Chapter 4

It had been a 15 minute drive from the police station, back home, not to mention a very quiet one. No one had spoken since they got into the car. Haley couldn't get her mind of the accident and she couldn't help but think what her friends thought of her now. Did they think she was a terrible person? She hoped not.

"Home sweet home," Nathan said when he walked through the door to their apartment, followed by Haley and the others.

"Yeah..." was all Haley said.

She took in her surroundings. The painting on the wall of the Riviera, the kitchen, all the pictures of all of them hanging on the walls or standing on a table somewhere. It all used to make her feel safe. Now she didn't know what she was feeling.

"Do you want to maybe do something?" Lucas asked Haley. "We could watch a movie or just hang out?"

"No, that's okay. I'm kind of tired so I think I'm just going to go to sleep..."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, but don't let me stop you. If you want to do something like watch a movie then go right ahead. You won't bother me," she reassured them.

"Okay, if that's what you want," he said unsurely.

"It is. I'll see you guys tomorrow. Good night."

"Good night Hales!" the others said, but none of them seemed very enthusiastic.

She gave Nathan a kiss before she left and then went to the bedroom and put her pajamas on.

Meanwhile, the others were in the living room talking amongst each other about the accident, oblivious to the fact that Haley was listening in on their conversation from the bedroom after putting her pajamas on...

"What are we gonna do?" Nathan asked more to himself than anyone else.

"I don't know, Nate, but I'm sure you'll work it out," Peyton said.

"It's not that I don't love her, because I do. Very much."

"We know that, Nathan."

"But it's still really weird. She killed someone and now she is going to have to live with it. And not just her but us as well."

"I know but think about what she is going to have to go through. Just think about school on Monday and probably by then, everyone will know what happened. She is going to have people staring at her and talking about her behind her back. It's not going to be fun or easy for her."

"Yeah, I know..."

"But Nathans right," Brooke spoke for the first time since they came back to the apartment. "I might seem like the most selfish person ever right now but it isn't just Haley who is going to have people staring at her and all that. It is all the people who are with her who is going to be stared at too. And I for one have had enough of that in my life."

"I guess but it is still going to be a lot harder for Haley," Peyton said.

Lucas who had been quiet all through the conversation was now getting more and more aggravated by the minute. So he finally spoke.

"Could we just stop being selfish for one minute? Haley is going through hell right now and all you can talk about how it is going to be for you. I mean, do you even hear yourselves?"

"That wasn't all that we said and you know it," Brooke said. "I'm just saying that even though it is going to be really hard for Haley to go through, it's not going to be much better for us. Trust me, I know how the people in school work."

"Okay. Maybe you're right but that doesn't mean that we can just ignore her so that no one will think that we're still friends with her."

"Of course not! That's not even what I said. I was just pointing out that it's going to be hard and weird and..."

"We get the point."

"Right."

Haley, who had heard everything from the bedroom, felt even worse now. She hadn't even thought about how this would affect her friends. Brooke was right. Damn it! Why did this have to happen?

She heard a door closing so she figured that it was probably her friends leaving, so she decided to go to bed before Nathan came in. The last thing she wanted was for Nathan to find out that she had been listening in on their conversation, especially since she had told him that she was going to sleep. All though she was really tired, she doubted that she was actually going to get some sleep tonight.

It took about 5 minutes before Nathan came to bed. When he did he thought that Haley was indeed asleep but he was wrong. But of course he didn't know that so he just sat there, on the bed, thinking. 'If you need anything just call' Nathan remembered Lucas saying before he had left earlier. 'It's going to be hard' Brookes words echoed in his head. "I killed someone." Those were the words that stuck. Haley saying that she killed a man.

'God. I can't do this anymore. I need to get out of this room, from...' Nathan stopped in his thoughts. 'From her.' With that, Nathan left the room, left Haley, just left...

'He has been gone for over an hour' Haley thought. She got up from bed to see if Nathan was even still in the apartment. She took a hold on the doorknob and opened the door to the bedroom.

'There he is' she thought. She could see him lying on the couch. Sleeping. 'God, he doesn't even want to sleep with me anymore. This is just a nightmare…' Haley thought. She didn't see the point on waking him so instead she just went back to bed and tried to sleep. Again.

The next morning Haley woke up at 5.30. 'Wow. A total of 30 minutes of sleep' she thought. She heard someone walking into the bedroom and since it was probably Nathan she pretend to still be a sleep. Again.

She could feel his body close to her when he crawled back into bed and pretending that nothing was wrong. 'He actually came back to bed just to keep me from noticing that he hasn't been sleeping next to me.' Not that she could actually say anything. At least not yet, so she just laid there with her thoughts just like Nathan did.

It wasn't until it was 9.00 o'clock sharp before either Haley or Nathan made a move to say something or getting up. However when the phone rang, Haley was forced to move.

She picked up the phone but didn't recognize the caller ID so nearly decided to ignore the call, but then remembered that they were going to call from the police station today so she decided against it and picked up instead.

"Hello?"

"Haley? This is inspector Theroux," the voice on the other line said.

"Oh. Hi."

"Listen, we really need you to come down to the station, so if you could come here as fast as you can then that would be great," he told her.

"Um...Yes, of course. I just need to make myself ready but I can probably be there in about 45 minutes?"

"Sounds good. See you then," he said and ended the call.

"Who was that?" Nathan asked after Haley had hung up the phone.

"That was the inspector. He wants me to come down to the station," she told him.

"Oh, did he say what it was about?"

"No, just that it was urgent," she said and started gathering some clothes together that she could wear.

"Do you want me to come with?"

"No, that's alright. I probably won't me gone that long anyway..."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely."

With that Haley went into the bathroom to get dressed and about 20 minutes later, she was out the door.

Haley got to the station a little bit earlier then she had thought she would. She went right up to the reception and asked for inspector Theroux.

"He'll be here in a few minutes," was all the police man said.

"Okay. Thanks."

"Haley?" she heard someone say from behind her and when she turned around she saw that it was the inspector.

"Inspector," Haley greeted with a nervous smile.

"Thanks for coming down. The chief wants to talk to you again."

"I figured as much."

Haley followed the inspector to one of the interrogation rooms.

"Miss James? Nice to see you again," chief of police Johanssen said, shaking her hand.

"You too. And actually it's Mrs," she told him.

"Right. I heard you were married."

"If you don't mind me asking but what am I doing here?"

The chief smiled. "Right to the point. I like that. Why don't you sit down?" She did as she was told. "Well, we have talked to the family of the man you...you know."

"Killed."

"Right. Anyway, we were able to convince them that there was no point going to court because this was after all an accident like you said, which we have now confirmed, and also considering the fact that the man was on medication at the time of the accident, they wouldn't have much of a case."

"Oh, thank God."

"But the matter of your punishment is still there. If you pay 10 000 dollars to the family and do 300 hours of community service then you don't have to go to court or go to jail."

"Really? That's great! I'll take it, thank you so much!

"Don't thank me yet. We'll see if you feel the same way after you've done your community service."

"I'm sure I will. So I'm free to go now?"

"Yes, you are free to go. Go home and tell you husband!"

"Thank you so much!" she said, shaking both his and the inspectors hand once more before she left. She was practically jumping out of joy but before she could leave the chief had something else to say.

"Mrs. James! I hope I'll never see you here again," he said in a joking matter, but you could tell that he was being serious.

"That makes two of us!" was all she said before she ran home to tell her husband the good news.

"Nathan!" she yelled when she came in through the front door of their apartment. "Oh, you're all here!" she said when she noticed that they weren't alone. Lucas, Brooke, Peyton, Karen, Deb and even Dan were there.

"Yeah, Nathan told us that you were down at the station so we came right over to hear what they said," Lucas explained.

"Oh. Okay, well then I can happily tell you that the family is not going to court and I am not going to jail!"

"That's great! Nathan said and gave Haley a hug. Actually each and every one of them came up and hugged her.

"Yeah it is. But I do however have to pay 10 000 dollars to the family and I know that we don't have that kind of money but I'll figure something out. I also have to do 300 hours of community service but it doesn't matter, anything to keep me away from jail."

"Of course, we will figure something out."

"And we will help," Brooke added.

"Thanks guys."

"What's wrong?" Nathan asked immediately when he saw Haley's sad expression.

"I just can't stop thinking about the man's family, I feel so bad for them."

"Yeah..."

"And there is also the fact that school is tomorrow."

"Don't worry. Even if the rest of the school treats you badly, you still got us," Peyton told her.

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

But that didn't really make her feel any better. She still didn't want to go and neither did the others.

Haley kept going over the others conversation from last night in her head. There was on sentence that stuck 'She killed someone and now she is going to have to live with it.' Those were the truest words she had ever heard.