A/N: Here you go lysser8312, I hope you like it!!! A big thanks to everyone else for continuing to review. I really appreciate it. The next update won't be until Saturday or Sunday! Enjoy!
TOXIC
Chapter 13
Friendship 101
Time always seemed to move slower when you were alone with your thoughts. Like the world was playing a joke that everyone was in on except you. At least that's the way Haley saw it, while she sat alone in her car, attempting to compose herself. She inhaled a deep breath, and ran a hand through her hair. An overwhelming sense of emptiness filled her again. The same one that she'd felt while walking home after her day in the basement.
Unsure of what to do with herself Haley made her way out of the car and up to her apartment.
Instead of coming home to the empty apartment she'd left, however, Haley came face to face with what appeared to be a very annoyed Brooke, when she walked in through the door.
God she so didn't want to deal with this right now. She wanted curl up in a ball and cry or scream, mostly both. She wanted to become invisible, be left alone, forget about Nathan Scott and the utter disaster that was this day.
But wishes like that never came true, when you lived with someone from the Davis clan. Polite, respectful, quite, Brooke was not. Especially when she had a bone to pick with you. And it seemed like Haley was the lucky runner up in that category.
"Hi," she clipped out, standing in front of the door like a guardian.
"Hey," Haley tried moving around her friend, to get inside "Where's Peyton?"
"At her Dad's." Brooke followed closely behind, watching Haley with a Hawk eye. "Whatcha been up to? You've been gone all day."
"I was out."
"Out where," Brooke asked, as Haley tried to go into her bedroom.
"Just out. I had stuff to do," she answered. Thinking how weird it was that Brooke all of sudden had this new found interest in her daily activities.
"Did you get it done," Brooke plopped herself down on Haley's bed, and observed as her friend went about collecting her dirty clothes from the ground, and then putting them into the wastebasket. Anything to stay busy, and not think about loathsome men or suspicious friends.
"Sure did," she puffed out an exasperated laugh at how funny her friends question really sounded to her now.
Brooke moved off the bed, and came up beside Haley with raised eyebrow. "So tell me about it."
Haley wasn't sure what she was talking about. Was she referring to the errands she was supposed to run? Because as long as there was food in the fridge, or toothpaste to brush her teeth with, grocery store shopping never rated high on Brooke's 'things to know' list. Yet Haley got the sinking feeling her friend wasn't really inquiring about that.
"What do you mean," she tried going for the obliviousness tactic.
"Well you've been all mope-y for the last week. So tell me who it is that's got you so upset. It's a guy right? Usually is."
"It's no one," Haley started gathering the rest of her clothes, in hopes of getting out of this conversation as quickly as possible. Not only did she not want to tell Brooke about her and Nathan. She didn't want to think about Nathan in general.
Of course Brooke never made things easy. It just wasn't in her nature. It's wasn't in her blood.
"I know! How about you let me guess........," She began with an eager lilt.
Haley scurried out of her room with her clothes piled in her arms, and started out the apartment and into the hallway. She counted on Brooke not following her. Mostly because Brooke tried to avoid the laundry room at all costs.
No such luck this time of course.
"Hmmm Who could it be........."
Brooke treaded just behind Haley as she got into the elevator. And Haley noticed for the first time that in her rush to get away from Brooke not only had she forgotten a laundry basket, but also detergent and any sort of money. So here they were trapped in an elevator, with Brooke badgering her as she held seven pounds of clothing in her arms. This was splendid.
"Oh I know," Brooke faked excitement, "Could it be.....could it be......Nathan Scott?"
Everything stopped moving. No, no maybe just the elevator, maybe they had gotten stuck. Or maybe she just couldn't feel her legs anymore. God she needed to focus on what was going on. Her friend had just found her out right? Had she known all long? Had she seen them together today? Oh god, Haley wanted to sit down. Take a drink of water. Anything to escape the piercing eyes of her best friend. Had Brooke always been this scary? Or was this new?
"I don't know what you're talking about." Again with the being oblivious.
Brooke squinted her eyes, and stared into Haley's searching her face for lies.
"Don't lie Haley. You suck at it. Plus I saw you two at the party together. Overheard whatever it was Theresa was bitching about. Now tell me what happened. I'm your best friend damn it, I deserve to know."
So it was the party where she'd seen them. Crap, crap, double crap. That just made her life even better. Great now she probably had to explain why Theresa was being such a bitch to them. Although honestly Haley didn't know why Theresa's behavior would be construed as being different than any other time. And there, Brooke was giving her that skeptical look again. Like she wasn't sure she was going to believe anything that Haley said. Life was really unfair most of the time.
Haley figured honesty was the best policy right? That's what everyone always tells you growing up. What they force feed you throughout school, so it's got to be somewhat true.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Prepare for screaming, she told herself.
"I slept with Nathan,"Haley uttered quickly, and then closed her eyes, ready for the inevitable onslaught.
But nothing came. Silence over took the elevator. And again Haley wondered if she had just been dropped into some otherworldly realm, where everything turned out the reverse way you expected it to. Specifically to piss you off.
Slowly she opened one eye and then other, to see Brooke's own eyes wide, her face motionless.
"Please. Tell. Me. You're. Joking," she said deliberately slow.
"I wish I were," Haley offered, somberly just above a whisper. Those words more true now, than they had ever been.
"Ok, I thought maybe you had gotten a little crush on him or something. That's why I went all Nancy Drew on you. But this? I can't even......Have you gone COMPLETELY INSANE?"
Brooke's voice had gone from mild to super sonic within 5 seconds flat, a new record Haley surmised with a cringe. She needed to say something to calm her friend down, but she couldn't find the words. In someway she felt as if she deserved this rant. She did after all, have sex with her best friends ex-boyfriend, one of the top five things never to do to a friend.
"Brooke I'm sorry, I didn't plan for it to happen. You have to know that," Haley pleaded.
"Why Haley? Just tell me why. You and Nathan? I just don't get it. God I thought you two tired to avoid each other like plague."
"Yeah, well we did until we got stuck down in a basement together," Haley added, and Brooke gave her a confused expression, before she finally figured out exactly what she meant. Understood where it was her friend had disappeared off to, that night.
Brooke looked at her friend collectedly, trying as hard as she might not too blow up."So are you two......"
"Together? A big, huge no."
Brooke managed to give Haley a sympathetic look, which surprised her considering she thought the other girl would be half way to ripping her head off by now. It gave Haley a small ounce of comfort.
"Look Hales, I should probably be mad at you, but I'm not, ok. Whatever it was that happened between you two down there, is probably none of my business........ Although feel free to share the dirty details."
"Yeah, that'll happen," Haley chuckled with relief.
"Listen, I know you, and I know what Nathan used to be like. And I don't want you to get hurt."
Haley looked at Brooke like she'd grown a second head. "That's not the advice your supposed to be giving me. Your supposed to scream, and yell, and tell me to stay the hell away from your man. You're supposed to be all jealous an evil, and try to tell me how awful he is, so that I would never want him in the first place. I watch Guiding Light, I watch Springer, I know these things. Now get on with the obligatory hair pulling and chair throwing."
Brooke laughed, and shook her head. "Umm, sorry, but there'll be no hair pulling from me. That might cause nail breakage or something. Besides, like I said I'm not mad at you. Me and Nathan are so far in the past I wonder sometimes why we were ever together in the first place. All we ever did was fight. And not in the hot-sexy-I-wanna-throw-you-on-my-bed-and-have-crazy-wild-animal-sex-with-you. No it was more like, how many ways can we annoy the hell out of each other, and storm out of the room with the last word, kind of arguments. Which sadly never ended with fun happy make up sex."
Haley tried to give Brooke a laugh, but feeling even more guilty from her friends' kindness, chose to instead bow her head in shame. She still felt stained from the entire experience, no matter how much sympathy Brooke offered.
"I don't what care what you say, I'm still a skank for doing this."
"Welcome to the team."
"Ha ha."
"Lighten up girlfriend. Sex does not equate to sluttyness ok. Nobody is going to mark you with a red A. Least of all me."
"But I'm a horrible person. I broke the number one rule of friendship. And that is to not sleep with your best friends' boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, or whatever. Basically I just suck. Please tell me that I suck," she begged.
Brooke looked at Haley in amusement. "Will it make you feel better if I do?"
"Maybe."
"Well sorry then, I just can't. Like I said before. I know you Haley. You don't hurt your friends. And you don't kiss boys like Nathan, unless it means something," Brooke offered, the most honest remark she'd said to Haley in a long time.
"I thought it did," she paused, unexpectedly remembering his kisses, the softness of his hands against her shoulders. "When we were in the moment and everything was happening I thought......I don't know, that it was going to be different this time. That maybe he was different. God I'm so stupid. Guys don't change, they're all the same. I should know that by now."
"Hey, I keep holding out for Mr Right too. I know, I know, Brooke Davis settle down? That's Blasphemy! But I do. Trust me Hales, that guy for you, he's out there."
"I hope you're right."
"Aren't I always?"
Haley wanted to be praise her friend for how mature she was being about all of this. Wanted to be overjoyed that Brooke was in someway giving her, her blessing to be with Nathan. But what still remained was that there was no her and Nathan. He'd already made that point perfectly clear.
"I love you, you know that," she smiled at Brooke.
"Well who wouldn't? I mean really."
Both girls let out a calming laugh embracing each other in a quick hug, before Haley hit the up button to go back to the apartment.
"So you and Nathan. And then no–you and Nathan?"
Haley nodded, holding her clothes tighter to her body.
"Wait until Peyton finds out."
"Do you think it's at all possible you hold off on telling her. I don't think I could handle you both barging me with questions."
"Maybe for a day," Brooke told her. "Will I ever find out what went down between you two though, or am I left to make up my own slutty little images," Brooke asked, folding her arms in front of her chest.
Haley readjusted the clothes once again. Trying to ignore her friends' question. "Nathan and I.......Well I just don't understand him," she deflected, focusing way too intensely on the aqua blue shirt in front of her.
Brooke came up next her friend, and placed her arm around Haley's shoulder. "I never did either babe. All those years "together" and Nathan Scott is still a complete enigma to me. I think the boy has some serious issues he needs to work out. Because he just doesn't know how to open up with people, especially those close to him, ya know?"
Yes, she sure did.