Hales, get your tiny ass down here before I come up there and castrate you."
"You have such a way with words, Brooke.."
The engine cuts off and a dread weighs down on her body. She looks over at the bubbly teenager beside her and fights the urge to laugh. The cheerleader hasn't stopped babbling for the past twenty endless minutes spent in the tiny vehicle, and quite honestly, her claustrophobia was acting up.
"Brooke, as much as I'm dying to hear the rest of this riveting story-"
"I swear to god, Haley, would it kill you to at least pretend to be mildly interested in anything, or do you plan on forever sticking with this whole 'I'm dead to the world, go fuck yourself' scenario you've got going on?"
Haley just walked out and slammed the car door.
The minute hand was taking its time.
It hadn't moved for the past minute, which was just typical and normal and so completely aggravating.
Brooke had been sending her apologetic looks from across the darkened classroom, as Haley returned a strained smile. There wasn't room for apologies, just as there was no reason for them. She'd stated the truth. Haley just couldn't hear it. Or wouldn't.
Ignoring the drone of her history teacher's voice, she zoned in on the clock again. Five minutes till three.
Her leg bounced and her pencil tapped and her fingers twitched.
Another look. Three o'clock.
Without a word, she stood up, gathered her things, and ducked out of the room, ignoring the pleading looks from her best friend. Though the bell continued to ring, she didn't hear it, as she climbed up the familiar set of stairs. When she reached her destination, she looked up.
There he sat, leaning up against the brick wall of the building, numbness in his eyes. It had become a familiar sight in the past months, though she couldn't decide if it was an unwelcome one.
She sidled up next to him against the wall, and leaned her head back. Silently, the blunt in his hands was handed over, and she took a drag. God, it was like she was breathing again.
He waited patiently as she took her time, but his fingers itched to grab it back. He busied himself with his shoelaces, anything to take his mind off the painful need for release. His jaw still burned and his cheek was slightly swollen. Yesterday's escapades were a blur, as was his recollection of the amount of alcohol he'd consumed.
He glanced over at her, noting the way her small fingers tightened on the rolled up stick, the way her eyes widened as she breathed in. Suddenly she turned, and brown met blue in a heated gaze. Her eyes zeroed in on the scar on his cheek and she silently reached up to graze it. A moment, then the walls came back up. His cobalt eyes were black again. She recoiled.
"Sorry, I-"
"Does it look like I care?"
He left her sitting there.
The arrangement has been ongoing for the past two months. They sit. They smoke. They wallow in their own misery. It's the highlight of their day.
He enters his empty house and immediately goes for the liquor. Grabbing the first bottle he could get his hands on, he makes his way over to the couch.
On the coffee table sits an unopened notice addressed to a Nathan Scott. He glances at it briefly before turning away and downing some more of the brown liquid.
Eh, electricity is overrated.
He hears her before he sees her, but then again, when it comes to her, he just somehow always knows. He's handing her the drugs before she even sits down, and like reflex, she raises it to her lips.
Neither acknowledges the other, and neither bothers to speak. He thinks he hears a sniffle, but doesn't dare question it. Besides, he doesn't have enough energy for social interaction today.
She quickly wipes at her face, catching the tears before they fell. She doesn't need Nathan Scott of all people thinking she's a baby. She gives him a once over and notices that the bruises from yesterday were slightly less pronounced. She knows he'll have new ones in a week.
He hears a quiet "fuck" and notices that she's bent over and scribbling something in a tiny journal, her perfect, loopy handwriting scrawled across the page. Her eyebrows are furrowed, reflecting her frustration, as she furiously erases whatever it is she'd just written.
He takes the opportunity to really look at her, admiring the curtain of glossy brown hair that falls in front of her face. Her nose is scrunched up in a way that one may objectively call cute - not that he thought it was cute, but hypothetically if a person were to-
His internal ramblings are cut off when she glanced up and caught his intense gaze on her.
"Was there something that you wanted?" Her question had an edge to it, as she crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive position. He got the feeling that it had become a natural stance for her.
He didn't miss a beat before responding."Oh, there's a lot that I want from you honey," he drawled, a self assured smirk present on his lips.
She's surprised. Not once in all the time that she'd known him, had she caught even a trace of a smile on his face. While the smug one he was sporting now wasn't necessarily genuine, it was staggering.
Her mind caught up to his words, however, and her face soured.
"Don't call me that."
His perplexed eyebrows lifted. "What?"
"Don't call me honey." Only she called her that. And she is long gone.
Haley went back to her journal, focusing intently on the words in front of her. The lyrics were tainted, drawn from years of pent up anger and pain. Depression seemed to be her only muse, and while early on it had been liberating to write out her suffering, she was getting rather tired of the whole 'brooding artist' cliche.
He looked over her shoulder, trying to get a glimpse of the notebook, and quickly realized his mistake. A sweet fragrance of strawberry shampoo washed over him as he leaned in, and he quickly recoiled.
The sharp movement startled her out of her song-writing induced trance and her eyes narrowed.
"When in the entirety of our two minute conversation before, did I allow you to look at my work?"
"Around the same time you asked me to do you." His reply came instantly, as if the words were naturally on his lips. And what lips they were… No.
"Fuck you," she grit out, while she tersely got up and turned to hide the growing blush on her cheeks.
"Gladly," he replied, following her movements with his eyes. Why he'd carried on holding a conversation that lasted longer than a minute with her, he'd never know. It probably had something to do with the familiar blank look in her eyes, one he saw reflected back at him every morning while brushing his teeth.
Going back in for another drag, he didn't even look up when the door to the roof slammed shut.