So, wow! Thank you all for your kind words and feedback. And thanks to those who favorited or put this on alert. :-)
I have another update for you all, but don't get used to this quick updating. I had a few days off of work and was able to write more than usual. I hope you all enjoy this first chapter.
And T—while I didn't choose one of the songs you gave me today, I am going to use a song you gave me :).(Even though it doesn't really match either. I think it's definitely BL to the core and how they're feeling.)
Ya'll know a little band called Lifehouse? If you don't, get on it! I'm in love with this song.
So far away from where you are,
These miles have torn us worlds apart.
And I miss you.
He checks in on Sawyer, asleep in Brooke's room, again. They've been here for over eight hours, most of which has been spent in awkward silence. Victoria's been here the whole time, hovering, but not speaking to anyone. She's just watching them. Like they're going to steal from her daughter's house or something. He wants to scream at her. Let her know that they were all there for Brooke long before she ever chose to be. But he knows that'll just make it worse so he keeps his mouth shut instead. Haley and Nathan got here a couple of hours ago. They haven't said much, either, save for a quick round of hugs. Jamie must be with one of Haley's sisters or Nathan's agent because he's not with them. Julian whispered with Peyton when they first got here and then went back to pacing. He hasn't even looked at anyone else. Lucas didn't even warrant a hello.
Not that Lucas feels like talking to Julian. He let Brooke leave for an eleven hour trip, crying. Alone. If he had to talk to him, he probably would yell. He's an idiot. Why Brooke's so attracted to guys who are this dumb is beyond him. It's probably his fault. He set a precedent. Since he's the biggest idiot of them all.
No. Maybe that was Owen.
But he's definitely up there. He just left her alone. He should have forced Peyton to come home sooner. She needed them. If he had just been here when she got that call. . .
But he wasn't. He can't change that fact. But he's damn sure going to be here from now on. Peyton's going to just have to deal with it.
His little girl is sound asleep in the middle of Brooke's bed, completely unaware of all of the tension filling the house.
Victoria was watching him closer than usual while she was awake. As if she could critique anyone else's parenting. But he felt like she was. And Peyton didn't even try to put on a show for anyone. She stuck to herself. After talking to Julian about Brooke's whereabouts, he assumes, she pulled out her laptop and got sucked back into her world. When Haley came in, they talked for a few minutes about Red Bedroom and then she went back to ignoring everyone. Including him and Sawyer.
When he feels like he's been watching her sleep for too long, he walks back into the living area of the beach house Brooke bought for herself and Peyton years ago. No one has really moved in the last fifteen minutes. Nathan and Haley are on the couch, hands clasped together, looking like they've lost their fair share of sleep lately. Peyton is cuddled up on a chair, eyes closed, listening to her iPod; her computer abandoned on the floor. Victoria is closest to the front door. Brooke should be here within the hour and she's been watching the door for the last half hour, like a hawk watches its prey. So she can get to Brooke before them, he supposes. Like she has to protect her daughter from them.
That's laughable.
And Brooke's fiancé is still pacing, from the kitchen to the back patio to the living room, where he asks if anyone needs anything, and back again. Julian seems as rattled as he feels so he can't be too mad at him. She hasn't called at all. They're guessing, if she went and turned right back around, she'll be here soon. If she stayed, she'd have called by now. She'd have called someone.
Right?
He doesn't know why, since she's barely said two words to him and he knows she's not happy with him, but he decides to sit next to Haley. Instead of the cold shoulder he expects from her, she drops her free hand onto his thigh and rubs it reassuringly.
"Is she still in the same position as she was fifteen minutes ago?" It catches him off guard that she's teasing him.
He smiles over at her, "Just a little to the right, actually. I might have to go look in on her again in a few minutes."
Haley smiles back, the first time he's seen her smile all night, "Luke, she's gorgeous, if I haven't said that yet. And you're a great dad. But checking on her every fifteen minutes isn't gonna make Brooke show up any quicker. And we're already dealing with one pacer, okay?"
He nods. He knows. But it's the only thing keeping him sane. "Do you think she's okay?"
The girl they're talking about is different now and Haley seems to feel the shift. She takes her time responding and is much more serious when she finally speaks. "I think this is Brooke Davis we're talking about, here. It takes a lot for her not to be okay. She'll come home and if she's not okay, we'll rally around her until she is. God knows, she's been there for me."
"About that, Hales…" he starts to apologize.
Nathan turns to hear what he's about to say as Haley shakes her head. She pats his hand and says, "Not now, Lucas. Just… you're here now. That's what matters."
His brother seems to take that as his cue that they can be brothers again because he smiles over Haley's head. "As a matter of fact, we have some news that will be nice to share in person."
Their smiles tell the story and he doesn't even need to hear it to know what they're about to say. "I'm pregnant!"
He pulls Haley into a big hug, "I'm an uncle again, huh?"
"How 'bout you try and stick around for a while, Uncle Lucas?" Nathan says to him, "You have a family here who needs you, too."
He nods and turns to look at Peyton, to see if she's hearing this. He'd have been back last year, if it were up to him. If she's listening, her face betrays nothing. Her eyes are still closed and she actually looks peaceful. He turns back to his brother and sister-in-law and promises, "I'm back for good. I just decided it's time."
As he says that, he hears a car door shut out front, a pause, and then another door. Victoria is the first one at the door, opening it, but he's right behind her with everyone else right behind him. Brooke appears on the porch, looking like a sight for sore eyes and he breathes a sigh of relief. She's holding a child, who is almost as tall as her. And he immediately reaches out to relieve her, without thinking, whispering, "Here, let me help you."
Instead of taking the help, she flinches back from him and covers the little boy's cheek with her hand. "I've got him. Just, he just fell asleep. If I can just get through here..."
The crowd backs off and Lucas locks eyes with her. She looks tired and those beautiful hazel eyes are pleading with him not to challenge her right now. So he steps back, letting her through, and then follows her all the way through the living area to the spare bedroom, where he opens the door for her and watches her lay him down on the single bed. She stands there for a minute, just looking at the sleeping child. She's sad; it's all over her face but then she turns and gives Lucas a small smile and walks out, shutting the door, effectively stopping Lucas from looking at the boy any closer.
He never got a good look at her precious cargo but if he had to guess, the little boy was about Jamie's age, maybe a little older. He had dark hair and was tall for his age, if the guess was right. And Brooke clearly loves him.
He follows into the living room, where Brooke is looking around as if she's lost and doesn't know how to go about finding her way out. Victoria walks over to her and asks about her aunt.
She shakes her head, like she can't talk about it, but answers her anyway. "She had a stroke. Ethan wasn't there; he was at a friend's house. She had told Grady, her next door neighbor," she says, for everyone who didn't know her aunt's benefit, "to have them call me for him. If anything were to ever happen. So they called and I went."
"Did you close up the house, Brooke?" Again, Victoria.
She shakes her head no. "Grady said he'd take care of everything. I couldn't."
"Then he doesn't even have clothes!" God, where did Victoria get off? Brooke went down there and got some kid to take care of him because his guardian dies, has one weakness and her mother picks it out for her. "You went there completely against my will and brought him back with nothing but the clothes on his back. When I already left a message telling you..."
That's as far as Victoria gets. Haley, surprising, stops her. "Enough, Victoria. How old is he, Brooke? Maybe some of Jamie's clothes will fit him until you can get to the store."
Brooke sends an exhausted smile at Haley. "Thanks, Hales. But I don't think they'll fit. He's bigger than Jamie. And almost a year older, I think." She says this like she knows, but wants to sound like she doesn't. "He just turned ten."
Haley nods. "I'm sure we have something, though." Turning to her husband, she asks, "Don't we?"
Nathan walks over to Brooke and pulls her into a hug, whispering to her. When they break apart, Brooke's eyes are glassed over and she thanks him. And then walks over to Haley and hugs her, too. After they break apart, she turns her attention to Lucas and Peyton.
"You guys did not have to come all of this way for this. I'm so sorry."
Peyton snorts, "Tell that to Lucas. Still trying to save all of us. One day at time."
For just a moment, Lucas watches as Brooke's mask falls. She's trying to be strong but that hit her somewhere because she looks devastated. "Brooke, what she means is that we were worried. And planning a trip home, anyway. I just moved it up a little bit."
Brooke turns her tired smile to him, "Where's Sawyer?"
"Asleep in your bed," he tells her. "I figured you were gonna need the spare room. Julian said you were bringing someone back with you. His name's Ethan? Is he a cousin?"
Brooke laughs, but there's no humor to it. "Aunt Charlotte was my great aunt. No. Ethan's not my cousin. I really wanted to see her. Will you guys stay long?"
He notices she doesn't answer the question, so much as side step it. But Peyton answers so quickly that he can't call her on it. "Actually, this is just a quick trip in. There's a flight out tomorrow night."
Haley looks stricken and Nathan raises his eyebrows. Lucas steps in, "I booked the tickets. They were one way, Peyt."
She looks at him like he's lost his mind. "What do you mean, one way? I need to go back. Our whole life is there, Lucas!"
He just shakes his head. "We'll talk about it later," he says it with such finality that she shuts up.
What's wrong with her? Is she still thinking this was the wrong move? Can't she see how much Haley needs them there? How sad Brooke is? Doesn't she care?
The girl he fell in love with and married cared about their friends. Where did she go?
Brooke just takes a deep breath. "Well, good then. I'll get to see her awake. But not tonight, guys. Right now, I'd just really like it if everyone could go home. It was a long ride. A long, quiet ride. And I'm exhausted. Thank you all for coming, really. But I'll call you guys when I'm ready to talk, okay?"
Nathan and Haley take that as their cue to say their goodbyes. He hugs both of them and Haley asks him to bring Sawyer over sometime tomorrow. After they leave, Peyton starts packing up her things so he walks back to Brooke's room to get his daughter.
He didn't hear her follow him so her voice startles him. "Lucas. You didn't have to come. And please don't fight with Peyton to stay on my behalf."
He looks down at his baby girl and then turns to Brooke. "Yes. I did have to come. We should have come a long time ago, Brooke. I'm sick of avoiding fighting with Peyton at the cost of my friendships with everyone else. No. We're staying. This is home. I want Sawyer to know home."
Instead of arguing with that, Brooke looks down at Sawyer, "She's gorgeous, Luke."
He laughs a little. She has always tried to shift the focus when she gets too uncomfortable with the subject. "My mom says she looks just like me. You should see her when she's awake. Her big blue eyes are hard to deny. Scott eyes. I think we get them from May. Nate and Jamie have them, too."
She nods but he can feel her pulling away. He has no idea what he just said to make her retreat into herself but she does. Right before his eyes. And before he can ask, Peyton appears at the door.
"Lucas, you heard Brooke. She's tired. She doesn't want us here. Let's go."
He nods at her and she leaves just as quickly as she came. "Sorry, she's just…"
He breaks off. She's just what? He doesn't even know right now. He does know that he's tired of it, though.
Brooke just shakes her head. "She's right. Get going; it's late. I'll call you sometime tomorrow so I can see the little princess."
He just wishes he could get her to talk. She seems so defeated. Instead, he bends down and scoops up Sawyer, who shifts in his arms and burrows her head into his neck. He loves the feeling of his baby in his arms. Then he reaches over and pulls Brooke into a light hug.
When they finally separate, he looks into her eyes. "You can have tonight, Brooke, but tomorrow, we're gonna talk. You can talk to me, you know? If you're hurting, I'm here. I'm here now."
That's all it takes. Her hazel eyes glaze over and he thinks she's going to cry right there. She turns her head and blinks a couple of times and then nods.
He doesn't think he's going to get much more from her tonight and though he wants to comfort her, he knows that's not what she wants. So he goes to leave, feeling even more guilty than when he arrived. When he reaches the door, he hears her parting words, spoken so softly that he's not even sure he was supposed to hear her.
"I'm so sorry, Luke."
Sorry, for what? He doesn't know. But he figures she's taking the responsibility for whatever's happening between him and Peyton onto her shoulders. She always has. Tomorrow, he'll set her straight.
I miss the years that were erased.
I miss the way the sunshine would light up your face.
-x-b-x-l-x-
I miss all the little things.
I never thought that they'd mean everything to me.
When the door shuts behind Lucas and Peyton, Brooke closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She has to go out and face Victoria and Julian still.
She doesn't know which one she'd rather go first with but she has a feeling that her mother isn't going to wait. She saw the look on her face when she realized that Brooke really did bring Ethan home. Like she'd leave him with social services. Like she ever wanted to leave him at all.
If it were up to her, she'd have already went and got him. But she was so sure that Aunt Charlotte was right when she said that she needed to finish high school and that she couldn't do that with a baby that she took the out she was handed. It was better than what her parents wanted. A closed adoption with people she never met wasn't acceptable. This way, she'd have updates through the year she couldn't be with him. And when she graduated, she'd go get him. But then, the company took off and Aunt Charlotte and Victoria convinced her that he'd be okay while she got her business off the ground. After all, she needed a means by which to support him. And then she was defying everything she built anyway, to come back home. Partially for Peyton but mostly because she needed to be around people who loved her. That's when she started her monthly calls up with her great aunt. Then Aunt Charlotte started sending pictures of Ethan. He seemed really happy and she didn't want to disrupt that to bring him into the amount of drama he'd be surrounded by in Tree Hill, as a Scott.
Now, she wishes she would have just brought him sooner. Maybe he'd hate her less. Maybe he wouldn't have to deal with the repercussions of her bad choices while he was already dealing with so much.
With those Scott eyes that Lucas just referred to, it wouldn't take long for someone to figure it out. It's not going to take them long to figure it out now. The last name on Ethan's birth certificate might be Davis but she's pretty sure that everyone's going to see the lie in that almost immediately.
She turns around at the sound of her mother's voice through her door. "Brooke, you can't possibly think you can just wait me out in there, can you? Come out or I'm coming in."
Instead of fighting it, she opens the door and pulls Victoria into the bedroom, whispering, "Shh… I told you: he just fell asleep. An eleven and a half hour car ride, in complete silence, and he only fell asleep in the last half hour. Do not wake him up. I don't need him to hear either of the conversations that are about to take place."
Her mother shuts the door behind her and turns to Brooke. Her eyes move up and down her daughter, as if she's scrutinizing every detail. Brooke hates that those eyes can still make her feel like a disappointing five year old who got dirt on a party dress when she was supposed to be playing tea party.
Finally, Victoria just shakes her head. "I really thought if you knew Lucas was on his way here with his wife, who happens to be your best friend, for some God forsaken reason, that you would find a way not to bring the boy here. They did tell you I called, right?"
"What would you have me do, mother?" she asks, incredulously. "He's my son! Did you really expect me to leave him there to fend for himself?"
"You've left him there all of this time."
Yeah, she did. Because that was what everyone expected. Every time she got restless and started making noise about going to see him, they'd remind her of what a bad idea it was. And then throw things at her. An investment into the company so she'd stay busy. And then at twenty-one, they signed the house on the island over to her with the stipulation that Aunt Charlotte got to spend her remaining years in it—with Ethan. She left him there. Her little boy.
She avoided facing consequences that she should have faced years ago. And she'll always regret that. But she would not make one more mistake at his expense. "You're right, Victoria. I did. Because I was too busy listening to everyone else. I was too busy worried about how it would affect me, if I didn't do what you all wanted me to do."
Victoria doesn't say anything but just keeps looking at her with that distinct look of dissatisfaction radiating off of her.
"Aunt Charlotte wanted me to go visit. She wanted us to know each other. She wanted me to be his mama! You didn't. You still don't want to accept him. He's a part of you. Are you going to wait until he's in his twenties to be nice to him? Because, I love you, mother, but if you are, you can just go. We have enough that we're going to have to work through without you making it harder on everyone."
"He's not only a part of me, Brooke. Or you," she tells her. "You are unequivocally inviting that boy's father into your life. For good. I watched him with that little girl today. I promise you, when he gets wind of this, you'll be lucky to get pictures of him. He's not going to be your friend. I'm trying to protect you."
Brooke just shakes her head. Lucas wouldn't do that. "You're wrong, mom. He wouldn't do that. Lucas and I have been through a lot together. We'll get through this, too."
"You keep telling yourself that, Brooke. Keep letting your puppy love crush on that boy rule every decision you make," Victoria rolls her eyes. "He hurt you. He married your best friend. I think you need to get it through your head that he doesn't care about you or your feelings."
"I think you should go now, Victoria." She doesn't need to hear her mother's interpretation of her life. Her decisions are not about Lucas. And she knows that he doesn't love her love her. But he does care for her. He flew all the way here to make sure she was okay, after all.
Sure, he's not going to be happy about missing all of this time with Ethan. But he'll understand, eventually, that she did this for him. She didn't want to tie him to her so early in life. She didn't want to hold him back. Or keep him from finding his true love.
"Brooke, I think you're making a mistake." Victoria tries one last time at the door.
Brooke nods, "Your concern is noted, Mother. I think you're making a bigger mistake."
And with that she shuts her bedroom door in Victoria's face. One horrible conversation down. One to go.
Tonight, anyway.
Yeah, I miss you.
And I wish you were here.
-x-b-x-l-x-
I miss all the little things.
I never thought that they'd mean everything to me.
Sawyer's room is exactly how they left it and if he's not mistaken, someone must be keeping it clean, too. Brooke and Haley both have keys so he'll have to thank them next time he talks to them and see who fesses up. It's nice to know that someone didn't give up hope on them coming home.
Once Sawyer is down, in her own bed, he takes a deep, somewhat fortifying breath. What's coming with Peyton, he's not sure. But he already knows that it's not going to be good. She barely said good-bye to Brooke or Julian and she hasn't said one word to him since Brooke's bedroom.
He walks into the kitchen where she's just sitting, in the dark. Having lived here most of his life, his hand automatically goes to flip the switch and as the light filters on, she covers her eyes.
His heart breaks a little bit to see how upset her face looks. He never meant to hurt her by announcing that they're staying. But they are staying. He already decided to call and ask his mom to take care of packing up anything she thinks they need and shipping it over here.
When it doesn't seem like she's going to talk to him, he starts talking to her. "You know, Peyt, this is home. You always knew we'd come back here. I don't know why you're freaking out about it so much. The label is still yours and it's here. You can still work."
"I didn't realize how much I don't like living here until we moved away, together." She looks up at him for the first time since he walked in and there are tears in her eyes. He feels like the biggest jerk on the planet. "I only came back for you, Luke. I have you. We don't need to be here."
He scrubs his hands over his face and groans. This is not going to be an easy fight for him. But it's what he wants. And what he thinks Sawyer needs.
New Zealand is nice but it's not Tree Hill. And while he understands his mom's reasons for keeping Lily over there, those same reasons don't ring true for him. He used to think they did. But Dan isn't the only person he ever had a relationship with in this town.
And there are more good memories than bad.
He doesn't want to have to get on a plane if someone dies. He wants to be able to drive over and comfort the people left behind. He doesn't want to be thousands of miles away when he knows his best friend is in pain. Too much pain for her husband to even handle, at times, from what Brooke would tell him. He doesn't want to wonder about what they aren't telling him. Worry that something really bad is going on that they've shut him out of.
It took Brooke a month—a month!—to tell him about the infertility. And that was only after he pressed her, telling her than he knew something more was going on. She wouldn't just give up on Julian like that. It's not like her. And then he had to just sit around and think about her. About how she was handling it because he couldn't just drive over and see for himself.
He's sick of being away from them all. He wants Sawyer to grow up with her cousins. He wants her to know her Aunt Brooke—even if it kills him. He wants to have his brother to turn to and he wants Nathan to come to him if he needs something. He wants to be here for Haley. He never meant to leave her.
He sits down and turns his chair to face Peyton. He takes a deep break and begins to explain it to his wife, "Maybe you don't need to be here but we do. I don't want to have to get on a plane when a friend is hurting—"
That's as far as he gets before Peyton cuts him off. "You didn't need to get on a plane. Brooke made that clear, didn't she? This trip was all in vain. You were just looking for a way to force me back here. It wasn't really about Brooke, at all, was it? And if it was, well, kudos, Lucas. You've done a great job of being there for her. So great, in fact, that you barely spent twenty minutes in her presence. And now I'm stuck here. Again! With all of these bad memories!"
Where is all of this coming from? When did life start to revolve around Peyton? "Where do you get off, Peyton? I mean, really? Sure, you had some bad times here. You're not the only one who's had a few crappy years here." He's standing now, yelling and pacing the kitchen. He turns back toward her and points, "But there is more love in this little town. For you. For me. And for our daughter. Than anywhere else in this world. She's about to have another cousin- I'm gonna have another niece or nephew that I won't know at all if we leave again. As for Brooke- she was tired, damnit. But she will need us, Peyton. And we will be here. You got that?"
When she doesn't say anything to that but just stares straight ahead, as if looking through him, he shakes his head, deflated. "I was willing to sit down with you and discuss this rationally. When did you stop doing things the rational way? This is the new normal and you can leave or you can stay. I don't really care right now. I'm going to bed."
With that, he turns and walks into their bedroom. Flopping onto the bed, he shuts out all of the thoughts racing through his head. Tomorrow will be a long enough day without losing sleep over this. Peyton will come to her senses. Brooke will talk to him. And Haley's already forgiven him.
It'll be okay. It has to.
I feel the beating of your heart.
I see the shadows of your face.
-x-b-x-l-x-
So far away from where you are,
These miles have torn us worlds apart.
And I miss you.
Brooke feels so tired but she knows that she has to explain to Julian before Ethan wakes up tomorrow. She needs to take the brunt of whatever it is her fiancé is going to feel when he finds out that she has just moved her son- the only one she'll ever have- in with them. And that he's Lucas's son, too. Still, she crawls into the bed instead of going out to see if Victoria's talking to Julian or if she's just going to leave.
Her bed covers smell like sweet baby where Sawyer had been all sprawled out and she burrows her head into that spot when she hears the front door close and Julian's footsteps coming toward the room. She never got to smell her own baby on her bed sheets. And no matter what she said to Victoria, it was mostly her fault.
She should have taken him and run. She could have gone to Georgia to be with him. Or told Lucas about him and asked for help. She's paid the price for all of these years but somehow she knows, the consequences are really just beginning.
"Brooke." Julian's voice is soft. Kind. Confused. And she hates what's about to happen. "Why does Victoria dislike the kid?"
She turns her head toward him and sighs. She knows what she has to do. It's time for the real consequences to begin. "I can probably show you, better than I can tell you."
She gets up and walks to her closet door when he speaks again. "Brooke, you're scaring me. How about we just sit and talk before you walk to the guillotine. It looks like you're ready to hang. And I have no clue why."
Instead of answering him, because she honestly can't say it, she opens the door and walks to the very back of her walk-in. After moving aside a few gowns, she finds the box that she's looking for and pulls it down. She looks down at it for a moment, taking in the fact that Julian isn't the first person she ever wanted to share this box with. She wanted it to be Lucas. And one day soon, she's sure that Lucas will get a look at it, too. But right now, this is the best explanation she can give the guy who wants to spend the rest of his life with her. And even though she really would prefer it if Lucas knew first, there's a part of her that knows that if she waits until morning, she won't need words, or this box, because her little boy's eyes are going to be enough of an explanation.
And she does not want Julian's reaction to be something that Ethan has to deal with.
So she sits the box beside Julian on their bed, then she sits next to it and pulls the lid off. Julian's eyes haven't left hers yet. He hasn't seen the contents. She breaks eye contact with him and looks into it, herself. The first thing she sees is a picture of Ethan and Aunt Charlotte on the beach outside of the Georgia house.
She pulls it out and hands it to him. "This is my Aunt Charlotte and the little boy in the spare room. His name is Ethan. I have about a hundred of pictures just like this. My great aunt has been sending me packages full of them regularly since I moved back to Tree Hill five years ago."
She can tell that he's looking at the picture without really looking at the child in it. If he was, he'd already know what she can't say. He doesn't seem to see the resemblance as much as she can, though.
"Is he related to you?" he asks, instead. Instead of making it easier on her. Instead of guessing so she didn't have to say it.
She locks eyes with him for a minute and then breaks the contact again. Looking away, she nods. Then her hand blindly goes into the box, pulling out the picture that she looks at the most. The picture she spends every August fifth staring at. She doesn't even have to look at it to know that she has the right picture. She knows every crease, every tear. So she doesn't look at it, or him, as she hands it to him.
It's very quiet for a few minutes before he speaks again. "Is this him?"
She nods again, this time trying to blink away the tears at the edge in his voice. "The day he was born. August fifth. A month before I started my senior year of high school."
"He's yours." It's not a question. It's a statement that sounds more like an accusation than anything else. "All this time, Brooke. Three years, and you never told me about this. How could you keep something like this from me?"
The tears have finally won the battle and she just shakes her head. There is no defense for this. "I kept it from everyone. By the time I met you, it was second nature."
"Who's his dad?" he asks the question but doesn't wait for the answer before answering it, himself. "Lucas." Picking up the first picture she handed him, he nods, "Of course, he is. Because why would that surprise me at all. I mean, this is my life, after all. And he ruins everything good in my life. Is that why he flew home so quickly, to be at your side? Is that why he wanted to help tonight? Maybe he's ready to be a dad now so he can play daddy to the one he didn't want in high school."
"It's not like that, Julian!" She startles herself with how quickly she jumps to Lucas's defense. "He didn't know, either. I just said, I kept it from everyone. Lucas, included."
"How is that even possible?" He seems like he can't believe that no one would have noticed.
She laughs, without any real humor in it. "When no one really sees you, it's easy to hide. And when Lucas started to see me, I hid further. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But it is possible."
Julian doesn't confront her on it further. Instead, he just looks at the two pictures, as if trying to reconcile everything he knows.
"Julian," she ventures, softly, "I get it if you hate me. But I need for you not to take out what I've done on my son."
She silently implores him to just look at her so she can know if this relationship is unsalvageable. He turns to her and it's like he's looking right through her.
"I don't know how I feel at the moment, Brooke." He shakes his head, "No. I do. I feel like I don't know you at all."
"Julian—"
He cuts her off, "Don't worry about how I'm going to treat your son. I'll find somewhere else to stay until I sort all of this out in my head. You should be worrying about what's going to happen when his dad finds out."
With that, he gets up and packs a bag quickly. And then, he's gone. Just like that.
And the battle she's been fighting all day with her tears is completely lost.
Lucas wouldn't take Ethan away from her. They're wrong.
Right?
Just know that wherever you are,
Yeah, I miss you.
And I wish you were here.
Thanks everyone for reading and don't forget to review! Every time I get one, it just helps to propel me to write quicker (and between them and Tanya, I'm pretty motivated lol).
xx-Cor