Author: Selene Romanov

Title: Do I need a reason to be different?

Summary: Brooke and Nathan…need I say more?

A/N: Enjoy!

Captain of the Cheerleading Squad.

Brooke looked into her mirror and smiled her best fake smile, sometimes she couldn't tell the difference between her fake smile and her real one.

How can I possibly know the difference, nothing in the last six months has made me smile because I've actually wanted to.

Staring at her perfect complexion in the mirror, Brooke threw her hairbrush at the wall. Fury vibrated through her.

Here I am, pitying myself when others have so much less. I'm rich, popular and pretty, what more could a teenage girl want.

Not to be lonely or feel broken.

Shifting her gaze out her bedroom window, she heard the whistle of the trees and the squeak of car brakes. No doubt her stepmother Corinne's BMW convertible brakes.

Rolling her eyes, she grabbed her car keys off the desk, her homework in one hand. A cool autumn wind blew through her hair whirling into the horizon. Brooke looked upward and wished she could fly away.

Her stepmother's saccharine tones flew down the stairs where Brooke stood at the garage door.

Brooke slammed the door shut and ran to her car. Flooring the engine, she reversed out of the driveway smoothly and switched to drive and drove away.

Captain of the Basketball Team

Nathan stood on the gravel driveway, shooting the ball into the hoop repeatedly. Swish it sounded each time. After fifty swishes, Nathan dropped the ball, watching it roll to the grass.

Yellow, red and orange leaves covered the lawn and Nathan wished he had someone to roll in them with.

Peyton had been his last girlfriend and they didn't do stuff like that. Since having broken up with her last year, he'd had girls at his beck and call. But their practiced artificial simpering act left him cold.

He wanted a real relationship, with who, he didn't know. Maybe someone he didn't know.

Pulling the keys to his black Mustang out of his pocket, he got into the car and drove down the street for destination unknown.

Brooke pulled into the driveway of her beach house, the houses next to her stood empty. The summer vacationers had gone home and left their houses like old ladies to defend themselves in the coming cold of winter.

A black Mustang sped down the road towards her and pulled into the driveway next to hers.

"Nathan Scott, what brings you out here?" Brooke smiled her fake smile.

"I got sick of trying to be the perfect basketball playing son, how 'bout you?" Nathan smirked at her.

"I got sick of being the perky cheerleader." Brooke smirked back at him.

"Well I've got a solution." Nathan opened his trunk and pulled out a six-pack of beer. Arching his eyebrows mischievously, he waited for her acceptance.

"No thanks, I've got homework to do." Brooke turned from him and walked to the front door of her beach house.

"Are you serious?" Nathan called after her.

Brooke turned and nodded.

Shaking his head, Nathan grabbed a blanket with one hand and carried his beer in the other and proceeded to the beach, where he planned on getting smashingly drunk.

10:04 p.m.

Brooke turned down her wall shaking Tom Petty to give herself a break. Having been at the homework for the last 3 hours, she'd finished all of her overdue assignments and caught on everything, she'd be good for another week.

Turning her head to the open windows, she thought she heard shouting from outside.

The sky was dark overhead, the only light from the half moon and the lamp lights posted on the sand.

"Here's to every girl that I've liked and has only liked me for what I have to offer and not me for myself," was shouted down the beach.

Wincing from the volume of the shout, Brooke slipped into a pair of sandals and walked down to where Nathan was moving back and forth, stumbling over his feet with every step.

Walking up behind him, she noted the empty six bottles of beer and the blanket twisted around Nathan's middle, which he held in place with one hand the other hand pointing upwards as he ranted.

"Nathan, what are you doing?" Brooke yelled at him from behind.

He whirled at the sound of her voice, almost falling over in the process.

His eyes lit on her, a strange gleam lighting up his eyes.

"Sweet Brooke, the one flower who always escaped my pursuit, the one I wrote poems about in Grade Eight, the one who spurned my admirer letters in Grade Nine. I dated Peyton to be close to her, sweet Brooke." Nathan fell over with the last few words torn out of him.

Drunk exhaustion took over his body and he snored gently like a baby as he slept.

Brooke supported him with one arm, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders and the beer box hanging from her other hand.

"You're not a light load." Brooke commented to a snoring Nathan.

She pushed him into her bed and he rolled over clutching the pillow.

Brooke went back over what he'd said and wondered if what he'd said was true. The thing about the admirer letters was odd, because she'd had gotten those for a month in Grade Nine, she'd told no one about them.

She still had them, locked away in a box in her closet somewhere.

Getting into bed with Nathan, she lay on her stomach and closed her eyes, soon joining Nathan in the slumber of sleep.

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Ahah, another Brathan fic, I am obsessed with these two. Want more, lemme know by reviewing, oh please, reviews are my chocolate. AND I LOVE CHOCOLATE. LOL!