Back to School (Chapter 4)

Nathan Scott walked up to his friends and was curious when they were all huddled around someone's locker. When he came closer, he realized Lucas was writing something on locker-sized piece of paper that had been taped onto the locker door. Then he looked up and saw "Welcome Back, Haley" painted in fancy black handwriting that he immediately recognized as Peyton's. "So what are you doing?" Nathan asked, deciding to play dumb.

"Writing a welcome back to Haley," Lucas said as he continued writing.

"Why not just tell her that when you see her?" Nathan asked.

"Because I'm not sure that I will," Lucas said.

"You're going to avoid your friend on her first day back after being away for two months?" Jake asked and looking at Lucas for confirmation. He didn't wait for it. "That's cold, Luke."

"I'm not sure she'll want to see me," Lucas said defensively.

"Well, maybe you should leave that up to her," Nathan said almost sarcastically. In all honestly, he didn't really care.

"Maybe I will," Lucas said. Jake nodded in approval.

"Just out of curiosity, why do you think Haley won't want to see you?" Peyton asked.

"What happened three years ago comes to mind," Lucas suggested. Peyton raised her eyebrows expectantly. "When I chose your side over hers." Peyton and Brooke both scoffed.

"She stuck her nose where it didn't belong. You're my boyfriend so of course you're going to choose my side. What did she expect?" Peyton said, shrugging it off.

"And I didn't go visit her while she was in rehab…" he started but trailed off. Peyton looked at him in confusion.

"Rehab? Tutor girl wasn't on drugs," Brooke said.

"Not that kind of rehab," Nathan remarked.

"What kind of rehab was she in?" Peyton asked. Lucas looked at Nathan who just looked down. "Is there something that you haven't told me?" She faced Lucas.

"You'll see for yourself," Nathan said as he spotted a wheelchair in the doorway of the front entrance.

People gasped as Haley James wheeled herself down the hallway. Outside of the hospital, her family, Lucas and Nathan, no one really knew what had happened to Haley. They had no idea that she was paralysed and as she reached her locker a few people looked away from her. She saw the paper with "Welcome Back, Haley" sprawled on it and sighed. The last thing she needed to be faced with were people's false words of sympathy.

Seeing the numerous people around her locker did two things: it touched her and pissed her off. Half of the people in the school thought she was a nerd and treated her as such or just ignored her completely. Others were nice to her simply because they needed her help in school. None of them really cared about her and the one person who had been her friend once upon a time was the last person she wanted to see. But sadly, Lucas was there. "Hey, Hales. Welcome back," he said. Haley scoffed.

"Whatever," she spat and wheeled away heading towards the tutoring centre. A few minutes later the door opened and Lucas walked in.

"Haley," he said.

"What do you want?" Haley asked.

"I wanted to see how you were," he said.

"Well, as you can see, I'm perfectly fine," Haley said gesturing to her easiness when dealing with the wheelchair.

"Of course you are. But, um, I just wanted you to know that if you need anything, I'm here for you," Lucas said.

"I'll muddle through. And even if I couldn't, you would be the last person I would come to for help. Wait. That's not true. Your brother would be the last person I would come to for help. You wouldn't even make the list," Haley said.

"Haley," he started.

"Save it, Lucas because I'm really not interested in hearing whatever you have to say. We were best friends for eight years and the first time your girlfriend of six months and I have an argument, you turn your back on me," Haley said.

"That's not…" Lucas said.

"Don't even try to deny it because you know it's the truth. And you know what? It's fine by me. But the thing that really pisses me off is that you have the nerve to come up to me like nothing happened," Haley said.

"Haley, you were hurt. I wanted to be there for you," he offered.

"You feel sorry for me because I'm in a wheelchair. I find it amusing that given how close we used to be, it takes pity to finally bring you around," Haley said.

"It's not pity," he said. He knew how much she hated it.

"But isn't it?" Haley retorted. He sighed. Lucas knew it was true. He did feel sorry for her. It was kind of hard not to, though, in his defence. He sighed and looked at her for a minute. He broke away from their staring contest.

"Fine. If this is the way you want things to be, then this is how they'll be," he said, turning around and walking out the door. But before he left he turned around and looked at her for a minute.

"So, we left off yesterday talking about how…" the English teacher said. Haley was only really half paying attention. The truth was that she was nearly a year ahead of everyone in the class. She had already read the book before her accident and had received all of the questions to each chapter when Nathan had dropped off some of her homework at the hospital. The bell rang signalling the end of the class and the teacher spouted out the homework. Haley instinctively wrote it down and smirked when she realized that she had already done those questions.

She wheeled all the way to the tutoring centre, ignoring the looks on people's faces. She moved a chair away from the table and sent it flying across the room and chuckled to herself when it tipped over. Sometimes she forgot she had a lot of upper body strength now. Then the door opened and Nathan Scott walked in. Haley rolled her eyes. "Are you lost?" she asked. He shook his head. He walked over to her and handed her a piece of paper. Haley looked over it and then looked at him incredulously. "Is this a joke?"

"I wish. Coach says that with my grades, I'm pretty close to being ineligible to play basketball for the rest of the team so he signed me up for a tutor without my knowledge and then told my parents and the principal. So, now I have to have a tutor and apparently, you're my tutor," he said, sitting down in one of the remaining three chairs at the circular table.

"Right. I don't think so," Haley said, laughing and putting the paper down on the table, pushing it back to him. Nathan looked at her in disbelief.

"You're actually refusing to tutor me?" he asked.

"Looks that way," Haley said.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I'm not going to be ordered to tutor someone," Haley said stubbornly.

"You do realize that my father is the mayor right? The school will force you to tutor me or you'll be suspended," Nathan said. Haley rolled her eyes and wheeled out of the tutoring centre.

"You're pretty fast in that thing, you know?" Nathan said, catching up to her in the middle of a crowded hallway.

"And you're pretty slow. I left to get away from you," Haley said. He grabbed the back of her wheelchair to stop her from leaving. He was out of breath and walked around to the other side. "That was low."

"Well, you were going to leave. I needed to make you stay to listen to what I have to say." he started.

"I have no interest in hearing one of your arrogant speeches dictating to me what I can and cannot do. Here's a little piece of advice: If you want my help, you might want to try asking for it," Haley spat rather loudly. Nathan sighed.

"Nathan, this is unacceptable. If you get kicked off the team, it will ruin all of our hard work," Dan Scott told Nathan a few days earlier.

"Can't you just talk to the principal?" Nathan asked.

"I'm not going to cut corners for you because you're lazy, Nathan. Now, we both know that you're smart but you have a lot of trouble focusing. Now, I personally don't think that you need a tutor but your mother does. And with it being so late in the semester, it might not be a bad idea to have some nerd help you," Dan Scott said.

"So I have to do this?" Nathan asked.

"Yes, you do," Deb Scott said, coming into the living room.

"Deb, I told you that I was handling this," Dan said.

"And I told you that Nathan needs help in school. Nate, you're failing miserably," Deb said.

"Gee, thanks for the reminder, mom," Nathan spat angrily.

"Watch it," Dan warned. "Now you get your grades up to appease Whitey and the principal and we'll start training earlier in the morning to make up for the missed time in the afternoon."

Nathan sighed as he remembered his father's words. He was sick of all the pushing and harping. He hated his father for trying to relive his glory days through him but at the same time, he wanted to succeed because the mere thought of disappointing Dan terrified Nathan. So he looked at the fury in Haley James' eyes and sighed. "Please. I need your help," he said desperately. Something changed in her eyes.

"That wasn't so hard now, was it?" she asked, turning around and wheeling back into the tutoring centre. Nathan followed and they began their first session.