Brooke wakes up and looks over at Haley, who is still asleep, a small smile playing on her lips. There is a piece of hair in Haley's face, and Brooke brushes it back. Brooke looks down at Haley and wants to kiss her forehead, or her cheek, or her mouth. Her sweet mouth.
That's it.
Brooke has to get away or she'll go crazy. Or scream. Or die. Or something.
Brooke gets up and dresses in some of Haley's clothes. She leaves a note that says See you later, tutor girl. I'll return the clothes to you on Monday.
She hesitates.
Your friend, Brooke.
Then she, trying to be as quiet as she can, leaves.
She almost skips down the street. I, she thinks, just slept in the same in the same bed as Haley James. Take that Nathan.
Oh, my God. I just slept in the same bed as Haley James. And she let me. Maybe she – get a grip, Brooke. She doesn't want you. Not like you want her .
She stops skipping.
You're so stupid. She hates you. She's only talking to you because of the project. Which she only decided to do with you because she felt sorry for you. She thinks you're a charity case. And when the project's over, that's it. She'll never talk to you again. Well, I'll show her. If she doesn't care about me, I don't have to care about her either. I'll just ignore her. Or something.
But if I ignore her…I don't want to ignore her. It'll just…I don't want to. I mean, I tried it once, and what happened? Well, nothing.
But do I really want something to happen?
Damnit.
Why does life have to be so difficult?
She frowns and walks around the block a couple times more, trying to think. She has been doing a lot of thinking lately – about Haley. Ever since…oh, well, a long time ago, she supposes.
Ever since the day last year when she had come into school with glasses on because her contacts were irritating her eyes, and she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with one finger…
Ever since Haley's back pack had broken in the hallway last March and she had to bend down to pick up all her books…
Ever since she saw Haley running her tongue across the top of her mouth…
Ever since she had seen Haley and Nathan kissing in the empty Ethics classroom.
She had felt something then. Something that she didn't know how to describe, not until much, much later.
But she realized eventually, admitted to herself eventually, that what she felt when she saw Nathan kiss Haley was a jealousy.
And it took a little bit longer to admit that she was not jealous of Haley for kissing Nathan, but of Nathan for kissing Haley. But she did.
"Damnit!" Brooke kicks at a stone on the pavement.
She counts numbers in her head to distract her. Two, three…six, seven…eight…I can't believe that she didn't even think about the project even a little bit last week. All the time I was obsessing about it…
Ten, eleven, twelve…
The weekend wasn't a total waste though…
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…
She did let me sleep in her bed…
Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…
But damnit, that was probably only because you practically forced her to.
Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one…
Get a grip.
Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four…
Haley let me sleep in her bed…because I made her…
Twenty-five, twenty six, twenty seven…
And that strip tease?
Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty…
What are you doing, Brooke?
Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three…
Count faster, damn it.
And in this manner, she proceeded home.
Lucas invites her to dinner again on Sunday, and she accepts because she thinks Haley might be there. That's what he always tells her anyway. "My mom wants to get to know you. 'Cause you're my girlfriend and all. And Haley might come too."
So far, Haley hasn't.
But Brooke keeps going.
On this particular night, Brooke goes to the café without a prayer of seeing Haley, goes out of habit, just because she's done this before.
But when she enters, there Haley is, a turkey sandwich and a ginger ale in front of her. Haley looks up quickly at Brooke and then looks down, just as quickly, and Brooke thinks she can see a bit of red in Haley's normally pale cheeks.
"Hi, Haley," Brooke says, as cheerfully as she can manage, what with the wad stuck in her throat.
"Hi, Brooke," Haley mumbles.
Brooke sits down and asks, "What are we having tonight?"
"Chili," replies Karen.
"Ooh, I hate chili; can I have a sandwich like Haley?"
Haley looks up and grins. "I hate chili, too."
Everyone sits down after a while and Haley and Brooke commence to eat their turkey sandwiches.
Lucas asks, "How's the project going?"
"Good, really good," Brooke says, at the same time as Haley says, "It's not really going that great."
Brooke considers glaring at her, but she doesn't.
"We don't have a concept yet," Haley continues. "I can't think of one and Brooke – " she pauses and looks accusingly at Brooke – "hasn't been thinking about it.
That wasn't true. Brooke had thought about it constantly, but she let it slide because she didn't want Haley to know that she had been thinking about it constantly.
"Let's not talk about this, okay," says Brooke, quickly veering from the subject of anything to do with her and Haley.
Lucas raises his eyebrow, but says, "Okay."
"So, Haley," says Karen, "How's school going? We haven't had a chance to talk; the café's been busy and you haven't been coming around that much."
"Yeah," says Haley, scratching her head. "Yeah, sorry 'bout that. School's fine. I mean, most of my classes are hard, but it's fine. I'm still really pissed off about the regular English thing, though."
She is?
"Lucas didn't tell me about that," Karen says.
"I didn't?"
"No, you didn't."
"Well, English is my favorite subject, as you know. I mean, Lucas and I have practically dominated all our English classes from the time we were in the first grade. And it wouldn't fit into my schedule this year; and they wouldn't change it. So I'm in regular English. With Brooke."
She sounds so…deflated when she says "Brooke".
"No offense."
Too late. It was taken.
Haley doesn't like her. At all. Not even as a friend. She digs her nails into her palms to keep herself from crying.