A/N- I have to thank Kaya for the inspiration she gave me to finish this chapter, and if you're reading this, I'll be pming you very soon! So if I've planned this properly, there should only be three or four chapters lefts, and I plan on finishing off 'City of Angels' because two chapters was a minimal amount to give up on.
If any of you out there are into Gossip Girl, you should check out my new oneshots cos (along with Brooke and Lucas of course!) Chuck/Blair is my favourite pairing of all time.
Hope you enjoy this guys, and please review at the end :)
Nude, With Calla Lilies
Chapter 9: Dangerous Obsession
"Brooke it's Lucas." He stammered over the phone. Her answer phone had become the thing he'd heard most of lately, and her cheery tone was beginning to grate on him. He wished he couldn't see through the pretence. "I'm just calling to let you know that uh…look I'm going away for a couple weeks with Peyton. Just…I just thought I'd let you know."
When he hung up, he felt stupid for calling. But he couldn't take the words back, and he wasn't sure he wanted to anyway. Maybe it was naïve thinking that Brooke might drive to the airport in a desperate need to confess her love to him, maybe it was childish and stupid to think that things could be like a scene from one of those rom-com movies Peyton hated so much.
But Lucas had hope. Always had hope when it came to Brooke.
Peyton entered the room, sunglasses on top of her head, flip flops clacking against her feet, and Lucas suddenly wondered what he was doing. He had no explanation as to why he couldn't just leave her, couldn't just ask for a divorce, so he forced a smile, silently cursing himself for becoming just like Brooke in his ways.
Her pretence had taught him everything.
-
She played the message over and over until she knew exactly how many seconds pause there were between each phrase. She wasn't even sure why he called, but she was even less sure about why she'd played that message so many times.
And then she wondered whether it would be totally stupid to give up this life, to throw everything to the wind and tell Lucas how she felt. But Brooke remembered that her life isn't the movies, and the movies are only fantasies anyway.
Lucas was an infatuation. Her marriage is reality.
So before she could talk herself out of it, before she grabs the car keys so that she can drive to the airport, she pressed erase and shut her eyes. Maybe she'd be able to fall to sleep and forget about him for at least an hour or two.
She trailed her fingers over the bruises on her shoulders, laying down on the bed and her body shook. She wasn't sure if it was from pain, or from sickness, or even from disgust at herself that she could do this to Peyton, to Chase, to herself.
But being with Lucas made her happy, and she hadn't remembered the last time she'd felt like that.
-
"Phones off." Peyton said simply, adding a smile as she the concierge placed their cases on the floor of their hotel room.
"What?"
"We should turn our phones off." She said. "This vacation is supposed to be about me and you, and we don't ant distractions from work."
Lucas frowned at her, but agreed, reluctantly pressing the red button. It would kill him not knowing whether Brooke had tried to call, even though he knew the reality was that she'd probably deleted his number.
He shouldn't have told her what he did the other week, but it had been the truth and as soon as he'd realised it, Lucas couldn't help himself. He loved Brooke Davis, he was in love with Brooke Davis.
It just hurt that he couldn't feel for Peyton even half of what he felt for Brooke.
"It hasn't been just us in as long as I can remember." Peyton sighed as the concierge shut the door behind him, leaving the two of them to stare out at the ocean.
"What do you mean?"
"Well there's always work, or some party or launch we have to go to. We never just talk anymore."
Lucas wasn't sure what to say. They didn't talk anymore because he was having an affair with a woman that had practically launched Peyton's career as an artist, and he's found that the things they used to have in common weren't a priority any more.
"Is there something you want to talk about in particular?" Lucas asked, still a little confused.
Peyton shook her head, somewhat sadly. "See this is what I mean. We never used to need a reason to talk. We used to talk about anything."
Now he knew what she meant. Back when they first got together they'd just lie on her bed talking about music and their families. They'd discuss the literature that he loved, and the song lyrics that she loved, and not once had they gotten bored.
Such talk went out of the window long ago, and know Lucas wasn't sure what to do to get that back, or even if there was anything he could do.
"The longest conversation we've had lately was when we were with Brooke and Chase."
He wished she hadn't brought that up. Now it was even harder to forget about the brunette that was stealing all thoughts and feelings.
-
It's like he's forgotten how to talk. Like the only thing he'd ever be able to talk about is Lucie. She's stolen his mind and his body and his spirit, because he can only ever feel alive when he's around her now.
Even when they argue, when she tells him that she can't be hear him anymore, when she says that she doesn't love him, and that she can't ever love him, he feels alive. More alive than he's probably ever felt, and that's slowly killing him. Because if he can't have Lucie, he's sure that he can't get that feeling back.
Lucas scribbled the words onto the paper as though his life depended on it, quickly folding them back into his pocket when he'd finished the last sentence. Peyton had popped down to the main desk in the hotel lobby to ask about some excursion she'd read about in the flight magazine, and Lucas had had to sit on his fingers to prevent himself from turning on his cell.
His desperation for Brooke had become a dangerous obsession and he needed to start fighting it.
-
It had been five days since her hospitalisation. Five days and the nurses still hadn't let her look in a mirror, still hadn't removed the bandages from her arms and from her stomach, and Brooke was now sure that things must be bad.
She'd run her tongue over her lip yesterday, the stinging pain making her eyes water, and she'd figured that it was split.
Chase hadn't visited. He'd sent flowers with a card on that read 'You mean too much to me' which she'd guessed acted as a warning.
Six days ago, he'd asked her about the night of Peyton's picture launch. She'd not answered where she was confidently enough, and when Chase had accused her of having an affair, Brooke had stuttered that of course she hadn't, because she loved him, not anyone else.
"Liar." He'd spat, knocking her frail body against the wall with a single punch. Her lip had bled then, and her cheek, her nose numb, probably broken. "Was he good? Better than me? Fucking bigger than me?"
He hadn't waited for the answer, just set his fist into her stomach, grabbing her hair as she bent over.
"You're not going to make a fool out of me Brooke." He'd said coldly. "You models, you're all the same. I'd never cheat on you, you know that? Never."
And as much as she hated herself for it, she felt guilty, because Chase was right, he never would cheat on her. He hadn't asked who or why or when, but his imprints were enough so that she'd never have to answer, and she guessed they wouldn't mention it again.
But when she'd continued to cough blood, Chase had sent her to the hospital to get checked out. He'd never apologised, never visited.
And Brooke knew he wouldn't.
And now the nurses haven't let her go. She's kind of glad really, because she can't think of anything worse than going home.
She'd called Lucas. She'd called and called, crying, left messages to say that she was sorry, but that she really needed him. But that was four days ago.
He still hadn't come.
-
It had been a week since Lucas and Peyton had arrived in the Bahamas. And it was a whole other week until they could go home. He's finished his book while Peyton was getting a treatment at the spa.
The ending hadn't been what he'd initially wanted, but it was realistic. He'd wanted Lucie to get married to the main character, which he'd failed to name. Naming him would detach him from readers, and perhaps from Lucas himself. So he'd settled as referring to him as "he" and that was how Lucas wanted it. But he'd wanted Lucie to have children, to live in a pretty suburban house with a white picket fence like she deserved.
But in the end, he's settled on a bottle of pills and some vodka. It was the best ending and the worst ending at the same time, and he prayed every night that Brooke wouldn't turn into Lucie.
No doubt she'd haunt his dreams then too.
He'd cracked that day. Peyton had sauntered into the room wearing a white robe, face mask over her skin. She'd asked whether he'd mind her getting a pedicure after this, and whether he wanted to join her.
Lucas had replied that he didn't mind at all, but that he was going to walk along the beach because the humidity wasn't quite so high, and he quite fancied having the sea breeze in his face.
So for the millionth time during their vacation, they'd gone their separate ways, and Lucas had finally turned on his cell. And when he got that first message he wished more than anything that he hadn't.
She was the dangerous obsession that he just couldn't quit, and it had landed her in the skies. She'd have deserved everything that he could have given her, but in the end, time had caught them out. Now, Heaven was hers to reign.
