Chapter Three- Better Days

Peyton got out of her car. She needed a break from the big city for a while. She whiffed the North Carolina air, it was nothing like city air, that's for sure. She walked up to her old house where her dad currently resided, carrying a leather bag. She knocked on the door. Soon a man answered.

"Daddy!" she threw her arms around him.

"Peyton! I haven't seen you in ages, how are you."

"I'm getting better, I have a present for you in my car."

"Oh, you shouldn't have."

"Yes, I did, you stuck by me always."

"It's my job."

"Even if it wasn't, you would have."

"Good point."

"It's kind of big if you want to go get it its in the back seat."

"Sure, go put your bag away."

"Okay." Larry Sawyer walked past his blonde daughter to her car as she walked inside the house. She walked through the hallway to her room, the coolest room in the whole house. It was just the way she left it. Her dad was never big on redecorating.

She sat down on her bed and looked upon her walls at all her old high school drawings that would be worth quite a lot of money now, but her dad didn't sell them and she couldn't understand why. They would pay the rent and he could retire and stay at home. She took out some of her more recent works and put them upon the walls, things she could never sell at an auction, they weren't good enough, but plenty good to hang on her wall.

She walked around the town. It was the same. Did anything in Tree Hill change. Probably not. She walked into Karen's Café. To her surprise a young man was working, he had warm chocolate hair and was well built. He looked at her when she walked in, she could recognize that face anywhere. She had loved him since she first laid eyes on him. He was so sweet and caring and sensitive. He was also the one who sent her away because she needed help she couldn't get in Tree Hill. She knew that as well as he did, but she didn't want to leave. She couldn't, she needed him. In her time of need he pushed her away. She resented him for that, but now, she wasn't high all the time and could think things clearly, he had did that looking out what's best for her. She owed her life to him. He saved her. She smiled at him.

"Hey."

He looked into her eyes. She got scared, maybe he was seeing if she was on something.

"I'm past that. I went to New York, I got help, I haven't done that in years."

He was still looking at her, maybe he didn't believe her.

"I swear, I got my life in order. No more coke, no more, I'm not that person."

He smiled, maybe he did believe her. She hoped he did.

"That's good."

She smiled, he did believe her, or it seemed to be.

"So how have you been?"

"Ah, there've been better days."

"Me too."

He smiled at her. His smile always melted her heart. He was indeed the man of her dreams.

"So what have you been up to on your better days?"

"Ah, painting mostly."

"I knew you'd become an artist, you always had it in you."

"And what about you?"

"I work here mostly, sometimes at TRIC."

"That place is still open?"

"Surprisingly."

Her prodigy. Her underage club, it was still in circulation. All the hours she spent there, the stress, where she started her bad habit that made him push her away. The ghosts probably still hung out there.

"I bet it's had better days."

"Yea, who's running it now?"

She really didn't want to know, some punky teenage girl with braces and glasses with black fingernails hiring local bumpkins to play.

"I believe the name's Xenoi."

"Xenoi?"

"Yea, it means strange or foreign, she's told me."

"In what language?"

"Greek, according to her."

"Okay, if she says so, what's she like."

"Her name."

Peyton laughed. The first time in years, an actual laugh. He could always do that. She took a seat on the counter. He got a look on his face that people eat on there, but she just smiled and he let her go.

"Seriously."

"Well, she's sixteen, she has jet black hair, except for vibrant green highlights, or chunks of hair, maybe her hair is vibrant green with black highlights. I don't know. She's a bit off the end. She miscalculates and doesn't care, hires two groups to play at the same time. Lets underage kids drink, not that we didn't, but she doesn't care. She wears black shirts, with some message on them, never the same shirt twice. Like last night her shirt said 'You die only once, however your spirit lives forever, keep it healthy.' Whatever that means. The other day it said 'You eat cows, pigs and chickens, what happens when they come and eat you.' I think she's a bit loopy."

"Do you think I- never mind."

She hesitated, she wanted to put that Xenoi in her place. She wanted just one night as manager again. It would be the best night at TRIC since her last night there.

"What do you want to do."

"Manage for just one night."

"Ask Karen, she loves you, I never told her why you left, she doesn't know. I'm sure she would, she feels the same about this Xenoi as I do, but she's the only one who will do it for more than one night."

"I will."


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