A/N Since I think Alex deserved more closure than she got, this one-shot was born. Not closure in the least, but made me feel better so just go with it. Angsty. Not edited, since it's 1am.
Disclaimer I really wish I owned OTH, but all I own is the box set.
Lonely
Alex Dupre was lonely.
It was somewhat of a conundrum how someone who spent her days surrounded by people could spend her nights sulking about being something that would imply she didn't, in fact, spend her days like that. But she had always believed lonely was a state of mind: a self imposed isolation of sorts, something that could easily be righted with the right kind of attitude. A positive one.
Like Alex had always been the poster child for positivity?
Nights like these were the hardest for her. The ones where she stayed up late watching Greys Anatomy and pigging out on chocolate. If nothing else, at least she could always rely on the characters having lives more screwed than her's. It was nights like these she found herself missing pre-Tree Hill Alex.
It wasn't that she missed being permanently drunk/high and caring about no one and having no one care about her in return. No, that wasn't it.
What she missed was being able to pretend her life had meaning. Being able to pretend that her presence in the world contributed to something, anything. She missed being able to pretend she wasn't lonely.
If you asked her why she never returned to Tree Hill after her tour, she wouldn't be able to answer. Not thruthfully, anyway. Because, thruthfully, she didn't know.
The safest bet, Alex guessed, was that she was scared. Scared of what, she couldn't be entirely sure. That people would look at her differently? Or, in some cases, that they would look at her as they did before? That things would be different and there would be nothing left for her there? That the only place she had ever called home would feel unkind and unfamiliar? That everything she once had would be gone; that they would all have moved on?
But now she sits in her LA apartment at night and all she feels is lonely. She yearns for all she gave up.
She loves Chase more than ever, and misses him like crazy. But she doesn't let herself think about that; it hurts too much. How she could give him up for anything, least of all a music career that couldn't even be classed as successful, baffles her.
Quinn is someone she'd give anything to see again, too. She was the first girl Alex had ever been able to call a friend without feeling like a nuisance. She wonders how things are with her and Clay, and hopes they're happy.
Sometimes, she longs for a familiar face enough that she thinks she'd even settle for Mia freaking Catalano. At least then she'd have someone to fight with.
Surprisingly, Alex doesn't often think about going back. Well, no; she thinks about it, but never really considers it. After all, she doesn't know what she'd be going back to. It really would hurt too much if she showed up and nobody cared, and she doubts anyone would. Worse; some people probably wouldn't have even noticed that she left.
And what would that say about her? To leave a place for three years and having your acquaintances thinking you'd been present at those old Sunday lunches all along would be the epitome of pathetic.
Alex didn't want to be pathetic, even though deep down she knew she was. She was also a coward. And, above all, lonely.
These days she isn't so certain loneliness is a state of mind. Maybe it materialised into something more when she was too caught up in herself to either notice or care? That would be nice. To be so self-absorbed that it wouldn't matter if you were the loneliest person in the world.
Except Alex wasn't that girl anymore.
She used to pray loneliness was a state of mind. Now she hopes it isn't. Because if it's not really there- not something she can find- then how can she fix it?