The sun declares its presence from beyond Brooke's eyelids, stirring her to consciousness. Although her stomach presses insistently against her bladder, the buzzing in her head suggests that she sleep off any lingering traces of vodka in her bloodstream. Shifting to her side, Brooke feels the distinct warmth of another body brush against her thigh—
She is no longer lying beneath the too-warm comforter, and the blood rushed to her brain (or is it out? She's never been good at the inner workings of physiology when the outer is so much more pleasant); all she can think is that God damn it, she is not a fucking slut, no matter what Lucas Scott says, no matter what random person is lying next to her. She attempts widen her eyes, but she can still see nothing except harsh light and black walls, skewed into some art deco project her mother might decide to be trendy.
When the blurriness of sleep clears, she realizes that the walls really are black, and that can mean only one thing.
Peyton's room is too punk, too dark to be considered stylish. Brooke has always liked it, yet felt out of place in it: despite recent dramas, she is no angst queen. She cannot say, Oh, I've had hard life while driving a new Porsche and eating caviar.
She is no hypocrite.
Yet she can't deny that the lie of friendship felt good the previous night. It was like middle school all over again, staying up late and trading nonsense contemplations while trying to discern shapes in the dark. At one point, Brooke slung her arm over Peyton's shoulders in a show of amicability. If Peyton noticed Brooke's arm stiffen and retreat then she did a fine job in pretending not to.
Brooke knows that Peyton would love to pretend everything is fine with them; she saw Peyton do it for nearly two years while dating Nathan.
Still wearing her party clothes (which looked so sexy at night, but looks overdone and skanky in the window-filtered sun and against the coolness of the black walls), she rummages for her shoes. The three inches of the heel persuade her to let them dangle from her fingertips instead of slipping them on.
Before she leaves, she considers writing Peyton a note, just something to say, "Hey, I really meant it when I said that I don't hate you any more, despite my convenient absence this morning."
She has never been very good with morning farewells, but perhaps some star-ridden night she will sneak into Peyton's room in that corny Dawson's Creek sort of way and it will be as if they'd never met Lucas Scott.
Author's Notes: This probably won't make sense unless you've seen the episode "What Is And What Should Never Be" from Season 1, in which Brooke decides that they are no longer enemies and spends the night sleeping over at Peyton's house. Anyway, please review!