The Sharp Hint of New Tears
A/N: I think Mark Schwan is kind of a hack, I think he's lost all sense of who Lucas and Peyton really are, and I think he's going to royally screw up this upcoming season in terms of Lucas and Peyton. I hope I'm wrong, but in case I'm not this is my own version of what might happen, no spoilers included.
The hospital doors slide open with a staggering lack of urgency, she pushes her tiny frame through the heavy glass before they've opened all the way. Haley had called her, long-distance from London, hours after it had happened, almost as if she was an afterthought. She was too worried to be angry so she got the information she needed and hung up before Haley could say goodbye.
Her pace quickens down the hallway, in a half-hearted effort to avoid the wrath of the nurses who'll tell her that visiting hours are over and she'll need to come back tomorrow. But tomorrow isn't an option for her, not anymore. She needs him to know everything now.
She slips into his darkened hospital room, and she can tell that he's sleeping as a halo of soft yellow light surrounds his head. The soles of her black Converse sneakers squeak softly as she makes her way over to the foot of the bed. The noise doesn't wake him, but when she slides over a chair he moans softly and cautiously opens his eyes. He gives her a slight smile, and it's almost enough to calm the nerves swarming angrily in her stomach.
"Hi." She says as she reciprocates his smile.
"What are you doing here?" He asks, his voice hoarse with sleep and exhaustion.
"Haley called me, she said you were in the hospital. I was scared."
"I'm okay Peyt." He reassures her quietly. "Just a little thing with my heart."
"There's no such thing as 'a little problem' when it comes to a heart."
"The doctor says I'm alright, I just need to slow down. I have to spend a few days in the hospital but I'm fine."
"You really scared me." She breathes out slowly, reaching across the gap between where she sits and the hospital bed to grab his hand, being careful to avoid the i.v. line traipsing down his arm. "I thought I was going to lose you today. Haley called, and I panicked, and I realized that I don't want to waste any more time holding back."
"Peyton, I…" A look of hesitance or regret or both crosses his face, but she doesn't catch it.
"No, Luke, let me just get through this before I lose all my nerve." She squeezes his hand a little harder, and she can feel his calloused palms beneath her fingertips. "I was with Jake in Savannah a few weeks ago, I was going to stay there with him and Jenny, make a new life for myself. I thought I loved Jake, or that I could at least learn to love him the way he deserved to be. But Jake made me realize what I've always known, I love you, and I want to be with you."
She pauses for a moment and notices his lack of reaction, and fifteen seconds pass before she can breathe again. He blinks once with his mouth wide open and continues to stare down at their interlocked hands.
"Brooke knows, I told her how I felt about you in some momentary lapse of judgment. We got into a fight, she screamed at me and slapped me across the face. Needless to say we won't be exchanging friendship bracelets any time soon. I've given up everything for Brooke, and gotten nothing in return, so I'm not going to sit around and let her dictate my life, not anymore." She can't help the hopeful smile that crosses her face. "I'm putting everything on the line here Lucas, I've got no safety net, no best friend. But I'm doing this because I think we could be happy, and we deserve that more than anyone."
He stares at her for a long time, and she can see something brewing in his tired eyes. She realizes after a few moments of silence that pouring her heart out to Lucas Scott has never ended well, and today is probably not going to be any different. He still hasn't said a word when he brushes his thumb lightly over the sharp angles of her knuckles.
He takes a heavy sigh that makes his lean shoulders rise and fall. "God Peyton, I wish things were different."
"What does that mean?" She asks, her voice even and low.
He can't even look her in the eyes when he tells her.
"Brooke's pregnant."
An unintended gasp escapes from her lips, and she sits in stunned silence with mouth agape and tears pricking at her eyelids. She realizes her hand is still in his, and she rips it away like she's just touched the surface of a hot stove, but she's just been burned in a very different way. She's angry now, irrationally angry even, though she doesn't think it's all that ridiculous. She knows what this means, Brooke's knocked up and Lucas will marry her, because he's Lucas fucking Scott and he always does the right thing, except when it comes to her.
She hears him try to explain, to soften the blow, make himself feel better, but she ignores it. She feels like a fool, an absolute asshole for laying herself on the line for him, again. She can't breathe when she stands from her chair, shaking her head at him in anger, and disgust, and absolute hurt. She hears him call after her, his voice shaking slightly, but the closing door silences him.
She never looks back.
Two hours later she's on the road to Savannah with a suitcase in the backseat, and trying her hardest to swallow back the taste of uncertainty that lingers in the back of her throat.