Hey guys! Sorry, I know it's been a really long time since I updated this story, but I've got a few others stories going, and I've been sick, and lately I'm in way over my head. Right now though, I'm feeling very inspired, so I'm going to try and get out a chapter. Apologies in advance if it's either sucky or short lol…
All of you wonderful reviewers are getting warm when it comes to one of the plot devices. Trust me, it'll piss you off, and it would be so typical that even I would hate myself, but… it's not what it seems. Only Maggie knows the truth, muah ha ha. Shhh…
Here ends the fluff.
At the Heart of It All
Chapter Twenty Seven
It's Not Easy Being Green
"Are you okay, Tigger?" Haley's concerned voice filtered through the pastel-toned dressing room of the tiny Central Avenue boutique.
"Perfect Hales, why?" Brooke called back from the other side of the changing stall curtain, its usual cheerfulness slightly distorted.
"I don't know, maybe because I couldn't decide what was greener—you or the last dress you tried on."
Haley and Brooke had slowly been making their way from shop to shop in pursuit of the perfect prom dresses. It was tiring work, but somebody had to do it. While they had both started off enthusiastic, after five hours and too many boutiques to count, their enthusiasm had dwindled. However, Haley was truly growing concerned for her friend, who seemed even more tired than she was. Brooke had lost her spunk long ago.
"Yeah, I'm not feeling so hot," Brooke mumbled, stumbling through the curtain into the lounge area. Her sharp green eyes looked strangely unfocused and her skin was a shade or two paler than usual. Her illness seemed to vary from hour to hour, and this wasn't one of her better ones. Regardless, Haley couldn't deny it—
"Well, you look hot!" she blurted, and both girls lapsed into hysterics. Gathering themselves before the nosy attendant could butt in, they stood side by side, gazing at their reflections. Formal never having really been her thing, Haley stood before the looking glass in a strapless pale yellow tear length dress, a red sash around her tiny waist accenting it nicely. Brooke was a completely different story. It seemed that the head cheerleader was born for formal events. A floor-length halter gown of lilac silk hung on her lanky frame. Looking at themselves, then at each other, both wondered how they had ever lived without the other, and hoped they would never find out again.
"This just fits," Haley voiced what they were both thinking. And it was true on so many levels.
----------
"Feeling better now, Brookie?" Haley's voice rang into the airwaves. It was 11:30, and they had called a time-out on their shopping expedition hours ago, and she left her friend with strict instructions to get in bed, get some soup, and get better soon.
Perched on the edge of her bed, she was painting her toenails a very vibrant shade of red. Old-Haley would never had thought to use such a bold color, but the tutor had changed a lot since becoming Brooke's friend. She never wondered if such change was a good thing, preferring to focus on the fact that she was more comfortable with herself than she had ever been. So what if she lost her longtime crush, Jake Jagelski? She had Nathan Scott now. Or at least, she almost did. It drove Haley James crazy that she was never quite sure where she stood with the handsome basketball star. One thing that she knew for sure was that she wouldn't become just another toy for him to play with. And so she had to protect her heart until she knew that his was on the line.
"N-not really," Brooke stammered, and Haley laid down the polish brush on her bedside table and sat up straight. She had an uncanny visual of her friend sitting straight up in her window seat, knuckles white, face ashen, green eyes round. In other words, the exact position Brooke Davis was currently in. Her heart was racing a thousand miles a minute, and she could feel it thundering in her throat. Her stomach was threatening to revolt, for not the first time that day. This couldn't be happening. Not to her. This happened to other girls, girls in Lifetime movies or cheesy teen melodramas. This couldn't happen to Brooke Davis.
"What's up, Brooke?" anxiety was gnawing at Haley. Brooke was like a sister to her now, and she didn't know what she would do if something were wrong.
Mumbled words made an indistinguishable noise into the phone, and Haley's brow furrowed as she tried to decode it. "What?"
"I'm late," Brooke sighed with tears in her voice.
If it weren't for the silent changing of her digital alarm clock on the bedside table, Haley James would've thought that time had stopped. Both girls were completely silent, holding their breath it seemed. Haley considered quipping 'For what?' as so many ditzy girls she had seen on television do. But there was a time and place for everything, and she determined that it wasn't time to make a joke when it felt like the world was crashing to an end.
"Did you take a test yet?" she asked.
"Not yet… but I don't really need one to tell me that I'm days late for my period."
Moments of dense silence passed, and it felt as if the quiet was building a thick, impenetrable wall.
"Did you tell Lucas that he's going to be a father?" she questioned silently. This was too much. This morning, she had had a best friend with the flu. Tonight, she had a best friend who was going to be a teenage mother. Her mind wandering in the way that only Haley's does, she noted dimly that if she hooked up with Nathan, eventually they could get married, making her Brooke's baby's aunt-in-law… or something…
"No," Brooke choked through, snapping Haley from her ridiculous train of thought and onto the crisis at hand. "Because that's not true."
Her subsequent sob told Haley all she needed to know.
"I'll be over in a minute."
----------
Please, be reasonable—do not toss tomatoes or threaten to burn me at the stake lol. I'm as big a brucas fan as the rest of you, but seriously, what's a brucas without major drama? I was going to keep writing, but I was upsetting myselflol.Just have faith… and review! (.:sigh:. yes, even if only to tell me how horrible I am lol)
Thanks for everybody who read and reviewed my other OTH story, Beyond Good and Evil.
Thanks for reading!
Xo Sam