Fairytale Romances (Chapter five)

Four months later…

/From the time I was in seventh grade and two of the most popular girls were fighting over me I knew I was pretty good looking to other females and I could basically have my pick of them. And I took advantage of that knowledge, dating almost every girl in the seventh grade and almost half of the grade eight girls. But my idea of dating and their idea of dating were two different things. The girls often thought it meant that we were going steady when really it was just a fun night out for me. It certainly didn't mean anything long term. After all, I was only fourteen at the time. Then when I hit ninth grade, I had started to want something different. I didn't want girlfriends, I wanted a girlfriend. After months of misunderstandings and arguing to the point where we wanted to kill each other, I had finally found her in Haley James.

My relationship with Haley had surprised a lot of people- my friends, the other girls, the teachers, and the people Haley tutored, but they slowly got used to the fact that I was now taken and apparently Haley had been labelled the "lucky girl" that had finally tamed Nathan Scott. It was a "fairytale romance", as corny as that sounds coming from a basketball player/

Haley plopped down at the cafeteria table with Lucas, Brooke, Tim, Skills and her boyfriend, Nathan. "Hey, you!" Nathan said putting his arm around her as he pulled her closer and planted a kiss on the top of her head. Haley smiled up at him. "Where have you been all day?"

"I was asked to help with the grade eights that were coming today. You know, tours, talking about my experience as a grade nine student, blah, blah, blah," she said, opening her lunch bag. Haley loved helping out the school, so Nathan could tell she was being sarcastic when she was complaining. She started eating her food quickly.

"Slow down before you choke on something," Lucas said which caused Haley to start laughing along with everyone else at the table.

"I have to eat quickly. I only have fifteen minutes before I have to get back," she replied after taking her first sip of her soda. When she was done eating, she turned to Nathan. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure," he replied, getting up and following her to a vacant hallway.

"We're still on for tonight, right?" she asked. Nathan smiled.

"Of course. Tutoring and a movie. The perfect date, if you ask me," he said, chuckling. Haley rolled her eyes and leaned in to him. Their lips met and Nathan pulled her closer to him and put his arms around her back. Haley put her hand on his face and gently pulled away. Their faces were a few inches apart and she smiled at him.

"Good," she said and kissed him on the cheek. "I'll see you then."

Nathan came back and sat down at the table and paid attention to the other conversation. "I'm serious, Peyton! That's what he said," Brooke exclaimed. Peyton Sawyer was a new student at Tree Hill High. She had transferred at the beginning of second semester and she had become part of their inner circle almost immediately. Peyton ran a hair through her amazingly curly blond hair and smirked at her new best friend.

"I don't believe that he said that, Brooke. I think you're just playing one of your little games," she said. Brooke shook her head and turned to Lucas.

"You were there. Will you please tell her that I'm not lying?" she said. Knowing that it always crushed Lucas' resolve, she pouted. He smiled down at her and chuckled.

"She's not lying. The guy at THUD Magazine really did like the sketches that Brooke here submitted," Lucas said. Peyton looked at her in disbelief.

"You're the reason I got an offer for a comic strip?" she asked Brooke. Brooke looked at her innocently at first but then her broke out into a huge smile as she nodded. "Well, aside from the fact that you stole those sketches right out of my locker, I feel that I should thank you." Brooke shrugged.

"What are best friends for, P. Sawyer? You joined the cheerleading squad for me and so I submitted your sketches for you," Brooke said. Peyton smiled.

"You still could've asked for them instead of just helping yourself," she said, chuckling. Brooke shrugged.

"Congratulations on the comic strip, Peyton. That's really great," Nathan said. Peyton looked at him and their gazes locked for a few minutes. As if in a trance, they slowly smiled at each other.

"Thanks, Nathan," Peyton said, before ripping her eyes off of him and looking back to Brooke.

/Something's wrong here. I shouldn't be feeling this way about another girl. I care about Haley; I really do, but I can't deny the attraction I feel for Peyton. That stare lasted a few minutes but even now I can still feel the intensity of it. What am I going to do/

A month later…

/I should've known better. I really should have. My relationship with Nathan seemed too good to be true a lot of the time. At the beginning, I felt loved like I never had before. He pampered me and I'm not ashamed to admit that I enjoyed it. It appeared that he really liked being with me but they say that appearances can be deceiving. I guess I learned that the hard way. I didn't want to face what was going on right in front of me. The cancelled dates, the weird smell of perfume on his jacket when he hugged me but that letter was what finally woke me up and I realized that I had been duped.

But even then I chose to ignore it, thinking that Nathan would end his secret relationship with the girl that he was seeing behind my back. But instead, he ended our relationship and started dating Peyton. Well, for once it seems that the smart girl is really stupid./

Haley walked into her math class and sat down in her usual seat. She was glad that it was second semester which meant that she no longer had any classes with Nathan. Not even one. At the beginning of the semester she had hated it, but now she was thankful that her guidance counsellor seemed to have predicted that her relationship with Nathan would be short-lived. She opened her math book and began finishing up the last question that she had gotten stuck on that night. Now, the answer seemed so simple to her that she couldn't believe she had had trouble with it the night before. "Hey, Haley," Lucas Scott said as he came to sit down beside her. Haley looked up at him. Right away she recognized the concerned look on her face. People had been shooting them her way for the past month.

"Hi," she said flatly. "I don't remember seeing you here before."

"I just got transferred into this course. Apparently, applied math is not challenging enough for me. I'm cursed with a mother who actually reads teacher's course recommendations on the mid-term report cards," he said, as he sat down and took his binder and text book. Haley didn't even crack a smile at his joke. He knew they weren't very close friends, but he had gotten the impression that they were friends. "Is this stuff really hard?" he asked, hoping to break the ice by appealing to the tutor in her. Big mistake.

"Not for someone who has brains. If you're in this course, you must have them, so, I can't imagine why it would be difficult," she said, putting her pencil down. It didn't take a rocket scientist to realize that Haley had figured out why he was even talking to her hence her little jab. The truth was that he and a few others were getting worried about her. She had all but quit coming to eat lunch with them and that was completely understandable. He couldn't think of a sane person that would want to sit at a table across from your ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend, but all she did was walk the halls alone, go to classes and do homework and tutoring. Lucas couldn't think of a single person she now called her friend, especially when her brother Scott had left to go on a trip with their parents for a few months so he missed the whole story with Nathan and Haley. But now he was back just that day.

"Well, I hope I can make it through this course," he said. He smirked as Haley turned her head away to hide the fact that she was now rolling her eyes at him.

"Ok, class. Today is going to be a review period for the test tomorrow. Lucas, you're excused from that test, of course, but I would still like you to get the work done. If you have trouble, just ask Haley for help. She's a math whiz," the teacher said. Lucas nodded and then turned to see Haley glaring at the teacher.

"Scott, you're being ridiculous," Haley said to her older brother. Scott James looked at his little sister in sympathy. He had taken her books from her and threatened to rip her homework apart if she didn't come to the cafeteria to eat lunch with him.

"Look, Haley, it's not as if the whole loner thing doesn't work for you, because it really does, it's just that I'm worried about you," Scott said.

"I'm fine," she said looking at him in annoyance.

"Haley, in your letters to me, you were always very happy. You mentioned that you had started eating lunch with people and had fun. Then a few months ago, your letters stopped and I come back to find that you've reverted into a very lonely person," he said. Haley shook her head in annoyance and glared at him.

"It was a lapse in judgement. Nothing more," she said, taking her books back from him and putting them in her bag. She sat down and kept her bag out of his reach.

"Haley, I know what's happened," he said. Haley looked up at him in surprise. There was fear in her eyes, something he was not used to seeing in Haley. "I know about Nathan," he confirmed. She smirked at him bitterly.

"Like I said: a lapse in judgement," she said. He looked at her sympathetically. "Don't look at me like that. I know that you're my big brother so it's in your nature to be concerned about me and I appreciate it, but it's not necessary."

"It's ok to be hurt, Haley," he said. She shrugged and nodded to signal that she knew that. "But shutting people out is not the answer."

"I'm not shutting people out. I'm still talking to you, aren't I?" she asked, smirking at his glare.

"When was the last time you talked to Nathan?" he asked, folding his arms across his chest in a know-it-all way. Haley took a step back and when she looked back up at him, Scott instantly regretted asking the question. Haley's face had crumpled.

"If your girlfriend cheated on you and then dumped you and started dating that person right away, would you ever feel the need to talk to her again?" she asked as the tears streamed out of her eyes. He pulled her close to him and hugged her.

"It's ok. I'm sorry," he said, stroking his little sister's hair.

"I can't," she choked out. He pulled away and looked at her.

"You can't what?" he asked.

"I can't face Nathan ever again," she replied. That was when Scott realized how bad his sister was really doing.

A month later…

Nathan sat down with his girlfriend Peyton Sawyer at the cafeteria table where Brooke, Tim and Skills already were. "So, I finished my strip today. Do you want to see it?" Peyton asked. He smirked.

"Of course. I love seeing your sketches," he said, taking the sketch pad from her and looked this week's comic strip over. Her talent still shocked him. "It's amazing," he said. Peyton smiled and leaned in and kissed him long and hard. When the kiss ended, Nathan noticed his brother was sitting down and looked a little rattled. "Luke, are you ok?" Lucas jumped to life and looked at Nathan carefully.

"I'm fine. Why?" he said. Nathan shrugged.

"You seem a little preoccupied," Peyton said. Lucas shrugged and turned away.

"All right, Lucas. What's going on?" Brooke asked sternly. She could clearly tell something was bother Lucas and knew that he was avoiding telling them.

"I don't think you'll want to hear about it," Lucas said to Nathan. Nathan looked at him in confusion.

"Just tell us," Brooke ordered.

"I'm worried about Haley," he admitted. Nathan stiffened at the name.

"Why would you be worried about her?" Brooke asked.

"Well, she hasn't been in class in over three weeks," he said. Then he turned to Nathan. Nathan had known for a while that Lucas had the same math class with Haley. "That's not like her, is it?" Nathan shook his head.

"No, it's not," he said, shaking his head trying hard to shake the feeling of concern coming over him. A few minutes later, Lucas spotted Scott James and called him over.

"What's up, Lucas?" he asked. His tone was friendly enough but whenever he looked in Nathan or Peyton's direction, his eyes seemed to be on fire.

"I don't know if Haley told you but she and I are in the same math class," Lucas said. Scott nodded, signalling that Haley had told him. "Well, she hasn't been in class for a few weeks now." Scott smirked.

"You mean the teacher hasn't told you?" Scott asked. Lucas and Nathan looked at him in confusion.

"What?" Lucas asked.

"Haley's not going to be in your class ever again," Scott said. Lucas looked at him in confusion. "Haley moved away. She no longer goes to this school."

"Where is she?" Lucas and Nathan both asked.

"She lives with our aunt and uncle in Tennessee," Scott replied. "She's gone and I don't think she's ever coming back to Tree Hill."

/ Haley is gone. Even now, it's a little hard to digest. To be honest, I hadn't thought of Haley in a long time. I obviously knew she was still around the school since she had a class with Lucas and she was even helping him a little in that class. But other than the occasional comment from Lucas, she had never crossed my mind. The news that she had moved away not only shocked me, but it confused me. I didn't understand why Haley had moved away without even saying goodbye. Okay, I get why she never said goodbye to me. But what about Lucas? From what I knew they were friends in a way. Then there were rumours circulating that the reason Haley had left was because she was depressed and she couldn't stand the sting of losing Nathan to Peyton. At the time I didn't know if there was any truth to the rumours, but later on, her brother "kindly" pointed out that it was my fault. When I broke up with her, I honestly thought that she would get over it. I didn't know she would slip into a depression. I cared about her; I really did. She was my first real girlfriend and she taught me a lot. I never wanted to hurt her. Not only had I destroyed her, I had literally driven her away./