How not to know

She stares back at the perfect looking porcelain face and the verdant green frock, reminiscent of the dress she wore so many years ago, when she was not as strong, but every bit as detached and depressed as she is now, but for so many different reasons. The clock reads seven and she realizes that she's late. Turning away from her reflection, she leaves the room, waiting for the cab to take her to the mechanics, where her vintage baby was waiting.

She pays the cab and tells him to keep the change, too much in a hurry to get the only thing that hasn't failed her yet and ironically has in a physical way. She has her bags and she is aware of the urgency in her to leave, itching under her skin, when she's walking nearer to the shutter door wherein houses her car. Tree Hill was no good for her. Too much painful memories and nothing truly good, save for the fleeting moments betwixt the deaths and illness and betrayals. Her time there was defined by the tears more than by the smiles on her face and she just HAVE TO LEAVE.

The inner dome of the shop was filled with a whirring sound from the fan that badly needed to be oiled and just as she was inspecting one of the hubs on the board desperately waiting for the mechanic to appear, Joe his name was, like every other Joe Schmoe that ran one of such businesses, a voice greets her. One that is very much different than Joe's.

"Of all the car repairs you had to go to, you come into mine." He quips, leaning against a dented beamer. He looks her up and down, slowly and painstakingly meticulous, as if memorizing into his mind the contours of her silhouette and the nature of her face. He hasn't seen her in ages. Eons that spanned and grew to light years in time. She did not say goodbye those years ago, and his hurt pride did not allow for him to ask them for her number. However, in the here and now of this unexpected moment, he relishes the fact that this might be the opening he needed to reconnect.

Did you ever think of me

As your best friend
Did I ever think of you

I'm not complaining

He so badly needed to talk to her, to blurt out all his thoughts and secrets, just as he had once: when she was nicer and more forgiving and when he was less insensitive and uncaring of her feelings. He never questioned her affections toward him, for though he was a guy and oblivious to other people and their feelings, he was always sensitive to hers and even with that lucidity he never once thought to rekindle their spark, to alight that ember scared the flames would be stoked and would burn them. They were combustible, he remembers easily, and that fire had burnt them all in the end, leaving the charred remains of a ghost of a friendship and a Brooke that was never really the same. They were all never really the same.

So he played the guy - much to her unconscious yet telling dismay, the quintessential jack-a who was her best friend and who was incognizant of her slanted eyes towards him, lingering for a might too long.

But that was ages ago.

I never tried to feel
I never tried to feel this vibration
I never tried to reach
I never tried to reach your eden

Her shocked looked changes to longing before it swiftly settles to a cold type of amiability. She nods and he vaguely registers his name as it falls from her lips. He is too caught up in seeing the difference in her manner, and the sadness in her eyes. Still the same lost looking green eyes he has ever seen and yet, there was an edge to it that was not there initially. Or maybe he just did not notice while keeping to his role as best friend and boyfriend to the other girl.

"Aren't you supposed to be at Brooke's dinner shindig?" He smiles at her last word and though it was reminiscent of a Peyton at seventeen, the blunt force of her inquiry stings like the new edgier Peyton she has become. He realizes he's still not welcomed in her life, even for that short interim, waiting for Joe.

He nods. "I called and said I will be late. You will be in attendance too right?" He knows her, and so he knows that her dress might have spoken an affirmation but her wanderlust and anxiety and her presence at Joe's spoke of her indecision and the 180 turn towards the nearest exit. Some things always stayed the same.

"Something came up." She explains shortly, curtly, like a stranger to another.

And the moment he thinks they might have had, albeit quite an unlikely possibility in an auto repair shop and with so much emotional and physical distance and all that time lost… is gone. Broken and shattered like the lives they have broken and shattered with their melodrama and triangle situation.

"Hey Luc! And Ms Sawyer, your car is waiting for you in the back." Joe calls out jovially, emerging from the back door, grease and stains on his hand.

"Thank you." She mutters, breaking eye contact and looking towards ground as she leaves for the back.

Lucas merely smiles at the mechanic, knowing that the susurration from being this close to her, and that visceral jolt in the deepest recesses of his 'insides' from recognizing its soul, has already started to fade to black…

I have a bad dream.

Silently Falling

She's halfway to pulling out of the shop when the soft finger-taps on her window makes her pause. She watches him watch her, in muted silence, and in the pregnancy of that pause she reads all his thoughts, clearly present on his face like the moon on the backdrop of an empty sky. What he never said, what he wants to now, what he wants… and she acquiesces to his silent request and rolls the window down.

"You should come. I mean whatever it is that's stopping you, ditch it." He says so forcefully, and if it were possible in his position, he would have grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

Peyton looks on, watching as the slight drizzle from a few minutes ago start to get heavier; angrier and his suit begins to resemble that of a horridly skewed polka dot ensemble, with rain drops adding character to its material. He bends lower, arm resting on the side of her car, eyes on hers and she quickly recoils.

"I can't."

Curt and cutting and his hope falls slightly.

She turns back to the wheel ready to return to driving the heck out of there, but pausing as she did, and that slight hesitation gives him the courage to run to the other side.

She stares at him shocked as he opens the passenger's door and slides in, smirking as he did so.

"Well, then I just will have to be very late to the dinner. If I even go at all." He chuckles, confidence oozing from his pores at his supposedly fail-proof plan.

Peyton doesn't return the smile, instead stares straight ahead.

Mechanically driving.

"What about your car?"

"What about it? I can always return for it, but this…this meeting you, it's a one time thing isn't it Peyt?" He questions, looking at her. He knew that once she left, she would leave for good. And in his heart of hearts, he could not not see her again.

Sensing the awkwardness of an extended silence, Peyton ignores the voice in her head telling her to pull over and shove him out, while the fury of the rain unleashes its pandemonium. She starts, "so how's life in the city then? Heard you are doing good in New York."

He nods his head, happy for the shift in topic, shift from silence, and answers,"yeah, I saw Brooke just now, she told me you were back and that you're also residing there."

Peyton nod, aware that the volley of words has ended again.

He starts again, "so anyone signi-"

And this time she interrupts, unsure of where the conversation was going and was adamant in it not going where she thought it would. Opening up the past would only deepen the semi-healed wound. "Look this is not working. I mean I can't do this," she waves her hand back and forth between them," I'll drop you off here ok?"

She doesn't register that it was in the middle of nowhere, she was starting to become unraveled.

She breaks and wait for him to get out.

He stares at her, silently and if not a bit angrily.

And in fluid steps, opens and closes the door, entering the rain ridden open road.

And she feels disoriented and if she were to admit to herself, disappointed that he didn't try harder.

Suddenly, the alarm in her car goes off as her door opens wide.

She feels herself being thrust upon his chest as he holds her locked within the embrace of his arms. And she simply stares in shock.

"I miss you." He discloses to her, like a secret, as he silently falls in love with her again.

And then it rained on her, like it rained on them…there was no time like the present.

And taking that scary unknown step, she draws his lips to hers and hopes that they would be ok this time round.

END.