Nathan Scott walked into Karen's Cafe, a place he went every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday since his half brother had joined the basketball team over summer. These were the days that Karen, his biological half brothers mom was not at the Cafe and instead was at the downtown office working on the business side of things. He stepped into the cafe and smirked as he saw Lucas taking an order from a group of middle schoolers. He watched as Lucas walked away and faced Nathan his expression went from happy to aggravated quicker than Nathan had expected and he smirked even more watching this. Him and his girlfriend, Peyton Sawyer, the broody cheerleader and Tim Smith his so called partner in crime.
Nathan and his friends walked over to a table and waited for Lucas to walk up to them but instead of Lucas it was a women. Her wavy raven black hair was mesmerizing to him, but it was her eyes that caught him off guard. They were this shade of electric blue that he could stare into for hours, her face was stern but her eyes were filled with anger and Nathan would have stared into to them for hours if her soft but determined voice broke his gaze. He didn't recognize her but something about the annoyed expression on her face showed she knew him. "What can I get you guys?" she said her voice not changing tone "We'll take a different waiter," Peyton replied clearly noticing the way that her boyfriend was staring at the waitress. She certainly was stunning, and she was stunning enough to where it was clear she never had to try to impress guys. There was something about her that was familiar but she couldn't put her finger on "I'm sorry but that's gonna be a problem." she said clearly agitated, and her face plastered with a fake smile "And why would that be a problem?" Nathan asked with a flirty smirk on his face "Because see that guy over there," She said pointing towards Lucas, "you may call him brother but I call him best friend and it's pretty clear that y'all are here to do one thing and one thing only: Stir up trouble and Karen and Lucas are good people and I won't have you three coming in here acting like your better than everyone else because your Nathan Scott All Star basketball player." she said with clear sincerity and usually Nathan would have sat there and argued saying it was a free country but it was clear that there was no use so he didn't say anything but Peyton did "You don't know anything about us, so you can take that attitude and go get us another waiter." said Peyton with more attitude that either of them had heard her ever use "Oh, I don't know anything about you? Okay, try me. Your," she said pointing to Nathan, "one of the most popular guys at Tree Hill so you think that everyone should treat you like an amazing person and should give you everything and you let girls throw themselves all over you. Your, Peyton Sawyer, broody cheerleader who is only a cheerleader because Anna was and how would I know that? Well, Anna was my moms best friend and she used to baby sit me and you me and Brooke were inseparable until my mom and dad died. And last but certainly not least Tim Smith, Nathan's best friend. See, that's the funny thing about high school I know who all of you are but you have no idea who am I, except maybe Peyton but I wouldn't blame you if you forgot." she said as she walked away and all of us just sat there and Peyton was the first to speak barely mumbling one word as her face went pale, "Hayley
After seeing the way that Peyton looked after telling them who their waitress was, the guys knew that there was no way Peyton was going to talk about it now. They got back to Nathan's apartment and Peyton ran to the pone and called Brooke, she got there in around twenty minutes and until then they all sat around Nathan's apartment the air feeling stuffy and a still pale Peyton pacing around the room, it had been so quiet that when the door opened they all jumped at the sound of Brooke's footsteps hitting the hardwood floors of Nathans apartment. She looked around the room and being the person Brooke was she looked around the room and not thinking about it she said chuckling, "What kinds of ghosts have y'all been seeing?" Peyton looked at Brooke with a look that very clearly stated 'so not funny' she then spoke the same name that she told the guys, "Hayley." she said in a voice that almost sounded remorseful, Brooke had the same reaction that Peyton first had.
"What do you mean, Hayley?" Brooke asked with a look of hopefulness that was smashed when Peyton said, "I mean she's back." Brooke really did look like she had seen a ghost and she looked at the guys and then back at Peyton and said, "Should we tell them?" Peyton just looked at them and back at Brooke and nodded, Brooke then preceded to look back at them and she took a seat on the coffee table and waited for Peyton to join when she did they looked at each and then back at the ground clearly trying to avoid the conversation they were fixing to have to have. After waiting for a full 60 seconds Nathan broke the silence and said, "Who the hell is Hayley?" wondering more about the girl he was utterly mesmerized by. Peyton looked down, sighed and said, "You both know that my mm died when I was 12 and it was because she ran a red light. Well, the car that she ran into during the car wreck had Hayley, her two older twin brothers, and her parents." Peyton looked back down at the floor and she could feel the tears swelling in her eyes. Brooke started to finish and said, "Well before all of this me, Hayley, and Peyton were best friends, so when we found out about the car wreck we were all there for each other. Hayley's oldest brother Matt took in all of the kids and since the house was paid for and there was money left for all of the kids he took care of the kids. Well, after Peyton's mother's funeral we all mourned together and when it came time for Hayley's parents funeral, me and Peyton didn't know how to help Hayley but we were naïve and stupid and we were already late but we had to go anyway. When we got there we were already so done with everything and didn't want to be there so we sat outside of the room where the memorial service was and started talking about why we shouldn't have been there and the reasons weren't like, 'We overslept,' or something they were bad things that her parents did and Hayley didn't want be in the room and so she heard everything we said," Brooke had started sobbing somewhere in between everything and Peyton had just stopped so she started to finish, "And being a normal person she stuck up for her parents and at the time we didn't understand that so we asked her to chose and she walked back into the room," she said shaking her head, " and we were I guess you could say popular or as popular as it gets in junior high, but we told everyone and made her get bullied every day. Until, one day our eighth grade year, she went to Peyton's house and dropped off all of our stuff that we had left at her house and we were so stupid that we said something that started a fight and after we were sitting on the ground, she stood up and said the one thing that has been on repeat in my head for a long time now, 'You both knew my parents. You cried with me when they died, and you had the audacity to go to they're funeral, talk bad about them, and then make me chose between you and them. And for awhile I wished that we were still friends but now I'm done, because they're sadly dead and as far as I'm concerned, you both are too.' The reason it hurt so much was because she didn't waiver her voice when it happened, she really didn't care anymore and at least if she cared we all felt guilty but now there was no going back and then she moved to a different high school and now she's back."