At The End of The Day

Authors Thoughts: You may have noticed that the only one who didn't get a real character description in Chapter1 was Nathan. That was done on purpose. I think you'll learn more about Nathan's character as the story goes along, much like the other characters are learning about him. This chapter gives you a little more insight into his background, as well as Haley's. And this is still, only the beginning.

Chapter 2

"To be yourself is all that you can do." –"Be Yourself" Audioslave

Nathan sat at his desk in his room staring at the papers in front of him but not really looking at them. It was Friday night and the last thing he wanted to be doing was homework, but he didn't really know anybody yet since they were only about a week into school, and so he had no one to go out with. Lucas hadn't fared much better. Even though the season hadn't really started, as captain of the team he had responsibilities, which included meetings with the Coach on a Friday night. Lucas swore the coach scheduled it for a Friday night to try to keep him out of partying on the first weekend of the year. Not that he was that much of a party boy, but he did want to catch up with all of his old friends. Responsibilities came first though so begrudgingly Lucas had left the room about a half an hour earlier, leaving Nathan to mull over the work in front of him. Senior year he'd barely had any work to do, especially the second half of the year, and he was not enjoying the workload being thrown at him right now. If it weren't for the team, he probably wouldn't even care as much about doing it. They'd kick him off the team if he didn't maintain a certain grade level, and it wasn't that he hated schoolwork, he just hated Math.

A knock came on the opened door to his room and he looked up to see that it was Lucas' best friend.

"Oh hey, Haley right?"

"Yeah," she smiled, "how's it going Nathan?"

"Oh you know, just a lame Friday night."

She laughed, "I was looking for Lucas, we were supposed to meet for pizza, have you seen him?"

"Oh yeah he actually had to go do some stuff for the team so he said he'd have to take a rain check."

"He's such a flake," she laughed only joking, placing her hands on her hips. "So whatcha doing?" she asked, stepping further into the room.

"I was just asking myself the same thing," he let out a long sigh turning back to his desk. "Calculus is so not my thing."

"Oh I love Calculus!" she exclaimed coming to peer over what kinds of problems he was doing. He sent her an incredulous look.

"Love?" he raised his eyebrows at her.

She blushed softly, "ok yeah I'm a bit of a geek you'd figure that out sooner or later," she rolled her eyes sheepishly.

"I didn't say that," he looked at her, "I just find it a little hard to believe someone could love something that makes no sense." He huffed out another breath.

"You need some help? I used to tutor back in high school and I'm studying early education so teaching is sort of my thing."

Nathan leaned back in his chair, "oh no you don't have to, I'm sure you could find something funner to do."

"More fun," she corrected him, mostly teasing him, and he couldn't help but laugh.

"Ok if you can actually make this make sense I'll owe you one." She picked up his notebook and turned to sit on his bed to study what topic he was doing. "I just hate learning stuff that I'm pretty sure I'm never going to need, ever. I feel like I'm wasting my time."

"Yeah I guess you won't need Calculus if you're going to play basketball for the rest of your life." She stopped and looked up at him expectantly. "Is that the plan?"

"Pretty much, but I'm getting a business degree just in case, as a back up plan you know?"

She nodded, "that's very smart of you. This is easy, you'll be fine, come here" she gestured to the bed and moved over to make room for him. He sat down next to her and watched as she flipped some pages in the book. "Ok so you see this is very simple. All you need to know is multiplication and subtraction, you can do that right?" She looked up at him grinning.

"Yes," he stated his own smile breaking out on his face.

"Ok its simple. You take the exponent and multiply it by the coefficient, and then subtract one from the exponent. So you see…here, lets start with an easy one. 3x would be what?"

"Um, 3?" he looked at her nervously.

"Yeah because you pretend there's a one and multiply it by 3, and then x to the 0 is just 0."

"I don't get what you do when it's just a number though? Do you..."

"Its just zero," she cut him off. "The derivative of a whole number is just zero."

He nodded as she continued to explain to him the quandaries of derivation. He swore it was gibberish to him before, but she was making it all seem easy. She even waited until he finished his homework problems and checked them over for him. When he looked up at the clock a half hour had passed and he hadn't even realized it.

She handed him back his notebook, "Good job" she smiled down at him from where she was standing.

"Thanks Haley, you didn't have to do that you know but you're a real life savor. It probably would of taken me much longer to figure some of those more complicated ones out."

"It's no problem. In fact if you ever have any trouble feel free to ask. I mean I can tell you're pretty smart I'm sure you won't always need help but even if you do it's cool. I need all the practice teaching I can get," she laughed nervously crossing her arms.

"I'd say you've got the teaching thing down pretty good," he smiled at her and she could feel a slight blush creep on her cheeks.

"Thanks."

"So uh, you still hungry for that pizza, it's the least I could do to thank you."

She looked out the door and back at him, "Ok sure, why not?"

He grabbed his wallet and followed her out the door.

"So have you always been that smart?" he teased as they made their way over to the Pizza Parlor on campus.

She laughed in response, "well I kind of had to be if I was going to make it to college…and actually be able to afford it."

He looked down at her since with her height he towered over her. "Oh I'm sorry I didn't mean anything…"

"Oh please," she waived him off letting him know he had nothing to apologize for. "It's not just that, I liked school, always did, I guess that's why I want to be a teacher, that way I never actually have to leave," she laughed once again. He smiled down at her. She had a nice laugh.

"Yeah I guess I never really had to worry about that, money, I mean. But my dad kind of likes to blackmail me with it," he opened the door to the pizza shop and headed for one of the booths.

"What if you misbehave you don't get your allowance?" she teased.

He waited until she sat and then sat across from her, "more like he wouldn't pay for college unless I came to the one he wanted me to go to," he grabbed one of the breadsticks from the basket on the table and took a bite. He leaned back and looked up at her when she didn't answer right away and noticed her jaw slightly dropped, her mouth a small "o".

"Are you serious?"

He nodded.

"I don't understand; did you not want to come to Duke?"

"Not really. I know it's a great school for basketball which is the first reason my dad wanted me to come here. Add that to the fact that Lucas was already here and my dad and Uncle Keith thought it'd be a brilliant idea. I like Luke and everything but I had all my friends up in Connecticut from high school. A lot of them went to UConn, which is where I wanted to go. It's a good basketball school too and the schoolwork wouldn't be as tough for me, as you saw earlier."

She nodded, "so why do you even try with the schoolwork, I mean if you don't even like being here?"

"Because if I don't I can't play."

She nodded, a smile creeping on her face, "right, I forgot about that."

"Besides I'm stuck here, might as well make the best of it," he shrugged.

"Yeah don't worry Duke's a good school, I'm sure you'll end up liking being here." She smiled encouragingly at him, patting his hand that was resting on the table.

He smirked, "I'm sure my dad's betting on that."

They stopped their conversation as the waiter came up to them.

"Hi guys, what would you like."

"I'll have two slices with pepperoni please, and a diet Coke," Haley answered first.

"Same, regular Coke, thanks."

When the waiter took their menus and walked away Nathan turned back to Haley.

"I know my dad means well and everything, and I know he just wants what's best for me. But sometimes I wish he'd just let me make my own decisions, I'm not a child."

Haley nodded understandingly, "so is your dad behind you and Lucas rooming together as well?"

"Yeah we had to request each other as roommates. My dad figured I could be near family and Uncle Keith thinks I can keep an eye on Luke for him. It's like they want us to baby-sit each other or something," he scoffed.

"Don't worry I'm sure Luke will let you out past curfew," she teased.

He smirked at her, "Funny." She laughed in response. He realized then that he'd just shared a bunch of stuff with this girl that he barely knew. Something about her let him know that he could trust her, and even though he was usually a quiet guy who liked to keep to himself, something about her made him feel free to open up.

"So are you not 21 yet?" he changed the subject.

"No I am, I'm turning 22 soon, why?"

"Well I'm just surprised you didn't order like a beer or something."

"Oh I'm not much of a drinker, especially if we're just getting pizza."

"Oh."

"What were you hoping I'd get one for you," she rested her head on her hand eyeing him.

"I wouldn't be opposed to it," he replied honestly before laughing. "Guess I'll just have to take Brooke up on her offer."

"What offer?"

"I was hanging out with her and Lucas the other day and she said she'd get me a fake ID if I wanted one."

Haley rolled her eyes, "why am I not surprised?"

He laughed at her reaction, "so are you one of those people who's a stickler for all the laws and rules?"

They were interrupted as the waiter brought them their food and drinks. Haley picked up one of her slices and took a bite, savoring the taste. She didn't realize how hungry she was until that first bite. "If you must know," she began before finishing chewing, "I think 18 year old boys drinking for no real reason can spell trouble. But it's really none of my business I'm just not into the whole drinking thing when there's no real reason for it. Plus champagne is so much better than beer. I don't really like the way it tastes that much."

He nodded taking his own bites, "it's cool. I was just surprised that's all, you don't hear that too often."

"Yeah well I don't usually do what most people do so…I've kind of gotten used to it."

"There's nothing wrong with being different," he told her honestly and she believed that he meant it. She was glad that he could accept her choice, or at least understand it. The toughest thing about college for her had been not falling into the partying crowd. She had a goal for being at college. She needed to get her education so that she could support herself. She didn't come from money like a lot of these kids did and so college for her wasn't just a learning experience. It was setting her up for the rest of her life. Getting drunk on random nights she had a feeling would deter her from her ambitions. Maybe it wouldn't, but she didn't want to find out. She was curious though about Nathan and how he seemed to not be fazed by it, not yet anyways.

"Do you drink a lot?"

He shook his head, "No I mean if I want to be good at basketball I can't very well get drunk every night now can I?" he smirked. "But I have drunk at parties before…just a couple beers, nothing too crazy. Never to the point of getting sick or passing out or anything like that."

She nodded finishing up her pizza happy with his answer. She could understand having a few drinks just for fun, she didn't approve though of those that thought puking at the end of the night was fun. For some reason she was glad to know Nathan wasn't one of them. She noticed Nathan was finished with his pizza as well.

"Come on," she said getting up abruptly, "I want to show you something."

Throwing some money on the table he got up and followed her.