Chapter 4
SEE THE MOONLIGHT SHINGING ON YOUR WINDOW PANE
Luke walked into the kitchen to find his brother sitting at the small dining table his hands on the surface of it and just staring out of the window at the moon sitting high in the sky.
Luke opened the fridge and was bombarded with a varied assortment of beer. The guys had been over the previous night and they had brought enough beer for a small army.
"Nate what kind of beer would you like, it's been so long since I have seen you. Are you still a Heineken man?" It was meant to come off as a joke but they both knew there was an underling statement there.
Luke didn't mean to but he couldn't help it, he had been hurt that he had to find out through Peyton that his brother had left town.
Nathan could have easily laughed along with his brother and ignored the question or the statement he was actually making, in fact it may have been a lot easier to do.
Nathan didn't really know what to say but he felt he had to, Luke deserved that. Nathan didn't know how much his absence had hurt his relationship with Luke but getting back to where they were could start here.
"Look man…" Nate turned around in his seat to face his brother, "I wanted to say goodbye, in fact I meant to but," he looked down at his hands, "I had to say goodbye to Haley first and after that I just didn't have anything left in me, am sorry."
"Look I wasn't trying to make you feel bad." Luke handed Nathan a beer and came to sit at the table with him.
"I know" A silence enveloped the room as they both took a sip of their beers.
"Hold on, since when does Karen allow you to drink and let alone keep beer in the house?"
"Dude she's in New Zealand with Andy, but she's due back this weekend so am just trying to have a little fun, nothing dangerous." Luke chuckled.
It was nice to sit here and have a laugh with his brother. Luke had missed there time together and somehow he knew that the past few months his brother hadn't laughed or smiled a lot, if any.
From the few phone calls that Nathan had made to him while he was gone he had gotten the feeling that things with dear old dad hadn't improved, that's why Luke still hadn't wrapped his head around why Nathan had left in the first place.
"So what did Dan say when you told him you were leaving?" Luke took Nathan's empty beer bottle with his and stood up to get them another one. Nathan still hadn't said anything by the time Luke was opening their second bottles.
"Nathan does he know?"
Nathan reached for the beer that Luke offered him only answering after he turned his attention back to the moon.
"He will…"
Luke looked at his brother's side profile and all he saw was a mass of confusion with a new layer of seriousness that had never been apart of Nathan's personality before.
Luke felt a sudden sense of guilt. What had his little brother been through the past few months that made him so distant and hidden within himself.
Luke felt his big brother instincts kick in and he knew he hadn't really been there before for him, not in the way he had needed him to be but things would be different.
"So you and Peyton…" Nathan's smirk made a brief appearance.
"Just friends, little brother, just friends"
"You two were never just friends." Nathan stood up to empty the last of his beer into the sink and set the empty bottle on the counter.
Luke downed the rest of his beer and set it next to Nathan's on the counter. "We are…you know, trying"
"Yeah, ok tell me how that goes" Nathan couldn't help but let a laugh escape his mouth and it felt good. "So where am I sleeping?"
Luke was hesitant for a second there was still a lot of things they needed to talk about but he had a feeling that they would have time.
"You can have my room, I will take my mom's" Luke didn't want to push anything on Nathan but he just had to ask,
"So what are you doing tomorrow?"
Nathan was half way down the hall before he answered his brother because he knew what Luke was asking, if he was going to see Haley tomorrow and right now he really didn't know what to say.
"I don't know man. I really don't know."
Luke
nodded his head and watched as his brother throw his bags into the
room and closed the door behind him.
Luke
was worried about what the future held for Nathan but at least he was
under the same roof as him and what ever Nathan had to face in terms
of Dan, Deb or even his own demons he would be there for him, like a
big brother should be.
Nathan sat on the edge of the Luke's bed and stared at the two bags that he had hastily packed as he hurriedly left his dad's house.
He hadn't known he was leaving until he was actually on the freeway and even though he believed that he didn't even know where he was going he wasn't surprised to find himself on the familiar streets of Tree Hill.
He shouldn't have been surprised there was no where he would rather be.
Nathan stood back and kicked off his shoes and slowly began to undress in the moonlight.
He made his way to the bed and as soon as his head hit the pillow he felt the tension that was ever present in him seep from his shoulders and back.
For the first time in months he felt as if he was home. Sure it was his brother's home but it was a far cry from the stone building that he had lived in for the past six months.
He closed his eyes and listened as the wind rustled the leaves on the nearby trees.
He closed his eyes a little tighter and tried to concentrate on anything else besides the thoughts that seemed to be invading his mind and the more he didn't want to think about it, the more he did.
Nathan felt himself becoming restless. Once again he was fighting himself, the thoughts and the wants that swirled inside of him.
It happened around this time almost every night.
The night was so quiet, calm and crisp and clear a definite contrast to the way he was feeling. The only sound was the wind outside and that gave room to the thousands of thoughts twisting in his mind.
He fought hard not to give into them, knowing where they would lead him.
But in the end he couldn't lay still any longer; he got up from the bed and sat at its edge. He stared at the moon and he felt the loneliness begin to creep through his fingertips, up through his arms and slide onto his chest.
He looked to the desk in front of him and there sat his cell phone. It was almost 2 am and he could feel his hands twitch with anticipation.
It had been almost five months since the first time Nathan had first called Haley.
It had been a particularly hard night and even though he had promised himself that he would give Haley a clean break, that he wouldn't torture her or himself by making contact, he couldn't stop himself from wanting to hear her voice.
But he had known in his mind and heart it wouldn't have been fair to call her, it would have been selfish and he couldn't hurt her anymore.
And after the way things had been left between them he was pretty sure that she wouldn't even want to talk to him. She probably wouldn't want to even want to hear what he had to say.
But that was a problem in itself, what would he say. Nathan never had the words, he couldn't seem to match his feelings with the limited vocabulary available but that had never been a problem with Haley.
For some reason she knew what he wanted to say without even him having to say it. That was how it used to be before that disastrous night in her room.
He had reverted to the person he first was when he had met her. He had become a brick wall, detached from his surroundings but that was how he had coped with having to break it off with her. He had to or he would have never been able to leave her.
But that night when he made that first phone call it had been a breaking point. Dan had been especially hard on him.
High fliers Camp was due to start in two weeks and Dan had created a workout routine for everyday of the week.
Nathan could handle the running, the push ups, the sprints anything physical Dan threw at him he could do.
That's not what drove Nathan to his breaking point.
Even the constant ridiculing, the jabs, and the threats that he threw at him, that hit Nathan as if it were a sharp edged sword causing pain to swirl and blood to spill was something he had learned to control over the years.
He had made himself solid so the words would just slide off of him and just when Nathan thought that he may have gotten the best of Dan Scott, he would find another way to tear him down again.
This time Dan had found Nathan's weak spot, as Dan would bitterly refer to her. Haley was a way that Dan had chosen to tear down Nathan this time.
"She didn't even fight for you son, she let you walk out of her life because she was tired of you. Don't you see that, you gave her the out she wanted."
Dan had peered over the weight bar at him with that gleam in his eye that showed Nathan that even though he tried to stay as hard as stone with his emotions Dan knew that he was affecting him.
"Don't tell me you didn't see this coming. Wait did you actually believe the tears and the I love you's. Come on Son, your better off. She's better off, what could you ever give her. We talked about this Nathan"
The last five words gritted out of Dan's mouth and landed hard on Nathan's mind. The talk they had was one that had changed his life forever.
Nathan shook the memories off of him as he recalled one of the many moments in which Dan reiterated what he thought of him.
And that's when it had started at 2 am on a Wednesday Nathan had a weak selfish moment and picked up his cell phone and dialed the number that he had memorized more than a year ago.
He knew it was late and when it rang for the third time he almost hung up but then she answered and her soft voice whispered a soft hello.
Inside he felt himself pull in. He couldn't release any words that stood at the edge of his tongue or it would all spill out so he held it in and when she still hadn't said anything he thought that she had hung up but then he heard her breathe.
It sounded as if she had been holding her breath.
In the nights that followed he called her every night at 2 am and those phone calls gave his day a reason.
But one night three weeks ago she had stopped answering, even though he kept calling.
It just rang.
Tonight was the first night he didn't call, he didn't know why but he just couldn't.
Nathan rested his head back onto the pillow and turned his head toward the window where the light of the moon broke through, at least tonight he was closer in physical distance and tonight that had to be enough.
