It's a week before Peyton's supposed to leave, and they've successfully avoided the topic of her departure, pretty much all summer long. They haven't really talked about it. At all. They haven't made any unfounded assurances that they'd make it work and it'd be great, and they'd survive the distance. She isn't sure they will, as much as she'd really like to believe that. She doesn't know if that's what he even wants, though she thinks it's safe to assume it, given that he admitted he was falling for her. That was two weeks ago. Surely, his feelings haven't lessened in that time.
Nate watches her from his bed. She's getting ready for their day - they'd decided to go to the beach - and she keeps telling him to get up.
What can he say? He likes the view from where he is.
"I haven't done anything I said I was going to do this summer," she says as she ties the string of her bikini at the back.
"Like what?" he asks, though his eyes are fixed on her chest, which he won't apologize for. "Meet an Archibald and have a lot of hot summer se..."
"Shut up," she interrupts, throwing her tee shirt at him as he laughs. "I kind of meant like, deciding what I'm going to do when I get back home. Where I'm going to go to school. If I'm going to go to school."
"You should," he says. She pulls her hair up into a ponytail, and as he's watching her, he can't even imagine her not being around him. "But...maybe you shouldn't go back."
"What?"
"Stay. In New York. Columbia's good, I hear," he says, smiling as she turns around to look at him again. "Good looking freshmen."
"Nate..."
"And hey! You already have the sweatshirt." She sits next to him on the bed, and he rests his hand behind her grazing the waistband of her shorts. "I'd say that's as good a reason as any."
"Nate, we knew what we were getting into," she says softly. "I can't just...move to New York."
"Pretty sure you can." His hand travels up her back to toy with the knot of the bikini top she has on, but he doesn't tug the string like he knows he could.
"You're not sexy enough to convince me this way," she says. It's a complete lie.
"You're sexy enough to make me want to try," he says softly into her ear. He places his hand on her stomach and pushes her back onto the bed. Her feet are at his pillow, but he doesn't care at all.
"Nate," she says, trying to get him to focus on something other than making her forget about their day. "Nate, stop."
Her serious words and tone make him pull away slightly, but his hand stays on her bare side, and he's still basically laying on top of her. He knows they should talk about this, but he really doesn't want to. Deep in his heart, he knows that no matter what he says to her, she's going to end up back in North Carolina, and he'll be in New York, and they'll change. Whatever this relationship is will change. He doesn't want it to. He wants a real shot with her, and he doesn't want her to say that she won't let him have one.
"I can't just move to New York," she repeats.
"Why not?" he asks boyishly. She kisses him quickly, just because she loves the way he looks when he's acting like this.
"Because...because my life is in Tree Hill."
"Not anymore," he challenges. She looks taken aback by his words. "All your friends are leaving, right? Brooke and Lucas, Nathan and Haley are all going to college together."
"My dad's there," she reminds him.
"And he's away all the time," he says seriously. "He can come to New York one day a month to visit you." The way he says it is an accusation, like he's not impressed with the way Larry treats his daughter. The look on her face tells him he's gone a step too far. "Peyton..."
"You don't know him," she says. There's a lump in her throat, and she doesn't know if it's because he's right, or because she really wishes he wasn't. "Don't judge him. He's been through...so much."
"So have you!" Nate says. He moves away from her completely, sitting up and resting his feet on the floor. "I'm sorry, but...if he's not even going to come home after you're attacked twice, i mean..."
"Don't say that," she insists. She gets up and turns her back to him as she paces his bedroom floor. "You can't say that."
He sighs and closes his eyes. He's not doing a very good job of explaining himself. "Peyton, don't you see that I just...I want you to be happy."
"I will be!" she says. Even she doesn't know if she should believe it.
"You're happy with me," he says quietly. He stands and stops her pacing, taking both her hands in his. "And I'm happy with you."
"Nate..."
"Why can't that be enough?" he asks.
"You're...you're asking a lot of me right now," she whispers. There are tears in her eyes, and his hands come up to rest on her cheeks.
"Not really," he tells her. "I just lo..."
"Don't," she pleads, shaking her head rapidly. "Nate, don't say that." He takes an audible breath and wipes the tear that falls from her eye. "This...us...this wasn't supposed to turn into...this."
She knows she's not making any sense. She knows he understands. He pulls her against him and cradles her head with his hand. He kisses her hair, and he feels another tear drip onto his bare chest. It damn near breaks his heart. He doesn't know what's happening right now. He doesn't know what she's willing to give him. He's willing to give her whatever she wants.
"What should we do?" she asks, pulling away from him and hastily wiping her eyes.
"Well, you know what I think we should do." She lets out a teary laugh and rolls her eyes, and he loves that he can make her do that at such a serious moment. "I don't want to end this. We can't."
"No," she agrees quickly. "No. We aren't." She smiles up at him and he kisses her. That sounds like a good promise. "We'll visit each other." He sighs again and he's about to say something, but she cuts him off. "It won't be so bad. We'll...we'll talk all the time. I'll text you during school days and make you stop looking at the college girls on campus, and..."
"Peyton," he says. He loves her sense of humour. He kind of hates that she's joking right now though. "Then what? How long are we gonna do this for? Four years? What about after that?"
She smiles. She loves that he thinks they'll be together in four years.
"We'll figure it out."
"I don't know what that means," he admits.
"It...It just means that it won't be easy," she explains. "It'll be really hard, and you might hate me, and you might want to break up. But we won't break up, because that thing that I just wouldn't let you say?" She smiles and it's contagious. She weaves their fingers together and steps even closer to him. "I feel that way too."
He kisses her hard, so thankful that she's said - well, almost said; alluded to, really - what he's said. What he feels. Whatever. They love each other, even if she doesn't want to come right out and say those three words.
They never do make it to the beach that day.
----
She stands in the quiet foyer of the massive house she's lived in all summer, and there are tears in her eyes as Nate holds her hands in his. She doesn't want to do this. She doesn't want to leave, and she doesn't want to cry when she has to leave, and it all just sucks. She hates it. She can tell Nate is trying not to make things more difficult, so he hasn't said much. He's been telling her to just stay - to move to the city with him - and she's insisted that she can't. She knows it's just her reluctance to leave him that has her wanting to say that she'll live with him in the city while he goes to school.
"I hate this," she says softly as they walk outside. Her driver has just loaded the last of her bags into the car that'll take her to the airport.
"Me too."
"I don't want to," she says. She's almost pouting. She seriously thought of stomping her foot, but caught herself.
"Peyton, you know..." he starts, but the look she gives him shuts him up.
"Don't say anything about me moving, because if you say those words, I'll...I'll seriously reconsider." He grins and she shakes her head. "Don't."
"I'm not," he says softly. "I know you can't." She slips her arms around his waist and he slips his around hers. "I don't know what to say."
"Just...anything but goodbye, okay?" she requests quietly.
"How about - this was the best summer, and I'm so glad you came here, and...um...call me when you land," he says. She smiles and nods, and he kisses her with a whole bunch of emotions that she doesn't want to take the time to pick apart, and they both know he's dying to say the words she's told him not to say. "A couple weeks," he says once they've parted. "Come see me."
"I'll try, okay? I...I have to figure some stuff out," she says, and he nods because he knows it's true, but he hates that he has to wait for her at all. He looks solemn and she hates it and loves it all at the same time. She loves that he hates that she's leaving. She hates that her leaving is making him sad. "Nate...God, I hate that I'm about to say something this cheesy, but...You're the only thing I know for sure."
"Cheesy," he says, and they both smile. She kisses him, messing up his hair one last time because she knows he hates it. "Just go. The longer we stand here and do this, the..."
"Longer we're going to stand here and do this?" she suggests, and he nods again. "I'm going. I'll call you. Be good."
He laughs as she tries to pull away from him, and he reaches for her wrist. "Be good? Those are your parting words?"
"Nate," she whines.
He wants to tell her he loves her, but he knows she isn't ready to hear it. Or she just can't right now. So he kisses her, and she walks away, and neither of them says another word. She gets into that car and he's left standing in the driveway, watching until the car pulls out of sight. He hates everything all of a sudden. He hates that she isn't around. He hates that she's not from New York, but it's kind of been there all along, since he knew this day would come.
But he kind of does love that the last thing he heard her say was his name.
----
It's another week before everyone really starts thinking of leaving Tree Hill. School starts soon, and so everyone's packing up the last of their things, and Peyton spends a little time with all of them.
She watches Lucas pile endless stacks of books into boxes. She watches Nathan go through his closet, laughing at the kind of things he used to wear when they dated. He tosses her a navy blue Nike sweatshirt - one she always used to steal - and tells her to keep it. She holds Jamie while Haley carefully folds clothes and drops them into her suitcase.
And she and Brooke chat like school girls about their summers as Brooke makes Lucas pack her things. They don't even stay at the apartment while he does it.
When Peyton checks her phone for the fourth time in 25 minutes, Brooke rolls her eyes and leans across the table at Karen's Café and asks, "what are you so anxious about?"
"Nothing!" Peyton insists quickly. "Nothing. I just...It's stupid."
"You think Lucas thinks it's smart that he's agreed to pack for me?" Brooke asks, knowing that Peyton's talking about something to do with Nate.
Peyton laughs and shakes her head. "Lucas didn't agree to anything. You told him he was doing it and pulled me out the door before he could argue."
"Either way, he's still doing it," Brooke says. "Now what are you waiting on."
"It's...so lame. Nate's at his first like, frosh thing today, and he said he'd send me a picture, and..."
"That's cute," Brooke says, swooning a little.
"Exactly!" Peyton cries. "I'm not this cute! I don't...I don't like, glue my phone to my hand, and I don't...miss people this much. It's not...right."
Brooke smiles and Karen comes over with their iced tea just in time to grin over the tail end of that conversation. "Maybe it's right with him," Brooke says. "Maybe it's not that you aren't that girl, it's that you never found the guy who you'd be that girl for."
"Maybe," Peyton says softly.
"You love him," Brooke says, just realizing it.
Peyton hasn't admitted it to anyone. She doesn't want them to make her relationship into a huge deal, though she knows it is one. And she thought she might want to admit those feelings to Nate before she admits them to anyone else. She should have known Brooke would see through it all.
And the only thing she regrets at all is not telling Nate how she felt when they were standing face to face in the driveway that day.
"Kind of," Peyton says, wincing like it's something she's guilty for not just telling Brooke immediately when she felt it.
"Peyton!" Brooke squeals, bouncing in her seat a little bit. Peyton just laughs, then rolls her eyes.
"Don't, okay? I can't...I can't think about all this, and...I didn't tell him. I just left. I...he was going to say it, and I told him not to, and..."
"But he was for sure going to, and you for sure love him back."
"Yeah," Peyton admits softly. "But it's been a week, and I'm like, dying here. A stupid week. And I'm...I miss him."
"I know," Brooke says. "So...What are you doing here?"
Peyton's eyes fly up to meet Brooke's, and she looks genuinely surprised. "What?"
"Why did you come back here? I mean...I love that you'll be so close, but...Look, I could have gone to L.A. I could have gone to New York. I could have taken my line national," Brooke says. Peyton shakes her head, only because she knows what Brooke is getting at. "But I'm going to a little school in the middle of nowhere and taking business and marketing because it means I get to be with Lucas."
"But that's you, Brooke."
"So?" Brooke asks, shrugging her shoulder. "So New York is your Gilmore University." Peyton laughs, and that makes Brooke laugh, because it's kind of silly to say it that way. "You can't just stay in Tree Hill and work at Tric on Friday nights. Peyton, you're...you're so much better than that."
"But New York is huge. And it's...scary. It's got so much to offer, and I...don't," Peyton says.
"Okay first of all, that's so not true," Brooke says seriously. "Second of all...New York has Nate. Isn't that...I mean, maybe that's all you really need."
Peyton shakes her head. She's not going to just go to New York and let Nate's money and his family and his connections take her through life. She wants to do something for her. The more she thinks about it, the more she thinks that being with Nate would be for her. More than anything else.
"It's not about his money," Peyton insists sternly.
"I was talking about the love, babe. Not the money," Brooke says, sipping her iced tea like that's the last thing she's going to say, and probably the most important.
----
He's laying on his sofa in his new apartment with the television playing ESPN Classic in the background just because he doesn't care and he's feeling too lazy to bother changing the channel. His phone is in his hands, and he desperately wants to call her, and he's almost done it about 20 times, but he knows she's spending the night with her friends before they all leave the next morning, and he doesn't want to bug her.
When Chuck strolls in with a bottle of Glenfiddich 30 year old single malt tucked under his arm, he announces a deal that'll make his company millions. Nate tries to be enthusiastic, but he just can't find it in him to be.
"Come on, Nathaniel. Don't waste good scotch," Chuck says as he pours.
Nate takes the glass like he's supposed to, clinks it against his friend's like he's supposed to, and savours that first sip like he's supposed to. Okay, and also because that scotch is really damn good, and the alcohol is actually going down pretty good as he thinks of missing her.
His phone rings, but it's not Peyton's name on the screen, so he ignores it. When Nate looks at Chuck, he's got an amused smirk on his face and Nate rolls his eyes.
"What?" Nate sighs.
Chuck parks himself in the leather club chair across from the sofa, and he rests his right ankle on his left knee. He balances his glass on his leg and shakes his head before speaking.
"Would you just admit that you miss her?" he requests.
"I'm not denying it," Nate says. He takes another drink and hangs his head. "I just hate that..."
"That she's not here," Chuck supplies. "That is kind of the definition of missing someone."
Nate tips his head back against the sofa and looks up at the ceiling. "I never said it."
"Said what?" Chuck asks distractedly, picking a bit of lint off his jacket.
"That I love her. I never said it."
"You didn't?" Chuck sounds like he doesn't believe it, and if he's being honest, Nate really can't either. "I think you've loved her since the Fourth of July."
Nate laughs and shakes his head. "Maybe," he admits as he chuckles. "This sucks."
"Well, yes," Chuck admits. "Why isn't she just...here? What's in North Carolina anyway?"
"I don't know...a couple awesome college ball teams and her friends?" Nate says, shrugging his shoulder.
"That's hardly a reason to stay there," Chuck says. Nate doesn't think he's ever heard his friend say anything so true. "Did you tell her to come here?"
"Yeah. She doesn't want to."
"I find that hard to believe," Chuck says honestly. "And not only because her town is the epicenter of the world's drama." They both laugh and take sips of their drinks. "I think perhaps she's just got to figure it out on her own."
"Meaning?" Nate asks.
"Well, you're sitting here missing her," Chuck points out needlessly. "I'm sure she's sitting in her little middle-of-nowhere town missing you. I give her a week before she's in New York. I'd put money on it."
Nate doesn't say anything more on the topic. He spends the rest of his night - and three more glasses of scotch - hoping that Chuck is right. Because he thinks that as much as Peyton didn't want to hear him say the words, he wanted to say them more.
----
The day after everyone leaves, Peyton is sitting in the bedroom of the apartment she shared with Brooke, the one that all of them but Lucas have lived in at some point or another, and all she can think is that it all feels empty somehow. Tree Hill feels cold and boring and it's making her feel too tired to even try to think of something to do. She hasn't looked for a job or looked into any classes that she might be able to get into at the local college.
She realizes that it's not that she's been busy - she hasn't, not really - or that she's not sure what she wants to do.
She is sure what she wants to do, and she knows that Tree Hill has nothing to do with it anymore.
She's reaching for her suitcase before she finishes the thought, and when she calls her dad, he just laughs into the phone and tells her that he's surprised that she's lasted even this long.
----
He meets up with Dan for coffee after his last class on his first day at Columbia. He hasn't seen Dan since high school graduation, and they ran into each other in the park when they were both in a rush, and they'd set up this meeting. They talk for an hour or so, and Dan discreetly fills Nate in on what Vanessa's been up to, and Nate explains that he's happy that she's happy, but he's met someone, and he smiles as he talks about Peyton.
But as he's walking home, his heart aches because he honestly doesn't know when he'll see her again, and when he talked to her the night before, it didn't sound like she'd be able to visit him any time soon, and he can't get away from New York, not with the course load he has.
He steps off the elevator at his apartment building, and he's fumbling with his keys. He doesn't see her sitting there on the floor outside his door until he's only five feet away. She's got her iPod on, an issue of Esquire closed on her lap, and her eyes are closed. She's tapping her toes, and he can hear a Guns 'N Roses song blaring from her headphones, and he makes a note to make fun of her for that later. She obviously hasn't heard him, and so he sits down next to her, close enough that their bodies are touching, and her eyes open. She smiles, and there are tears in her eyes, and he has no idea how she could be listening to GNR and crying, but then he realizes that maybe the tears are for him - them - and not the music.
"Hi," she says quietly.
"What are you...Hi," he says. "But...how?"
"I don't want to be there," she admits. She rests her head on his shoulder, as though it's been mere hours since they saw one another, and he links their hands together. "I can't."
"Where are you staying?" he asks, because it's stupid and silly and he wants to hear her laugh, and she does. "What are you gonna do?"
She lifts her head and smiles lazily, and she shrugs her shoulders and says, "be with you," like that's the only thing on her agenda that means anything.
He kisses her because he can't believe he's gone this long without doing it, and she's sitting there, and she smells like that perfume she wears and her shampoo and travel, and there's a huge suitcase sitting across the hall from them. She's invited herself into his life and his apartment, and it's just about the most perfect assumption he's ever heard of. He was a total dork and had a second key to the apartment made, 'just in case', and it sits in a drawer, and later that night, he'll give it to her.
But right now, he just kisses her.
"So, you live in the hall, or can I actually come inside?" she asks. Her tone is teasing, and he's heard it like that a million times before. He loves that this isn't some big, dramatic reunion. It's almost like it was inevitable, and they've both just been waiting for it.
He wants nothing more than to just tell her what he's been beating himself up for not saying sooner.
He pushes the door open and drags her bag inside, and she looks out the windows like it's the best view she's ever seen. She's standing 20 feet away from him, and her back is to him, but he can't wait another second.
"I love you," he says.
She closes her eyes and smiles, and she turns around to look at him. He's so adorable and sexy and perfect in his black polo shirt and jeans, and all she wants to do is throw her arms around him, so that's what she does. She rushes across the room and throws her arms around his neck, and he's laughing when she presses her lips to his.
"I love you," she echoes. It feels like a weight off her shoulders, like she can finally breathe again; be happy again.
She's standing in a New York City apartment with a New York City boy and she has no idea what she's going to do here other than just love him. It seems like enough.
"By the way," he says as he holds her tightly and looks into her eyes. "Patience?"
"It's a brilliant song!" she says seriously, her eyes wide at the implication that he doesn't know that already.
He looks at her, smiling patronizingly, and brushes the hair from her face. "Sure it is."
"Nate, it's...Oh my God, you're...We need to listen to this right now," she says.
She moves away from him and he's laughing as she reaches for her iPod again. She pulls him by the hand towards the sofa, and they sit there holding hands, sharing headphones, and listening to Axl sing about love and missing someone and having the patience to make it.
And even if those lyrics didn't perfectly describe the time he spent without her, he'd still agree that they're amazing, just because she's so happy, and she's so with him, and he's not letting her go anywhere.
She's in his heart now.
-Fin-