Chapter 6

Haley's words seemed to lay a deafening silence on the room. No one spoke or dared to even move a muscle as they each looked to Haley with shock, anger, or sadness. Haley looked down at the plate in front of her; she couldn't stand to meet any of the looks being thrown her way. The worst one was Nathan. He looked so angry and hurt that she began to feel physical pain from him.

Her mind began to flash to Jamie and how now that her secret was out, she was bringing him to a live in a war zone. As soon as word got out to everyone that she kept Nathan's son from him for five years, complete strangers in Tree Hill would be involving themselves and taking sides. News travels fast in a small town and even faster when it involves two of the most well known families in the place. Nathan and Haley were lucky enough to be two of the most popular kids on high school so everyone their age knew their names and were always desperate to know the happenings of their lives. The James and Scott clans as a whole were both staples of Tree Hill, known for their extremely friendly attitude towards everyone as well as their successful business ventures and presence in the small town.

She could just imagine this whole situation turning into something out of The Scarlet Letter where she walks down the street with everyone knowing her crime and shunning her and Jamie for it. What was she ever thinking when she allowed Brooke to convince her to move back to Tree Hill. Nothing good was going to come from this.

"Okay, I'm really fucking confused," Lucas finally broke the silence and Haley winced at his words. Lucas was not one for profanity so she knew he was definitely pissed off about the new development. "How the hell does Haley have a son and why are we just finding this out now?"

Brooke couldn't help roll her eyes at his dumb ass question. "Well you see Luke, when a boy and girl have sex, there is a risk of pregnancy," she spoke in a dumbed down tone to get it through his thick skull.

"Fuck off, Brooke. Obviously I know that. What I meant was when did all this happen?" he retorted with more anger, the confusion at the situation clearly getting to him. Peyton put an arm on his bicep in an attempt to calm him down but he shook her off almost immediately, in no state for being soothed.

Sensing that she wasn't having any effect on Lucas, Peyton tried another tactic. Haley and Brooke had already explained to her the situation with Jamie's father and she didn't want Haley to have to rehash that story to Lucas and Nathan all over again when it was clear she was very uncomfortable talking about it. "Do you have any pictures of the little guy, I'd really like to see him."

Haley smiled graciously at her old friends, catching on to how she was trying to deflect the attention away from Jamie's father. Unknowingly of course, Peyton was allowing Haley to take a little more time before telling Nathan that her surprise child is also his. "Yeah, I have a bunch. They're upstairs so let me just grab them."

"I'll help you," Brooke volunteered and rose quickly from her seat to escape the suffocating air in the room.

Haley followed her best friend up the stairs moments later and as soon as they reached Jamie's room and boxes, Brooke looked at the woman across from her and couldn't stop her lip from quivering. Haley watched the tears begin to form in her eyes and she ran a hand through her thick locks in exhaustion. "Don't even say it, Brooke."

"Hales," Brooke's voice cracked slightly. "I am so sorry. I didn't mean to let it slip like that!"

"Stop it, Brooke. I don't want your apologies because there is nothing you can do or say that will take back that we just dropped a fucking bomb down there. Not to mention that was probably one of the worst ways Lucas and Nathan could have found out about Jamie," Haley used a tone that made it very safe to say she was livid with her best friend.

"Haley, you have to forgive me. I'm sorry, you don't even know how much!"

"You could've prevented it, Brooke! You've been crossing the line since the night started. Making comments about Julian and I, how I spent all my time at home with a boy in California, the fight about moving back here. Those are all things that you should've never said because they are none of anyone's business down there, but you did anyway and the more inappropriate you got, the closer it became to just telling them I have a kid! Oh wait, you did that though, didn't you?"

Brooke was shocked by Haley's cruel outburst. She realized her slip-up was a major mistake but she never anticipated such extreme anger from her friend. Brooke couldn't remember ever seeing Haley so mad over the course of their friendship and that let her realize the true severity of her actions. Haley had been freaking out about returning to Tree Hill and telling Nathan about Jamie since the day she found out she was pregnant and here she had just let out the Jamie secret non-chalantly over dinner. It really was a horrible way to let the truth out and now Haley had to go back downstairs and figure out a way to undo the damage that was probably already done. No doubt the cogs in Nathan's head had been turning since the mention of Haley's son and he was bound to piece it all together sooner rather than later.

So much for everything going smoothly on the high school friends' first night back together as a group. Brooke needed to figure out a way to cause the most minimal blow out possible once Nathan put everything together. Since she was the one that had done the very untimely announcing, it was now up to her to fix it for her best friend and fast.

Brooke sighed as she fished through boxes silently and picked out their old photo albums. "You're right. I'm a dumb bitch and should have just practiced keeping my mouth shut until you were ready to tell them about Jamie. It was an honest mistake and I feel horrible about it. I promise I'll do whatever I can to help fix it."

"That's the thing though, we can't fix this," Haley replied in defeat. "I wanted to hopefully get him alone and get some solid ground between us before I told him. It's over now though, he's going to find out as soon as we look at the pictures and I start answering more of Lucas' questions. This is a complete disaster and now it's guaranteed that Nathan is going to hate me."

"Look at me Haley," Brooke physically forced her chin up when she didn't respond to the verbal command. "This mess is my fault and I promise you I will do whatever it takes to make sure Nathan never hates you. Do you believe me?"

Haley remained silent as she tried to process everything that was running rapidly through her mind. Over and over again, Nathan and Jamie's faces were flashing and all she wanted was to someday see the two together and happy with her with them as well. She wanted so badly to listen to Brooke and believe that her and Nathan would be okay, but she couldn't find it within her to do it. If the roles were reversed, she couldn't see herself ever forgiving Nathan for keeping a colossal, life changing secret from her, so why should she expect him to forgive her?

"I don't think I can, Brooke. There's no possible good outcome of this. I'm not angry at you, regardless of how he found out it would have ended in a disaster. It's my fault I'm even in this situation to begin with because I'm the one that chose to keep Jamie a secret for all these years. I'm just scared and I took that out on you, sorry."

"It's okay," Brooke nodded in understanding and wrapped her arms around Haley tightly. "Everything is going to be okay."

A knock on the bedroom door had the two girls jumping apart quickly. They turned and saw Peyton standing in front of them with a concerned look. "Is everything okay? We could hear you guys yelling and then it went silent. I came up to make sure you hadn't killed each other."

"Yeah, um everything is fine. Thanks, Peyton," Brooke answered easily while straightening herself out as a nervous habit. She and Haley were both praying to God they hadn't heard too much of their fight or Nathan wouldn't even need to figure anything else out since he heard them screaming about Jamie at each other.

"Okay," she replied slightly unconvinced but didn't dare push the subject. "Do you need help bringing the photo albums down?"

"Yeah, that would be great, thanks."

The blonde woman grabbed one of the albums in view and watched Haley and Brooke do the same. The three girls walked silently back down the stairs and to the dinner table. Nathan and Lucas were also silent as they watched them enter and everyone could tell that Lucas was still pissed off, while Nathan sat at the edge of the table with an unreadable expression.

"Sorry it took so long, we couldn't find them," Brooke offered a weak apology quietly and sat down.

No one responded to the words and all three girls took their previous seats again. Haley sighed deeply and flipped open the first album that began with displaying her, Brooke, and Julian at the beginning of freshman year before Haley was even showing. She continued flipping through the pages until she reached the point where new born Jamie was scattered all over every page. She couldn't even try to hide her smile upon seeing the pictures. It had been so long since she had looked at them and she loved seeing her little boy so tiny, time had flown by and part of her missed when he was baby because everything seemed so much simpler then.

"What's his name?" Lucas couldn't hide the curiosity from his voice as he craned his neck slightly to get a better look at the pictures.

"Jamie. I named him after my dad," Haley replied and turned the page again so Jamie was now a little bigger and clearly progressing into a toddler.

"That's nice," Lucas smiled at her. They had been quite close during high school and he under stood the connection Haley had to Jimmy James very well for some reason. As mad and confused as he was, he could appreciate the gesture Haley made to her father.

"How old is he?"

"He turned four at the beginning of June."

"Oh wow. So that means you had him, what, the end of freshman year?" Lucas deduced after doing some quick math.

"Yep. I found out I was pregnant about a month into the fall semester and Jamie came right after classes ended for the year. Actually, my due date was at the end of May but he came late."

"Talk about good timing," Peyton laughed. "Of course your son wouldn't be born until summer started for you! Classic tutor girl."

Brooke laughed loudly at Peyton's comment; it had been something she had been saying for years herself. She thought it was absolutely hysterical that Jamie arrived two weeks late, only after Haley finished all her exams.

Out of the corner of her eye, Haley noticed that Nathan was also looking at the pictures as she flipped the page again. He was trying to act aloof and uninterested in the topic but she could see otherwise. He wouldn't look for too long at a time, but he was taking in each picture carefully nonetheless. She snapped out of her thoughts about Nathan when Peyton's gasp sounded through the room. Haley looked at the woman and saw that her eyes were locked on the photo album and Haley saw that they had arrived at pictures of Jamie very much a young child.

"He's the cutest thing I've ever seen! And if I didn't know any better, I'd say he's Luke's kid, Jamie looks like his twin!"

Peyton's comment made Haley stiffen in discomfort but she wouldn't allow any of them to notice. It was a harmless comment but could easily cause Nathan's brain to start turning even more.

"The boy's a lucky kid. He's sporting the good ol' baby blues, keep an eye out for those Hales. They've been known to get Nate and I whatever we want over the years," Lucas smirked as he also observed his spitting image. Peyton was still in shock at the similarity and hastily thrust a picture at Nathan to make sure he could take in the anomaly as well. "Where is he though?"

Haley was grateful for the subject change and smiled at Lucas. "He's still in California with Julian, so Jamie will be coming with him at the end of the week."

"A little father and son time before moving across the country, that's cool. I can imagine you two girls keep them on a pretty tight leash normally, must be nice for them to be without you," Lucas winked and laughed at his jab at them. Since beginning to look at the pictures his anger seemed to have dissipated and he was relaxing with his old friends again.

Brooke glared at him and stuck her tongue out. "Very funny, Pucas! We're not that bad; I think you forget who you're talking to. Haley and I were always the life of the party in high school, what makes you think we've changed so much?"

"Doesn't matter," Lucas shugged. "C'mon Nate, back me up. I love mom but it was always awesome when she had to leave town and it was just us and dad. There's something more fun about it just being the boys for a bit."

"Yeah, sure," Nathan added half heartedly. He was still captivated by the picture Peyton passed him. He couldn't tear his attention away from the smiling little boy.

"Well I doubt it's going to all that fun for our boys. Jamie is probably miserable without Haley around; they've never spent more than a few hours apart from each other. He's the biggest momma's boy I've ever seen," Brooke commented and Haley smiled slightly, feeling a dull ache in her heart at the thought of her little boy being upset right now because she wasn't around. She had been missing him dearly since the second she and Brooke pulled out of their California driveway. Talking to her boy on the phone every night was not even close to the same as actually being with him. He had told her he missed her every time, but she knew that he was trying to be brave and would never admit to her or Julian how much he actually did right now.

"Awe, poor little guy. I'm sure Julian is an adept enough dad that he can handle it for a few days though," Lucas sensed Haley was becoming upset at the topic of being away from her little boy and tried to comfort her.

She widened her eyes a bit after finally processing Luke's comment and realizing he had made the father mistake already. She should let it slide and take his assumption as an opportunity to buy herself more time to figure out how to tell Nathan but somehow couldn't find it in her. For one, Peyton was sitting right across from her and already knew Julian wasn't Jamie's dad. Also, for some reason Haley found herself unable to do that to Nathan. It wouldn't be fair of her to say Julian was the father and then turn around at some point and tell him she was lying to his face to save her ass for a bit. "Oh no, Julian is just a friend of ours. He's not Jamie's father. In fact, I was already pregnant when Brooke and I met him."

"Wait, didn't you say the other day that you guys met Julian during freshman orientation week?" Peyton pointed out in confusion. "And isn't that also when you told me you got pregnant? How could you know you were already pregnant when you met him?"

Haley was beginning to panic as Peyton unknowingly caught her in her lie. Her entire life had become one big lie to everyone in Tree Hill over the last five years and now all her deceit was catching up to her really quickly. "Well I didn't know yet obviously, but Jamie was conceived off a one night stand at the beginning of the week and we met Julian later on."

"Oh," she replied simply, somehow not quite believing what was being said.

Nathan stared at Haley intently and saw the discrete looks passing between her and Brooke and knew she wasn't telling the truth. He looked down at the picture in his hands again and Jamie's blue eyes jumped off the paper at him. He was transfixed by them while trying to process all the information he knew about the little boy. He was the result of a one night stand, had piercing blue eyes, and was supposed to be born at the end of May; which meant he would have been conceived in... August. Nathan knew Haley pretty well and he was aware that she wasn't the type of girl to sleep around. A one night stand with a stranger was definitely not her thing, but that only provided one other solution and he wasn't prepared to acknowledge that. It was impossible. The more he examined the picture though, the more he could see the plausibility.

"Unless he was actually conceived before you even got to California," Nathan muttered while looking Haley dead in the eye for the first time. He saw her face pale and it was all but confirmed to him. Somehow, he had a child. Not just any child though, he was the father of Haley's child.

Pushing his chair out slowly, he never broke eye contact with her. Tears were beginning to pool and he couldn't bear looking anymore but he couldn't find it in him to look away. Confusion, anger, and heartbreak all churned in the pit of his stomach uncontrollably. "Excuse me, I think I need some fresh air."

He stood and walked briskly out of the room, ignoring Haley's call for him to stop. Finding the back door was easy and he gasped for breath upon stepping outside.

Haley remained at the table and put her head in her hands in defeat.

"Okay, now I'm really confused," Peyton spoke up. Why had Nathan just muttered something about Jamie being conceived before Haley got to California and then left?

She didn't get a response out of the brunette though. Haley silently followed Nathan's actions and practically sprinted out of the room, leaving Peyton and Lucas sitting in bewilderment and Brooke rubbing her temples in exhaustion.

It didn't take long for Haley to spot Nathan. He had only walked to the other side of the pool in the large patio. He whirled around upon hearing the door open and close and flashed angry eyes at Haley. He held up the picture he had been holding at the table and thrust it in her face, pointing at the little blonde boy.

"Is he my fucking son?" he screamed at her, unable to hide the cracking of tears in his voice.

Haley took a deep breath and ran a hand through her already messy hair. This was probably one of the worst ways she could have imagined telling him about Jamie.

"ANSWER ME!" Nathan demanded after she made no indication of giving a response to his question.

She locked eyes with him and he saw that tears were already rolling down her cheeks, much like on his own face.

"Yes," was her single-worded broken response and he immediately felt as though he couldn't breathe. He and Haley had a son together. The information kept running through his head and he couldn't form any other coherent thought to formulate a response to her. All he could register was gut wrenching pain and burning hot anger at being kept from his son for four years.