Brooke was still by the door to the bedroom. She could here Haley breathing heavily, with some sniffles here and there.

"Haley please, open the door. You don't have to be alone. I'm here, I'll always be here. Just please Haley open the door." Brooke pleaded with Haley. She was afraid for Haley. The thing that she had said before worried her. She was afraid Haley would start to pull away and that was the last thing that Brooke wanted. She was suddenly pulled out of her thoughts by a light knocking on the front door.

"Hey." Was all Brooke could manage to say.

"What did you call me for Brooke? I couldn't understand you on the phone." Nathan said as his mind raced a mile a minute. The last thing that he needed now was more bad news and from the tear stains on Brooke's face, it didn't look good.

"Um it's Haley; she locked herself in the bedroom. She won't open the door and I'm starting to worry." Brooke said as she nervously bit her index finger. Nathan went to the bedroom with out saying a word to Brooke. He didn't know if he should say something, would it make her defiantly not want to open the door? He decided against it. Nathan pulled out his wallet from his back pocket, and got out his student ID. He slipped it in to the crack of the door and slid it up and down waiting for it to open. Finally it did, he looked in to see the woman he loved crouching on the floor, holding at the photo album. It wasn't open; she was just looking at the cover. Nathan went over to her and touched her shoulder. Haley didn't need to look, with the intoxicating sent of cologne she knew it was Nathan. He touched her shoulder, Haley flinched, but it wasn't because she was startled. No, he knew that even for that one second she was afraid.

Haley couldn't move her mind was racing. What it really Nathan there? Was it jack? He knew were she lived. Was someone going to hurt her? God, she really didn't want to get hurt again.

Nathan could see that she froze under his touch, so he pulled back. Walking backward out of the room he motioned for Brooke to come in.

When she saw Nathan emerge she practically ran to her best friends side.

"Baby?" Brooke whispered as she walking into the room not wanting to startle the girl. She walked around her and sat in front of her. Haley looked up at Brooke, then back down at the closed book.

"Why?" Haley whispered to her friend, so low that she had to strain to hear haley's weak voice.

"I don't know baby. I don't know." Brooke said as lifted her up off the ground and put her in her bed tucking her under the covers. Little did they know Nathan was standing at the door watching the two girls.

"Can I have it back?" Haley whispered

"What?"

"Brooke, I want it back."

"Fine, here's your book." She said she had been trying fro ever to get it away from Haley. She didn't even open it she just stared at it or traced the cover with her fingers. And for some reason that didn't sit well with Brooke. Probably because every thing that had happened was her fault. She was the one that told Haley to move on. She was the one that gave the stamp of approval to Jack. God, she had been cursing herself since the minute she found Haley, she should have realized. Brooke shouldn't have let Haley go with him.

After giving Haley back the photo album she went in to the living room to see Nathan sitting on the couch. Not what she had expected. He was leaning over with his elbows resting on his knees and his chin resting on his hands. And it was obvious what he was thinking, because she was thinking the same.

"I didn't expect you to stay." She spoke solemnly as she plopped into the chair across from him.

"Why wouldn't I?" Nathan asked in a defensive tone.

"It's not that I think you don't care, Nathan, that's not it at all. I just- I didn't think that you would stay because," Brooke sighed; she knew what she wanted to say but she didn't want it to come out wrong. "Because it hurts to much." Brooke finally whispered to her friend.

"You don't know how much it hurts Brooke not even close." As quickly as it came out of his mouth he wished that he could take it back, but no such luck.

"Nathan! How dare you say that! You have know Idea how much it hurts me!" Brooke didn't want to explode, but she felt like for the longest time it had been bottled up. "What happened to Haley is a girl's worst nightmare. And I hate to say it but it happens more that you think Nathan." She saw his facial expression change, and she knew that she would have to tell him what happened two years ago. "Um, when I was 15-" Brooke pulled her legs up to the chair, rested her chin on her kneed and stared at her toes as she told the accounts. "I went with Peyton to our first real party. It wasn't my first time drinking but- lets just say that I defiantly should not have had those last few shots. Anyway this guy was being really nice, he stayed with me, got me drinks danced with me, got me drinks, stuff like that. Anyways I started to feel a little dizzy so he brought me up to his room to lie down. But stupid me, didn't realize what the word lay really meant." She let out a sad laugh. "Anyways he threw me on the bed, I said no, he didn't stop, he called me darling, he finished, he threw me out of his room, me and Peyton left, and we cried all night. That's the short version being that I conveniently left out the part were I became a slut so it would never happen again. That was some stupid logic. I mean, I guess- I figured that if I went all crazy and had a lot of sex that it wouldn't happen again. But Haley was lucky me not so much. That was my first time, but Haley's was with you, the man he loves on her wedding night. She was defiantly lucky." Brooke was finished and it wasn't as bad as she expected it to be. However she never looked at Nathan. Brooke bounced off her chair and went into the kitchen, Nathan followed suit and sat at the breakfast bar. "It's a wonder that I didn't get pregnant." Brooke said jokingly. "Do you want Haley's smoothie, she never drank it."

Nathan couldn't believe what Brooke had told him. Why would anyone want to hurt innocent girls? It was mind boggling. But Nathan was jerked from his thoughts by Brooke ranting about how she would have to waste a smoothie.

"Listen Nate that was a long time ago, don't stress over it." Brooke said, putting her petite hand on his shoulder. All Nathan could do was nod.

"Can you tell me about her, what she told you?" Nathan asked Brooke quietly.

"Come on." Brooke says as she led Nathan to the bedroom she shared with Haley, by the hand. One they were inside she sat on her bed with Nathan. "Do you see the bruise on her neck?" Nathan nodded "She was trying to get him away, she was kicking and screaming. That's when he took her neck and told her to stop so that 'he could finish his business'. She has a cut on the back of her head from when her threw he into the back seat. When he was done he got into the front seat drove here, threw her out, and sped off. That was three nights ago. Do you see that book?" Brooke said Nathan could only nodded.

"She made that. Three months into our marriage." Nathan didn't look at her for fear that she would see the tears that were welling up in his eyes.

"She's always holding it. But she never opens it. Not once since Saturday." Brooke looked down at her lap, it had finally clicked whay she never actually looked at the pictures. "She said a lot of things after she called you. She didn't think I heard, but I did. She asked why. Why to everything." Brooke replayed Haley's words in her head.

"Why? Why did I have to leave? Why did I have to hurt Nathan? Why didn't I fight for him when I came home? Why did I flirt with Jack at the café? Why did I take his number? Why did I call him? Why did I go out with him? Why did I let him hurt me? I can answer all those questions. Because I'm a coward. I'm a sorry excuse of a person. I don't deserve anything. I don't deserve love."

Brooke decided to continue, "she asked why she left you, why she met him, why she called him. Then she answered herself, saying that she was a coward and a sorry excuse of a person, and she said she didn't deserve love Nate. For once I don't know how to make her smile again. Nathan, I'm scared for her."

"She'll get through it Brooke, she's the strongest person I know." Brooke was crying staring at her friend. "Why aren't we whispering?" He asked sincerely

"Oh….she won't wake up she's having nightmares about him. I only wake her up when she starts to scream." Brooke whispered, because she knew Nathan would be upset with her.

"What! Only when she starts to scream? What the hell is wrong with you." Nathan said in a hash whisper to get his point across.

"Nathan. If I wake her up she won't be able to get back to sleep. She needs to sleep. And I like to think that maybe one day in her dreams she'll stop him. Maybe then she would be ok again."

"Can I stay here tonight? On the couch?" Nathan was pleading with Brooke, he didn't want to leave the girls alone anymore. He would talk to Luke about it tomorrow.

"Yea. I'm going to go to sleep but there blankets and things in the closet out side the bathroom." She started to change when he left the room. But she felt like she needed to say just one more thing to him before they both drifted off into their nightmarish slumbers. "Nate?"

"Yea?" he asked as he started to get comfortable on the couch.

"Don't talk or act like were helpless. That's really important." And with that she flicked off the lights and retreated to her room.