Spoilers: Everything up through Like You Like an Arsonist, the season premier.
Author's notes: This isn't my best writing, but it had to be done. Feedback is good, yes it is. Constructive criticism is also appreciated.
Disclaimer: The characters and events mentioned within do not belong to me.
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"Always and forever." Some might think it's cheesy or overly sappy or hell, out of character for him to say. But he'd said it and it'd been to her.
She replays that phrase in her head constantly. When she's scared to perform; when they're pressuring her to get rid of her ring; on a deathly silent tour bus at 3 in the morning.
She doubts she still deserves to, with leaving him like she did. She taught him about honesty and convinced him love was all enduring. And the second he believed her she left.
It's not about Chris; it's really not. But he won't believe that; no one will believe that.
Selfishly, Haley doesn't care. She pretends things are okay. In that world between consciousness and sleep, she pretends Nathan's with her. Pretends his eyes are sparkling at her, full of new, unknown emotions. Pretends it's that day, after the first time they said they loved each other, when he'd looked at her so innocently.
"I… I never knew it was real," he confessed later in his apartment. "My mom says it but she leaves and my dad says it but… but it's my dad. And you say it and it's… it's… it's you. It's real," he'd whispered into her hair.
She hadn't said anything, because he's taught her that words don't always help. She'd held him close and stroked his hair and kissed his cheek. And when he'd fallen asleep she'd told him she'd love him forever, she'd be real for him forever.
And she wasn't. But she still wants to be, even though he doesn't believe her anymore.
But she replays his promises to her in his head. Envisions the feel his arms brought her. Remembers the softness of his fingers as they'd whipped away her tears when her parents left. She'd taken care of him, in a sense, so many times when they'd first been together. It felt wondrous to be taken care of in return.
She should face the facts, she knows. The possibility that she may never be taken are of like that ever again. That she may never be promised always and forever again, because forever's nonexistent.
But she lies to herself, despite what her head tells her. Because as cheesy as it may be, her heart's still with his. And even if someone does say always and forever, as gentle and sincerely as he had, it won't be true. Because it won't be Nathan and it won't be the first time.
So even though she doesn't deserve to, she whispers it when she needs to. And weather that's sitting recording with Chris or standing in Nathan's bedroom, being turned away by her heart, she still says it.
And even though that might upset him, like it upsets her when he hears it, he doesn't say. Haley knows Nathan remembers, just like she does. And though he might not feel that way right now, forever's not over yet. And as long as that happens she allows herself to hope, no matter how cruel or egotistical it is, she doesn't let her head effect her feelings. Her heart overrules all kind of sense and reality and still insists that Nathan's hers, always and forever.