Well, that's double digits. "Yes, you in the back", "Is that the chapter count or the months between updates, author?", "The author will no longer be taking questions". I would just like to say, that I had already started writing this chapter before I even posted the last one. It was quite difficult, that may be why there are like 50 different points of view below. I would like to dedicate this chapter to Miguel51 for updating Born to Fly, thank you, now I can call of the two very large men with rope, duck tape and laptop with word open. Oh, but who am I to talk. Enjoy…and stop throwing stuff.
Chapter 10
If she knew for certain that she wouldn't be tased, Brooke would have ripped the stewardess' head off for even thinking that the designer wanted to stay on the airplane a second longer than she had to. She felt like an active volcano when the lady stepped into the aisle, cutting off her path to the exit. Brooke had promised herself never to become one of those celebrities; the ones that were always too busy for their fans and couldn't take the time out to sign an autograph or take a photo. But this was absolutely ridiculous, with the woman waiting until after the two hour plane ride to impede the brunette. She would never brush anyone off without just cause, but she had it, she really really needed to get home.
She hated to be one of those celebrities, but she was going to be one today. The designer didn't have time to stop for air, so a cocktail waitress for some shitty airline, waving a goddamn Sharpie in her face wasn't about to stop her from getting home. Brooke couldn't really say what she would've done to the girl with the marker if Nathan hadn't stepped in front of her and led her off the plane by hand. She didn't care that Nathan was leaving his luggage there as they bypassed baggage claim, or that she threw a hundred dollar bill at Nathan to throw at the booth teller so that they could get the hell out of the parking lot. She didn't care that they were driving thirty miles an hour over the speed limit, or that her friend was only taking yellow lights as a suggestion to drive faster. She was actually grateful for all those things. What she did care about, was that Peyton still wasn't answering her phone. Brooke and Nathan had been calling her since they turned their phones off of airplane mode. She knew that if Peyton was pissed, which she suspected that she was, that she wouldn't leave her phone on and let it keep ringing out and going to voicemail.
"Nate, Haley?" Brooke asked as she hung her phone up and redialed her girlfriend's phone.
"She's not answering" he said, holding his phone up to his ear, but already knowing what Brooke was asking.
Nathan tried not to show his friend that he was worried, one of them needed to keep a cool head and the way that Brooke was tapping her foot let him know it wouldn't be her. So he kept as straight a face as he could when he called his wife again and it went straight to voicemail. He knew it was late/early, but he also knew that Haley would never turn her phone off with him out of town. When they pulled up to Brooke and Peyton's house and they didn't see Peyton's car, Nathan's heart sank a little. He knew something was wrong.
"Fuck" the brunette beside him cried when she noticed the car's absence as well.
"Calm down, maybe it's just in the garage" he tried to think positively. And maybe everybody's asleep and that's why nobody's answering their phones.
Nathan barely got his Range Rover in the driveway before Brooke was opening the door and jumping from the car. He knew that if his friend wasn't so panicked right now she would tease him on how long it had taken them to get from the airport. And even though he had broken countless traffic laws to make it to where they were now he knew the brunette wouldn't care. It wasn't like she wasn't grateful for his help, he knew she was, he just knew how he would feel if the situation was switched.
As Brooke tried to jam her key into the lock of the front door, her hands shook, badly. She could hear her heart beating in her ears as she fidgeted with the lock. She wanted to stay positive and continued to think of things Peyton could be doing that were keeping her from answering her phone. She's more than likely still pissed, or sleeping since it's almost 2 in the morning.
"Peyt?" Brooke immediately started to call for the blonde as soon as she opened the door.
"Peyton?" Nathan called out as well, heading for the garage.
"Baby?" the brunette yelled through the house as she checked bedrooms and bathrooms.
"Her car's not here" Nathan told Brooke as they both came back into the living room.
"The studio" Brooke said as she headed out the front door, never even breaking her stride.
After getting in the car, Nathan drove the streets like they were the open highway. He knew that he was driving fast, but he wasn't driving recklessly. That didn't matter though, if Peyton saw the way that he was driving he knew for a fact that she would've ripped him a new one. He wanted to laugh at the irony, but the knot in the pit of his stomach would've made it impossible.
"She's not answering the studio phone either, Nate" Brooke said, and he knew by the waver of her voice that she was on the verge of hysterics.
"Hey, we're almost there, Brooke. All those contracts could've put her to sleep" Nathan told his friend as he took a corner faster than he usually would have.
"Nathan, I'm fucking los-" the beginning of Brooke's rant was cut short by Nathan's cellphone ringing.
"Haley?" Brooke yelled into Nathan's phone as soon as she snatched it from the console, not giving Haley time to answer, "Have you seen Peyton?" she rushed out.
"Brooke" If Brooke had been paying attention, she would have noticed that Haley's voice sounded strained.
"Oh my God!" Brooke whispered, her voice couldn't even carry its full strength at the sight in front of her.
"Oh shit" Nathan's voice was just as quiet as he finally pulled up to Tric, only to see the side that the studio was on completely engulfed in flames.
Nathan was still putting the car in park when Brooke had jumped from it again. He didn't realize that he had grabbed the phone the brunette had dropped on the floor, but he must have because Haley was crying in his ear. He felt like his heart, mind and body were detached from each other. His heart was clenching in his chest at the cries from his wife, his head felt like it was clouded with all the smoke from the building. His legs carried him over to Brooke and out of instinct he grabbed her, stopping her from running any closer to the burning building.
"Nathan let go" Brooke screamed, reaching back and hitting him in the face.
"Brooke calm down" Nathan said into her ear, gripping her in a bear hug from behind as he tried stop her from struggling; the knock to the head clearing it enough for his brain and body to get on same the track.
"Peyton's fucking in there" Brooke yelled as she struggled to get free.
"No she's not" Nathan shook Brooke roughly to capture her attention, "She's at the hospital. Haley said she's at the hospital" he shook the girl in his arms again, but not as hard this time.
Brooke sagged in Nathan's arm slightly hearing that Peyton wasn't in the building in front of her. The tightness in her chest didn't loosen any, but the muscles in her legs did and they almost gave out on her. Everything now was pretty much background music for an oncoming panic attack and she wished that she had more energy to help Nathan get her to the car, but she could hardly even recognize her own voice when she begged him to take her to the hospital.
Tree Hill General was never a place people wanted to go. Yes the employees were good at their jobs and it was pristinely clean, but generally the only reason you went there was because something was wrong, sometimes seriously. People never went there for fun and though the doctors and nurses were nice, it was usually because they were trying to help someone out of a tragic situation. The operating floors no longer showed all the blood that had been previously spilled from all the patients that didn't make it. Everyone always acknowledged the doctors and nurses because they were at the forefront of whatever the situation was. No one knew that the Chaplin was actually the hardest working man in the large building. Weaving his way in and out of hospital rooms and through waiting rooms, the man got more exercise at work than he cared to acknowledge.
Brooke looked up from the stiffly upholstered chair when she heard the door leading back to emergency open. When she saw the man dressed in his usual black slacks with the matching shirt and jacket and white collar, Brooke immediately recognized him. Like she could ever forget the man.
He had helped her in probably her most weakened state till this moment and Brooke could never forget him. After the school shooting, when Peyton had been in surgery for three and a half hours, the man had sat with Brooke the whole time. From bumping into the crying teenager when she rushed through the emergency doors, to him coaxing the doctor into letting Brooke go back to recovery with her girlfriend, the man had been a shoulder to cry on when she didn't have another.
With all the other kids that had been in the school that day giving witness statements to the police or being checked out themselves for minor cuts and bruises from the rush to exit the school, Brooke didn't have her usual support system that was Nathan and Haley, and with Peyton in surgery that only left her with the nice Chaplin that had literally caught her from falling over with grief.
When the first hour had passed and Brooke hadn't heard word back about Peyton, the Chaplin went back and spoke with one of the nurses and brought back a progress report to Brooke. He couldn't say that it was just one thing that had his heart strings pulling for the brunette, it was generally her whole demeanor that had him calling his wife to let her know that he would be late getting home. The man breathed a sigh of relief when the doctor had finally come out with the all clear and let the distraught girl back. He only spoke his mind to his wife once he finally did get home, but he found it rather amazing that not one of the teen's parents had showed up or answered any of the missed calls. Granted his children were years younger than the teens, but he could never imagine his relationship with them becoming that way, but who ever did.
"Ms. Davis" the man walked over to the set of chairs that the brunette was sitting in.
"Chaplin Michaels" Brooke responded in kind as she kept up the agitated tap between her foot and the tile in the waiting room.
"As lovely as you are, I hoped we would never meet like this again" the man said as he eyed Brooke's appearance.
"Yeah" was all the Brooke could say as her eyes flicked past the Chaplin and towards the emergency doors.
"One of the nurses told me that you were down here" the older man sat down next to Brooke and watched as her eyes flicked back to the emergency doors. When the brunette remained silent, the Chaplin continued.
"I heard that Peyton was in an accident?" he asked and got the reaction that he'd been expecting.
"This wasn't an accident" Brooke said through clenched teeth.
She knew the Chaplin wasn't trying to offend her, but clearly her blonde in question was a sore subject at the moment. Brooke couldn't help but want to ask the Chaplin to leave her the hell alone, because even though he was a nice man that was only trying to help, she felt that after talking to the police 20 minutes ago, if she took any kind of pressure off of her jaw she would say something that she couldn't take back.
When Brooke and Nathan had first made it to the hospital, they ran into Skillz and Mia who were hovering by the doors waiting on them. And even though Brooke wanted all the information about what had happened that night to cause the fire, she really just wanted to make sure that Peyton was okay with her own eyes. That's why Skillz didn't take offence when Brooke and Nathan didn't stop moving while he was trying to explain what had happened.
He only got as far as pointing out the nurses station before the two split off and went to find out if their loved ones were okay. When Nathan and Haley came back out a half hour later with a sleeping Jamie, Skillz was almost about to be kicked out of the hospital for bothering the nurse at the check-in counter one too many times.
"A, how's J-Luke?" he asked the couple as he turned away from the irritated nurse.
"Exhausted" Nathan said, shifting the little boy in his arms as gently as he could.
"They treated him for smoke inhalation, but thankfully everything's okay. The doctor said that if he starts coughing or loses his breath easily to bring him back though." Haley supplied as she stroked Jamie's head where it lay on Nathan's shoulder.
"Any word on Peyton?" Nathan asked as he tried to peak through the tiny window that was on the door that led back to emergency.
"Just that she's stable" Mia said as she clutched onto Skillz hand.
"Is Brooke still back there?" Haley asked as the two couples made their way over to one of the couches so that Nathan could lay Jamie down.
"Yeah man, not a peep since she went in." Skillz said as he eyed the sleeping boy, thanking his lucky stars that he was okay.
"The gatekeeper over there would only tell us that she's stable" Mia glared over toward the nurse at the check-in counter, but dropped it a little when she felt Skillz squeeze her.
"What the fuck happened?" Nathan vented as he ran his hands through his hair.
He didn't really know how much more stress his nerves could take. After he found out that Jamie was at the studio with Peyton, he'd damn there lost his mind until he found his son sitting in the hospital bed playing a game on Haley's phone. His nerves slightly ebbing when they had finally talked to the doctor.
"Me and Mia were on our way back from Raleigh and we stopped to get some gas" Skillz said as he pulled Mia closer to himself when she started to bite her finger nails.
"Jamie ran right up to the teller window" Mia added as she tried to relax some of the tension out of her body.
"Nate yo, it was a blur after that. He was sayin something bout a fire at the studio and how Peyton told him to call 911." Skillz repeated the story and watched as his friends looked their son over, double checking that he was okay.
"We got to the studio after I threw J-Luke in the backseat, dawg, there was more smoke coming out of it then Snoop's tour bus" Skillz accepted the fist bump that Nathan gave him in thanks.
"I went up the fire escape like Jamie said he came down" Skillz got serious again when he continued the story, but stopped talking completely when they saw Larry Sawyer walk through the hospital doors.
"Larry" Nathan called the man over before he could make his way to the counter.
"Nathan, where's Peyton?" the man asked, cutting to the reason he was there.
Larry Sawyer thought he might have a heart attack when the hospital called him hours ago, telling him that his daughter had been in an accident. Now he was kicking himself because he got a call from his crying daughter a couple of days earlier, asking if he could come down, that she needed someone to talk to. He had to come back down anyways to sign the last bit of papers to finish selling the house in Tree Hill, but he also had to stop by the dredging company to pick up his retirement package. Now he felt sick, he knew that if he had just rushed down like a normal person, Peyton probably wouldn't have even been working at 2 in the morning. If he was being honest with himself, he took the long route to pad himself. When his daughter called him she sounded emotional, and he had never been able to comfort her when she was that way. He knew that he wasn't a good parent to her, but he had gotten away with laying down the ground rules and counting on Brooke to handle all the touchy feely stuff.
It wasn't often that his lack of parenting glared him in the face like it was now, but when it did it made him mad at himself. His daughter was grown now and he knew that pretty much all he had contributed to it was the material aspect of it. It wasn't that he didn't love her, because he very much so did, but after Anna had died something in him wouldn't let himself get that close to anyone again for fear that he would lose them. But when the school shooting happened he somewhat realized that sometimes the inevitable happened and he didn't want to not know his only child. So though her friends knew more about her, he was closer to Peyton than he had been in previous years. All these reasons just added to the guilt that he felt and it made him mad at himself and everyone around his daughter. The kid deserved a break and if he couldn't do anything right by his daughter, he was going to give her the break she deserved.
"Brooke's with her in the back" Nathan told the man who immediately turned and went to the nurse's counter.
"Good luck Brooke" Mia said out loud. She may not have known the man, but she did see the set in his jaw and his eyes flash a little when the brunette's name was mentioned.
She wasn't the only one to see it either; Nathan kissed Haley on the forehead and walked over to where Larry was standing and eventually through the doors with the man. He knew that tensions were high and that his two friends that they were headed back to see didn't always have the clearest of heads in situations like these.
He was a little relieved when they pulled back the curtain to the bed that was supposed to hold Peyton and only Brooke was there. It would let the man voice his obvious frustrations without his daughter having to hear. But Nathan was also concerned that Peyton wasn't lying in the bed.
"Where's Peyt?" Nathan got to say before Larry had the chance.
"They took her for another round of x-rays" Brooke said, never lifting her head from the side of the bed that it rested on.
"How is she?" Larry asked and when Brooke's head popped up, surprised by the other voice in the room, she looked over to see Larry Sawyer, arms crossed and standing by the door.
"Larry? What are you doing here?" Brooke asked as she twisted her body to see the man.
"My daughter's in the hospital, Brooke, you don't think I would come" He asked, finding the prefect target for his anger.
"What, that's not what I meant" Brooke said as she really started to look at the man in front of her.
He looked tired; his hair was a gray and blonde mess of short curls. His eyes were red from either crying or from being up for so long and he defiantly looked older with the pronounced wrinkles that you could see on his face. But more than anything, Brooke noticed how genuinely angry he looked.
"What the hell did you let happen to my daughter?" Larry threw the question at the brunette.
"Larry" Nathan tried to interrupt the man before he started in on his friend.
"Excuse me?" Brooke asked at the same time. The question had felt like a slap in the face, which was exactly how Brooke received it.
"How could you let this happen?" the older man yelled, he hadn't really been holding on to a whole lot of patience when he had stepped through the hospital doors, so now that he had someone to lay blame on, he didn't feel the need to mind is manners.
"Let this happen?" Brooke asked as the question hit the rawest nerve ending that she had at the moment, "You fucking think I let this happen?" Brooke seethed as she was now out of her seat and being held back by Nathan.
"She was there at two in the morning by herself, Brooke, what did you think would happen?" Larry asked as he stared down at the fuming brunette.
"I think she's usually at home at two in the morning so we've never had this fucking problem" Brooke vented. She couldn't believe she was being blamed for this.
"How would you know if you're not even here?" Larry asked and watched the muscles in Brooke's jaw strain. "She called me crying earlier this week and asked me to come down, that you weren't here" he continued and watched surprise lighten the woman's face even though she hid it quickly.
"Well then I'm glad that you rushed down to be by her side like always then" somewhere in the back of her head Brooke knew that she was talking to her girlfriend's dad and should watch her words, but she figured since he was speaking honestly, she could clear her chest as well.
Nathan watched in quite shock as the two blamed each other for what had happened. He figured tensions would be high back here, but he thought it would at least be with his two friends, not with Larry. He wasn't blind enough not to see that they were doing what most people did in blaming each other when you're at a loss of what to do. They both loved the blonde to death and neither was here when she needed someone to be, he understood that, but they were forgetting that there was an appropriate person to blame.
After getting to the hospital and talking with Haley and Jamie, Nathan now knew that the fire hadn't been an accident like he had first thought. As Jamie had gotten checked out by the doctor, he had told his parents that he had woken up to a man banging on the door, that the fire had started yelling after Peyton wouldn't open the door for him, and that Peyton had helped him out the window and told him to go get help. Not only for his son, but for his childhood friend he tried to keep his temper in check, putting his hand through the window of a car in the parking lot wouldn't do anything but get him arrested.
Nathan knew that if this hurt him, it damn sure hurt Brooke more. He knew for a fact that she was already blaming herself for what had happened, it was the type of person that she was. She was the complete opposite of Peyton in the sense that she wore her heart on her sleeve, so if she was happy or mad, you would surely know about it. Especially when it came to Peyton. Once in high school, some guys from the football team tee pee'd Peyton's house because she shot one of the guys down, long story short the football team mysteriously lost a good portion of their booster support which forced them to forfeit the rest of their season. She never gloated about it, or even mentioned it, but Nathan knew for a fact that Mr. and Mrs. Davis were on the list of boosters. He also knew that most people in Tree Hill tended to copy who they felt were wealthy, so if Brooke somehow convinced her parents to pull their funding…
From the car ride to the plane ride to the car ride, coming back from New York with Brooke had not been a pleasant experience. It had been nerve wracking at best to think that Brooke's mom was up to something, and though they couldn't be sure, the odds were never in your favor to think Victoria Davis wasn't as vicious as she boosted to be. It was best to err on the side of caution when it came to any Davis', especially the elders, because if Victoria said she was going to have you fired…have your desk packed up and forget about using her as a reference. Nathan wasn't sure if Victoria was just blowing smoke in New York or not, but to come home to this…He knows in his heart of hearts that nothing is going to stop Brooke from absolving the situation how she sees fit. So for Larry to lay blame anywhere near Brooke, is a challenge that he knows his friend will gladly run with because she needs to. But that doesn't mean that he's going to stand here and let him.
"Then let's do a show of hands for everyone that's been a constant in her life" Brooke seethed as she tried to shake herself from Nathan's grip for the second time that morning.
"Enough" Nathan's deep voice cut off what Larry was about to say. He had had enough for one night, a life time if this was what happened.
"That's it" he continued and let go of Brooke ungracefully as he raked a hand through his hair and down his face, "This is a shitty situation, don't make it worse" he said just as the door opened and a nurse wheeled Peyton in.
That was the first time that Nathan had seen her and it hurt him to see her like that. Bar the fact that she might have weighed a hundred and fifteen pounds in wet clothes, she looked thin in the hospital gown that covered her upper body. Poking out of one of the sleeves of the gown, she had a cast covering her right hand and arm. Her other arm rested across her legs that were still covered in the jeans she had put on the previous morning, except they had random spots of blood on them. He turned his eyes to her face, he couldn't look at her pants anymore, but this wasn't any better. Her bottom lip was split on one side and she had a bruise that spanned the right side of her jawbone. Her right eye was also swollen around the edges, to the point that Nathan thought she looked like a boxer. He cringed as an image flashed through his mind as to how many times someone would have to be hit to look like that. Most of the damage was done to her right side except a small cut near her hairline, he thought it was kind of weird that it looked like it was yellowing and already starting to heal. Brooke shuddering drew his attention away from Peyton, who was talking to her dad after he knelt down beside her wheelchair.
"Brooke" Nathan spoke and watched as her eyes stayed glued to Peyton, but she shook her head at him.
Nathan felt so bad for the brunette, because it looked like she might be straining every muscle in her body to stay where she was. Nathan saw Larry sit a bag on the bed he was completely unaware that he had had in his hands.
"You need help, baby?" Larry asked his daughter uncomfortably. She had moved to stand from the wheelchair and sit on the bed and Brooke had been the first of them to step forward to help her, but the blonde pulled her arm away.
"No" was all she said as she let the nurse help her to sit on the bed. It sounded like she had drunken vodka after swallowing sandpaper and it didn't go unnoticed that she wouldn't look up from her lap. Nathan figured not seeing the emotions playing out in her green eyes might be a good thing, one less thing to haunt the nightmares he was sure to have whenever he did actually get to close his eyes.
"Okay darlin', we'll wait for the results of this last round of x-rays. If they come back clear, the doctor's going to be releasing you this morning" the helpful nurse said as she finished helping Peyton readjust on the bed and then made her way out of the room with the wheelchair.
Forty-two minutes. That's how long it had taken for the results of the x-rays to come back. It might have been the most uncomfortable any of them had ever been in a room before, especially around people you know. It's harder than you would think to sit in complete silence and reflect on a shitty day, especially when you really weren't the person that was having it. All the three people in the room wanted to do was comfort Peyton, who was apparently averse to answering any question asked with more than one word.
It felt like a gust of breathable air was let in when the doctor came into the room followed by the same nurse from earlier. Within minutes though, everyone was asked to leave so that he could perform one last checkup on his patient before she could leave. Both men thought it was strange that Brooke didn't even fight the doctor and walked out into the waiting room with them, but they had also been quite observant in the women's interactions with each other. The fact that there had only been one while both men were in the room was a clear sign that there was defiantly something that they had missed.
Nobody said anything when Brooke slumped into a chair away from her friends as they waited for the nurse to tell them when Peyton was finished like she promised. If you could get close enough, her eyes warned that she needed to be left alone, but if you were smarter the your average goldfish, her body radiated that you shouldn't bother her and even Larry felt like he might have been too hard on her now that he had seen his daughter with his own eyes.
He wondered if it affected all fathers the same way to see their child, and daughter at that, to look how Peyton did now. He felt uncharacteristically vengeful and when he had seen Brooke, she looked worthy enough for him to let loose. So that's exactly what he did, but as he sat in the waiting room with his daughter's friends, he thought maybe he laid it on a little thick. He studied his daughter's girlfriend, he had known her most of her life and he had never seen the look her face held. Her mind was clearly on something outside of the room as the back of her heel repeatedly made contact with the floor. Her eyes stared at an invisible spot on the wall as she completely ignored the insistent ringing of her own cell phone. Larry was just about to get up and go over to her when he saw a priest walk over and sit next to her. And even though he was a grown man, he shrunk back at the look that she gave the man when he asked her a question. Larry could feel the heat from her eyes as she stared down the priest and knew he held no chance in hell if she was making a man of the cloth squirm and readjust his collar.
It had surprised Haley when Peyton was finally released, to see Brooke walk with her to Larry's truck and then come back towards them. Shortly after Nathan and Haley had decided to ride home together and leave Haley's car at the hospital, Brooke climbed in the backseat next to the still sleeping Jamie.
"Peyton's going to ride with her dad?" Haley asked confused that Brooke wasn't going with them.
"He's gonna take her up to Maine for a little while" Brooke's voice sounded raspier than it usually did and Haley couldn't tell if it was because of the hour, or all because of emotion.
"Wha-" Haley started to say but stopped when she felt Nathan's hand squeeze her knee.
She looked over to him, but he kept his eyes out the window as he pulled out of the parking lot. She knew what that meant, it meant leave it alone. When she looked in the rearview mirror at Brooke, she let her question die behind her lips. Brooke looked like she was on her last leg, and that could never be said in a good way. Her hair looked like she had repeatedly run her hands through it, which was probably true. Her eyes tended to be on the lighter side of hazel, but with the slight bags and dark circles under them, they looked darker. The tears didn't help either, but Haley figured it was better than the look they held in the waiting room at the hospital. Haley watched as Brooke ran her fingers through Jamie's hair as his head rested in his booster seat.
She watched Brooke stare out the window as they drove towards her house; she felt bad for the brunette but was unsure if she should say anything. It was no secret among their close friends that the two women had not been getting along at the moment, quite obvious by the usually inseparable pair being in two different states for the last couple of weeks. But this latest bit of, Haley didn't even know how to categorize it, looked to be a little too much for the pair that had been through so much. She figured that after such hard fought battles they had earned their moment in sun when they had decided to come home together, but if you learned anything from growing up in Tree Hill, it was that there were no rules to war. Brooke had told Haley before that she wanted what she and Nathan had with Peyton, but Haley always felt like it was the other way around. Yes she and Nathan had been through their own trials and tribulations, but Haley had always been astonished how hard Brooke and Peyton had fought to be together. She had been witness to how much lemonade you could make out of so many shitty situations. Tooth and nail the two had fought through missing and dead parents, scandals and miscommunication, near death experiences and even multiple states between them to only come out of it stronger than they were before. And that would truly be saying something, because the only thing that could come between them was…Haley knew that they would find their way back from this, she just found it hard to believe that some people's yellow brick road's had this pot holes and road blocks.
"Thanks buddy" Brooke whispered in Jamie's ear as she gave him a kiss on the head.
After Nathan put the car in park in front of her house, he got out and walked her to the door to make sure she got safely inside. Haley put her hand in between his head and the seat and ran her it through the hair at the back of his neck.
"You think we should leave her alone?" she asked her husband as they made their own way home.
"She needs tonight to cry" Nathan said whispered in the dark car like it was something not everyone needed to know.
"But he's still-" Haley didn't understand how her husband could be so nonchalant about leaving their friend by herself, not only in such an emotional state, but because the police had no clue as to where Ian was.
"Hales, Brooke's going to go at this full force" Nathan cut his wife off; he knew what she was going to say. In the back of his mind he too was questioning if he was doing the right thing, he didn't want anything else happening to the women he considered sisters.
"She just needs to get mad first" Nathan finished matter of factly.
If he knew anything about Brooke Davis, he knew that she would never let something like this go, especially when it involved Peyton. He took a hand off of the stirring wheel and touched a scar he had under his left eyebrow he got one summer when he had to pull Brooke off of some redhead cheerleader who had talked about Peyton's dead mother.
"You get mad, then you get even. There are no rules to war, Nate" Brooke told her friend as they both sat in the office waiting as the principal tried to contact their parents.