Author's Note: Sorry this update took so long, but I've been stuck with a stupid flu bug that's going around, and have felt pretty crappy all week. Thank you for being so patient, much hugs.
Chapter 7
Part 1
You Always Make Yourself The Victim
Haley gets home from school and finds her mother stumbling around the kitchen in her grungy black robe. The one she wears when she's hung over.
"Where's the aspirin," Haley's mother barks at her the second she enters the back the door.
"In the medicine cabinet in the upstairs bathroom," Haley supplies quickly.
Her mother lets out an aggravated sigh and slumps down into one of the kitchen chairs. She holds a drink in her hand and sips at it gingerly, furtively. Haley can't be sure if its water that's in the glass or vodka. She would bet good money on the latter.
"Go up and get me some would you," her mother asks her with a sickly sweet allure.
Her mother's always nice when she wants something. Haley wants to point this out but doesn't. She can't help but oblige. For all her mother's faults, she feels compelled to do as asked. Her mother can be an awful terror, but whenever she smiles, flips on that tender charm, Haley knows she'll end up doing whatever is asked of her.
"Ok," Haley responds weakly and treads up the stairs to the bathroom.
Her face immediately falls however, when she opens the bottle of aspirin to find it completely empty. She'd made repeated forays to her father about picking up more when he went to the store, but as usual her requests fell on deaf ears. Nobody ever listens.
"We don't have any," she tells her mother when she comes back down into the kitchen. She says it apologetically, even though it wasn't her fault. Her mother grimaces and rubs at the temples on the sides of her head. She takes another sip from her glass.
"Why not?"
Haley bites her bottom lip, finds herself involuntary beginning to pickup dirty dishes that her mother has left scattered about. She hasn't gone to work today. She didn't go yesterday either. Haley starts to wonder if her mother still has a job to go back to.
Things didn't used to be so bad. Her mother used to smile, used to have gorgeous brown eyes, instead of dark concaved holes that wither around the edges. They used to be happy.
They used to...
Haley doesn't want to think about the past. Not when it concerns her family, or her mother.
"Why don't we have any aspirin Haley," her mother repeats, and this time her voice is laced with venom, her hair falls in front of her face, and casts shadows over her already dark eyes. This isn't the first time Haley's been afraid of her mother. It always creeps up on her.
"I uh think Dad forgot to pick some up when he went shopping last week," she mutters, and piles plates into the sink, turns on the faucet to rinse them.
Her mother seems irritated by the noise and grumbles. "And why didn't you pick any up?"
"I didn't have time," Haley replies, and it's the truth. In between school, homework, the yearbook, scholarship applications, studying for finals, trying to choose a college, and figure out her future, there hasn't been time for anything else. This, of course, doesn't matter to her mother and its evident on her face in how she scowls. Her mother always seems so mad at her these days. Haley wonders what she did wrong.
"Well you have time now, so go get some," her mother orders and gulps back the final bit of her drink. Haley glances at the remaining dirty dishes in the sink-- to her back pack full of AP homework and the last pieces that need to be finished for the Yearbook. She squeezes her eyes shut and takes in a deep breath, lets it out slowly.
"Do you want the regular kind or extra strength," Haley asks, and grabs her wallet from her back pack.
"Extra strength," her mother mumbles tritely and then heads back up stairs to her bedroom to try to sleep.
Haley doesn't know why she even bothers to ask anymore.
…….
On her way to the store Haley avoids the central roads and cuts through the neighboring subdivisions. She takes mental pictures as she walks. The temperature is cool for an afternoon in May, but its nice. The sky is strikingly bright blue, and the clouds look pearly white and fluffy. The sun cascades through the tree branches and filters light onto everything below. It makes the street look mysterious and inviting. Haley notices a young boy and girl in a yard nearby. The little girl sits in a tire swing as the boy pushes her back and forth. They're smiling, laughing, having fun. Haley wishes she could take a picture of that feeling.
…….
Two weeks after Christmas vacation had ended and to everyone, Haley included, it already felt like they'd never left at all. The class schedule for the new semester had come into effect upon the students return, and Haley found that listening to her counselor Mrs. Carlsen wasn't such a grand idea after all. Sure switching Trig from first period to last to give her extra study time in between classes sounded like a good idea in the moment, but that now left her to suffer in Mr. Shaw's first period Geography with non other than Nathan Scott and his band of miscreants.
She tried to switch her schedule back the second she walked in and saw Nathan lounging over three separate desks, arms spread wide, legs propped up like he owned the room. She saw him and knew she didn't want to have anything to do with him. At least that's what she tried to tell herself.
The first month had been hard. Harder than she'd expected seeing as she'd never really gotten to know Nathan. It didn't matter though. In the time that they had spent together she felt like they'd made some kind of connection. At the Fair that night, and again at the Rivercourt.
At first she tried to tell herself that she was crazy for feeling upset about his actions, that she was overreaching simply because she found him just a little bit attractive. But no matter how much she tried to ignore the physical, she found it still hurt at night before she went to sleep, when she thought about how he seemed to really open up with her, even if it was only for a few precious moments.
It all felt like a huge lie now. The charming smiles, and stupid conversations, it hadn't meant anything to him, he was just playing around with her, seeing if he could.....well she still wasn't sure what he'd wanted from her exactly. After the day he'd dropped her off at home, and promised to see her at school on Monday, nothing had happened. She wasn't stupid enough to think that he'd approached her to make a new friend. Nathan had enough of those. But he hadn't tried get in her pants either. Which left her more perplexed, and confused. What did Nathan want? Why had he made a false promise to her, if he didn't want anything to begin with? There were more questions than answers, and Haley didn't want to think about any of it.
She just wanted the pain she felt every time she looked at Nathan to go away. She wanted to erase Nathan from her mind. Go back to concentrating on school, and Yearbook, and the things that really mattered. More than anything she didn't want to have to spend an entire semester in class with him every Monday through Friday. She pleaded and made excuse after excuse to Mrs. Carlsen about how she just couldn't stay in Geography with Mr. Shaw, but first period Trig was filled.
End of story.
So Haley found herself, two weeks into the semester, sitting in her assigned seat, three desks behind Nathan's, and cringing every time she heard him and his idiot friends ramble on about their crazy party stories and who got laid by whom, and who was having what party this weekend. It was disgusting.
She tried to tune out their voices and focus on her study guide, but after three days of Tim Smith trying to pry information out of Nathan about his supposed "night" with Brooke Davis, Haley didn't think she could handle anymore. She felt her tolerance level thinning by the minute. And seeing as how Tim had started in, the moment they'd walked into class that day, Haley figured Nathan was either going to finally give it up or she was going to pop a blood vessel. Either option seemed more appealing than listening to Tim's whining.
Mr. Shaw stood at the front of class and cleared his throat to get everyone's attention again. "Quiet down guys. Now when you're done with you're quizzes today, I'd like you to please leave them up on my desk," Mr. Shaw announced to the class as he was handing out a paper to each student.
Haley went to work the second the paper her hit her page. She went through each multiple choice question and canceled out the immediate wrong answers. She found that the process of elimination took her longer to finish quizzes, but nine times out ten, secured her a better grade than if she just went directly for what she thought was the right answer. She wasn't surprised when thirty minutes into class, almost everyone was finished with the quiz except for her.
Nathan and Tim had finished their quizzes 15 minutes into class and were now talking to each other with no regard to anyone else around them. Haley scrunched her head down and tried to lean into one of her arms to block out the noise. It wasn't helping.
"....and Rachel told me she saw Brooke's car in your driveway last night. So she came over right," Tim questioned, his arms folded in front of him as he leaned forward.
Nathan rolled his eyes. "Maybe."
"Maybe as in 'yes'," Tim smiled and Nathan turned away.
"Maybe as in step off it already man," Nathan grumbled and Haley could tell he was getting annoyed. It made her the smallest amount of happy that he was refusing to say anything to Tim.
"Alright Nate. You tell me where you got that hickey, and I promise to leave you alone. Cross my heart," Tim joked sarcastically, pointing to a newly red splotch on Nathan's neck.
Nathan shoved his hand away and Tim laughed. Haley shuddered.
Happiness gone.
She forced her eyes back on her paper and away from Nathan and Tim's smiling faces. She checked over her answers once, twice and then again for good measure. She felt her throat tighten as she stood to take her quiz up to the front of the class. Her body tensed when she hit Nathan's ankle.
"Excuse me," she said, when she came up against his leg blocking the isle.
"You're excused," he said, keeping his eyes cast away from hers. He didn't move his feet and Haley could feel her blood begin to boil. She glanced down and saw an open bottle of blue gatoraide stupidly sitting on the corner of desk. When she turned to step over his leg she let her arm whip out and collide with the bottle.
The second the blue liquid fell onto Nathan's white shirt and jeans he jumped up from his desk. All eyes were on him as he cursed and tried to wipe the wetness away. Snickers and cracks could be heard around the room. Haley simply smirked and shrugged.
"Oops, my bad,'" she smiled at him innocently and traveled the rest of the way up to Mr. Shaw's desk. The bell rang a few moments later and the rest of the students piled out of the classroom.
Haley went back to her desk to fetch her bag . As she tried to leave, she found Nathan standing in front of her, blocking her way. He was tall, so tall when he stood right in front of her. Haley thought if he wrapped his arms around her, she could get lost in his grasp.
She looked up at him and he met her gaze.
They stared back at each other in silence, testing one another. Waiting for the other to speak.
"You're in my way," Haley said, her eyes intent.
He smirked down at her but didn't move. "Then go around me."
He was blocking the entire isle with his body, and to get to her back pack she would have to squeeze through the desk beside her to get into the next isle. She wouldn't cower down to him. He was doing this to get a rise out of her and she wasn't going to take the bait.
"I can't," she countered, her voice stronger than she'd given herself credit for.
Nathan seemed to have conflicting emotions about her reaction. He looked amused but also angry. The blue stain on his shirt was all across the front and he glanced down at it with annoyance.
"Sure you can," he said as if she were some incompetent child.
"No, I can't. You're in my way."
"Well maybe if you didn't go around ruining people's shirts, they'd be more willing to do what you asked," his eyes bore down into hers and the entire room went silent. Haley wanted to pour her heart out to him. She wanted to tell him what a complete jerk he was.. But what was the point? People like Nathan didn't care. Not about her anyway.
"I just want to get my back pack," she mumbled. When he still didn't budge she blurted out," Move."
"But you didn't say the magic word," his voice was serious, his face was still. Haley didn't understand why he felt the need to taunt her. Granted, it wasn't the most mature thing in the world for her to exact petty revenge on him through sports beverages, but she hurt because of him. How he couldn't see that, was beyond her.
"Move," she said again, and he just stared down at her. "Move," she repeated for the third time, her voice loud, her hands trembling under the gaze of his sea blue eyes. She wanted to know what was behind them, what sadness he was caring with him, what passions, what drive. She wanted to know him.
"Nathan...,"she cried out and that broke him out of his stare. Brought him back to reality and how close they were.
She could see him go to say something else but didn't. She refused to back down. She wouldn't let Nathan swallow her up like so many others. She was just as good as him. She was just as worthy as him. And in that moment, blue eyes staring intently down into brown, Haley thought that Nathan really saw it.
"Nate come on," they heard a voice yell from out in the hall.
No words were spoken when he finally turned away.
He was too lost, and she was still too hurt.
