The next week went by excruciatingly slow for Haley. She felt like a complete sleazebag because of what she had done to Nathan, and whom she had done it with. Nothing had happened in terms of sex, but she did hook up with Lucas. That was enough to have the whole school talking and pointing fingers.

She tried to avoid the gazes and rumors, but she just couldn't. So many things were being said that all she wanted to do was run away and hide, never to show her face again. She doubted anybody would miss her if that were what she chose to do.

And Nathan...

Nathan was an emotional mess. He wouldn't speak to anybody, he'd cut basketball practice just to go home and sulk. Nobody ever thought that Nathan Scott would get so torn up over a girl, but it happened...bad. He was falling into a download spiral, and he felt like he couldn't stop himself.

The fact of the matter was, they were both a mess. Yet neither of them had the guts to talk to each other. Nathan because of his pride and emotional instability, and Haley because of her fear of him rejecting her more than he already had. He refused to hear her side of the story...not that it would make the situation any better. The wrong she did wouldn't make it right, even if she did explain exactly what happened.

So, they avoided each other. Haley would take different routes to her classes just so she wouldn't see Nathan in the hallway, and Nathan changed his seating arrangements in every class he had with Haley. Of course that just made the situation a whole lot worse because lack of communication about this mess was 100 times worse than actually talking about what happened and accepting the facts.

And that's exactly what Nathan didn't want to do-accept the facts. He figured he saw what happened, he didn't need to know any more. Even if there was something else involved, he didn't even care to find out what it was.

Besides, he wasn't exactly faultless either. He had done some things that night as well that he wasn't too happy about. The worst part was that he was totally coherent and knew what he was doing...which was what made it that much worse.

Haley could never find out.

It was Friday night...one week from when the "situation" had occurred. The Ravens were battling it out against Cove City for a second time, but unfortunately, the game wasn't on their side. They were down eighteen points. Why? Well, the answer to that was simple. Nathan was benched.

It started out as a crappy game to begin with because Nathan wasn't up to par, and then just escalated into a straight up doomed game by the end of the first half. He had somehow managed to get himself into a fistfight with a player on the opposite team, causing them both to be benched for the rest of the game. Nathan figured Whitey would eventually give up and let him go in, seeing as how wrecked the game had begun to get. To his surprise, Whitey wasn't going to cave any time soon. It made him just want to throw in the towel and go home. He wasn't in the mood to play anyway.

Twenty-five points later, and the Ravens were sulking back to their locker room. They all knew Tim wouldn't be able to knock down those shots, and Lucas hadn't been showing up for practices at all for the past week. When any of the players missed more than two practices, they were exempt from playing in that week's game. So now the team was down two of their best players. They surely suffered from it.

Nathan trudged out of the locker room, slamming the door shut behind him. It had become a ritual by now, and everyone knew that it was him by the sound of the loud racket. He quickly walked across the court, head down, and made his way to the doors leading out to the parking lot.

"Nathan."

He wasn't going to stop, but the voice didn't sound familiar. If it were somebody like his dad, Tim, or...Haley, he wouldn't have stopped. He turned around quickly to see a short brown haired girl looking up at him. Her face seemed vaguely recognizable from somewhere else and he wracked his brain trying to figure out where he had seen her.

"Can I talk to you for a few minutes?" She asked, looking back at the bleachers from time to time.

"Do I know you?" If this girl was just trying to get some action from him, then she had another thing coming. If she didn't know the current situation he was in, he'd definitely have to inform her. Because Nathan Scott was in no mood for a f uck buddy. The past week had made that blatantly obvious.

"Uh." She looked back at the bleachers again, shifting nervously on her feet. "Not really. I mean, you know a friend of mine but you and I have never really had a full blown conversation."

She seemed nervous, but it wasn't in a flirtatious way. Maybe she really wasn't out to get some. "Okay then.." Nathan furrowed his brow.

Maddie sighed and grabbed hold of his arm, taking him out the doors and into the parking lot. "Look I don't want to beat around the bush, alright? This is about Haley."

He nodded, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, I figured."

"Really? How?"

"Well after you looked back at the bleachers for the thousandth time and I saw exactly what spot you were looking at, I kind of knew." Maddie threw him a questioning stare. "She was sitting right there..."

"Oh. Oh right. Yeah, I told her to hide but I guess she decided not to. That's kind of a little too first gradish for me anyways." When he didn't answer her back, she decided that she just needed to come out and say what was to be said. Haley was one of her dearest friends. If this would help her and Nathan get back together, then she was going to try as hard as she could to make it work. "Look Nathan, I know what Haley did was wrong. She knows that. She's pretty much in denial over it. But you really don't know the whole story."

"No, and I don't want to know." He ran his hands through his hair and looked down at the ground. He wasn't in the mood for this tonight. All he wanted to do was go home and sleep. "What I saw explained it all. I don't need anybody else to tell me what happened because I saw it with my own two eyes, Okay? She was with Lucas. Need I say anymore?" Nathan pulled his keys out of his pocket, heading for his car.

"She was drunk, Nathan!" Maddie screamed as she stomped her foot on the ground. This wasn't exactly going according to her plans. She panicked once she realized he wasn't going to stop. "She thought he was you!"

To her relief, he stopped. Then remembered Haley telling him the same thing the night he caught her. "She told you that?"

"Yes. She was upset, drank too much, and thought that Lucas was you. She didn't do it willingly. Especially with Lucas of all people."

Nathan looked back at Maddie, her eyes hopeful and pleading for him to believe her.

"Come on, Nathan. Cut me some slack here. If I have to go over there one more time and pig out on doughnuts I think I'm going to barf."

A smile graced his lips for a few seconds, but was then replaced with his usual look of sadness. "I can't even look at her."

"Okay, that's not what you're supposed to say. You're SUPPOSED to say 'Yes, Maddie. I'll go talk to her right now...then we'll have some hot, passionate make-up sex and forget all of this ever happened.' Now doesn't that sound a lot more promising to you?" She gave him a reassuring smile and motioned for him to say something. His response didn't come. "You really love her, don't you?"

He hesitated for a moment. "Yeah, I did."

"Did?" She questioned.

"Yeah, until all this s hit happened. Now I don't know how I feel about her. Part of me wants to love her the way I did and the other part never wants to talk to her again."

Maddie sighed. "Nate, I hate to put it this way, but think about it. She didn't have sex with Luke. Yeah, she hooked up with him...well actually she thought she was hooking up with you. But once she found out what she was doing, she was miserable. I mean, I could see if she knew she was hooking up and possibly screwing Luke but that's not what went down. And I think you really need to understand that."

"Well, I'm not that innocent either."

"You just need to talk to her-"She stopped herself mid-sentence. "Wait, what do you mean by that?"

"Nothing, it's nothing."

"No, that was definitely something. And if you didn't mean anything by it, then why did you say it?" Her arms were crossed over her chest, her foot roughly tapping the ground.

Blowing out a heavy breath, Nathan raked his hand through his hair and brought his arm down to hang lazily at his side. "I uh, I slept with this girl, Brooke, the night it happened."

"What?!" Her high-pitched shriek made Nathan cringe. "You had sex with some slut because you saw your girlfriend hooking up with your brother? What the hell were you thinking?"

"I don't know! I was confused and pissed and I thought they had sex because they were practically naked on top of each other. I just...I didn't know what to do and that's the only thing I could think of to piss her off." He put his hands over his face. "God, I'm so stupid!"

"Yeah you are." Maddie scoffed. "You know what? I won't say anything. Because if I did, it would just hurt her too much." She shook her head, rummaging through her purse for her keys. Nathan's revelation made her too upset to carry on a conversation with him. "Do what you feel is right." She then walked away, leaving him alone. He was officially a first class moron.