"I thought you didn't have practice today" Karen commented as her son came through the door. Lucas looked up to find his mom sitting at the kitchen table.

"I didn't, but last time I checked I wasn't grounded…so I didn't have to come straight home after school." Lucas looked at his mom quizzically.

"True, but you said you would be home right after so you could help me clean out the garage." Lucas bit his lip remembering his promise from that morning.

"I'm sorry mom. I drove Peyton home 'cause she wasn't feeling too well, and then I had to walk back here. I can do it now if you still need help."

"No it's fine. Keith came over and helped." Karen laughed lightly. "We used to talk to each other so easily Luke, what happened." A sad expression crossed Karen's face. Lucas walked over tot eh table and sat in the chair closest to his mom. He placed his hand over hers.

"We still talk mom. I know it hasn't been like it used to lately, but hopefully that'll change soon. What do you want to know?" Karen looked up at her son.

"I don't want to impose on your life Luke" Karen dropped her head slowly.

"Mom it's alright. What do you wanna know? Whatever you want." Lucas stared at his mom. He felt guilty because he knew he and his mom had grown apart lately.

"Anything?" Karen asked, her head still hung.

"Yup" Lucas replied hoping to reconcile there fading relationship.

"Well there is one thing I've been wondering…" She let the statement hang.

"What?" Lucas watched his mother pick up her head and tilt it slightly.

"Exactly what…is up with…you and Peyton?" A devious smile spread across Karen's face as Lucas pulled his hand away and fell back into his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I should have known" Lucas smile and rolled his eyes as he brought his hands up to his head.

"Well…"

"Well…" Lucas was now wearing his own sly smile. "Since you couldn't just come out and ask me…I think I'll let you think about it while I sit back and watch." Lucas got up and walked to his room. He turned around as his mom started to speak again.

"Luke…I suggest you hire someone to test your food for the next week or so." Her smile returned as she arched her brows and glared at her son.

"I love you too mom" was his only response as he retreated into his room, closing the door soundly behind him. Normally he didn't have a problem taking to his about what was going on in his life, but Peyton, she was a different story. Talking about only made him feel sick, and to be honest he really didn't know what was going on. She was a mess as for as he could see. She had already dug herself into a hole when he first met her, and she only seemed to be digging herself deeper. Lucas wanted to help her but she wouldn't let him. The more he thought about his "relationship" with Peyton, the more he became ready to give it all up.

That night Peyton stirred slightly before opening her eyes to the roaring thunder outside. She blinked as the brilliant flash of light illuminated the night sky. As she sat in bed thinking she realized how much she was like the event playing outside her window. The scene was gorgeous. It looked like something you just want to be apart of. The beauty of it all could just capture every fiber of your body. But it was also extremely dangerous. It could tear things apart and destroy what people hold dear. The glorious storm, which Peyton stored inside her, caused pain and resentment. It bewildered some, attracted other, but always seemed to frighten most.

Peyton felt the beads of sweat slide down her flustered face. She could feel her cheeks burning as if they were on fire. The thunder that boomed outside made her heart jump. Her eyes scanned everything around her, and the more she watched things the more distorted they became.

She threw herself out of bed and hurried to her bathroom. She stooped short of the door as the lighting struck somewhere far off, providing her with light to see the ghostly figure standing in front of her full length mirror. She turned and stared at herself. Her body looked emaciated. She had started dropping the weight when Ricky got her into the drugs. But over the last week she had only lost more. She lifted her shirt slightly and stared at her protruding ribs. She turned and wandered into the bathroom. Using the small amount of light providing by the storm she made her way to the scale and stepped on. She waited impatiently for her weight to appear and quickly stepped off in disbelief as it did. 87 pounds. She was almost 5'9 and knew that she should at least weigh 110. Peyton didn't even think that it was possible for her body to become so frail, but there it was right in front of her.

She shuddered as the red numbers faded, leaving her in ebony shadows. Peyton looked in her bathroom mirror and examine herself. Her face was thin and tired. He eyes bloodshot, making the weariness apparent. The only things that remained hidden were the various bruises that were hidden behind her still applied make-up.

She looked at her self in the mirror, her pain seemingly transparent as her mind opened to her hidden thoughts. Everything seemed to flash before her eyes. Her mother's death and the anger and betrayal and guilt it bestowed upon her at such a young age. The torment she watched her father go through as he dealt with the loss. The treatment she endured from Nathan, and the beauty Haley had brought out in him. The things that Brooke had done for her, and way that she repaid for it. The look on her former best friends face in the mall, when she clarified that Lucas only wanted to be friends. The look she received when Brooke confronted her about the deceitful things she had done. The absence of her father, even he didn't want to be around her. She never wanted him to leave, but yet he always did, no matter how obvious the hurt was on her face. Then there was the rejection she dealt to Lucas. He had always been around when she needed him and he always respected her feelings. All she did was continually push him away. There was the random beating from Ricky, and her new found drug addiction.

Everything she did hurt someone else but she now realized that it hurt her too. Peyton didn't want to hurt anymore. She couldn't take anymore pain. She was tired of having happiness ad joy ripped away from her. Even when she tried to avoid it, fate always found her. Her walls were falling and she didn't want that. If they fell she would hurt and she couldn't tolerate hurt any longer. She had made the mistake of not putting her wall up fast enough after her remembrance of her mother's death. She let Lucas take down more of her wall then normal and her mind wasn't able to rebuild fast enough. She wasn't immune to the pain and sorrow. The only thing she couldn't feel was love.

Peyton had not opened her heart to anyone after her mother died. The idea of that excruciating pain that lurked from the inside out and then repeated its endless cycle of torment petrified her. She could deal with the loss if she didn't get attached, and if she didn't love there was no attachment. She had let go of all feeling a long time ago and she owed it to Lucas for bringing that ability to feel back into her life. However, he never revived her ability to love, or her ability to trust for the matter. Over time Peyton had formulated her own theory and it had worked for her until now: if you don't love and you don't trust then you don't get hurt.

Her body suddenly grew weak as she let go of her trance and felt her legs give out on her. She struggled to use the counter for support. As she slowly regained strength, she pushed herself up and walked into her room. She hurriedly made her way over to the garbage and shuffled threw it until she found it. She held up her still filled needle, her release from the pain and torment that made its way through her body. She looked at her liberator and felt the tears that burned in her eyes. As much as she didn't want the pain, Peyton didn't want this. She wanted better then what she had. She let the needle fall from her hands as the rain stopped.

She looked outside her window into the dark night, the clouds still dense with rain. Peyton stood and grabbed her keys. She walked down her stairs and out her front door. She made her way to her car and slid into the front seat. The pain slowly started to subside, leaving only the symptoms of her withdrawal, which she seemed to handle for the moment. She wanted to go to the park, to the tree where Luke had discovered her secret, but also that one that she would sit at with her mother and draw and talk and laugh. She placed the keys in the ignitions and heard the thunder roar as she attempt to start her car. The sky roared again as she discovered her battery had died. She slammed her head into the steering wheel as the rain rhythmically fell onto the roof of her car.

Peyton's mind once again filled with thoughts, only this time they were more of memories. She remembered running through the woods holding her mother's hand. They had stopped and twirled around, looking up at the bright noon sky. She remembered the leaves that fell onto her head and the way her mother laughed and then gently removed them. Her mind drifted to the weekend before her mother died. She recalled running into the woods together and on the way back the sky opened up and released a gentle mist unlike the storm around her now. They had laughed and welcomed the drops hungrily into their open mouths. That was the last real time Peyton had spent with her mother. She hadn't gone into her woods since her mother's death. She lifted her head from the steering wheel finally realizing why the woods had seemed so comforting to her. She had felt her mother's presence around her while she shuffled through the trees.

Peyton's eyes filled with tears as she forgot the happy memories and replaced the sad ones. She slowly allowed the recent hardships to fill her mind as well. Before she realized it, Peyton opened her car door and ran away from her house. She ran away from the memories and away from the pain. Her feet took her in the direction of the park.

Peyton thought that if she ran long and far enough she would leave the memories behind, but the more she ran the more she felt. Her fortress was fading away and there was nothing she could do. Her body was drowning in its pain and guilt. She was literally beginning to choke on all the emotion the sweltered through her veins she stopped running and hunched her body over bringing her hands to her knees. When she finally picked herself up and looked around she noticed that she was in the opposite direction of her park. Her legs seemed to carry her as her mind yelled at her to stop and go home. She could hear the steady quiet taping in her ears but her body felt nothing. She heard the creak of the un-oiled metal but her eyes saw nothing.

"Peyton" she could hear the voice thundering through her head but she couldn't shift her eyes to stare anywhere other than the floor. She felt the warmth under her face as she finally focused her surroundings. She blinked her heavy eye lids and stared into a sea of magnificent blue.

" Lucas" she heard her trembling voice escape her mouth as she left her daze. Her eyes silently pleading with him for help. He looked down on her examining her as though her were intrigued. His face contorted in disbelief with a sense of annoyance. Peyton could hear the rejection before it left his mouth. The words that ran through her ears however, shocked her.

"I'm gunna kill him" She looked at Lucas, confusion obvious on her face. He shoved past her revealing the small amount of light the glowed quietly in his room. Her face grew shocked as she stared at the image in the mirror across the room, gaining a sense of understanding. The rain had revealed her secret to him. The bruises were clear where the water had washed away her make-up. She turned quickly and ran after him.

"Lucas wait" she grabbed his arm and stood in front of his car door. "Don't…please Luke. Please just leave it alone" The water now mixing with a new set of tears the streamed from her eyes.

"Peyton I can't just leave it alone. Look in the mirror Peyt, I'm not about to let him get away with that." He looked into her hazel eyes, wondering how she could let the bastard do this to her, wondering how he never noticed.

"Lucas…" She stared at him, once again pleading. He looked down at her. The water had caused her baggy clothes to stick to her. All his anger faded away as he looked at he barley there body. His eyes traveled up to meet hers, and in doing so all her sorrow was exposed. Peyton knew this and stood there feeling naked before him. Lucas collected her into his arms wanting nothing more then to take the hurt away. He gently lifted her and carried her into his room, carefully brining her to his bathroom and sitting her on the edge of the tub.

Lucas grabbed a warm, damp rag and began clearing the make-up from her face. She flinched occasionally but otherwise remained still. No words were spoken between the two as he helped her change into a pair of his smallest but still oversized flannels and a large t-shirt. There were no words that could be said between the two, for the moment things were just understood. Lucas walked her over to his bed and laid her down and then pulled the covers over her seemingly limp body. He sat next to her and gently stroked her head. He leaned down and kissed the top of her moist head, bringing back memories of the day he stayed with her over a month ago.

Lucas moved a stray strand of curly blonde hair from her pale face. "Peyton, what happened" he asked breaking the deafening silence.

"I don't know" She looked up at him. She had to let it out, her body couldn't hold it in anymore. The emotions were too overwhelming. "I don't know when it got so bad. I thought I could deal with her leaving but every year things got worse. The pain always came back, and there was always something else to add to the hurt. Last year Brooke was with me as usual and we didn't think it could get worse. But this year there was so much more things that happened and they all just surrounded me." Lucas watched as the tears flowed uncontrollably from her eyes. "I guess I just broke. Lucas no one has ever seen me like that except for Brooke and when I woke up and you were there I freaked. My mind told me that you were gunna betray me somehow, that I couldn't trust you. So I pushed you away because it was all that I knew how to do. I'm was sorry for that until I started thinking that maybe it was for the better. I'm I either bring out the bead in people or cause them pain and I didn't want any of that for you. So that's why I started the whole thing with Ricky. I thought that if you thought I moved on you would be able to, but I was wrong. But once I got into it with him, I couldn't seem to get away. Things just started spiraling out of hand after that."

"Peyton, you didn't start this heroin crap on your own did you" Lucas knew the answer but he had to hear it for himself.

"One day after he…hit me…repeatedly, he injected it into my arm. The second time was about two weeks later. That time I did it myself. He always made sure that there was a full stash under my bed and one night I just wanted all the pain to go away so I did it. And you know what it worked, but it wasn't worth the feeling I had the next day. God my body craved it so bad, it was like I couldn't function. So I didn't take it for a while until the day we broke up. He shoved the needle in my arm. Then later that night I woke up and I was craving it and everything hurt, my whole body was shaking, so I reached under my bed and took some. I was going to take some tonight but I stopped. Lucas, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to depend on heroin to feel better." Lucas looked at her trying to comprehend everything she had just said to him. It was so much and she went through it so fast. But he had questions and he needed them answered. As much as he wanted to hold her and comfort her he knew she needed to get everything out, and he felt like he wouldn't be okay until he knew.

"Peyton, why did you stay with him? I mean he hurt you, why wouldn't you leave?" his eyes pierced her soul, searching for answers only she could give.

"At first I stayed because I thought that I deserved it after everything I had done. After all the pain I caused people, all the pain I caused you." Her voice was low and Lucas's heart filled with guilt as he listened. He got ready to talk to her but she quickly cut him off. "I need to do this Luke, please." She watched him nod his head slightly. "After about two weeks into everything I guess you could say I started to come to my senses because I told him I was leaving. Lucas, do you remember the week I wasn't in school?" She waited for him to nod his head, his face overcome with worry and uncertainty. "When I told him I was leaving he hit me. Luke he beat me so bad I wound up in some kind of hospital for 4 days. He took me to an out of state free clinic kind of thing so no one would no. When I was released I had to stay home for another 3 days because the make-up wouldn't cover the scars." She looked down as she spoke the last statement. "I stayed with him after that because I was scared that he'd follow through on his threat of doing worse if I ever left again. The day I came back from the clinic was the day he first gave me the heroin. Two weeks later we got into an argument because he wanted to have sex and I didn't so when I pushed him off of me he punched me. He slammed me against the wall and I don't remember much after that. I just know that he gave me more of the heroin and then said that we were over before pushing me down the stairs."

Lucas couldn't take it anymore; he couldn't watch her suffer by herself. He wrapped his arms around her, burying her into his body. He released her briefly so that he could position himself behind her. He replaced his arms around her waist and simply held her, letting her turn to face him. Peyton hid her face in his shirt wetting his chest with her warm tears. Lucas let her cry as he watched the rain fall outside. The two listened to the sharp pitter patter of the cool drops as they exploded on the roof top.

Lucas could feel her entire body shake as she fell asleep. The sweat on her face blending with her drying tears. Lucas took the rag he had used earlier and wiped her face. He started to drift of sometime later but quickly awoke when he felt her body heave. She began coughing violently. Lucas put his hand on his head only to discover that her skin was burning. He tried desperately to wake her up but it was to no avail.

"Peyton wake up" he repeated he name and shook her gently but nothing worked. Her eyes stayed closed, she continued coughing, and her fever only seemed to get worse. Lucas slipped form underneath her and ran to the bathroom. He ran the rag under cold water and rapidly returned to Peyton's side, praying that she would wake up. He patted her head lightly letting the cold water droplets linger on her face. Lucas's heart skipped a beat as blood started to drain from Peyton's mouth. He wiped it away with trembling hands and stood over the bed, nausea racing around his body.

"Mom" he screamed absent mindedly. He didn't know what else to do. He watched through blurry tear filled eyes as his Karen ran into the room, worry on her face. She looked at her crying son. "Something's wrong" He looked away from his mother and down to Peyton and Karen's eyes followed his. Karen raced to Peyton's side, kneeling beside her as the blood drained from her mouth again.

"Lucas what happened" Karen asked taken in Peyton's beaten, thin, disheveled form.

"She showed up her about an hour ago. She was hooked on heroin and she stopped for the past week and he ex got her hooked on it and I don't know what to do. I thought she was gunna be fine but she's not." Lucas's face was tear stained and his babbling voice quivering.

"Luke who hit her like this?" She tilted Peyton's head and let the blood drain.

"Her ex" he answered his heart breaking inside him. "If she goes to the hospital she's gunna get in trouble for the drugs and her dad's gunna get in trouble for not being there and…" Karen cut him off understanding his concerns.

"Lucas I know that you're worried, but there is nothing you can do. The hospital can't do anything for her. She's going through withdrawal. Luke I had to watch one of my close friends go through this in college, I took him to the hospital and all the doctors said was that we had to wait it out. If they gave him anything his body would reject it and things would just get worse, you have to let her fight it. This is her battle and I'm sorry but there's nothing else to do but watch her." Karen's own heart filled with pain as tears streaked down her face knowing the torture her son was going through.

Minutes later relief filled Lucas's body as the blood stopped draining from Peyton's mouth. He repositioned himself underneath her holding her lightly for fear that if he held her porcelain like body to tight he would hurt her in some way. Karen sat in a nearby chair watching the two lay solemnly in bed, pain piercing her heart at the scene. Lucas gently dabbed the cold water on her head, every now and then letting Karen get up and remoisten the rag. The entire night neither of them slept, both to afraid to leave Peyton unwatched. The quietly sat there listening to the rain outside beat harshly against the roof, as the sky occasionally lit up with the marvelous steaks of electric light.

---I know this was really long…but I hope you enjoyed it, and maybe I'll get some nice long reviews. I don't know how accurate the whole this with the hospital is but I wanted her to stay with Lucas. I'll update as soon as I can!! Thanks for reading!!