Author's Note: Dropping the next update off. You guys have been lovely with the feedback so thank you as always.

Chapter 8

I'm Locked In And Shut Out, Always In Between

It's late after school on Wednesday but Haley has nowhere to be. So she sits and cuts negatives in the darkroom.

She looks over at some of the pictures she developed earlier and smiles. Most of her more professional work was sent off in her portfolio to the Arts department at NYU, along with her application. What's left with her is a few pictures of the beach, kids playing in the park, an elderly lady feeding some birds, and then Nathan. She's got lots of Nathan.

There's something graceful about how his body looks, whether he's still or in motion. A picture of him playing basketball in her back yard, watching television, taking a nap on her couch all lay in a scattered pile on top of her other newly developed photos. Pictures of his hands, strong and beautiful, the side of his face, a close up of his eyes, the dark shadow of his tall body against a light open doorway hang to dry in the deep red light of the room.

Outside the halls are quiet and Haley knows it's because it's the end of the year. Sports, clubs, student council, they're all over with now. The only people left are teachers and those studying for their finals in the library. Haley wonders if she should be sad about graduating, leaving the school that was her surrogate home for the better part of four years.

I'll figure out my future, then I'll be nostalgic, she thinks, and cuts another roll.

The door to the darkroom clicks open and someone slips inside. Haley takes a moment to put down her roll of pictures before she can turn around, but by then its too late. Nathan's lips are on the back of her neck, his breath hot against her skin.

Suddenly Haley can't feel her legs anymore because they've turned jelly underneath her. She doesn't care. She leans back into his body, and his arms encircle her waist. She feels safe in his embrace.

Nathan can't stay in one place for too long, and as he trails soft sensual kisses up her neck to her jaw, Haley turns her head to meet his lips with her own, and that's when he lifts her off the working stool and sits down on it himself, placing Haley on his lap. Their kisses become heated and fierce. Haley can feel her face flush pink as Nathan's hands stray up the back of her shirt and she notices his touch is gentle anymore. It's desperate and wanting, and Haley pulls back from the kiss and his hands before they can crawl up her back any further.

Nathan's face looks falsely relaxed and he smiles at her lazily.

Haley wriggles out of his arms and feels the solid relief of concrete as it hits her feet. "You know you're supposed to knock before you come into a dark room?"

He puffs out a strangled laugh and crosses his arms over his chest. He watches as she picks up the roll she dropped the second his lips touched her flesh. She begins busying herself with other negatives.

"I think you're the only other person in this school this late in the day."

"Yeah? And whose the other person?"

"Me," Nathan smiles and Haley can't help but laugh. Throughout her life she's never seen anyone as dedicated to one goal as Nathan is to basketball. She knows part of that comes from his father's constant pushing, and part of it comes from his own need to be the best, better than anyone else. He rarely talks about basketball with her, but on the few occasions that he has, she's always taken the conversation seriously. But after his little foray up her shirt she's not going to let an opportunity to tease go by either.

"At least I'm being productive with my time. You're just being obsessive and compulsive."

Nathan gives her a shocked expression, but cracks a smile. "Oh really? And see all this time I just thought I was driven."

"Driven by obsession maybe," Haley counters and then he does laugh.

He gets up off the stool and walks around the room surveying the space and the empty tables. He notices Haley's pictures of him hanging up and he smirks down at her, even though he's happy to see them there. Haley knows he enjoys seeing the pictures as well, and takes no offense at his cockiness, instead simply rolls her eyes and continues with her negatives.

"You know I've gone to this school for four years, and I didn't know this room existed until a couple of months ago."

"Yeah, you and 95 of our school's population. But that's a good thing. I would hate it if random people just started coming in here and—

"—having sex," Nathan supplies.

"Or making out, was what I was gonna say," Haley adds and turns away to put the pictures slices she was working on back into their box. She can't look at Nathan when he gets so overly sexual with her. It makes her nervous and tongue-tied.

"Oh, come on! This room was built in the corner of a hallway--in a hallway nobody really comes down. It was hidden for a purpose Haley. It's way too kinky not to be taken full advantage of," he slides up behind her and runs his hand down her arm until his fingers are strumming the inside of her palm delicately. It's extremely innocent and intimate at the same time and Haley can't read what Nathan wants from her by this action.

"No," she blurts out and untangles her hand from his.

"No, what," he asks slightly confused.

Haley turns around to face him, sternly. "You're giving me that look, and I'm just telling you no, right now. No--I'm not having sex with you in the dark room of our high school."

Her words are more harsh than she intended them to be and she can see that Nathan is taken aback by it. He shows no signs of hurt however, his eyes stare down at hers and he looks frustratingly indifferent.

"As opposed to the "no" sex we're having everywhere else," he throws back in her face, and even though he appears calm, his word are defensive. Haley feels as is she's been slapped in the face.

"Don't start this Nathan."

"Start what? You brought it up. I'm just restating the obvious," again another slap, and Haley can practically see all the easiness between them seep out of the room like a cloud of smoke under the door. She hates when they fight like this.

"Do you want me to feel guilty? Because I already do, and I shouldn't Nathan. I'm not even the one attached to someone else."

It doesn't matter how she says it, or even what she says, but every time she brings up Brooke it always manages to feel like a knife threw his heart. It terrifies him that her feelings are beginning to matter this much to him. He wonders when that happened, if it was gradual, or at all at once. All memory of it escapes him in this moment. His fists clench and his pulse races.

"Come on Haley! The Brooke thing again? I don't want to go over it," he says, his voice loud and commanding.

"Neither do I. So, hey, we agree on that," Haley counters bitterly and throws the rest of her photos in her book. She grabs her bag off the ground and starts putting stuff in it, pacing back and forth.

"Will you stop moving around," Nathan tries to catch her attention. "I have something to tell you."

"Does it involve Brooke," she spits at him and at first he wants to be angry with her for being so stubborn. But he can't seem to completely get there. For no matter how much she may annoy him, he knows she's only acting this way out of jealousy, and he finds it sexy sometimes. Sometimes when he's not trying to have an important conversation with her.

"Nice," he says sarcastically and nods. "Be pissed at me if you want, but I still have to tell you this."

He's blocking the doorway now and Haley could squeeze by him if she really tried, but he looks down at her with those eyes of his, his forehead wrinkled and worried and she can see it's important.

"Fine. Speak."

Nathan shoves his hands into his pockets and sucks in a deep breath. He looks almost.....nervous? But that can't be. Maybe it's more uncomformableness. Haley isn't sure.

"I got my letter last week."

Haley assumes he means from one of the schools he applied to back in the fall with her, when they were trying to decide where they wanted to go. Haley's first choice had been NYU, without a doubt. Instate school's seemed nice, and were in all cases more affordable than the rest, but the chance to apply to somewhere as prestigious as NYU, where she could go and really learn about photography, well she wasn't able to pass that up. It had been months now and she hadn't heard a single word, and if she were to be completely honest with herself, she knew she wouldn't be able to afford it, even if she was accepted. Nathan on the other hand could afford any school in the country. So even though he told her his father would never let him go somewhere as far away as Brown to play basketball, Haley had forced him to apply anyway. She'd known he'd been accepted to Duke as soon as he'd applied, every school in North Carolina had heard of him by reputation, so he had his choice. Out of state school's were another world completely, and after the first few acceptances, none of which were from Brown, Nathan just stopped telling her. Haley sees even now, that the weight of waiting is waning on him.

"The...the one from California," she asks with trepidation.

Nathan winces at the thought of Brown. He didn't even want to apply. He knew his father would rather see him go straight into the Pro's than watch him go all the way across the country. It doesn't matter now though. He got into Penn and that's where he's going. That's where his father wants him to go.

"No," he answers and his eyes refocus on the floor rather than her face. He feels all of sudden rather cramped in this room, and he nods for Haley to follow him outside. Haley does, and waits for him to continue when Mrs. Sheldon appears from around the corner, her facial expression a mix of surprise and concern.

"Well I didn't know you were interested in photography Mr. Scott," she covers her reaction with a cheery voice, her pink lipstick lips jutting out into a plastic smile.

"I'm not ....I was just....," Nathan says blandly, and Haley can see that he's searching for an excuse.

"He was just asking me to look over his History paper. We're in the same class," Haley finishes for him and he nods with her in agreeance.

Mrs. Sheldon looks them over skeptically. "I see."

"I'll get the paper back to you tomorrow."

"Uh thanks. I'll see you in class," he says, even though he really wants to tell her to wait around for him. Mrs. Sheldon is staring at him intently, and he feels like he's under surveillance, better not to let out their secret this close to graduation.

"Sure. Bye Nathan," Haley replies awkwardly, and Nathan can't help but give her that closed mouth smile of his and run his hand over her shoulder before he departs down the hall. It's quiet between the two women until he's out of sight.

"......I should probably be getting home too, homework and dinner and all of that..."Haley laughs weakly and starts to walk away.

"Haley,"Mrs. Sheldon calls out, and she pauses. "Would you stop by my office after your last class on Friday? I think it's important we talk."

Haley feels a huge lump form in her throat at her counselors words. "Of course," she manages to get out, before Mrs. Sheldon finally leaves.

Haley wonders how she always gets herself into these situations.

............

The worst part about getting caught by Mrs. Smiles was that he didn't get to tell Haley the one thing he came in the dark room to tell her. He planned on calling her that night to talk about it, but then Brooke came over. Again. She's been around a lot lately, and Nathan knows it's because either she suspects something or because she knows school's ending soon and she's scared. He doesn't know what exactly someone like Brooke would be scared of, and he really hasn't taken that much interest to ask, but he can see it in the way she's suction cupped herself to his ass for the last few weeks.

Even when she calls and asks to see him after school that day, and he tells her that he's hanging out with Tim before the Honor's Basketball Ceremony, she still asks, and he relents. He doesn't want to waste the energy arguing with her.

When she comes over she has Jake with her, and they sit on the couch and talk as he and Tim play video games in the family room.

"Dude you have to guard on the left.... Defense!..... ...Push the red button......... Don't block my guy," Nathan groans as Tim fumbles with the control in his hand.

"I'm not blocking your guy. You're blocking my guy," Tim pushes down hard on the control, but Nathan still manages to get his player to make a basket on screen.

He laughs. "Whatever man, you suck at this game."

"Only because you cheat," Tim says in a way that is only his, and Nathan looks at him annoyed.

"The Hell I do!"

"Would you two keep it down," Brooke shouts over all of them, finger nail file in hand, eyes wide and irritated and zeroed in on Tim. "Jesus, I can't even hear myself talk."

"And that would be a good thing," Tim snaps back and snickers

Brooke gives him a death glare and then looks to Nathan who is also chuckling at the comment. "Nathan!"

"Huh?" Noticing Brooke's unhappy face, he straightens up and gives Tim a smack on the head.

Brooke drops her finger nail file on the couch, done with it. "Enough with the stupid video games. It's time to talk about more important things. Like Prom."

Even Jake looks uneasy at this new conversation topic, but Tim is quick to interject. "Only you would think talking about Prom was important."

"Oh, don't be bitter Tim," Brooke leans down and squeezes Tim's cheek like a baby."I'm sure we can find you a good Nathan-look-alike to go as your date, since we all know the female population has turned you down."

Tim starts to call her the 'Bitch' they all know she is, but heeds at Nathan's looking of warning. Jake, always the peacemaker, tries to bring the conversation back to more even ground.

"So I hear this year's theme is 'Under the Moon', or 'Over the Moon' or something like that. Whatever that means anyway. I don't understand why student council thinks Prom and Moon go together."

"That's because there's no covering for the fact that our highschool is tacky, but I still want to go. I'm thinking me in a crimson red strapless dress, and you," she points to Nathan, her lips curving up into a seductive smile, "in a black tux with a crimson red shirt and black tie."

The thought of wearing a tuxedo in general makes Nathan want to pass on the whole event. But matching with his date? Well that's just fucking cheesy. He could care less about the whole night actually.

"I don't know Brooke."

"Oh come on Nate, red and black on you? You'll look hot," Brooke says.

"You'll like Satan," Tim snorts and Brooke rolls her eyes at him as if he's pathetic.

"No, he'll look hot. You'll look hot baby," Brooke gets up off the couch and comes up behind him where he's sitting on the floor. She wraps her arms around his neck and nuzzles the side of his face.

"I'll think about it ok," he lies and breathes easier once she's back sitting on the couch again.

"Hey Nate, we should probably get ready to go. Coach told us to be at the gym a half and hour early," Jake adds a minute later.

"Yeah," Nathan nods, and everybody else gets up. Tim and Jake follow him and Brooke outside.

Before Brooke gets into her car she follows Nathan to his, grabbing him by the hand and stopping him. She leans up and plants a quick kiss on his lips. "Meet me after the ceremony ok?"

Nathan thinks he nods, because she smiles before she leaves. He shoves the key in the ignition and drives. He can't get away fast enough.