Oh my God! You guys were sooo cool with your reviews! I was actually like bouncing up and down while reading them (although that might have something to do with the 14 packets of Sweetarts that I just consumed… you know, just maybe). Special reviewer gold star to Lindsay! Lol You reviewed like right away, and with one of the most awesome reviews I've ever gotten! I love long reviews.

Disclaimer: I don't own One Tree Hill, or the song Somewhere Only We Know by Keane, or the band Keane… that would be pretty weird if I did though, wouldn't it?

At the Heart of It All

Chapter Seventeen

Only Love Can Break Your Heart

There was an upside to getting along really, really well with your varsity basketball player of a half-brother. He provides you with a best friend that will play your favorite sport with you, something that Lucas had previously been sorely lacking. They had gone for a run that morning; Nathan waking him up at 5:30 A.M, and they had been playing basketball ever since. As it was now 2 P.M., Luke wondered vaguely if they should eat lunch.

"So, you're taking Brooke to the prom?" Nathan began conversationally.

"Um, yeah," Lucas started, scratching his head. "I presume that you heard about the banner…"

"Man, who hasn't heard about the banner!" Nate laughed. "That this is going down in history. By the way, couldn't you have given me a heads-up on that thing?"

"What do you mean?"

"We're brothers, man. Now everybody expects me to be romantic! Hello, have they never heard of our father? Why would romance run in the family?" Nathan ranted, and both guys laughed.

"Actually, I haven't checked in with you in a while—"Lucas began regretfully.

"That's because you've been too busy with your new girlfriend," Nathan interrupted.

"Who are you taking to the prom?" Luke continued, totally ignoring his younger brother.

"Um… no one."

"No one?" Lucas asked, aghast. Nathan Scott without a date? This was definitely a first. But then he caught the look on the boy's face, and realized that that wasn't the end of the story. "But you've got someone in mind…"

"No, I don't!" Nathan answered quickly.

Too quickly

"You do too! Nate, c'mon, tell me who it is! Do I know her?"

"Yeah, you could say that…"

"Man, just tell me. Wait, its not Brooke, is it?" Lucas asked quickly, and Nathan almost laughed when he noticed a little flare up of something that looked suspiciously like panic in his eyes.

"God, no! Not that Brooke isn't gorgeous, but she's sort of dating my brother. Maybe you missed that memo?"

"Ha ha. Seriously, I don't know why you're making such a big deal out of not telling me who you want to ask to prom. If she says yes, I'm going to find out anyway."

"That's the thing man-- I don't think she's going to say yes. I actually don't think that she's that into me… but I can't stop thinking about her."

"Are you like, embarrassed of her?" Lucas asked, confused about the identity of the girl that his brother was so hesitant to reveal.

"NO! You'll just be… surprised…"

"Nate, I haven't known you for very long, but I do know you very well, and I'm pretty sure that nothing you can say is going to surprise me."

"I want to ask out Haley James," Nathan spat out quickly, but a relieved smile crossed his face after he said it. Finally, he told somebody how he felt.

"I take that back."

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"So, what's new with you Tutor Girl?" Brooke asked, plopping into the seat across from Haley in the library, wearing a large grin. That was to be expected, as the brunette hadn't stopped smiling since the day before. The other girl looked up from her book with a knowing smile.

"That was so code for me to lead into the subject of prom, that way you can gush some more about Luke. So go on, I'm all ears," she said, laying down her book on the table and leaning forward onto her elbows. However, Brooke's smile crumbled into a confused and slightly worried frown. Definitely not the anticipated response.

"What do you mean 'gush some more about Luke'?" Brooke asked with her eyebrows furrowed.

"Oh, nothing. Just, you know, girls like to talk about the guys that they're in love with, especially when they do something as cute as what Luke did for you yesterday, so I just figured that---"

"Whoa! Who said anything about love?"

Haley laughed, but her face fell when she found that she was the only one amused. "Um… well, nobody's said anything, but…"

"Exactly. Nobody's said anything about love. Because we're not in love. Love's just an excuse to get hurt. I don't believe in love. Luke and I aren't even a real couple; we're definitely not in love."

A stricken Haley took the place of the baffled and babbling one that was there before. She had no idea what was wrong with Brooke at the moment, but she'd never seen her more adamant about anything than she was about "not" being in love.

"Um, okay then. Well then, you certainly put on a good show, because I was definitely fooled. Maybe you are too?" Haley asked pointedly, and Brooke looked down bashfully but didn't respond.

"If I were you, I'd take some time to figure out what I really felt. It's not only you that can get hurt this time Tigger. You really need to figure out where your heart is at, because a boy has never cared about a girl more than Luke cares about you… and that's got to count for something."

"I care about him too!" Brooke protested.

"But not in the same way, according to you. Look, Brookie, I love you, you're one of my best friends… but I said it to Lucas, and I'll say it to you: don't hurt him."

"I didn't plan to."

"Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans…" Haley trailed off, her voice laden with sarcasm but laced with sympathy. She picked up her books off the table and left the library without another word to the cheerleading captain with tears in her eyes. The tears were because Brooke realized what she had to do… now the only problem was doing it.

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Nathan was long gone, but Lucas remained at the court. It was silent all around, except for the bouncing of the ball on the pavement, and the swishing of the net. Familiar sounds in a familiar place. But the calm, relative quiet was disturbing by music in the distance, growing louder and louder, along with the crunching sounds of tires on loose gravel. The light was fading away, and Luke had no way to confirm this, but he had a feeling that it was Brooke approaching. He could just sense her presence that way lately. However, if it was indeed his "girlfriend" approaching, her musical taste for today was very out of character, as he thought that he could just hear strains of Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know".

Sat by the river and it made me complete…

Oh simple thing, where have you gone?

He laughed at the irony of the lyrics reaching his ears. Where had the simple relationship between Brooke and Lucas gone? They were the best of friends, almost more like family. They were always each other's support systems. The best friend, the confidant, the one who everyone they dated would always be jealous of because they could never hope to be as close to them. But now they were dating, or at least pretending to be, and the boundaries were becoming less and less clear. Luke was surprised to find that he didn't really care, either. At the beginning, he'd thought that acting like he was dating Brooke was a ridiculous idea, but he was growing into it, and lately… Haley was right. Somewhere along the line, he supposed that they'd stopped pretending. He looked out at the city over the water, and heard the click-clacking of her heels and felt her presence on the court long before she'd spoken.

"I figured you would be hungry…" Brooke began, holding up a take-out bag from Karen's Café.

"How'd you figure?" he asked with a playful smile.

"Well, either you've been ignoring my calls all day, or you've been out here with Nathan since a ridiculously early hour. I'm going with the second one."

"Ahh, brains and beauty. Is something wrong, babe?" Luke asked with a concerned look on his handsome face, and Brooke felt something tugging at her heart. She let out a sad little smile, and took his hands in hers.

"I—I—Broody, I think we need to break up," she choked out.

"… What?" he asked, unsure that he had heard her correctly. She couldn't mean that… anything but that. He laughed shakily. "We're not even really going out."

"Yeah, then this shouldn't be hard, right? I just think… um, mission accomplished, right? The Taggaro twins are insane with jealousy; our social status is back on top…"

"Is that all this was to you, Brooke?" he asked, hurt shining in his eyes.

"That's all it was, period, Luke," she said, looking everywhere but at him.

"Why now?"

"I think…I think maybe we're both getting too attached."

He didn't respond, but gently detached his hands from hers. Brooke was shocked by how deeply the gesture stung her. She cupped his cheek in her hand, leaned forward and kissed him deeply. Minutes later, Luke pulled back smoothly and she whimpered slightly at the loss of contact before remembering where she was and what was going on. Pulling herself together, Brooke took a few steps back, and looked at him. To her dismay, she found that he wasn't wearing the compassionate look he had been wearing once he realized something was wrong, or even the hurt look she had seen after Anna left. In its place was the horrible mask of stone, the ice in his eyes, the invisible walls forming around him… and there she was, powerless to stop them, having caused them in the first place.

Brooke backed away slowly, tears forming behind her eyes as she looked into his cold blue ones.

"I'm sorry Lucas… this is just the way it has to be," her voice shook as she tried to fight down the large lump in her throat. She got no response from him though, and turned on her heel, her shoes click-clacking on the pavement as she ran off the court to the safety of her VW Bug. She sat behind the steering wheel and cried her eyes out; sobbing over the loss of something she didn't know what there in the first place. However, he didn't cry. Lucas sat exactly where Brooke had left him, crystal blue eyes reflecting the bright lights of the city across the river, feeling a heartbroken, numbing, emptiness that he was becoming more and more familiar with, as he caught a little more of the fading song…

This could be the end of everything…

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.:shields self from thrown tomatoes:. Ahh! I'm sorry! Lol, but we all knew that it wasn't going to be all rainbows and butterflies, didn't we? You all just got a taste of Brooke Davis, commitment-phobe. What do you think? Lol this chapter was really hard to write up (writer's block forming, I think), and reviews would be super-appreciated, even if only to tell me that it sucked. Thanks for reading!

Xo Sam