Title: Against the Tide
Author: Finn21
Rated: 3
Genre: Angst/Drama
Summary: Post S2. Haley and Nathan have a conversation at school after the summer she returned has just ended.
A/N: I was in a dark mood when I wrote this so beware. I'm thinking about doing a follow up/companion piece if anyone's interested. Otherwise take this for what it is.
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Sometimes you wonder if this fight is worthwhile
The precious moments are all lost in the tide
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Fuck school, Nathan thinks.
Fuck school, and life, and everything else that seems to be getting in his way lately. It's all a bunch of indestructible obstacles that want to jump in his line of vision and make him veer off the known the path.
Yeah, that's right. He had a path. A year ago. Before his idiot of a half brother decided to join the basketball team. Before his father pushed him to make Lucas leave. Before he decided to….before he met Haley. Before she left him and his existence turned into a numbing black void that just wouldn't end.
Before all of that, he had a plan. Had being the operative word, of course.
But it was a good plan, a solid, dependable plan. Something he could rely on. Something stable. It was rather simple really. Graduate high school, play college ball, get drafted to the NBA, make millions of dollars and never, ever return to Tree Hill again.
See, simple. No confusion, no obstacles, nothing.
And then she came along with her tutoring and her big brown eyes and pretty smile and tore his heart away.
The pain never stopped. Never lessened, never ceased. He thought he was permanently damaged in the way only really nice china could be scratched, making it impossible to return to the department store. Non-refundable garbage. The kind you hide in the attic, because too much was spent on it to just throw it away. That's him. That's the entire Scott family. Irreplaceable and broken.
He's used to the dull ache by now though. It's lived inside him so long he'd feel lost without it. Pain, hurt, those are things too hold onto. Reasons to push forward. Or at least that's what all the great writer's wax poetic about in their grand love stories. And Nathan doesn't believe in love stories, not the kind with happy endings anyway.
Because those don't exist.
It's lunch time at school when he sees her walking down the hall towards him. They've passed each other everyday for a week, but he's managed to elude her so far. Today she looks determined, unrelenting.
He's half way out the door to the quad when he feels her grip his hand in the hallway and pull him into a darkened classroom. She's giving him that look of hers, the one where she wants him to say something, but is too afraid to just come out and admit it. So he stays silent, staring at the green and yellow speckled tile on the floor beneath his feet.
"Are you going to keep ignoring me," she breathes out a few minutes later, her bottom lip pulled tightly between her teeth, her eyes worried.
Nathan flicks his tongue into the side of his cheek and sighs. "I'm not ignoring you. I'm avoiding you. There's a difference."
She flinches at his cold demeanor, and he gets a kind of deep-rooted satisfaction out of the fact that he can still inflict pain on the second person in his life who has crippled him emotionally in so many ways.
"Fine. Are you ever going to stop avoiding me, then," she places her hands firmly on her hips, showing off her indignation. But it's as if a second later she realizes this isn't one of their normal, everyday spats, and lets her arms fall loose at her sides. Guilty.
Nathan watches this change in her attitude, but doesn't respond. Just stares back at her blankly. Numb. Always numb. "Hadn't planned on it, no," he shrugs, his eyes darting around the room.
She stares back at him and blows out a long, exhausting breath at his answer. Which only further irritates him. Where does she get off acting out the annoyed victim here? He wasn't the one who left. He wasn't the one who chose some insta-dream over them.
"I don't know what you want me to say Nathan," she gazes out over his shoulder and then glances toward the ground. "I've apologized a million times. I've tried to make things better. I don't know what else you want me to do. Just tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it."
"I want you to leave me alone," he says, his voice coated in steel, his eyes dark and far off. It's a half-truth. But most of his life has been built on half-truths and betrayals so he's used to them. They're familiar to him, even when that anguished look on her face isn't.
"I'm not going to do that," she replies and her face is solemn. Resolute. "We need to fix things between us."
"There's nothing to fix. You left. I stayed. We aren't together anymore. End of story," he shrugs his shoulders again, as if all of this meant nothing to him.
"I came back Nathan."
"I see that," he nods and heads for the door. "Now I'm leaving."
She moves to stand in front of it.
"Do you really think things will ever get better between us if we don't at least try to fix them?"
"I know they won't," he barks at her, searching to find a way to get through the door without touching her. "Get out of my way."
She gives him an almost pleading look. "We have to try, Nathan. Please."
Please.
It's like a knife on fire through his heart the way the word slips from her lips. He pushes it down. Stamps it out until it's nothing but charred ash.
"No. You need to move," he says, his voice on edge. His body rigid. "And tell me exactly what you mean by this "we" bullshit? Is that the collective 'we' of which you're speaking..."
"Nathan..."
"...or perhaps the separated husband and wife 'we'? Maybe it's the universal 'we' as in: We are all apart of the same mortal coil?"
"Nathan, stop," she places her hand lightly on his forearm and he flinches, pulling back sharply.
"Don't," he warns her, and tries to side step her to get through the door. But she uses her tiny body to block it. God, he forgot how tiny she was.
"Just listen to me for five seconds, okay? Can't you stand to be near me for just five seconds?"
He doesn't know how to respond to her question, to her desperate eyes. He can't let her in again. He won't. In the end he'll only lose more of himself than has already been destroyed. Much more, and he won't exist. So he says nothing, just glances out the windows of the dark classroom and waits for her to let him pass.
She lingers a long moment before she does anything, her breathes deep and heavy in the quiet space between them. When she finally takes a step to the side, he sees her wrap her arms protectively around her body.
"You can't hate me forever, you know," she says as he walks through the door.
He pauses, but doesn't turn to look at her. "I don't hate you, Haley. I don't feel much of anything for you."
As he walks out into the hall she cups her face in her hands and lets out a little sob. He doesn't have the heart to tell her he lied.