A/N: Chapter 2 ahoy. Flashbacks are in italics, I think that's all you need to know right now. Enjoy... :)
The Mistake
A chilling thought struck him as he stood outside of her house. He didn't know what to expect. He didn't know where her body was, or even what happened to her. Brooke could've chopped Peyton into little pieces or stabbed her in the face or shot her in the head or so many other irreprehensible thoughts now running through Lucas' head. He knew it was ridiculous, that there was no way Brooke could've done those things to Peyton. He still was insistent that there was no way Brooke killed Peyton, his mind still acknowledged that as truth.
Lucas swallowed hard and opened the door, preparing himself for some sort of awful scene. He didn't see anything at first, but at the noise of the door, Brooke had come rushing into the room. She let out a sigh of relief once she identified the person at the door, and promptly began to bawl in his arms. "L-Lucas wh-what ha-have I d-done?" she wailed, her only answer was a soothing rub on the back from Lucas.
"It's okay, Brooke. It's okay," he repeated. Lucas was dreading seeing Peyton dead, dreading confirmation that the impossible had become possible. He tried to act as brave as he could.
"S-she's in the living room," Brooke sniffled, answering the unasked questions that were reeling through Lucas' mind. Brooke pulled on Lucas' hand, letting her smaller one find comfort in his larger and stronger one as he led them into the living room.
Lucas gagged, but otherwise showed no sign of disgust, though he was quite disgusted. Her body was twisted into a pile on the floor. Peyton's legs were both facing in the same direction, her knees bent the same way so that each leg formed a sort of arrow. While those leg-made arrows pointed to the left, her torso was thrown to the right. One of her arms was casually collapsed onto her own chest while the other was closer to her head. A pool of blood was seeping from a gash in her forehead, and that was when Lucas noticed with much horror that Peyton's eyes were half-open, as if she were tiredly observing what was going on.
The scene caused Lucas' stomach to do back flips, one after another. He tried not to focus on the blood. The pool of blood was what separated the idea that she was merely sleeping from the true fact that she was dead. Lucas turned around, letting Brooke bury her face in his shoulder. She was sobbing, heavily, and Lucas tried to shake her out of it. He was having much difficulty calming himself down, there was no way he could calm Brooke down as well.
"Shh, Brooke. Shh, it's going to be okay," he lied, running his hand through her hair then using his thumb to wipe away her tears, and finally cupping her face so that her chin was tilted up to him. "I know this is going to be hard, but you need to tell me exactly what happened."
Brooke choked on her own gasping breaths, shaking her head no. Lucas pulled her away from the crime scene, leading Brooke into the kitchen. Brooke collapsed at the table, taking the paper towel Lucas offered her and dabbing her eyes.
"Brooke, I don't know what's going to happen, but the first thing that needs to happen is that you need to tell me what happened," Lucas said slowly, trying to make Brooke hear each word. She seemed to be tuned out to the world.
She checked her phone as she slammed her car door shut. Three text messages. The first was from Lucas, a quick lie of 'thanks for covering babe, I was at the rivercourt with skills love ya.' That was the only response she got from after sending Lucas a text informing him that his mom called her asking where he was, and she told him that he was with her. She supposed it wasn't really fair to be angry at him for lying about where he was, seeing as she lied to begin with. It left Brooke wondering when their relationship, and they themselves, became so full of lies.
Brooke disregarded that thought and read the next message, an idiotic chain text from Theresa. She hastily pressed the 'next' button and read a text from Peyton. 'hey practice at 3, right?' Brooke responded with a quick 'yes, be there & ready to go,' hoping that her anger could somehow be translated into text form.
She then charged upstairs and got ready for practice, throwing herself onto her bed in the hopes of absorbing the spare time she had. Spare time led to her reliving seeing Lucas and Peyton together, and she was tired of it. She needed to escape from her own mind. Brooke surrendered, though, and ended up leaving a half-hour early for cheer practice.
After that moment, Brooke's watery, bloodshot brown eyes connected with Lucas' confused blue ones. She took a breath and began to explain to him all the things he needed to know. "It was an accident," she started, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I'm sure it was, Brooke," Lucas said reassuringly. Part of Brooke couldn't believe him. He's lied to her before, what's to say he isn't lying to her now? And after all, she was lying, so that seemed to make the idea of Lucas lying as well simply more plausible to Brooke.
In any event, her mind was reeling. She knew what happened, but how could she tell that to Lucas when he thought that Brooke had no idea of his and Peyton's tryst? Her mind quickly formulated an alternate plot, one that had the basic details of what happened, aside from the few key points that had anything to do with their argument.
"After cheer practice, I went home and changed. Then I came back over here to talk with Peyton." Brooke decided to leave out the fact that their "talk" was really more of a screaming match over Lucas. "We were coming downstairs because I was thirsty-" another lie "-and she got me a glass of water. When we went into the living room, she tripped on the rug and fell. Her head hit the corner of the table, and she started bleeding," Brooke's voice wavered, tears falling freely once again. "That was when I called you," she finished.
Lucas couldn't believe that something so innocent was how Peyton would die. It just didn't sound quite right. "That wasn't your fault, Brooke," he reassured her. "Come on," he said, rising from the table and slipping his hand around Brooke's. "We've got to call the police."
"I'm scared, Lucas," Brooke admitted, pulling on his hand. "What if they don't believe me?" she asked.
There was a pleading look in her eyes that made Lucas think that Brooke figured they would have a reason not to believe her. The idea gave Lucas the chills.
"They will," he promised, though he did not really know.
He led Brooke back into the living room, where Peyton's body lay. Keeping his back to the nightmarish sight, Lucas pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.
Before hitting the 'send' button, he turned to Brooke. "I'm going to tell them that I was here, okay? We're going to tell them exactly what you told me except I was right here with you two the whole time, and I saw everything. Okay, Brooke?" Lucas' voice sounded much stronger and sure than he felt. This was all some twisted lie, and he hated himself for being involved. But another part of him felt a need to protect Brooke, and he knew that if he could corroborate the story, she'd be safe. Keeping Brooke and Peyton safe was all he wanted to do in the first place, and since he failed on Peyton's behalf, Lucas wanted to be sure that he could at least do that for Brooke.
All she could do in response was nod. Brooke's mind was somewhere else, somewhere far away. Lucas took a deep breath and made the call.
He was on the phone with the emergency operator for what seemed like forever to Brooke. She listened to all the questions that the woman asked, noticing that her voice sounded harsh and uncaring. Not that it was the operator's job to care, but Brooke still noticed. She listened to Lucas give a short explanation of what happened, then tell the operator Peyton's address. She tuned out after that, barely registering that Lucas was still answering some other questions. She didn't snap back to reality until Lucas closed his phone.
Brooke looked up at him, once again bursting into tears and falling into his arms. He wrapped his arms around her small frame, desperately wanting this to go away. He took once last glance at Peyton and walked over to her dead body.
Brooke stood and watched tearfully as Lucas took his thumb and forefinger, placing one on each eyelid and closing her eyes. "I know it's dumb, but she looks more peaceful like that," he muttered an explanation. His somber expression then changed quickly, to one of overwhelming surprise and confusion. Brooke didn't know what was going on as Lucas leaned his ear by Peyton's mouth, putting a hand on her chest.
"She's breathing, Brooke!" he exclaimed, both terrified and elated.
Brooke's jaw dropped. She could feel her legs giving out, so she sat against the wall. "What..." she breathed quietly. Lucas heard her though, and he could swear he saw a hint of anger flash in her eyes. But whatever flash he may or may not have seen was drowned by a fresh wave of tears, ones that he had to convince himself were joyful.
Thankfully he didn't have much time to think about it. Sirens wailed and he could see the red and blue lights flash through the curtains. The next thing he knew, paramedics burst through the front door, and Lucas focused all his energy on explaining the disaster he and Brooke went through.
A/N: Ta da, Chapter 2! In case anyone was confused, that flashback bit was just a minor glimpse at Brooke a bit earlier. There will definitely be a full explanation of how Peyton was injured, though I'm not sure when.
dianehermans , thank you for your review! I feel the Pucas hate, haha. Personally, I despise that couple more than you will ever know. I don't like watching them on screen, they're cheating idiots. I used to be wholeheartedly Team Brucas, but now I feel that Luke is no longer good enough for her, now I'm just Team Brooke. The thing is though, I try to leave that out when writing. If I let my bias get into the story where it shouldn't be, the story will suffer. In the next chapter, your question will be answered, promise. Thanks for reviewing so so much, I hope you enjoy the rest of the story.
I hope anyone reading enjoyed this chapter, too. As always, tell me what you think please! :)
