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Saturday rolls around, and she's dead tired. She drifted off to sleep sometime closing on daylight, and in an hour, a cold orb of terror woke her up.

She looks up into the bathroom mirror to see how marked she is after a torturous, sleepless night. Wide-set brown eyes stare back, wiped clean of clarity and veiled with terror. The weight of worry on her shoulders appears to be real matter rather than invisible, surrounding her like an astronomical, evil spirit that's teasing her stability. Nasty thoughts have taken over like a virus.

She can only imagine the onslaught of I-told-you-so's that her father will grace her with if she's pregnant. Or the carnage he'll bring on Nathan. Her heart stops beating for a second; it will be hell on earth.

For a moment longer, she stands there, getting more and more panicky as the words flash brightly in her head: Two weeks late, two weeks late, two weeks late.

Never has she ever been anything more than six days late. Two weeks has got to be a personal best. The possibility of being pregnant, no matter how remote, has overtaken her entire system. She feels faint.

Her mind leaps in all directions, hassling her about how everything will be in ruins, to working out how she'll tell her dad, to picturing him telling her that she got what she deserved, to seeing her mother falling to pieces…She literally has to slap herself to stop thinking about it all.

Following a shower and a breakfast that she barely eats, she avoids her dad and Josie, begging off a heavy load of homework. It's not that hard to stay away from her father when he looks like he's in attack mode whenever their gazes lock.

Attempting to preoccupy herself, she works on a World History paper due Monday, which takes her ages as a result of her lacking concentration. It uses up the morning, and she has to draw on textbook references, and resort to pen and paper until she can type it up and print it off when she returns to Tree Hill. It's not her best work, which adds to the reasons to dislike her father.

In the afternoon, she parks herself on the couch to watch reruns of cancelled programs. Then does she actually deal with the suspicion that she could be pregnant. She assesses and reassesses the situation as she blankly watches the screen. She envies the characters laughing goofily on television, that they don't need to worry about finding out if they're knocked up when they have better things to do like chase piglets around the farm.

If she's pregnant, she's done for. She will be sent off to Idaho, exiled like a leper.

So much for doing away with the condoms. It was fun while it lasted. It doesn't make sense, though. They've been off them for a week. It couldn't have happened then. Thinking about where and when, she can only come up with that time she forgot to stick on a patch. Her phone fell, the pieces scattered, and when she restarted it, she forgot to set the date and time aptly. It ended up beeping the "patch change day" reminder a day later. Could that be it? In that twenty-four-hour window, could she have...?

Jury's out on Nathan's reaction, but she can just see him handling it badly. Horrified to the point of wanting to punch something is a pretty accurate description of it. It gives her headache a severe intensity that it didn't have to start with, and there are only so many times she can rearrange drawers to work out her aggression.

She's feeling so nauseous from proper paranoia that she's completely convinced she's pregnant. To darken her sulkiness further, there's no one on her side here; there's no Peyton to dash to the pharmacy for her and there's no Luke to rain fire and brimstone on her. What impeccable timing to be miles away from support and assistance.

Cackles come from one side of the house. Josie's neighbour and friend Catherine is over for afternoon tea and cake, and a game of cards. According to Josie, it's something they have been doing daily for the last two years, sometimes changing it up to crosswords, jigsaw puzzles or crocheting depending on the "tone of the day."

Their companionship makes her melancholic; she misses hanging out with her friends. She misses knocking out Lucas at mini-golf, she misses hunting discount bins at clothing stores with Peyton, she misses watching a movie she doesn't favour with Nathan.

Exhausted beyond belief from sleeplessness and stressing out so much, she rolls onto her stomach, arm hanging off the couch, one side of her face pressed to a throw pillow, eyes on the lustrous coffee table. The house is airy and bright, hardwood floors glossy, surfaces clean, walls smothered with artwork. A homely home she'd love to come to at the end of each day, but the longer she stays inside this bright house sopping with varying shades of green, the more trapped she feels. So she plans.

It's not until the late afternoon that she has an opportunity to get away.

"Is this what you're going to do all weekend?"

The fine hairs on her nape tingle. Within a second, she feels so shameful and panicked that she can't look at him.

"I don't have any other plans," she says in the dreariest tone possible. Other than useless, she feels frozen with guilt.

"Try gardening. Do some organizing. Take a walk around the neighbourhood. Go lend a hand at the animal shelter."

She gambles a look at him. He has an eyebrow raised at her like he can't believe how lazy she is.

Ignoring the unhelpful suggestions, she pretends to be taken with the show; there are no dirty dishes or grimy surfaces because she has already taken care of that.

"Why? I have no need to familiarize myself with the area when I'm going back home tomorrow." At the pause, she looks up again. She blinks hard at the face that lacks an ounce of emotion. "I'm not moving here, am I?"

"Josie's aide will be delayed," is the answer she gets. "We can't leave until Monday."

She throws herself upright, the jerky move making her feel lightheaded. "You said we would be back home by Monday."

"I'll write you a note," he says, his face still unreadable.

Anger swells in her chest. "This is my future you're playing with, Dad! I have school on Monday! I have to keep up my GPA! Isn't that what you're worried about? That I've been spending so much time with Nathan that it has affected my grades? What—"

"Is this the part where I feel guilty?"

She gnashes her teeth against the roaring ire. "I have classes with due assignments on Monday. I can't afford to be away."

His expression turns angry, his face colouring. "Like I said, I'll sort it out. What do you want me to say? That you can take the bus on your own? You'd want that, wouldn't you?"

She gives him a defiant look. "You can't spring this on me. I'm only prepared to be here until tomorrow evening."

He scowls. "Don't be melodramatic, Haley Joy. It's one day."

"You wouldn't say that if I were Taylor. She gets pushed to attend classes but you couldn't care less about me missing a school day."

His brow pleats as he looks daggers at her. She manages to keep her expression neutral.

Too tired to care about arguing with him, she flops back down on the couch. One thing is clear, she won't feel guilty about the crafty plot she's devised.

"I won't be long. Sit tight," he says with a warning glance.

When he leaves the house, she dawdles to make sure that he won't be back for forgetting his wallet or something else. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen.

She hops up from the couch to put her plan into action. She sprints madly out of the living room and to the kitchen to load up on water, gulping down an entire one-litre bottle. She hates to leave Josie alone, but this is the only window of opportunity she has without her father's suspicious nature ruining everything.

Running a hand through her messy hair, she makes for Josie's room. Her mind is reeling. Sweat dampens the neck of her t-shirt. When she reaches the door, she has to compose herself to appear calm and poised, while she's nowhere close to it.

The hacking hiccoughs and chuckles behind the door make her nervous about leaving Josie. She has no choice, and besides, Catherine will be here for a while. She knocks thrice before she loses her nerve.

"Come in," says the raspy tone.

Josie is on the bed, oxygen tank propped by the bedside table, Catherine in a chair by the bed. Their faces are flushed with elation from laughing for most of the afternoon, and cards are scattered on the space right by Josie. The cups and saucers from their teatime are on a cart that is pushed up against the wall, below a framed thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle of a waterfall. A dozen pictures of Josie's son and her late husband are dispersed on surfaces around the green room.

"Hi, Auntie."

"Hello, darling."

Haley shoots her a pinched smile, feeling shady for playing her like this. "Are you okay?"

Josie relaxes into the pillows, appearing painfully puny on the monster bed. "Fine, fine. Cathy's just cracking me up."

The younger woman pats Josie's arm. "Unintentionally, which is making your breathing worse. Jo, I told you we shouldn't have done this."

Cheeks still rosy, Josie gives her friend a brightened smile. "I'm feeling better than ever."

She's still slight and wheezing, but her sickly appearance does seem to have improved.

Catherine laughs, the pit-size dimples on her lined cheeks deepening. "I suppose I should be grateful for that."

Like when they met earlier, Haley is distracted by the bright patterns of Catherine's outfit; an orange headscarf is coiled around her head, she's wearing a muumuu of blue and orange flowers, bright orange lipstick, pink rouge and bright blue eye shadow. Again, she doesn't know whether to look away or keep gawking.

"Haley?"

She yanks her gaze away from Catherine's unusual outfit, finding Josie looking at her in curious expectation. She wiggles her head to clear out the cobwebs. "Dad left," she blurts.

Josie makes a sound that's caught between a cough and concurrence. "He's gone to pick up my inhaler from the pharmacy."

"Um, can I borrow your car?" she stutters. "I'd like to take a drive, if that's okay. I want to see some of the sights, perhaps go shopping. Or window shop."

Josie doesn't say anything for a long time, not looking completely certain about her excuse. Freaked out, Haley's scared that she's set off alarm bells. She should have kept it simple, left it at, "Can I borrow your car?" She just had to explain, didn't she?

Josie wraps her shawl more tightly around herself. "Your daddy doesn't want you to leave the house."

Her face warms. How much does Josie really know about why she's here in Savannah?

She swallows thickly. "Has he told you why?"

Josie looks at her with something like pity. "Trouble is what he said."

Trouble. She hates that word. Haley pauses for a moment, considering. "There's…a boy."

"And this boy is the trouble?" Catherine asks, her eyes wide with fascination.

She gets agitated thinking about every indecent term her father has thrown their way about her. "He…They think I'm too young for…"

Her face turns hot. She trails off and clears her throat, not making direct eye contact with her aunt. "Too young to be in love."

"That is ridiculous."

Josie seems to be genuinely stunned. Haley's mouth falls a little open at her vehemence.

"It…it is?"

There's a stubborn gleam in Josie's blue eyes. "Of course it is. It's ridiculous, isn't it, Cathy?"

"There's something beautiful about young love," Catherine sighs in her Georgian drawl.

Smiling at her with intense seriousness, Josie pats the bigger space on the bed. "Come, darling. Come sit with me."

The hug rekindles the soul-crushing need she's had to have her mom close by and put her mind at ease. Josie is not her mom, but she's close enough in relation. A powdery-scented fragrance fills her nose when Josie shifts on the bed.

"Your mother's parents forbade her from seeing your father because they said they were too young. Did she listen?"

Haley shakes her head. It makes her angry that her father has gone through the same thing he's putting her through, and yet he still goes over the top about her dating Nathan.

Coupled with the gentle hold across her shoulders, Josie's soothing voice hushes up her worries. "It works both ways, my darling girl. Everything under the sun has its pros and cons. There are those lucky enough to meet their partners young and live happily ever after. There are those who meet their partners young, something goes wrong and they don't live happily ever after. Love is risky. It can be devastating, but it can also be rewarding."

"Oh, I remember my first love." There's a big grin plastered on Catherine's face. "Ace. Ace Abbott. My father didn't really get involved in my life but my mother called our relationship futile. I liked to think of it as the lust of a lifetime."

She and Josie exchange amused laughs.

"Young love amazes me. It bristles with innocence and certainty and hope, and then there's that staggering confidence that you will never love anyone as much as the boy you're with."

It boggles her mind how accurate Catherine's comment is to her own. She can't try to picture falling for anyone else.

"Did you end up marrying him? Ace?"

Her eyes flash with regret. "He wasn't the dating type. He couldn't take the pressure."

She clings to the hope that she and Nathan will have their happy ending, but it stings the hell out of her that no one is telling them that they're strong enough to have something enduring.

"What's your boy's name?"

Her smile threatens to split her face. "Nathan."

Catherine nods. "Does he have substance?"

It doesn't take any effort to speak. "He's funny, sharp, goofy, kind, generous, independent...I love being with him. I love spending time with him."

She pauses, her heart doing a happy little flip that stretches her lips wider. "I love the way he looks at me, I love the way he lets me in, I love the way he listens to me, I love the way he makes me feel things I never thought were possible that sometimes…sometimes I forget to breathe. I can't imagine my life without him in it. I want a future with him."

"He's no slouch?"

The words may be low, but their meaning is enough to make her duck her head and blush.

"Catherine," Josie scolds her in a light tone.

Catherine giggles. "Let's not pretend that they're not that serious."

"Darling, ignore her."

"Look at her, Jo," Catherine continues unrepentantly. "She's in love!"

Haley's face blazes hotter. Her blue mood has slowly been uplifted by their understanding and support. She feels encouraged.

"Cathy, will you grab the keys for me?"

Her heart falls with the reminder of what brought her to Josie's room. That moment of hopefulness deflates to a distant memory, and the taste of disaster settles on her tongue. It wipes the smile right off her face.

With a subtle shake of her head and a firm grip on the car keys, she asks, "Which is the biggest mall around?"

It's a far smarter idea to get what she needs someplace far.

"Victoria Road has a mall, but for the biggest you'd have to take the bypass to the city."

"The one along the bypass is not bigger. The one off Cottonwood is," Catherine goes.

"I have lived here longer than you have, Cathy, and I'm older."

"By a decade. My memory's as sharp as yours, old girl. I remember them clearly constructing an annex of the one off Cottonwood a few years back, which makes it bigger."

Haley sits up straighter to slide off the bed. "I'll figure it out."

Josie's wrinkled forehead creases. "Do you need something specific?"

"I do."

Extreme privacy.

Haley gives her a tight smile. Her throat is really tight.

"I promise that I'll bring it back fuelled up," she rushes to add as she scampers for the door. "Do you want me to bring you anything?"

"No, darling. Have fun."

Catherine wiggles her fingers at her in a cute goodbye, showing those deep dimples. "Have fun, sweetie. And say hello to your boy."

Before she can spit out the worries ricocheting around in her brain to these women who in the last five minutes have given her courage and encouragement, she exits the room. The keys rattle in her hand from the panic that's taking up every inch of space within her. Much as she needs to get rid of it, what she needs most of all is to find out whether she's going to be excommunicated sometime soon.

Even though she won't be looking directly at him, even though she's inconveniently hundreds of miles away, she's still going to tell Nathan. She won't keep it from him.

She slides behind the wheel of the old-model Toyota Corolla station wagon, and for the first time in fourteen hours, she actually laughs. Nathan had it right on the money teaching her how to drive using a car with a manual transmission.

Josie told her that they're north of the Savannah city limits. Reading the signs, she winds the car through suburban traffic, heading straight for the horizon with the high-rise buildings of Savannah. The city is a safer bet for a teenage girl who wants to take a pregnancy test anonymously.

Clueless about the city, and having somehow missed the turn to the bypass, the old car lacking Satnav GPS and her phone confiscated, she flounders driving around in search of a drug store.

Fortunately, a shopping complex – The Pavilion, it's called – comes to plain sight. It has a late-night chemist. She pulls the station wagon into a parking spot. She scouts the complex, noting the distance between the chemist and the bathrooms tucked into the corner. Not wasting a moment, she jumps out and hurries into the store.

She plucks the package and clutches it tight. Then she takes a good, long peek at the aisle to make sure that she's alone before sprinting to the counter. This time she's not buying the kit for someone else, and it's beyond overwhelming and petrifying than that morning she did it for Peyton. Nothing on the clerk's face tics in surprise or pity, like she's been there and done this many times before for other teenage girls, and gotten several t-shirts, too.

Haley hurries out of the store, barely trusting herself to hold onto the flimsy paper bag. Despite the graffiti consuming the bathroom walls, the floor is modestly clean. Four stalls, four sinks, a hand dryer that's cracked, a stained mirror. She has to settle for the second-last stall with the last one's door shut.

She closes her eyes and leans her back against the door. A thin film of sweat has broken out on her brow and the bag in her hand is trembling slightly in her white-knuckled grip. Her eyes wander to the blue of the three-pack visible through the semi-transparent white bag. She grinds her jaw against talking herself out of this; it has to be done.

She breathes in and out quickly and loudly before standing upright. With an unsteady hand, she tears into the box. She reads the instructions at least five times, all the while ignoring the high voltage of panic surging through her body. Three minutes. Three minutes is what it will take for her future to be determined. More like three years.

She shuffles from foot to foot in the tiny space when she's done. The anticipation is mounting, ripples of it slithering through her. A quiet litany of profanities passes her lips every few seconds. Perhaps she would deal with this better if someone were with her, someone to tell her that it will be all right, someone to check the time for her. Peyton would know what it feels like.

Due to her lack of a cell phone, she mentally counts the seconds, eyes closed. In the background, stall doors open and close, sinks run, the automatic dryer turns on and off, conversations bounce off the tiles, laughter rings around. She's envious of the carefree voices.

For good measure, she counts to five hundred. The waiting time is up.

She curses once more and opens her eyes a little. "No way. No way that…"

Inhaling slow and steady, she finally slants a glance through her lashes to the sticks laid out on the paper bag on the floor. Negative. She nearly collapses in blessed relief; she's not going to be in a whole lot of trouble, after all.

A minute later, she's stepping out of the stall, the tissue-wrapped kit tied tightly in the plastic bag. Calmly, she stashes it in the bin, washes her hands and splashes her fiery face with water.

She slips out of the bathroom and plows forward to the bank of payphones outside the grocery store across the lot, a spring to her step. She walks into a booth, pulls out several quarters from her pocket, and dials his number.

"Hello?" his guarded tone rings through the wire.

He probably thinks he's about to play hardball with a telemarketer. For half a second, she doesn't know what to say.

"How's it going, big guy?" she greets him, injecting enthusiasm in her voice.

"Haley?"

She smiles at the surprised warmth edged in his words. "Have you forgotten the sound of my voice already?"

He chuckles. "I would never. Your dad let you make a call?"

"I'm sneaking around."

"That's what I like to hear," he says with a distinguishable grin.

"And Taylor thinks I'm not daring."

He laughs again. She misses the face to face banter between them, and for now, this will have to do.

Nervously, her fingers start to tap the dusty top of the telephone chest. "I'm calling you from a payphone."

"They still have those?"

She laughs, gripping the receiver tighter. "Apparently. I can't stick around for long, and I'm sure he'll be back before I am."

He sighs. "That's not a big risk you're taking? Considering that he drove you four hours away from me just so I can't kiss you?"

She smiles, biting the inside of her lower lip, her mind scattering to the memory of the kisses she's awfully missing. "It's a risk I'm willing to take."

"Are you liking it there?" he prompts.

"Yeah, I guess. I like Josie, but it's just…it's not home. You know?"

"I know. You want to hear good news to make you feel better?"

She winces again, his tone washing over her in a mixed bag of relief, sadness and comfort. Hers can only be considered good news at a minimum.

"Okay."

"The boycott is over," he says with brightness.

Her eyes widen. She gasps in comprehension, clapping a hand over her mouth. "What? That's great! When did this happen?"

"There was a board meeting this morning. Whitey won't still let me play, but the team is back."

"Are you okay with that? Not playing?"

"Yeah. It's just for a couple of games."

She stops bouncing when a thought crosses her. "Do you think Dan had something to do with it? I mean, because of the David Shay thing? Could he have pressured the board?"

He utters something indistinctly. "I hope not. The last thing Whitey would do is give in to Dan, David Shay or no David Shay. Damn it."

"What is it?"

"Just a bill I had forgotten about. It's nothing."

Her mouth is open when he says, "And before you ask, it's not that serious. I'll sort it out when I get back."

She looks over to the nail salon several feet away. "Are you headed somewhere?"

There's the shuffle of papers on his end and the sound of a drawer being slammed. "Whitey wants a team meeting and I'm sure it's going to turn into a practice session. Then there's a party the guys are having to celebrate the coup."

They chuckle together. Self-doubt drips down her spine at the thought of him going stag at a party. The nature of that self-doubt shames her.

"I—"

"Babe, I gotta go. Some of the guys are here for a powwow. Can you give me a number that I can call you on later?"

She bites back a sigh, hating herself for not blurting her news. There's very little she has to say, but it can wait instead of being mentioned when he's in a hurry.

"I don't know Josie's. Um, maybe I can call tomorrow."

"I wish you were here. I miss you."

She looks at the ring, longing attacking her every pore. "I miss you, too."

"Call me tomorrow?"

"I hope so. Have fun," she says with little fanfare.

After he hangs up, loneliness consumes her in a hulking wave that disperses everything for a second.

"I love you," she says to the dial tone in a pained voice.

She's pretty down by the time she returns to the house. The only laughter she can hear is the staged kind from a television. There's a delicious aroma of food that reminds her stomach that it hasn't had a proper meal since yesterday.

Before that, though, she has to face the music. She braces herself and steps into the living room.

He's steaming. He watches her carefully as she walks in and sits in the armchair across him.

"Where have you been?" he asks, an edge in his voice.

She tries not to look iffy, her heart knocking on her ribs. "I needed some air."

"And you needed the car for that? You left Josie alone."

"I left Josie with Catherine," she replies testily. "You told me to get out of the house. I got out and took a drive."

He eyes her suspiciously. "Were you meeting that boy?"

It sets off dark, bitter things inside her. "I suppose that driving an eight-hour return trip just to sneak in an afternoon together is not unrealistic," she says tightly.

"Don't be clever."

She can't help herself. "Don't screw up my life."

He rises suddenly, hands balled at his sides, looking like he's on the verge of exploding. "You're doing that perfectly well on your own."

It hits very close to home. She sighs a curse, jumps off the couch about a mile high. Food is still beckoning to her even though she's pissed off.

Following an attack on two pieces of velvety chocolate cake, she looks in on Josie. Halfway to unconsciousness, Josie asks her about Nathan, snoozing off while Haley is telling her about the time they fell asleep in the park. She doesn't take offence, the light chat with Josie having relaxed her.

Thoroughly exhausted and desperate for a good night's rest, she rolls over in bed and peeks at the ancient alarm clock. It's way past midnight and she's wide awake. She shouldn't have had the sugary chocolate cake. Likewise, she shouldn't let the thought of Nathan partying his socks off at a wild party torment her.

Relentless images barrel into her of drunk girls throwing themselves at him, 'accidentally' falling onto his lap to make a move, them making a connection he determines is superior, him giving them that delicious smirk as he leans close to…

She's disgusted with herself for even going there.

This must be one of those trust exercises, like they do at company training retreats. They've never been so apart, where one of them is out of town and the other is celebrating at a victory party with his friends. There has to be a test in it all: How much does she trust him around other girls when she's not around? How much does she trust that she's enough for him?

With a theatric grunt, she yanks the pillow over her head to shut out her overworked brain. The storm only amplifies, frustrating her so much that she groans like a wounded animal into the fibre. She hasn't even told him about the pregnancy test.

That emotional sickness sticks around for a long time, until the lull of sleep casts a spell on her sometime before the crack of dawn.