With Wreaths Of Withered Flowers : Chapter 2
Title: With Wreaths Of Withered Flowers
Author(s): Blondiiee
Pairing/Characters: Lucas Scott and Peyton Sawyer
Rating: M
Warnings: heavy sexual situations
Summary: What was once simple, is now complex. What Peyton once loved—who she once loved—she now hates. What she thought she knew to be true, is now lies. Nothing makes sense anymore, and she knows she's supposed to tell someone what happened but she can't. So she buries it instead. And she buries the way she used to be. A/U Peyton/Lucas WARNING- dark subject matter, M for a reason.
Chapter 2
The return back to school had come around faster than Peyton would have liked. She had seven new note-books, a skirt she hated, and a stomachache.
The school bus had wheezed to her corner. The doors had opened and she had stepped up, she saw no point in taking her Comet. She felt almost unworthy to be driving a car that her mother had held so dearly to her heart. She had come to the decision that the car would be driven once she could rid the filth from her body.
She was the first pickup of the day. The driver pulled away from the curb while she stood in the aisle. Where to sit? She'd never been a backseat waste-ease. If she sat in the middle, a stranger could sit next to her.
If she sat in the front, it would make her look like a little kid, but she figured it was the best chance she had to avoid eye contact with one of her friends, if any of them had decided to try and talk to her yet yet.
She knew that she didn't have to worry about the main four though, they no doubt had their own rides to school.
The bus picked up students in groups of four or five. As they had walked down the aisle, she had recognized the people as her high-school lab partners or gym buddies glare at her.
She closed her eyes.
This was what she had been dreading. No doubt had Brooke hurt by her actions turned everyone against her, and that she had expected.
As they left the last stop, she realized that she was the only person sitting alone. It hadn't bothered her though, she hadn't wanted anyone near her. The driver downshifted to drag the bus over the hills.
The engine clanking, which made the guys in the back holler something obscene. Someone was wearing too much cologne.
She had tried to open her window, but the little latches hadn't moved.
A guy behind her had unwrapped his breakfast and shot the wrapper at the back of her head. It bounced into her lap — a Ho-Ho. The bus passed janitors painting over the sign in front of her high school.
The school board had decided that "Tree Hill High — Home of the Raven" didn't send a strong abstinence message, so they had transformed them into just the Ravens.
Better the Raven you know than that mouthful of a name she guessed.
The school colors had stayed blue, black and white.
The board didn't want to spring for new uniforms.
Older students were allowed to roam until the bell, but eleventh- graders like herself were herded into the auditorium.
Falling into clans: Jocks, Basketball players, Country Clubbers, Idiot Savants, Cheerleaders, Human Waste, Eurotrash, Future Fascists of America, Big Hair Chix, the Marthas, Clean Teans, Suffering Artists, Thespians, Goths, Shredders. And she was now officially clanless.
She sure as hell wasn't cheerleading anymore, she didn't want anyone to view any part of her skin.
She had wasted the last two days of watching bad cartoons and sitting like a wax statue in her bedroom, reliving that moment over and over again in her head.
And at times when it got to much for her and the memory would completely overwhelm her she had, she had locked herself in her closet and compulsively scratched the back of her neck, trying to make the outside hurt more than her insides did.
She didn't go to the mall, the lake, or even the Rivercourt, or answer the phone.
She had entered school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And officially didn't have anyone to hang around with anymore.
She was Outcast. Ridiculed by the whole school and probably even Lucas as well.
Although the blond haired blue eyed Scott had been the least of her worries at the minute.
Once inside the building she had wasted no time looking for her ex-friends.
Her clan, the populars a.k.a cheerleaders and basketball player, had splintered and the pieces were being absorbed by rival factions, the only ones that had toughed each other out was Lucas, Brooke, Rachel, Haley, Mouth and Skills.
Bevin now lounged with the Jocks, comparing scars from summer league sports.
Avery floated between the Suffering Artists on one side of the aisle and the Thespians on the other.
She had enough personality to travel with two packs. Chase had moved to Nevada. No real loss.
He was mostly Brooke's friend, anyway as well as ex. The kids behind her laughed so loud that it made her leap out of her skin, she knew they were laughing about her.
She couldn't help herself. She turned around. It was Brooke, surrounded by Nathan, Haley, Rachel...
Lucas.
The girls were wearing clothes that most definitely did not come from the East Side Mall. Lucas though just looked at her. staring at something above her left ear. Words climbed up her throat.
This was the boy who she had been in love with ever since he had fixed her car, who didn't make fun of her bedroom but had found it beautiful.
If there was anyone in the entire galaxy she was dying to tell what really happened, it was Lucas. Her throat begun to burn.
But she was afraid. Afraid of not being believed.
But she knew that she couldn't. It wasn't an option, he'll just hurt her again right? And She can't handle taking herself back there again because she would full apart. His eyes met hers for a second.
And he turned his back to her and laughed with his friends. She should've known that him especially wouldn't take her cutting them out her life of lightly.
In all honesty she had no choice but to return to cheerleading, she had to make things go back to normal so that nobody would ask questions.
She bit her lip.
She was not going to think about it. It was ugly, but it was over, and she was not going to think about it.
Her lip started to bleed a little. It tasted like metal. She needed to sit down. She stood in the center aisle of the auditorium, a wounded zebra in a National Geographic special, looking for someone, any- one, to sit next to. A predator approaches: gray jock buzz cut, whistle around a neck thicker than his head. Probably a social studies teacher, hired to coach a blood sport. Where the hell was Whitey?
"Sit." He had instructed and she had grabbed a seat. Another wounded zebra had turned and smiled at me.
She was packing at least five grand worth of orthodontia, but had great shoes. "I'm Heather from Ohio," she said. "I'm new here. Do you know where the English corridor is?" She didn't have time to answer. The lights dimmed and the indoctrination begun.
It was a bunch of rules that she had heard before, a year prior. They did this for the induction day of all the new students. But even students that attended there before hand had to stay and listen.
THE FIRST EIGHT LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL
1. We are here to help you.
2. No smoking is allowed on school grounds.
3. Our basketball team will win the championship this year. (one truth)
4. We expect more of you, you are seniors now.
5. Guidance counselors are always available to listen.
6. Your new schedule was created with your needs in mind.
7. Your locker combination is private.
8. These will be the years you look back on fondly.
Her first class was biology.
LPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLP
It hadn't been hard to find, she knew the room like the back of her hand. It was 8:50 in the morning.
Only 410 days and 7 class periods until graduation.
Once settled behind her desk. She had pulled the hood of her baggy hoodie over her blond spirals, in an attempt to hide from the world.
Then had laid her head in her arms on the desk, ashamed. Good thing her lips were stitched together or she'd throw up.
Ashamed of being her, ashamed of being alive.
It hurt to sit down, or to even walk. She was raw with physical pain as well as emotional.
Her Biology teacher Miss O'dell had no face. She had uncombed stringy hair that drooped on her shoulders. The hair was black from her part to her ears and then neon orange to the frizzy ends. She couldn't decide whether she had pissed off her hairdresser or was morphing into a monarch butterfly.
She called her Hairwoman. Hairwoman wasted twenty minutes taking attendance because she wouldn't look at the class.
She kept her head bent over her desk so the hair flopped in front of her face.
She kind of reminded Peyton of Michael Myers. She would normally spend the rest of the class writing on the board and speaking to the flag about their required reading.
She wanted them to write in their class journals every day, but promised not to read them.
Peyton always wrote about how weird she was. 'Okay class if you could start writing in your journals, it's just a little exercise to get the brain working' she had hardly been listening, she had merely kept her head on the desk. Closing herself off.
She closed her eyes and tuned the noise of the room out.
But the more she found herself relaxing a little, the more she begun to think and the thinking was the dangerous part.
Memories were the soul torturer of her.
She couldn't escape them, or hide from them; they were the worst kind of monster.
They were pin point needles, piercing her skin. She couldn't scream or fight back, she had to just endure the pain as the picture of his face flashed through her mind.
"No!" she'd shouted at him, squirming again as if it would've done any good.
"Please, you can't do this to me. You have to stop. Please."
"You're right." he had finally responded as he'd pulled back a little more, her pussy gripping the ridge around the head of his shaft as if unwilling to let him go. More like unable to. "I'm sorry. This was wrong."
The relief that had swept her features almost made him laugh before he lunged forward, tearing through her pussy and sinking nearly two thirds of his cock into her on a single thrust.
Her scream had split the air as her relief had been replaced with the pain and shock of the moment.
She'd screamed from the pain of his brutal assault. She had actually believed he had a change of heart, actually believed that something she'd said had made a difference.
His words and threats had horrified her and she couldn't explain why she had believed he was capable of second thoughts, but she had sudden faith in his apology, but he'd ripped her hope away as quickly as he'd ripped through her vagina.
She'd felt as if she were being torn in two as he'd pulled out again and gave another powerful thrust into her body.
He'd groaned at the feeling of being squeezed so deliciously inside the tight flesh of her. His cock was in heaven and he hadn't even made it all the way inside her slowly yielding flesh.
God she had done nothing wrong, they had wrongly assumed she had been someone else.
She had never encountered those men in her life until that night.
She was roused from her thoughts when a hand had touched, her and the skin to skin contact had made her leap from her seat, quite literally.
"Peyton what's the matter?" she had not realized how erratically she had been breathing, cold beads forming on her forehead.
It took her a while to realize where she was, it was like she was in survival mode. "I. I'm sorry. I just. I don't..." she was stopped short by the gaze of fellow students, especially those of Lucas and the gang.
"I don't really feel well can I go to the medical room?" she had pleaded with her eyes, but Hairwoman had flat out refused her and she had been forced back into her seat. Powerless to do anything about it and embarrassed.
Before she knew it she had found herself at her locker after social studies.
The lock still got stuck a little, but she could open it.
She dived into the stream of fourth-period lunch students and swam down the hall to the cafeteria.
The hot lunch was turkey with reconstituted dried mashed potatoes and gravy, a damp green vegetable, and a cookie.
She hadn't ordered anything though, she hadn't been able to eat if she tried, when she ate she just threw it up, her body couldn't handle it. But an eight-foot senior in front of her somehow got three cheeseburgers, French fries, and two Ho-Hos without saying a word. Some sort of Morse code with his eyes, maybe. Must study this further. She followed the Basketball Pole into the cafeteria. And saw a few friends — people she used to think were her friends — but they looked away.
Think fast, think fast. There was that new girl, Heather, reading by the window.
She could sit across from her. Or she could crawl behind a trash can.
Or maybe she could run right on out the door.
She watched as Skills waved over to Lucas, Nathan and Brooke and Haley a bizarre greeting practiced by athletic boys. He smiled and threw a Holler.
Maybe they wouldn't notice her if she stood still. That's how rabbits survived; they froze in the presence of predators.
Just as she started moving.
Thwap! A lump of potatoes and gravy hit her square in the center of her chest. All conversation stopped as the entire lunch- room gawked, her face burning into their retinas.
The Football Pole apologized and said something else, but four hundred people exploded into laughter and she couldn't read their lips.
Her emerald eyes widened in desperation as they shot to her former friends who were the only ones not laughing, especially Lucas his face had taken on a hard edge his eyes holding something she didn't quite recognized.
She ditched and bolted for the door, tears burning behind her eyes.
She motored so fast out of the lunchroom the track coach would have drafted her for varsity if he were around.
But no, Mr. Neck had cafeteria duty.
And Mr. Neck had no use for girls who could run the one hundred in under ten seconds, unless they were willing to do it while holding on to a football.
"Peyton" she knew it was a male voice but it didn't quite register who the voice belonged to and so she sprinted faster, until a strong hand gripped onto her fore arm and she jerked away.
Because that skin to skin contact was something that would always haunt the hell out of her for as long as she walked this earth.
She landed on the linoleum floor with a grunt, her face hitting the surface so hard that she saw stars.
But she didn't feel the pain, she wished to god that she had. But all she felt was complete numbness.
She felt the strong arms band around her waist, lifting her to her feet gently yet with an incredible kind of strength and she was in survival mode again instantly.
She lashed out, all nails trying to scratch the person who had touched her away, blinded by an undeniable fear that had all her rational thinking flying out the window.
"Peyt hey it's me" it was then a sense of familiarity crept through her, and she turned slowly to face the person.
Her breaths shallow as the fight left her.
Her face flushed red and tears stinging her eyes.
There he stood in all his Lucas Scott hero glory. His hair the perfect shade of dirt blond, messy but the right kind of messy. And his eyes shined so impossibly blue that she would have believed he had his own sky inside of him. She straightened herself, putting her walls up.
Putting up a front, if she acted normal then it would all be fine. She could move on with her life, right?
"What do you want Lucas?" she asked trying to keep her voice even.
She watched his eyes flicker to the stain on her hoodie. Before they locked intensely on hers again looking into her soul, normally that would've made her heart speed up to one hundred, her knees weak, palms sweaty, a blush on her cheeks to follow.
However this time though it made her feel physically sick and that same filthy feeling from earlier crept down her body like droplets on an icy window pane.
"You haven't been returning my calls, when I try to come round your doors locked...your doors never locked Peyton what's going on.
And you've decided to cut me out of you life. Why, what did I do Peyton?" the series of questions had made her feel dizzy.
And she shook her head mutely casting her eyes to the floor abruptly.
"You don't understand" her head voice answered. Too bad he couldn't hear it.
Her throat squeezed shut, as if two hands of black fingernails were clamped on her windpipe. She had worked so hard to forget every second of that stupid night, and here she was face to face with whether a lover or a friend.
And she couldn't tell him what really happened. She couldn't even look at that part of herself.
An animal noise rustled in her stomach.
"Why would you think anything was going on?" she asked forcing her eyes back up to his and folding her arms across her chest in an attempt to look strong.
"I don't know. You haven't seemed yourself lately Peyton or at least not the Peyton I remember" her eyes widened at him, a hint of anger starting to take control of her emotions.
"How would you know, you've not been around...your always with Brooke or with the rest of the group.
You acted like I didn't exist after you and Brooke got back together. What the hell changed?" her voice rose an octave as she got more worked up and she watched his jaw tighten like it had earlier.
"Look..." Lucas begun as he extended out a hand to touch her cheek but she had flinched immediately taking a step away from him. His brows creased in confusion.
"Don't. touch. me" she spoke the words spilling from her mouth like poison.
"Peyton..." he tried again and she freaked.
"DON'T" she paused for a moment to collect herself. "DON'T YOU DARE!" She squawked as she shoved hard at his chest and watched him stumble back.
His features showed pain and anger. She stiffened as he took what she thought was a threatening step towards her, but stood her ground. Staring at him with the same fiery passion that reflected in his soulful blues. But little did she know it was because he cared about her and wanted to save her.
It was frustrating the hell out of him.
"Why are you being like this?" his tone was serious and quiet although the corridor was virtually empty.
His height was intimidating to her and she didn't like the feeling of him being so close to her. She had to remind herself that it was just Lucas.
"I'm not I just don't want you touching me, you have a girlfriend remember" the words tumbled from her mouth against her will and she didn't know whether or not her brain had set up some sort of coping method which was to push him away and piss him off.
"Can we just forget about Brooke for a second Peyton, I...I'm worried about you" he admitted and she didn't feel herself soften like she thought she would.
"Well do me a favor and stop it" she spat before turning on her heels to run, she felt tears start to pool in her eyes.
They wouldn't fall though, they never did. She was incapable of crying and she would have to get use to being a woman of steel.
So she would accept it. If it mean't that it was the only way of her surviving this.
Bunny Rabbit bolted, leaving fast tracks in the mud once outside. Getaway getaway getaway. Why hadn't she run like this before when she was a one-piece talking girl? Running made her feel like she was eleven years old and fast. She burned a strip up the parking lot, When she stopped, a brand-new thought exploded in her head:
Why go to school?
LPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLP
When she got home she went straight to her bedroom. Her safe haven. She had screamed to let out the animal noise and some of that fateful night.
She couldn't sleep after her day at school. Again. She had spent a couple hours tuning AM radio to the weird bounces of night. She listened to Linoleum from NOFX mostly because it reminded her of Luke, a farm report from Minnesota, and a country station in Nashville.
She had crawled out of her window onto the porch roof and wrapped herself in all her blankets.
A fat white seed slept in the sky.
People say that summer lasts forever, but it was because they obsessed over the thermometer.
North in the mountains, the maple syrup was trickling.
Brave geese drunk from the lake. Underground, seeds rolled over in their sleep.
Starting to get restless. Starting to dream green. The moon looked closer back in August.
When it started to get a little chilly, she decided to climb back in a try doing a drawing. Anything to keep her awake. Anything to stop herself Her room was the only place she felt safe.
She hummed and didn't worry about how stupid it made her feel. Lines just lines. It was frustrating. But she tried. One-two- three, one-two-three. She didn't worry about the next day or minute. One-two-three.
Her Punk N Disorderly sight was temporarily deactivated, so she didn't have to worry about being seen. She could just continue being unseen.
Her head flicked up when her light bulb flickered. And she swore for a second that IT was there. The beast, the monster from her worst nightmares.
Little rabbit heart leaped out of her chest and scampered across the paper, leaving bloody footprints on her roots. Then the light flickered back on again and she realized that she was just in her room. But she could smell him.
Have to find out where he got that cologne.
She knows for a fact that it's called Fear. This was turning into one of those repeating nightmares where you keep falling but never hit the floor.
Only she felt like she had just smacked into the ground at a hundred miles an hour.
She sat completely still. The smell choking her. She felt herself shiver.
She crushed her jaws together so hard her teeth crumbled to dust. She was a deer frozen in the headlights of a tractor trailer.
She needed to do something, needed to make that feeling disappear. She got up from her desk, walked across the rug, and into her closet without even thinking.
She was on autopilot. When she closed the closet door behind her, She buried her face into the clothes on the left side of the rack, clothes that hadn't fit for years.
She stuffed her mouth with old fabric and screamed until there was no sounds left under her skin.
Author's Note: Hi I understand that some of you were confused about the first chapter so i'm just going to hash that out. At the beginning of Chapter 1 Peyton is making her way down to the concert lounge as part of celebration for the Ravens winning the away game. When she walk down the empty corridor to get to the lift, she bends to tie her shoe because it has come undone. It's a silly reason but Peyton feels that she is to blame for being raped and that she should've been more aware, so that was what I wanted to highlight in that part. The men had been tailing her but she hadn't known until they came at her which I'm sorry if I didn't make very clear. Also another thing that it was just a weekend but because Brooke was hurt she made rumours about Peyton which will become apparent in the other chapter and also because its happened to Peyton she feels like an Outcast.
I am confirming that the men do think Peyton was someone else, but because Peyton is in shock at what's happening to her and she starts to convince herself that maybe she did do something wrong. That maybe she was being punished for a reason. Since she was raped on a bed, on the cabinet that was where the see no evil statue was. The see no evil statue (also known as the three wise monkey's) is symbolic because it consists of three monkeys. All three each covering apart of their bodies. One is holding it's ears, the other it's eyes and the third it's mouth. I thought that it would be symbolic to use because in the Western world the phrase is often used to refer to those who deal with impropriety by turning a blind eye. As to why to Peyton was kidnapped you will have to find she got kidnapped that will be found out later on in the story. Sorry. :)
The next chapter will be from Lucas' point of view so we can get a look and see what's going on inside his pretty blond head. And his thoughts and feelings.
Thanks.