Author's Note - I really liked how the flow of the first part of this chapter went. I think I did a decent job of catching the faster and wider pace of a television show with it, shifting from point of view to point of view. The last scene sort've surprised me, I hadn't planned on it. It did give me the idea for an interesting scene for chapter five, so stay tuned!

Chapter Four

"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart."

- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180AD) Roman Emperor, Philosopher

He was tall, muscular but not bulky. Dark haired with fair skin. He moved with the self assurance and grace that went along with being a star athlete. Everything seemed to come naturally to him. If he hadn't been pushed towards basketball as a child, it might have been the star quarterback or pitcher in another life, he was just that kind of person. A natural. And indeed, while there was a natural aptitude for sports, people often missed the frame for the picture. For every shot he made in front of the Tree Hill faithful, he had made another thousand just like it under the punishing and harsh gaze of his father, who never let him miss a practice, never let him accept anything less than perfection.

Nathan Scott had money, fame of the high school variety, good looks and the blonde cheerleader girlfriend. To some, he had everything. Perfection, even. There weren't many boys at Tree Hill High that wouldn't trade places with him in a heartbeat were some twist of fate to afford them the opportunity, and maybe they would be happy. Or perhaps they wouldn't, victim of the same perfection that plagued Nathan's life. He had been afforded every opportunity, every expensive and intensive basketball camp, all the in home equipment any work-out buff would envy, a father who insisted that sport's come first, even. All the result of a random stroke of birth, luck even, the only price to be paid was of course, perfection.

And perfection is a difficult master to please for any man, much less a sixteen year old boy. His father hardly even missed any practice, today being one of those rare occasions. He never missed a game, and he was always there to critique, a venerable master of the sandwich method, except it was usually one compliment hidden between whole grain slices of criticism. It was the wedge between them, the proverbial elephant looming large in their usually empty home. A father with only one very simple demand, perfection, and a son who only wanted to please.

He looked up from the floor, almost sensing the basketball hurtling his way, passed by newly promoted to varsity teammate, Tim Smith, he took one step towards the basket with his left foot, then pivoted hard away on his right, the ball passed smoothly between his legs as he got around the awkwardly lanky sophomore assigned to guard him this practice. A moment later the ball softly careened from the backboard into the net, and he jogged back across the court to play a semblance of defense. That same sophomore brought the ball down-court, and just a few feet past mid court, Nathan challenged him. Bottled up by Nathan's longer arm's and much faster feet, it was only a moment before Nathan's hand snaked in and slapped the ball away.

Sprinting down the court with no one left to beat, he raised up halfway through the paint and slammed the ball through the hoop with both hands, hanging on the rim for a moment longer than prudent, before dropping back to the hardwood. His father had warned him about this, that morning. Of course his first concern had been making sure that Nathan's wasn't suspended from the team for his part in things, and then he had been outraged that his former teammates had been arrested and kicked off the team. It had then made its way to how Nathan was supposed to win state and woo college scouts under double and triple coverage all season. Great players make great plays, don't they Dad? He'd bitterly stated as he'd walked out the door to head to school that morning.

The big double doors to the practice gym opened and everything seemed to get quiet for a moment, the sophomore standing under the basket with the basketball in his hands didn't move inbound the ball as his attention was caught by the sudden opening of the doors. A tall, not quite as muscular as Nathan but still athletically built, blonde young man wearing the blue jersey and blue shorts practice uniform of the Ravens stepped into the gym, the doors shutting with a double thud behind him. The sophomore, dribbling the ball now shot right past Nathan as his eyes were locked on the new arrival,

You have got to be kidding me.

The cheerleaders usually had practice that was halfway done by the time the basketball team took the court for their afternoon practice, and today was no exception. The team had their backs to the basketball court, and Brooke had her back to the bleachers and was leading the team through the routine they were putting together for the Classic, which would be coming up in several weeks.

"Ready, ok!" She started, bringing her hands together for the start of the cheer at almost the same moment that the double doors to the gym opened with a thunderous weight, and the moment seemed surreal, almost as if it were out of a movie. Lucas Scott, the tall blonde boy and his Thomas Jefferson quotes had just walked into the practice court in Tree Hill Ravens basketball gear. The other cheerleaders has stopped, mostly because Brooke had stopped. They turned and looked slowly at what she looking at, and Peyton even took a step towards her and waved a hand in front of her face,

"Hey, earth to Brooke Davis."

The dark haired boy looked to the coach, shock and anger lit up on his face,

"What is he doing here?!" The old Coach blew his whistle to get everyone's attention, before ignoring Nathan's question and looking to the late coming Lucas,

"Glad you could make it son. Turn your jersey the other way, you're practicing with the second string at shooting guard. Hurry up."

He didn't say anything, looked around the gym for a moment, his blue eyes settling on Nathan finally, before reaching down and grabbing the bottom of his jersey with both hands and lifting it up over his head taking it off. He turned it inside out, the jersey being reversible, to where the white part was showing and almost as quickly pulled it back down over his head.

The coach's voice cut through the almost theatrical entrance, the cheerleaders had completely stopped practice on account of his arrival, and while not everyone knew that Nathan and Lucas were brothers, EVERYONE knew that Lucas had been the boy ganged up on by the four basketball players who were no longer Ravens.

"Alright, white team. Your ball. MOVE!" A taller, muscular junior with shaggy brown hair passed the ball into Lucas from the baseline, before jogging down the court past him. The court felt foreign, the attention a bit much, but the basketball? It felt right.

A fight of your choosing.

It happened without thinking about it when he took off his shirt. The older Scott brother had the body to go with his quote, Brooke couldn't help but notice. The way he'd walked into the court late like that, the way he'd just slung his shirt off when the coach told him to in front of everyone, it reminded her of how he'd walked up to the bullies in school the week before. He had a presence. She caught Peyton watching her bite her bottom lip and stopped herself, shaking her head and trying to get herself back in focus. Boys didn't make her feel this way. Sure, cute boys caught her attention. Sure, she had crushes, but this seemed different. She was always in control of herself and didn't get distracted like this.

"Brooke? The routine?" Peyton asked, giving her a questioning look before looking to the other girls and getting their attention back on Brooke and the routine they were supposed to be learning.

Shooting Guard? That's my position. No way Bastard.

They weren't running a full court press but that didn't stop Nathan from running to guard Lucas, a malevolent intensity etched across his features, a level of effort that would seem difficult to sustain. Lucas pressed the ball to his right, Nathan moved his feet, the squeal of the Nike tennis shoes deafening. The ball crossed between Lucas' legs as he switched hands and challenged Nathan to his left and was rebuffed again.

"You ain't going nowhere. Pass it!" Nathan breathed out, his knees bent and his body dropped low in a crouch as he kept himself between Lucas and the rest of the court.

Whitey watched Nathan sprint to guard Lucas, saw the intensity, the fistfight just waiting to happen and had the thought that he should blow his whistle and insist that Nathan play the defense that was called and allow practice to continue the way it was supposed to.

But he also had the sense that maybe, just maybe, this needed to happen. So he didn't blow his whistle. Yet.

He had never actually played against Nathan before. For that matter, on the river court, he had never played anyone of Nathan's caliber, and in a sense inherent in elite athletes, he recognized another one. This wasn't Junk Moretti guarding him by any means. He crossed the ball between his legs again, took a short step to his right, hesitated... and there it was, Nathan had gone too far to stop Lucas when he changed directions.

With a quickness that Nathan didn't expect, the ball crossed again and Lucas was past him - driving into the paint.

It was Peyton's turn to be distracted. She saw the difference in Nathan almost immediately. The cheerleaders had given up on the rest of their routine, you'd have to have not been there, to not realize that something significant was occurring. her breath caught in her throat as Lucas made his way past Nathan.

Could someone be better than Nathan?

He recovered like only the great ones can and got in Lucas' hip pocket, forcing him from his drive to the basket. The rest of the players made space, moving around them in the appearance of a basketball practice, the appearance trying to get open for Lucas to pass one of them the ball, but that wasn't going to happen.

Lucas switched to his left hand and Nathan found his opening, his hand slicing in and slapping the ball away from his half-brother. It went bouncing away from Nathan's basket towards Lucas' side, and they were looked in a foot race after it. Arms pumping furiously as his shoes barely touched the hardwood, he reached out his right hand and caught the ball as it bounced up and seamlessly was dribbling the from the top of the key to the basket.

Nathan had the ball and was about to score. He ran as hard and as fast as he ever had after him, and when Nathan started to raise up to bank the basketball off the backboard and into the net, Lucas left the ground right behind him, his right arm wheeling around and slamming the ball to a hearty THUD, pressed against the backboard, stopping the shot.

His knees hit Nathan's back first, as Nathan landed and Lucas came down right behind him, the boys crashing into the ground tangled up in each-other.

There is a moment that almost any parent will describe as the 'ohnosecond'. A toddler has just spilled his cup. You've just woken the sleeping newborn after it took five hours and a hundred rounds of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' to get them to sleep. You've just let given your wife the wrong answer when she asked what you thought of her dress or you're watching the nacho cheese drip from your burrito onto your white dress shirt. The parent will continue to explain that in this moment, everything seems to fade and the epicenter of this phenomenon turns into the only thing in the world. Some parents will even go so far as to argue than in this 'ohnosecond', there is an opportunity, albeit a faint one, to remedy the situation.

You can catch the falling Dora the Explorer cup of juice. You can quietly rub a back and soothe a baby back to sleep before the baby's own crying wakes it up. You can tell your wife that its a beautiful dress and you can't wait to rip it off of her and throw your hand under the escaping cheese and lick it off your hand instead of scrubbing, no wait, dabbing, it off of your white dress shirt. This doesn't always happen, and sometimes you don't realize that you're in the ohnosecond until its too late, and it most certainly has a Use By date.

Whitey will later think to himself that he'd seen this coming and could have prevented it with a blow of his whistle not even a minute prior, and he'd remind himself that things don't always look the same in the rear-view mirror as they do coming up on the windshield.

Everyone was watching, and everyone saw Nathan push Lucas up off of him and then roll to his feet as Lucas got to his. Everyone also saw the first punch he threw, a big ranging right hook intent on smashing across Lucas' still bruised face. It almost seemed to some, that Lucas had known this would happen as he raised his left arm and caught Nathan's first punch on his forearm, a loud 'smack' of skin heard as their arms collided.

It first looked like a marquee boxing match as Nathan ducked under Lucas' return volley, and then came up from his crouch, slamming into his fair haired brother's chest, tackling him to the ground.

Brooke's jaw had dropped and her eyes were wide as she watched.

The basketball players, notably the tall boy with the shaggy brown hair were all frozen in place for a moment by the enormity of it. The simply truth that something as complicated as a fist fight can create in people. Most people are uncomfortable with expressions as powerful as a fist fight, because so many people live their life so far from the brink of such abandon, such truth.

Whitey's whistle was blowing with a psychotic urgency as he churned towards that end of the court, where now up off of the ground again the brothers were trading blows in a new volley, first Nathan taking a blow to his cheekbone, sending him reeling backwards. When Lucas pressed in and pushed his advantage, Nathan fended him off with a left handed fist to the jaw, forcing him back.

Jake Jagielski grabbed Lucas from behind then, pinning his arms to his sides, using his bigger frame and bulk to pull him away from Nathan as Coach Durham arrived in between them, his large form an impenetrable bulwark between the two boys. His glare was fierce, his voice murderous when he spoke.

"That's enough." He blew his whistle once again, loudly and with a volume that filled the room like a mushroom shaped cloud might after a nuclear explosion. He turned slowly then as Nathan stood on side, Lucas on the other, Jake having let go now, sensing that the danger was over. Whitey turned his attention to the cheerleaders,

"Go home girls. Practice is over." With a finality the rendered any argument to the contrary preemptively moot. Next the rest of the basketball team.

"Hit the showers." A moment of silence and still settled over the gym as the cheerleaders, somewhere between frightened by the sudden rawness of human nature they'd all witnessed and the discomfort from seeing someone so honest with their fists, slowly gathered their duffel bags and shuffled with downcast eyes across the gym and to the double doors that led to the locker room hallway, where there's was the first door on the left.

The basketball team stood a moment, waiting for some kind of confirmation. Was this serious? Had that really just happened?

"NOW" Whitey bellowed and just as silently they filtered from the locker room. Jake lingered for a moment longer, looking to Whitey for a second confirmation.

"You too son." Jake gave Lucas and Nathan a long look, and then he too turned his back and headed towards the double doors that led from the gym. Lucas made a turn to begin his own trek to the locker room,

"Oh no, not you two." Whitey Durham's voice hadn't lost any of its apocalyptic tenor. He turned and paced with heavy feet away from the two Scott brothers, before looking up and realizing that a brunette cheerleader and a blonde cheerleader were both still standing where they had been, eyes wide and locked on the Scotts.

"Go. Home." He enunciated very slowly, as the girls were shaken from their stares and nodded their heads weakly, before looking to leave and realizing that the other had also been standing there. Whitey stood with his arms folded resolutely across his chest, watching the last two girls leave. It was an ominous turn he took, facing the boys again. He took a long breath in, and then exhaled slowly before speaking again. Mind your blood pressure Brian. He could almost hear Camilla speaking in his ear.

"MAYBE, you're confused. MAYBE, you think this is some kind of circus, with fighting chimps and I'm the lion tamer. WELL LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING, CHILDREN." He walked towards them, slowly, the look on his face one of derision and disgust,

"I . AINT. WEARING. NO. BOW. TIE...but.." And then, in a conspicuously frightening manner, Whitey smiled. He held up the black lanyard that his whistle was hanging from.

"But I do have a whip. Suicides, on my whistle." TWEEEEEEEEEEEET.

It was awkwardly quiet in the cheerleader's locker room... Or not. A skinny, average height blonde with an everyday face was talking to another brunette about Lucas Scott taking his shirt off, or there was another conversation in the corner of the locker room away from the door about whether or not the new Scott was better than the old Scott. A third conversation was about the biceps on the boy, Jake, who'd broken up the fight.

It could almost baffle the mind that instead of walking away shaken or concerned about the enormity of two brothers fighting so viciously, what it might mean for the team, or them, or just the emotional cost of such an event, a group of hormone crazed teen-age girls would instead be concerned mainly with the topic of hot sweaty boys taking off their shirts and wrestling on the basketball court. Or maybe it isn't quite so baffling.

There was an awkward silence in the locker room however, and it was near the front of the locker room where the Captain's locker was, and her best friend's. They had ridden to school together, and so it was a more awkward drive in Peyton's black convertible to Brooke's house, where as Brooke was opening the door to get out, Peyton looked up from the steering wheel,

"You can't like him." Caught off guard, Brooke left the door open but didn't stand yet, turning her head slowly back to Peyton, her voice soft and husky,

"What?"

"Lucas, Brooke. You can't like him. I saw you, in the gym. Nathan's my boyfriend. We're best friends. You can't like someone he hates. How would that even work?" Almost without thinking about it, Peyton rambled on about what she'd seen on her friend's face in the gym and had been suspecting since the night Brooke had talked to her about Thomas Jefferson, she'd Googled the quote on the internet that night, after Brooke had gone home.

"I.." Caught again, Brooke hesitated. Peyton sighed,

"Why him, Brooke? He's not rich. He isn't cool. He doesn't party. How is he your type?!" Your said with a weight and an emphasis that maybe, later, Peyton would consider an accident, that moment when you have the advantage but then in your charge run off of the cliff. Brooke stood up out of Peyton's car, stepped away and slammed the door shut. She leaned over the side of the car, and in her soft, husky but now pointed voice asked,

"Why Nathan? He's rich. He's cool. He parties. He's a complete and total jerk and doesn't care about anyone else at all." And then she turned and walked with a purpose away from Peyton and to the red front door. It left Peyton alone in her car, watching Brooke walk away, regretting her words already. She breathed out and put her hands back on the steering wheel, realizing that she'd been shaking. She reached her hand down, putting the car back into gear and as the car began to pull away from the curb she had the inescapable thought of,

Why Nathan?

Every spring or summer, sometimes, Whitey would attend a coaching clinic, and in more rare years, he would give a coaching clinic at Tree Hill High. It shouldn't be described as a new fad, but the day of the tough as nails, salty old coach(of any sport) is rapidly fading, replacing by the educated and smarter than the next guy coach. At the clinics, a common topic is the subject of conditioning. How much, how it should be done, should it be used as punishment, or should you only condition with high tempo practices, or with drills that simulate the sport, instead of conditioning to condition.

Whitey would attend the class, or talk from the bullet points about the value of not using conditioning as a punishment, the dangers inherent in using it in that fashion, what purpose after all, could running just to run have, when you were coaching basketball, not track or country. Later, he'd always shake his head and chuckle about it. Clearly, the new age coaches didn't quite grasp that the higher purpose of coaching was to make the boys into men, or at least better boys than they were, and it was Whitey's firm, nearly religious, conviction that running built character.

Or it at least made two knuckleheads too tired to keep fighting. He looked at his watch. It had been an hour and fifteen minutes since he'd started blowing his whistle. Once both had finished one suicide, the whistle would invariably blow and set them on the next. Whitey knew that anger and competition were good motivators, so at first all the repetitions had been ran with urgency, good speed and effort. Now, an hour and fifteen minutes later, it was barely more than the boys picking their feet up and setting them down, slowly crouching down at the other end of the court, tapping the line, jogging back and then going to the opposite free throw line, then to the three point line, then half court and so on. Then all over again!

Lucas and Nathan stumbled through the baseline one more time and Whitey blew his whistle once, which got both boys, already bent over and breathing heavily, drenched in sweat to look up, and then put their heads back down and start the next repetition, before he blew it twice again in short succession, the end of the lesson. Almost as fast, both of them were bent over, hands on their knees, sweat blurring their vision and their lungs craving a full breath.

His voice took a softer tone now, when he waited almost a minute before speaking, giving the boys a chance to catch their breath.

"I wish I could say I'm surprised, but I'm not. I am disappointed in you. Both of you. Nathan, you're being a fool. First, he's your brother. Second he's good. Third you've lost the rest of your starting lineup, so if I were Nathan Scott I'd be happy that someone was on the team that can keep some of the pressure of of me, but oh no, you can't see past your nose." He exhaled and shook his head,

"And you, Lucas Scott. I thought you were different. I told you I wanted you to pick your next fight, and I thought that meant that you'd pick a good one, like helping the team win state, or making friends with your long lost brother, or at least proving to yourself that you can actually play this game, but I guess I was wrong." He turned and walked away from them then,

"You two idiots have conditioning tomorrow at zero five. Don't be late. Hit the showers. Not each-other." And then he walked off the court, through the double doors that led to the locker rooms and his office.

His legs were on fire. Every step hurt. Basketball at the river court usually stopped when people got tired, and being the most natural athlete of the bunch, Lucas was usually the last to get tired, so while this was a familiar feeling back from when he'd played organized basketball as a much younger boy, it was also a mostly forgotten feeling. He had the looming feeling that his legs wouldn't have forgotten come the morning.

Who did that punk think he was? Not even bothering to shower, he had grabbed his backpack with his school clothes and the one book he'd resigned himself to taking home to actually study, and stormed out of the locker room to the parking lot where his Father was waiting in his black suburban. He opened the passenger door and threw himself into the seat, his backpack slung onto the floorboard. Turning the key in the ignition and looking over at Nathan, Dan asked,

"How was practice son?"

A small ambush was waiting for Lucas after he showered, changed, locked his locker, picked up his green book-bag, slung it over his shoulder and walked through the empty hallway that led out of the Brian Durham Fieldhouse. Skills, Junk, Mouth and Jimmy were all waiting, outside. It had of course already made through the cell phone facilitated Tree Hill grapevine, the story of Lucas Scott's first practice as a Raven and the fight.

"They kick you off the team yet, dawg?" Skills first, then followed by Mouth holding up his tape recorder,

"We're here now with river court legend and newest member of the Tree Hill Ravens basketball team, Lucas Scott, after his first practice with the team. How was it?" His answer was answered with a long stare and one shake of his head,

"C'mon Mouth. And no, I've got practice again at five in the morning. So I've got to get going."

"Oh, okay Luke. Hey you need a ride? I've got my mom's car." It was Junk this time, obviously everyone present had ridden with him from home back to school to meet Lucas after practice was supposed to have been over. After a moment's consideration,

"No thanks. I'm just gonna walk." He looked around,

"Its nice out. I need to clear my head. Go on without me guys." Mouth and Junk both nodded, at once unsure of and uncomfortable around their friend. They didn't say it and maybe no one else did, but it already seemed like something had changed, starting with Lucas getting beat up like that in school. A wall was going up between them, and no one seemed to know what to do about it. Skills looked at Lucas with for a long moment, with a questioning look on his face.

"Sure you're alright man?" He asked, Lucas nodded again.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Skills shrugged,

"Alright then. Let's go guys." He looked to the other three and turned and started walking back to Junk's mom's car. Mouth and Junk both mumbled their own 'bye Luke's, and then turned to follow Skills. It left Jimmy Edwards standing alone as the other three had started walking away, he took a deep breath and found the courage for,

"Are you okay, Lucas?" Lucas tilted his head to the side and gave Jimmy a long, ponderous look. Then he nodded,

"Yeah..." He took a moment before asking in reply,

"Are you?" Jimmy's lip started to quiver and Lucas' eyes widened, suddenly realizing that No, Jimmy wasn't okay and Yes, Jimmy was about to cry.

"Jimmy!" Skills called out from the side of Junk's mom's car, wondering why Jimmy hadn't caught up with them yet. Lucas reached out and put a hand on Jimmy's shoulder before he could turn around to answer Skills, because Jimmy had already started to cry full bore, his whole face shuddering with every breath.

"Go ahead guys!" Luke called out,

"Jimmy's gonna walk with me." He finished, which resulted in another Skill's shrug, sliding back into the passenger seat with Mouth in the back and Junk backing out of his parking spot and the car taking off.

The tall blonde boy was going to walk the shorter boy with brown hair and glasses home. Jimmy started crying outside the field-house, Lucas gave him a couple of minutes of silence, because every-time he tried to ask a question or Jimmy tried to answer, the boy behind the taped up glasses just started crying again. Once Lucas had gotten Jimmy to start walking home with him, furtively hiding a glance at his watch, he was exhausted and it was getting late and the daylight would be gone soon.

Jimmy Edward lived in the richer part of Tree Hill. Despite what his home might make one think, his family wasn't rich. His father had died when Jimmy was little and the house had been paid for by most of the insurance money and they had lived off the remainder and its interest for the years after that. Perhaps the cruelest irony, his father had worked in information technology, the burgeoning field of the time and would have been sure to be making six figures now, if not better. But cancer wasn't a discriminating killer.

So years ago when a short, pudgy boy with glasses had made his way to the river court and a young Lucas Scott and company had been playing there, the fatherless boy had latched onto the others, in particular the confident and athletic blonde boy who didn't have a dad either. Jimmy hadn't known at the time that Luke's father wasn't dead, but at the time it had reassured a heartbroken little boy that he wasn't alone.

But time can be a terrible thing, and people change over time. The tall, good looking and athletic Lucas just kept getting taller, better looking and more and more of a young man. Growing up wasn't as good to Jimmy, a genetic disposition to weight and an interest in the more sedentary parts of sports, announcing for instance, didn't help him keep up. It was always different Mouth, he was skinny and short. Short was a good excuse. You couldn't help being short, it was genetics. Being fat? No, the cruel judges of middle school had let him know that obviously fat was a choice, and he was a bad person for picking it.

The association with Lucas, Skills, Mouth and Junk had provided a sort of insulation from the worst of it. Bullies are naturally pack animals, but so are friends and last week hadn't been the first time that Lucas or someone else had stood up for Jimmy. It was just the first that someone had paid that kind of price for it, and as complicated as Jimmy's feelings were about it, it continued to confuse him.

On one hand, he loved Lucas for it. Brave, tall and confident Lucas. On the other, he hated him for it. No one cared about Jimmy, the kids didn't get arrested for bullying, they got arrested for violence. None of the teachers or police did anything about they had been abusing him, abusing his feelings, abusing his heart. And so he hated Lucas for the attention, for his talent, for the popularity he already had and would only get more of because he could play basketball.

And perhaps worst of all, he hated himself for hating Lucas. He knew it was a petty and weak thing to do, and it was even a betrayal of sorts, even if he never said anything about it to Lucas. How would that conversation go, anyways? Hey Lucas, thanks for taking my ass beating, but I hate you for it because Coach made a pretty girl take you to the gym, and I hear teachers whispering about you when they think we aren't paying attention, oh and by the way, I think its just great that you're on the basketball team. One more thing for you to have that people will notice and talk about. Don't mind me, I'm just going to disappear. Oh wait, no one would notice that either, so why bother? How can I be so fat and no one ever SEES me?

They hadn't said a word the entire walk, Lucas sensing that Jimmy needed the company more than he needed conversation. He'd stopped crying a few blocks ago, but Lucas hadn't wanted to press the issue. He didn't know what to say. He knew Jimmy wasn't popular, but he had friends, great friends even, him, Mouth, Skills and Junk. He didn't seem like he should be this sad about something, even what had happened. I mean, if I'm not walking around crying about it, why is he?

They were almost home when Jimmy finally spoke again,

"Lucas?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry." A pane of silence fell between them, Lucas wasn't sure what to say. Jimmy could see him struggling with it.

"Uh, Jimmy..Its..You didn't do anything."

"I know. I should have. I shouldn't have let that happen." Lucas took a step back and shrugged,

"You couldn't have known, Jimmy. And what was there to do anyway? You'd have just gotten beat up, four against two." Jimmy's shoulders visibly dropped.

"Its not fair." Lucas nodded.

"I know." He reached over and put his arm around Jimmy's shoulders.

"Listen, if you ever need to talk or anything, Jimmy. You know I got you right?" Jimmy nodded, his lip quivering again. He wiped a hand across his face and looked away from Lucas.

He didn't say anything, and when they got to his the mailbox in front of his house, Lucas stopped.

"Do you want to come inside? If my mom's feeling ok, I can ask her to drive you the rest of the way home." Lucas shook his head,

"Its okay Jimmy. Its nice out." Jimmy made eye contact with Lucas and held it for a few moments before he looked away, uncomfortable with his own reflection when he looked at tall and brave Lucas Scott. Jimmy nodded,

"Okay. Bye. Thanks Lucas." And then he turned and walked inside.

"Bye Jimmy." Lucas stood at the end of the sidewalk by the mailbox for several minutes after Jimmy went inside. Something in the corner of his vision caught his eye and he looked up and to the house next door. A teal Volkswagon Beetle was parked in the driveway next to Jimmy's house, but what had caught his eye was someone standing in the second story window, looking out, looking at him. He made what he thought was eye contact for a moment, raised one hand in a wave and then turned to the sidewalk and started the rest of his own walk home.

In Charlotte's Web, E.B White wrote

"Why did you do all this for me?" he asked,

"I don't deserve it, I've never done anything for you."

"You have been my friend, replied Charlotte,

"And that in itself is a tremendous thing."