July 14th, 2002

I guess I slacked off of a bit on the journal entries. I made a great effort though, a grand total of two! Dr. Farrell would be so proud. That is if I hadn't stopped seeing her at the end of that summer. My father wasn't all that happy about it, but I guess he didn't want to force me into anything I didn't want to be doing. When I told Brooke she just rolled her eyes at me and started laughing. Apparently she figured I'd only last a few weeks, not the whole summer. I guess even her encouragement wasn't enough for me to keep going.

But the doc was a quack, I'm convinced of that. She proved it to me during our last session. I realized I had mentioned Brooke a few times during our sessions, but I figured that was completely normal, she's a huge part of my life, why wouldn't I talk about her here and there.

Halfway through our last session I brought up how Brooke and I had a slumber party, my poor father being trapped in the house with two chocolate hyped teenagers. It was the night before we had to go back to school and we both wanted to make the most of what could have been a dreadfully depressing evening. Somehow we got around to talking about boys, which really wasn't all that surprising, but Brooke was after me about the fact that I had yet to have a real boyfriend, or even a real kiss.

Brooke being Brooke thought that was unacceptable. No best friend of hers could be so inexperienced in the ways of manipulating the male species. An hour later, my lips were swollen for the first time in my life and I had a half dozen techniques in my playbook on how to love em and leave em, all thanks to Brooke Davis and her repertoire of charm.

I remember the look on Dr. Farrell's face. There was this little disturbing smile gracing her lips and I couldn't figure out what in the world she could find so amusing about my best friend teaching me how to kiss. I asked her as much and she sat up in her expensive leather chair and proceeded to give me a mini version of the Spanish inquisition, all about my relationship with Brooke. I remember glancing over at the clock on her desk repeatedly, praying for the little buzzer to go off, signaling it was the end of our session. It didn't happen before she came out with what sounded like the most ridiculous idea in the world to me.

She point blank asked me if I was gay.

I didn't even give her the chance to explain why she asked me such an obviously insane question, I immediately jumped down her throat, using quite a few expletives in the process, accusing her of jumping to far too many conclusions. And she sat there with that same creepy serene smile, just letting me go, railing on her for a good ten minutes, until the little alarm finally went off. As I grabbed my backpack, fully prepared to storm out of her office, determined never to return, she called out to me and uttered two small one syllable words. Words that now make so much sense and at the time seemed like the stupidest advice in the world.

Tell her.

I spent three years wondering what in the world she meant. And why she had made such a huge leap from something as innocent as Brooke teaching me to French kiss to my entire sexual identity in question. It baffled me to no end, and I even told Brooke about it. She rolled her eyes like she always did when I told her about my therapy sessions, threw her arm around my shoulders and led me off to the mall to check out the guys hanging around the food court. Our normal after school ritual. And it never really got spoken of again. I didn't even bother contemplating that the doc could be anywhere in the vicinity of right. I was little more than twelve years old, I barely knew what gay meant.

I get it now though, and I'm scared to death of it. Because I think she might have been more on than I ever wanted to think about.

Peyton

That long! I re-read the last paragraph a good five times, baffling at how long Peyton's been keeping this to herself. Three years now, and I had no clue. How is that even possible?

I do remember that shrink of hers, married to our impossibly cute elementary school principal. When PS came over to my house after her last therapy session, she was completely red in the face, and I could feel the anger rolling off of her, it was that acute. I didn't understand why she was so mad, I mean yeah, the psychobabbler had jumped to some pretty out there conclusions. But Peyton was ready to boil over.

I didn't think anything of teaching her how to stick her tongue down a guy's throat. Gay wasn't even in my vocabulary at that point. I didn't even bat an eye as I had grabbed her face in my palms and pressed our lips together. It seemed completely natural to me. I guess that makes more sense now, but at the time, no thought was even given to it. I just assumed it was entirely normal. Hell, it probably IS normal. I'm sure most best friends don't end up falling in love after practicing kissing techniques.

Whoa. In love?

I am. I really am. What a euphoric feeling this is. I can feel the sense of tranquility and peace invade my entire being. It's such an amazing sensation, and I'm surprised by the lack of fear or nervousness that comes with it. I'm fully prepared for this, for the very first time in my life I'm not going to run in the other direction of it.

I lay back against my overstuffed pillows, for all the world feeling like I'm floating on little mini clouds. Taking a quick sip from my bottle of water on the nightstand, desperately trying not to choke on it in my prone position, I thumb to the next journal entry.

AN: As always gang, thanks so much for the feedback. I'm going with the shorter/quicker updates like most of ya'll wanted, hope it's still interesting.