All right here's another fic and much like the other one every chapter is based on a song from a certain CD. Instead of Coldplay I will be using songs from The Weight Is A Gift by Nada Surf and just because I love the song so much, I will be using their song "Inside Of Love", too. After hearing "Always Love" on one of the episodes of OTH, I decided to go get the CD and I'm really in love with it right now. Oh yeah and to settle a few things, I don't know if Peyton found her bracelet or not, because I wasn't paying attention, but if she did, in my story she doesn't find yet. And as strange as I thought the Peyton talking to herself thing was, I just had to use it. So to get right to the point I don't own anything and I hope you guys enjoy reading this.

Hey, calling all imaginary friends
today don't want no one
to tell me how it ends
took breathing for granted
and now I don't know how to breathe
Imaginary Friends-Nada Surf

She was miserable; she was completely and utterly miserable. It was late at night and she was spending another night alone, but for once she was happy to be alone. She was tired, so incredibly tired, but she couldn't close her eyes and go to sleep. She wouldn't. If she fell asleep she was afraid her "self-conscience" would come back again. That was the very reason why she was kind of happy to be alone. She didn't need her bitchy self-conscience to start bitching at her again and nagging her to do what she thought was the right thing. God did she think she was going crazy! Her self-conscience bitching at her, how ridiculous did that sound?

"Should Lucas be with me instead of Brooke?"

What the hell… she didn't think that. Wait who the hell was she kidding, she did think that. Everything that her so-called "imaginary friend" as Brooke liked to call it was true. She made a mistake calling Brooke earlier. She should've known that Brooke just wouldn't understand. In a desperate attempt to get some type of comfort she called Brooke a couple of hours ago and tried to discuss the whole Ellie situation. Of course, Brooke had been so swamped in her own problems that she didn't have time for her own best friend's and that was the end of it.

Ellie… she still couldn't find the bracelet. She had stopped looking for it hours ago. Everything in her life was going so terribly wrong just when she thought it was all gonna be okay again. Maybe it was her fault… maybe if she wasn't so bitchy or pessimistic then she wouldn't be this depressed. Okay she admitted it, she could be a bitch at times… okay, lately all the time, but she wasn't this totally horrible person who took joy on other's suffering like some made her out to be. She was human, she was hurt, and she was sick of being lied to. Her father just told her that she was adopted less than a couple of months ago and her birth mother seemed like she had ulterior motives and was now on her deathbed. What was she supposed to be jumping for joy? Pretending like everything was okay? Because that definitely got old a long time ago, she got tired of doing that a long, long time ago.

She only had one person right now that she felt that she could truly trust and that was Lucas. If someone had told her several months ago that her and Lucas would be really close friends again she would've laughed in their faces, but now he was her most trusted friend. Okay, so maybe she did feel a little bit more than friendship for him, but could you blame her? She spent the whole summer with him, he opened up to her and she opened up to him. He showed her that he could be trusted again, he always knew the right things to say… and those eyes, he had the bluest eyes she'd ever seen.

And it hurt; it hurt that she knew that she couldn't have him. He was probably going to end up with Brooke again anyway. It seemed like he would always be out of reach or maybe their timing was just wrong, yeah maybe that was it. Besides, everyone thought she wasn't over Jake anyway. Truthfully, she was over him… she had a whole summer to get over him and she did. But that still didn't mean she didn't think about him because she thought about him almost everyday; she was worried about him.

Damn her self-conscience for actually having her lying on her bed and thinking about this. There were so many things that she wanted to change, but she was afraid that it was all too late. There was nothing she could do about Lucas and there was definitely nothing she could do about Ellie. Sure, she had her address, but she couldn't take that big step of going to see her. She was too afraid.

She didn't want to think anymore so she closed her eyes and attempted to get some sleep. She just wanted to go to sleep and forget about her problems for once.

"Well maybe if you actually got off your ass and did something about them you wouldn't have any problems."

Peyton let out a groan. As soon as she closed her eyes she heard her again. Maybe this wasn't happening, maybe she was just dreaming or something.

"This isn't a dream goldilocks. You still haven't gotten your shit together and I'm just here to help."

Peyton slowly opened her eyes to see her gothic self-conscience standing right at the edge of her bed.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were gone." Peyton buried her face in her pillow not wanting to see the image before her anymore.

"Gone? Oh c'mon Peyton I could never be gone. I'm you, remember?"

"This isn't happening." Peyton spoke into her pillow. She didn't want to look up.

"Oh it's happening, all right. We've still got some things to settle."

"I'm going to see Ellie." Peyton tried to reason with, well herself.

"Yeah… on your own time, but there's something else that we could actually deal with right now."

"Like what?" She immediately bit her tongue for actually asking that.

"Like our favorite blonde boy, why of course. I know you've been thinking about him."

Peyton finally picked her head up from her pillow, "Lucas and I are—"

"More than friends," Her self-conscience said with a smirk, "I know… I know. I'm sure he feels the same way or maybe he doesn't you know, with Brooke and all."

"Shut up." She said with a hurt look in her eyes.

"What? Can't take what you dish out? Okay… I'll leave you alone… for now. You just remember, if you keep on lying to yourself and pretending like things are okay when they really aren't you're gonna be pretty miserable. But then again, if you didn't do that then what would I be here for?" She said with a laugh and with that she was gone.

Hey, I'm bewildered
and writing myself notes
that say if you fake happiness
then no one knows
convince yourself
and then you've got it made

Peyton shot up from her bed and started panting for air, what the hell was that? She had another horrible dream. Why was this happening to her? Oh, she knew why it was all because she had to "fix" things. Too bad she just didn't know how.

"Peyton?"

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard someone call her name. She looked over towards her computer and saw Lucas sitting in her computer chair.

"Oh my god, Lucas you scared me." She clutched her chest and let out a sigh of relief.

"Sorry."

"So what are you doing here anyway?" She sat up on her bed so she could get a better look at him.

"I just came to check up on you… you know, see how you were doing."

She looked over at her clock, "At 2 AM?"

He laughed a little at her facial expression, "Better late than never, right?"

She smiled a little, "Yeah… I guess. So how long have you been here?"

"About a half hour."

She ignored the feeling in her stomach when she realized that he had been here just watching her.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah… you were talking in your sleep." When he had come over she had been sleeping peacefully, but it wasn't until a few minutes before she woke up that she had began to talk in her sleep. He noticed a look of fear appear on her face. He hadn't seen her look that scared in a while.

"It was nothing." She avoided his eyes, hoping that he would believe her and hopefully change the subject.

"It didn't sound like it was just nothing." He didn't get to hear much since her words were unclear, but from what he did hear it sounded like she was arguing with someone.

"It was just a bad dream. Everyone has them right?"

"Yeah… I guess." He decided to let it go now, hopefully she would eventually tell him about whatever it was that had her so shaken up.

She didn't know where this conversation was going, but she hoped that there would be a change of subject soon.

"Lucas." Her soft voice broke him out of his thoughts.

"Hmm?"

"What are you really doing here?" Something had to be up. They hadn't talked in a few days and now he was here all of sudden to check on her. No matter how much she wanted it to be like that she knew he had another reason for being here.

A guilty look came across his face, "I'm that obvious, huh?"

She nodded, "Afraid so."

He shifted uncomfortably in the computer chair, "It's just—it's Brooke. She came to my house last night with this box of letters, she told me how she felt, and I forgave her."

Peyton resisted the urge to roll her eyes, "So what's the problem?"

"I don't know if what I did was right." He admitted. He cared about Brooke, he really did, but no matter what she did all he could think of was seeing her in bed with Chris Keller. Knowing that she slept with him was enough, but seeing them together just made it worse. He wasn't as hurt as he thought he would be, overall he was just disappointed. He was disappointed with Brooke, but he was more disappointed with himself. He was disappointed in himself for forgiving her so easily.

"Of course it was right, Lucas. She forgave us last year—"

"But that—what we had… it was different. I cared about you, Peyton. We weren't doing what we did just to be reckless. But Brooke… that's what she did and I can't help it, but whenever I see her I think of what she did with Chris."

"Yeah, but imagine how Brooke felt after she found out about us." She didn't know why she was trying to get him to run back to Brooke when that was the exact opposite that she wanted.

"Peyton—"

"It wasn't easy for her then and it isn't easy for her now. Lucas you already told her you forgave her… it's too late to take it back. Maybe next time you should think before you speak."

"I don't know what came over me."

"Guilt?" She asked trying to get a little insight on what he was feeling.

"You know when she told me that she loved me, I didn't expect to say that I loved her, too, but before I knew it the words just came out and I couldn't stop them."

Peyton avoided his gaze so that he wouldn't see the shocked look on her face. She couldn't believe that he told Brooke he loved her, or maybe she could. She knew it would come sooner or later, she just didn't think it would hurt this much.

"So," She cleared her throat as she tried to think of something to say, "Um… why aren't you with her now?"

"I told her I had to get up early for work."

Peyton arched her brow in response to Lucas' answer.

"Okay, so I don't have to work," He paused as he heard her let out a disappointed sigh, "But I just—I didn't know what else to say. I needed some time to think." He tried to defend his antics, but even he knew himself that he was in some serious trouble.

"Lucas do you realize how badly you've fucked things up? You can't go around telling girls that you love them and then have second thoughts."

"I know I fucked up, Peyton—I just… I wish things weren't so complicated."

She felt sympathy for the guy. The lost look in his eyes was enough to make her feel guilty. She just wished he never would've come to her for advice; she wasn't exactly the best person to give advice about love.

"Well listen, Luke. The best advice I could give you is to follow your heart. You either love someone or you don't. It's as simple as that." Out of everything she had told him during these past few minutes, she hoped that he actually listened to this piece of advice.

He shook his head, "You and I both know it's not the simple," He locked eyes with hers, "It never is."

Once again she turned her head from his eye-piercing gaze and looked at her wall. When she was finally ready to look at him again he was walking towards her. Once he reached her bed he sat on the corner of it where she was sitting.

"Thanks for this, Peyton. It really helped." And with that he wrapped his arms around her in a warm embrace. Closing her eyes, she wrapped her arms around him tightly and gently rested her head on his shoulder. She hadn't felt this at peace in a while. After another minute he reluctantly pulled away and stood up from the bed.

"No problem." She looked up at him and offered a small smile.

He nodded down at her, "Goodbye Peyton."

She waited until he walked out of her room to lie back down on her bed.

"Yeah… bye." She said to no one in particular. Her whole life was becoming a mess. Why did she feel so jealous all of a sudden? She knew this was going to happen Brooke and Lucas were going to get back together and she was sure somewhere on the other side of town Nathan and Haley were happy together, too. She just wished that she could be that happy.

I almost wish you knew me better
Hey, calling all imaginary friends