Chapter One Hundred Five: Your Love is Going to Drown

The sun slowly sank into the sea, making it difficult to capture the moment as she so desperately wanted to. The view in front of her included a high, rocky cliff descending into a low, clear blue sea, but this was not the inspiration she craved.

She relaxed as two sinewy, tanned arms wound around her.

"Who is she?" he asked, in his seductive Italian accent.

"Ryan Scott," murmured Peyton, sliding her eyes shut as his lips moved to her neck.

"She's lovely."

Her lover Diego, who reaked of Euro charm and sex appeal, didn't pay much further mind to the portrait, but Peyton's attentions were fast on it.

"She's in love with an old lover of mine," said Peyton thoughtfully, thinking of how tame this description was compared to the actual truth.

"Are they lovers now?" he asked.

"No. I don't think so. She deserves it," said Peyton.

"More than you, bella?" he asked.

"Much more. She's a better person than I ever was," she said softly.

"How so?"

"Ryan was better than all of us. Nathan tricked Haley into marrying him, Brooke secretly saw Chris, but Ryan was always good. She tried so hard to be good, to not ruin anyone's life, even at the expense of her own."

Peyton stared at the girl's face. Though some had begun to fade in her memory, Ryan's face was imprinted as though she'd last seen it yesterday. Her ocean blue eyes, the light dusting of freckles across her nose, her long blonde hair tied back into a loose knot on the back of her head.

"Were you friends?" he asked, his interest gradually deepening.

"No. Not ever, really. I think I always suspected she loved Jake, and I think she was always jealous. I've just been involved in her life for so long. Five years now, I guess. Both of my best friends are married to her brothers, it's only fitting that she marry him," said Peyton.

"You'd know, yes? You'd have heard, if they were to get married?"

"Maybe, in a tabloid somewhere. But I haven't talked to any of them," she said.

"For how long has it been?" Peyton detached herself from the arms of her lover and walked off several paces. She stared down into the ocean.

"Forever."

Peyton's face was animated as she ran to join her friends. Her boyfriend, Diego, his brother, Paolo, his own girlfriend, Isabel and their other friend Jeanne were waiting for her. She walked alongside Diego as he looped an arm around her and attempted to follow the fast, heavily accent English which mingled occasionally with Italian and French.

She felt European. She didn't feel like Peyton Sawyer from Tree Hill, blonde cheerleader, or Peyton Sawyer of Manhattan, Jake's girlfriend. She felt freer, yet so bound. In her knee length black dress and stiletto sandles she attracted more attention than she had in her cheerleading uniform.

"Why so sad, cherie?" asked Jeanne, her words already slightly slurred by alcohol. Peyton smiled and shook it off, quickly downing a shot. She wondered what the rest of them would think, could they see her now. For an instant she wanted Haley, to guide her back home.

In the next instant, she felt a wave of longing for Davis.

She grabbed Diego's hand and dragged him to the dance floor. Their bodies pressed up together as they moved to the music, and she felt him desire her as her lips sought his.

"This is the life," he murmured in to her ear. Peyton smiled. Not many men had truly loved her in her life. He was still something of a novelty.

"There's no comparison," she said aloud, letting her words be heard. There really wasn't. This was her, in Italy, living the life.

One day, she knew she'd return. Return to her life, reclaim her love. Jake had kissed her on her last day, and begged her to stay with him. Peyton guiltily thought of attempting to hook Ryan up with someone else. After all, the girl did deserve happiness. She tried to push back the uncomfortable thought that Ryan could never be happy without Jake, and that Jake could never be complete without Ryan.

The next morning, after Diego went to work, Peyton failed miserably at attempting to do some work of her own and then went to the corner store.

She paused at the rack of tabloids. Her eyes scanned them, both English and Italian, before one caught her eye.

She let out a gasp of surprise when she finally recognized the two figures on the cover. The only two women she'd ever been close to, walking down a street together. Haley and Brooke Scott, carrying shopping bags, both slightly pregnant.

Peyton sighed. She should have been in the picture. Beside them, maybe married as well. Maybe beautiful and ridiculously fertile looking, glowing, like they were. It was hard for to grasp, the concept of Brooke, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed, her diamond twinkling on her finger. Of Haley, finally finding happiness, looking like the perfect example of a society wife. Sometimes life was just unfair.

She thumbed through the magazine until she found a picture of Davis, partying in LA. Somehow this was much more comforting, knowing that nothing had changed with some things.

In the middle of the magazine were picture of Nathan, Brooke, Devon and Hayden and of Haley, Nathan, Eva and Nina. She smiled at the images of her friend's children. All four were beautiful, especially Haley and Nathan's girls, which were carbon copies of the two of them.

The clerk said something in Italian, something Peyton was fairly sure meant something along the lines of "will you be buying that, miss?". So she nodded hurriedly and dropped some money on the counter before walking out.

She'd tried so hard to let them go. She'd tried to vanish out of ther lives to stop hurting them, to let them vanish out of her own in turn. She'd imagined it would be easier on all of them. She'd never imagined she'd never be able to let go, that a part of her would always belong to all of them, and especially to him.