Chapter 4
As I hug Brooke I notice she is still wet from the rain. I pull back to get a look at her and she's shivering, she looks a little pale.
"Shit Brooke, you must be freezing!" I say as I pull her up the stairs. She's been standing in the drafty closet for like 20 minutes now, still soaking wet. She's going to get hypothermia. "take off your clothes" I say once we get into my room. Her teeth are chattering and I notice she slowly pulls off her shirt, but struggles. I grab a sweater from my closet I toss it on my bed and help her pull off her shirt so that she's only left in a bra. Her shaky hands go for her pants and I help her with that too, leaving her half naked. I give her the sweater and grab some flannel pyjama pants from my dresser. I get her in the dry clothes as soon as possible and grab the blanket from the end of my bed. I throw it around her and rub my hands up and down her arms trying to warm her up.
"are you okay?" cause she's still not speaking. She gives me a slight nod and I sit her down on the bed beside me. "sorry, I completely forgot that your clothes were still wet." She still doesn't say anything.
"look, I'm going to go throw your clothes in the drier and get you something hot to drink, okay? I'll be back in like 5 minutes" she gives me another nod and I notice the shivering is starting to go away. I pick up her clothes and run down the stairs. I quickly threw her clothes in the drier and went to make her some hot chocolate. Just as I finished pouring the drink I turn around to see Brooke standing there in my sweater and pyjama pants.
"hey, I was just coming up to give this to you" I say handing her the hot beverage. She smiles at me and takes the drink.
"thanks" she says with her raspy voice that makes me go weak in the knees.
"Haley, can I ask you something?"
"mm?"
"what you said before, about just sticking with me did you mean it?"
"of course I did"
"why?"
"why? Because Brooke…no one deserves to feel like they can't be themselves"
"…even me?" she whispers. And it kills me that she even thinks that.
"especially you now it's my turn to ask her a question "what are you going to do with your friends now? I mean you could follow them or break away, but I know you love them"
"yeah… I'm not really sure" Before we know it Brooke's phone starts ringing. She looks at the screen and turns off her phone. It's obvious it's one of her friends.
"when you… admitted who you were to everyone, did you have friends?" what kind of question is that? I think I feel a little hurt. And she must see it in my face because she is quick to retract. "oh, no. I meant did you have friends that told not to come out or what ever?"
"um okay, well… at first I told my friends and they supported me when I went public with that. After that, every time I went to a new school it just kind of came out"
"so it's just me who has screwed up friends huh?" she concludes.
"Brooke, I'm not going to tell you what to do or how to do it, but that doesn't mean you should let your friends either. This is your decision"
"I know, I know. I just think I need some time to think about it."
"okay, well until then, why don't we just chill out, and relax" I say as we move to the couch and I turn on the TV. We flip to a random movie and get settled into the couch. Brooke decides to get more comfortable and spreads her body out amongst the couch, laying her head down on my lap. I stroke her hair lightly as I let my head rest on my hand on the arm of the couch. I could get use to this.
I wake up to the smell of coffee and I thank god I set the coffee maker to a timer. I open my eyes and the first thing I see is an empty couch.
"Brooke?" maybe she's upstairs. I look over at the coffee table, and of course there's a note. It's one of the rules when you leave in the middle of the night/early morning: always leave a note. This rule applies to everyone.
Haley,
Went home right after you fell asleep. Thank you for everything.
BD
I wipe my eyes of the sleep and pour myself a cup of coffee. I go upstairs to get dressed and within 20 minutes I'm out the front door and on my way to school.
I get to school and the first people I see just happen to be a couple buddies of mine.
"hey boys" I say walking up in between them and linking both my arms through one of theirs.
"hey Haley" they say together. I forgot they have that whole weird half brother thing.
"you've got to stop doing that" I say shaking my head.
"so did you clear things up with Brooke?" Lucas asks.
"sort of"
"did you sleep with her?" Nathan asks. What a pervert. I disconnect my arm from his and push him and his dirty smirk away.
"no! why would you say that?"
"cause she caught me this morning and told me to give you these" he says pulling my sweater and pants out of his bag. He better wipe that smirk off of his face. I know what he's thinking. Mostly because it was my dream last night. Hehe.
"why didn't she just give them to me herself?" I ask staring down at my clothes.
"cause she called in sick today"
"oh great, that'll give Peyton and Rachel a chance to 'talk' to me today" I say sarcastically.
"um, no actually when one of them takes a sick day they all take a sick day" Lucas says.
"why?" I ask, the two boys just shrug in response.
For the entire morning I couldn't stop thinking about Brooke. It was probably me who made her sick with the whole soaking clothes thing. But I wonder if she's talked to her friends yet. Or maybe she's not sick at all. Maybe she's just trying to avoid everything.
So at lunch I decided to be the stealth person I am and created a plan. I told my chemistry teacher that I wasn't feeling well and was going home early, so that he would give me the homework and I could skip last period. I know, it's not really stealth, but just go along with it.
I find Lucas and Nathan at the usual lunch table eating their, well, lunch.
"hey do you guys know where Brooke lives?" I ask.
"yeah sure, she's had a couple of parties over there. It's uh 8973 Ogden Avenue"
"okay, great, thanks!" I say and turn around to leave.
"hold on" damn, I knew it was too easy. I turn back around to see him staring at me intently. "why exactly do you need her address?"
"well see dad, it's just I really like her and she likes me back, and golly gee I just can't stand not to be around her" I say like some ditsy girl from the 50s.
"ha ha very funny" he replies sarcastically, while Nathan is actually laughing.
"hey, I thought it was pretty funny" Nathan says.
"thank you, now I'm off!"
"wait" I turn around again and I have a feeling I'm not going to get anywhere. "call us if you need anything" he says with a smile. These guys are cool.
"thank you" I say giving both of them a kiss on the cheek and I finally leave. I'm on my way over to Brooke's house, walking of course, when I decide to make a pit stop. I take a step into the restaurant and the familiar bell attached the door sounds.
I walk up to the counter in a bit of a hurry and see Luke's mom there.
"Hi Karen, remember me?"
"sure, it's Haley right?" she asks.
"yeah, I was hoping to get a cup of your finest chicken noodle soup"
"sure thing, coming right up" she puts the order into the chef in the back room, through the open window. She turns back around and smiles up at me. "so shouldn't you be in school?"
"I'm on lunch actually" I say. I'm not technically lying. "just bringing a sick friend some soup"
"oh, well isn't that nice of you."
"yeah, well it was kind of my fault she was sick in the first place" The chef from the kitchen hands the soup to Karen in a 'to-go' container and she hands it to me. I quickly pay for it and I'm out the door.
I start walking down the streets and I look around at all the houses and they're all pretty big, especially compared to my home. And of course, with no surprise Brooke's house is the biggest of them all. Well it's not all that big, but it's pretty damn big. I ring her door bell a couple of times and I wait for her to answer the door.
I'm expecting her to come down in some sort of embarrassing pyjamas with a red nose and a box of tissues under her arm, but no. Actually it's not even her who answers the door. It's one of her maids.
"can I help you?" she asks politely.
"Is Brooke home?"
"I'm afraid she's fallen ill. Maybe you could come back another time"
"I'm a friend of hers, I think she'll want to see me" I say. God, I hope she still wants to see me. She looks me up and down and decides to let me in.
"up the stairs, to your left and it's the first door on your right" she instructs me. I thank her and make my way up the lovely stairs and passed the priceless works of art and to a pure white door. Should I knock, or should I just open the door? I mean, she could be changing, well actually, that's probably a good thing. No, stop that Haley. I see the door is open a crack so I decide to do the 'knock and open' at the same time.
"Brooke?" I ask.
"Haley?" I see her lying on her king sized be watching the plasma screen tv in the corner of her room. Can you say spoiled?
"hey, buddy" I say with a smile.
"what are you doing here?" she asks with a sniffle. She gets up and walks over to greet me. At least she's in fuzzy pink pyjamas. And is that a box of tissues I see by her bedside. Right on the money.
"I heard you were sick today and well I kind of figured it was because you were drenched in the rain when you came to my bedroom window, so I um, brought you some chicken noodle soup from Karen's"
"Aww, thank you!" Brooke says giving me a light hug. Then we hear something, it's a car door shut. Brooke walks to her window and looks out. "uh… okay, um want to do me a favour?"
"depends…"
"ok great!" she says thinking I said yes. She's pushing me though, where am I going? "okay, so Rachel and Peyton are here and so now it's your turn to hide in the closet!" she says excitedly. "don't be poppin' out of here or anything" she says and shoves me into her closet. I'm about to protest when I hear two new voices in the room.
"hey Brookie! We brought you something" Rachel says as she comes in and sits down on the bed beside Brooke.
"is it a cute girl, possibly Haley James?" she asks.
"funny" Peyton says sarcastically. "chicken noodle soup… from Karen's" oh they had the same idea I did.
"thanks guys. So is that it?" she asks, practically shoving them out the door like she did me into the closet.
"hold on, we just wanted to let you know we're heading down to Charlotte early" Peyton says.
"oh, like how early?" Brooke asks.
"like… now"
"but I'm not ready!" Brooke says running back into her room to get a bag. "I mean I have to shower and pack, and do my make up and you guys should have given me a heads up or something! Wait, this isn't one of those fire safety drills is it? Because I'm going to die in the fire anyways, might as well let me look good"
"Brooke… no, um look, we heard you were sick this morning so maybe it's best if only Peyton and I go, I mean we wouldn't want to get little Alex sick right? And now we can spend an extra day with him" Rachel says.
"oh…" Brooke says in a disappointed tone. "you're right"
"Brooke, we know you want to go but it's so easy for Alex to get sick, he's only a-"
"-I know… I know." Brooke cut them off. Suspicious! "why don't you guys just get of here before I lock myself in your trunk"
"alright, we'll just leave this soup here…" oh crap, they saw the soup I dropped off. Brooke was supposed to hide that. "… beside your other soup?" they caught on.
"other soup?" Brooke tries to play dumb.
"who else brought you soup?" Rachel asks. Oh my god, please tell me Brooke's a good liar.
"oh uh, I called Lucas this morning asking him to bring some of his mom's soup…" okay maybe they'll believe it. It's believable… right?
"Haley brought it by didn't she?" Peyton asks. Damn her!
"what? No!" Brooke freaks out. Oh shit. They're coming towards the closet. Run Haley, run! Run where? I'm in a freakin closet. Oh shit.
The doors swing open and there standing in front of me are two very pissed off girls.
"you, get out!" Rachel says pointing to the door.
"no, guys stop…" Brooke tries to reason. "she was just being nice and brought my over some soup. It's not like we were having sex or something" she tries getting a laugh out of them.
"Brooke, that's not funny" Peyton says. This girl is too serious.
"do we have to give you the same speech we gave Haley?" Rachel asks.
"no need, I already heard it" Brooke says, receiving funny looks from both girls. Here we go. "I was in the closet when you two were over at Haley's. Which by the way, so not cool."
"…we were looking out for you" Peyton tries to argue.
"no, Haley's right, you guys. Things need to change, because I'm tired of changing for everyone else"
"We don't know Brooke…" Rachel says.
"that's fine, because I do. I just… I don't want to hide anymore"
"okay, look, we'll take the long weekend to think about it, and when Monday comes around… we'll see" Peyton says. It's like they're her parents.
"deal?" Rachel asks.
"fine" Brooke has no other choice but to agree. "say hi to Alex for me"
Peyton and Rachel both look at me. Neither smiling or frowning which is a step up from the glares.
"alright we will" Rachel says.
"try not to get into too much trouble without us" Peyton says. "Haley can we talk to you?" me? I nod and follow them just outside Brooke's bedroom door. The close the door and are about to speak when they realize Brooke's on the other side listening. They pull me a few feet down the hall and start whispering to me.
"look, this is the first time in a long time we're leaving Brooke alone for the weekend. And well, we know she doesn't like to be left alone. So uh… could you… spend some time with her?" Peyton asks.
"and by 'some' we mean all weekend" Rachel adds.
"are you serious? You've been threatening me to stay away from her now you want me to handcuff myself to her?"
"don't mention handcuffs around Brooke" Peyton warns. I can only smirk at the dirty thoughts that run through my mind.
"we'll be back Sunday night, until then don't do anything stupid, because we will find out" Rachel threatens again. I swear these girls could be the mob bosses of Tree Hill High.
"alright you got it" I say with a smile. They give me one last glare and head down the stairs and out the door. I walk back over to Brooke's bedroom and open the door. Not knowing she was standing behind the door still trying to listen in, the door smacks her in the side of the face.
"oh, god, sorry!" I say cupping her face.
"uh, it's fine" she says rubbing her cheek. "what did they say?"
"nothing really. Do you want to hang out this weekend?"
"ohhh, they asked you to protect me during the weekend since they're gone" Brooke's smarter than she looks. It's not just all hot body.
"I don't know what you're talking about" I say playing dumb blonde again.
"uh huh" she says in a disbelieving manner. She sits down on her bed and leans against the head board. She pats the space beside her and I take a seat.
"promise me if I fall asleep it'll be you I wake up to, not some note" I say jokingly.
"about that... I didn't want Peyton and Rachel finding out"
"its fine, just don't let it happen again" I say playfully.
"don't worry, next time I fall asleep with you I'll stay the whole night. I don't think I would be able to leave anyways." Aww, okay that was really sweet.