Another uncharacteristic move made by Peyton. "Who is in your arms, Luke?"
The three of them were baffled, "What are you talking about, Peyton?"
"Who is in your arms, Lucas? It is not a hard question."
"Haley, Haley is in my arms," he was getting angry with her, he saw no point in these questions.
"Is that it?"
"Peyton is that cocaine affecting your brain, there is no one else in my arms, only Haley, and she is not getting any better by us just standing here answering your pointless questions."
Peyton did not falter with Lucas's harsh comment, "I do see Haley alone in your arms, but I also see the strongest girl that we have ever met. I see the smartest girl that we have ever met. I see the most talented girl that we have ever met. And I see the girl with the most potential in your arms. Someone with all of those qualities, they do not just stop living life. They are the ones that make it. So, you can answer the question for yourself now. Is Haley going to be okay?"
"She is a fighter; no one is going to win the game except for her. She is not going to give up, she is going to battle this, and she is going to triumphant. Haley is going to be okay," people have a way of surprising you, the person in Brooke surprised him earlier, and the person in Peyton surprised him right now.
The world is full of actors living life holding a mask over their faces. We live in this world that no one feels safe enough to reveal their inner selves all the time. It takes great courage to do so, and Lucas saw it tonight.
Lucas did not even realize that Brooke was on the ground. What was the world coming to when the girls in his life were all in need? Who wanted the people Lucas cared about the most in the world to struggle to make it in it? He did not know what to do; he could not drop Haley and run to Brooke. And he was not choosing because he cared about Haley more then Brooke, that was not the case. Haley just needed him more. Well it looked like he was choosing after all.
"We have got to go, who is coming with me?"
Brooke got up quickly, and she rushed to the bathroom, and a few seconds later they heard heaving in the bathroom.
"You go ahead Lucas; I want to check on Brooke. But you cannot wait; you have got to get Haley to the emergency room."
"I will go with you, Luke." Peyton knew that when they took Haley away from him, he was going to be a mess, and he could not be alone. At the present time, Peyton did not know what she was going to do yet, but being there was a step. No one should ever have to be alone in the emergency room lobby waiting for the fate of someone that they loved. Love – there was no –ed, because the love was not going to end, Haley was going to make it, she was going to be okay.
Karen gave Haley a kiss on her forehead, "I love you sweetheart." She gave Lucas a kiss on his cheek, "be strong Lucas. You must be her strength; she is going to need more then just her own right now." She looked towards Peyton, "Thank you for going with him. I do not think that he could have handled it alone. I cannot just leave Brooke right now. The person that I know you are is still in there. It is okay to reveal it."
Peyton did not say anything but just followed Lucas out the door.
Karen rushed to the bathroom and found Brooke with her head in the bowl. Karen went to her and knelt down next to her and she pulled backed her hair, and rubbed her back trying to comfort the apparent distraught girl. "It is okay, shhh, Brooke, it is okay."
When Brooke was done, she pulled herself back and leaned against the wall, almost pulling herself away from Karen. She never had that. There had been so many times that she had returned from a party in the middle of the night and puked the rest of the night away…alone. She did not need that now. She was beginning to think that being alone was just easier; there was no one to worry about. Brooke was unaware of it, but more tears had escaped her eyes. When they hit her hand, she looked up and Karen was staring in hers with sad eyes. Her damn broke again and more tears came flooding out. And she was not sure why they were. Maybe it was just 18 years of build up, and that was a lot of tears. But then again she never wanted to admit that she was hurt or in pain, so she saw no need in releasing them.
Karen was hesitant, she did not want to pressure the girl into accepting her comfort, so she slowly put her arms around her, and Brooke did accept them, and all of her unshed tears…they weren't unshed anymore.
Peyton – the one who had a broken arm and a concussion – was driving, because Lucas was so distraught, that he couldn't do it himself. He just held on to Haley, afraid that if he let go, then she would slip away. Peyton got them there fairly quickly; she could not find a spot so she just created her own. She got out of the car and opened the door for Lucas, who had Haley in his arms. They rushed into the emergency room, "She needs help. I need help," he yelled to anyone who would listen to him. "Please, help me."
The nurses must have sensed his call of distress, one rushed to him to see how much of the details she could get, while the other retrieved a gurney for the broken girl.
"Can you tell me what happened?"
"She cannot breathe that is what happened."
"Do you know what caused this?"
"A broken heart."
"Can you be more specific please?"
"Do you want ever single detail? Will that help Haley out any for you to know exactly the point that her heart broke. I am no doctor, but I do not think so. Please, can you help her out?"
"I want to help your friend as much as I can; I just need to know what happened to her, son."
Peyton took over, she was going to have to get a certificate for friend of the day at the rate she was going, "Lucas, please, put Haley on the gurney and hold her hand. I am going to talk to this nurse, and when I am done they are going to take Haley away. But you are just going to have to be strong, you cannot let Haley see your tears, she will think that something is wrong. And there is nothing wrong, Lucas. Haley is going to be just fine; she just needs a little time to get better."
Like a little child being told what to do from his mother, Lucas did exactly what Peyton told him to do. He placed her down and held her hand after he moved some hair away from her face, so he could look at her face. Haley's face. His Haley.
"I am sorry about that, he has never seen her like this, and we are just scared that she is not going to be okay. And we do not know what to do."
"Do you know what happened to her, Miss?"
"She fainted."
"Do you know of any reason as to why this happened?"
Peyton honestly did not know. She did not know Haley over the past two months. And to be honest Peyton and Gavin were more of a cause to all of this, there was not a point that she was not giving her a hard time. "Umm…I do not think that she has been sleeping." Peyton had to think, yeah, she has avoided her friendship, but she still saw her. She just never thought about things like that before. But now that she had to think about it, Haley always looked dead to her, though she did try to hide it. Haley did not want to let on that she was suffering; she did not want Nathan to get that satisfaction. At school she appeared as normal as she could. She did not sulk around depressed at the world. No one other then I guess the people that she was around the most really knew. And that was basically Brooke, and Karen picked up on hints of it. But if someone got really close to Haley, if someone was in her general vicinity, and looked into her eyes, they could see sadness right away, pain a few seconds later, and defeat a few after that. Her stature was different too, she was not standing up as straight, nor was she a hunchback, but still, her vibrancy was gone as well. And there were just little things that she noticed about Haley, like everyone had said when Peyton was not around, Haley lost a lot of weight for a little girl, and she had not been sleeping. She has tried to live a normal life and be happy while she was having her Friday nights at Tric. And she was happy, but not as happy as she could be with if the one that she loved, loved her back.
"And I do not think that she had been eating. There is just a lot going on in her life, stress build up, stuff like that. I do not what else to tell you. But can you please just help her out; this is the second time that she blacked out. I do not know how many times she can take this."
"We are going to do everything in our power to help your friend. Is there anyone I can call for her? Her parents?"
"Umm, I have no idea where her parents are. But the people that she needs are here or on their way. Please no more question before you help her."
The nurse signaled the other nurse to take Haley away, Lucas tried to hold on to her hand, but they wouldn't let him, "we are going to help the victim."
This did not make Lucas happy to hear, "Her name is Haley, she is not a victim, she is Haley," he yelled to them. But there was nothing else that he could do, but stand there hopelessly and wait. Time was not his friend. But that was all that he had. He walked back to Peyton.
"Let's sit down. As much as you do not want to hear it, there is nothing that either of us can do then to let the doctors do their job, and for us to be here for her. And we have to be strong, Luke. 'Cause when she wakes up she is going to still be weak, so she is going to need to borrow some of our strength, so we cannot be weakening, how would that be fair to her?"
"I know. I am going to be strong for her; it is going to be hard. But there never was a time that Haley was not there for me, I am going to be here for her…now."
"Haley is a good person."
"But how does that saying go, 'Bad things happen to good people.'"
"They do not have to though."
"They already did, Peyton. Bad things happened and now my best friend is fighting for her life."
"I am sorry Lucas."
"Why are you sorry?"
She had to think about, she really did not know why she said that aloud, she was not ready to apologize for what had happened between Haley and Gavin, and Haley and her, so why did she just say that she was sorry? "I am sorry that bad things happened to a good person."
"Are you sure that is it?"
"I…yeah…I am sure."
"Okay. But if you ever want to apologize for something else, I will be waiting for you. You were not any better then Gavin with your words, you know?"
"Wait, if you are saying this then you are telling me that you have been there for Haley over these past two months. Wait, wait, a second, there are rumors going around that you haven't, so how the hell would you know what I was doing. Honestly, the only person that was there for Haley, was Brooke, I think it is pretty damn ironic, but it is the truth. And look who is here right now in the lobby, the ones who have caused more pain then prevented it."
"I have not caused her any more pain then she was already getting."
"Are you kidding me? Hmm, not being there for your best friend, I do not think that she took amazingly well. I am pretty sure that if my best friend was not there for me when I needed her the most, then I would be really hurt. Wait, I am getting this feeling of déjà vu, shit, I remember, this is exactly what happened with Brooke and I. She was too damn obsessed with herself, and now look how I turned out. Just wonderful."
"Okay, so neither of us is going to win friend of the year, so what? All that matters is that I am here now."
"Are you really that naïve, Lucas? Sometimes it is just too late. Sometimes that just is not enough."
"Well this time it is just going to have to be."
"Oh you are an exception to the rule? Are you just that much better then the rest of us? You are just this high god that can never do anything wrong, and if you do, you can justify it each and every time. Where do you get of living life that way?"
"You do not know me. I do not go around with this holier then thou personality, unlike that someone. You can classify me all you want, but what category would you put yourself in? I would put you in, 'Fuck the world' category, fuck everyone that has every cared about me. Stay away and we are both happy. I am not trying to be anyone that I am not. I recognize that I have not been there for Haley, so I am here for her now. Umm, what are you doing here? Is your guilt just too large? Did you think that she was just so strong that she could take everything that you threw at her? Because you know what, no one, no matter who the person is, can take what you did to her."
"And what about what you did not do?"
"It is not the same."
"Bullshit, it is the exactly the same."
"She is my best friend."
"Yeah, but are you hers?"
"Where do you get off thinking that you can say all of this to me?"
"Where do you get off thinking that I can't?"
"Well if you want to go down that route, then if I have been such a horrible friend to Haley, and I am out of the running. Then are you trying to tell me that you are an expert on best friend. How is Brooke doing? You know your best friend? I mean since I have been so absent in everyone else's lives, I really do not know, I was just looking for an update."
"Brooke and I used to be best friends, as in the past. She was not there when I needed her, and when she was ready to come around it was just too late, I was already gone. See sometimes it is just too late, Lucas."
"Okay, now let me get this straight, she was not available when you needed her, so you decided that you two could not be friends anymore? So then when she was in need you decided that you were not going to help her out because she was such a horrible friend to you in the past. I think that was very fair of you, not. That is like me saying, Haley went away on tour without even saying goodbye to me, so when she called me two months later in the rain, crying, I should have said, 'sorry, you were not there for me, find another ride home and another shoulder to cry on'?"
"It is not the same situation."
"No situation is going to be the same, Peyton. But you cannot just shut out the person that has been your best friend for more then half of your life because she was not there this one time. I mean I doubt it was a normal occurrence with her. What kind of drama could she be going through constantly that she was never there for you?"
"You do not know Brooke at all do you?"
"Do you know her any better?"
"A hell of a lot better."
"But not anymore, right? And why does it matter if you know her a lot better then me, neither of us are there for her. Why does it matter if you know her better? And to tell you the truth, if you knew her at all, then you would know why she is the way that she is right now. I mean I have never seen Brooke care about anyone other then herself of course, then she does with Haley."
"You do not know her at all."
"Well if you are the expert tell me about her. I think that we were in love once, I would like to know what I was missing."
"She is all alone, Lucas, she always has been. I mean I do not know if you know how we met, but it was the day that my mom died, and she walked me to the office. And when my dad could not tell a seven year old that her mother was not coming back, another seven year old, Brooke, she told me that my mom was in heaven, but that was not as far as I would think, because all I had to do was my hand over my heart, and there she is. No seven year old should know that, but she did. And it took me a while to realize that she was forced to grow up a lot quicker then most kids. She had no childhood. Her parents were never around; they still aren't, as you can see. I mean she lived with me half of the time, and then she felt like a burden so she would go home for weeks at a time. Then she would get lonely, she wouldn't admit it though, but I knew it, and then she would return to my house until she felt like a burden again. She could have set herself on fire, and her parents wouldn't notice, but I am pretty sure if they returned they would tell her to clean it up. So she is getting no love at home, so she went on this rampage in her early teens that she went seeking for it. And she did not care who she was with, just as long as they would be there for her, in whatever way that was. We drifted here and there, until it was a complete separation."
"So you pretty much know her better then most. You know the person that she really is, you know that she is not really the person that she reveals to the world, and yet you still let her live her life the way that she is living it?"
"I really do not think that you have met her, Brooke Davis? Yeah, do you know her?" With each sentence they would get louder and louder, they were accumulating stares from around them. "She is afraid, she is afraid that if she revealed herself that people who judge her. And she was more okay with people thinking that she was slut, then thinking that she had a heart in there. Because that would mean that she was susceptible to feelings and that was just not something that she had any experience in. So she put on her mask, and she lived her life. And now it has caught up with her."
"Do you really know me that well? I really thought that you had gotten to a point where you did not even know if I was dead or alive. I mean I was not even sure if you would care either way, it was not like my presence was a common occurrence in your life or anything," Brooke surprised both of them when she spoke from behind them.
