Little White Lies

The Mixed Tape

Haley

"Stop shouting at me Nate!" I plead, holding my head in my hands hoping to stop the onslaught. My head is hurting beyond words, and my stomach is doing this strange swishy thing where it feels like I'll throw up again any second now. I was asking why I had drunk so much earlier, now I remember. To drink myself forgetful about that that stupid conversation I had with Brooke earlier on today. And the worst thing, Nathan found out and freaked out before I had a chance to tell him why I've done it.

Okay, so just so we're clear, this is how the conversation went:

Me: Hello? (I didn't know who it was at this point, you see.)

Brooke: Tutor girl? (Can you believe she still calls me that? Ugh.)

Me: No.

Brooke: Ugh. Fine, Haley?

Me: This is she. Hello Brooke.

Brooke: Haley! Oh my God I am so excited about next week. Aren't you?

Me: (Silence)

Brooke: I can't wait to see everyone. I mean, I know Lucas isn't too far away from me - he's in the next state - but still, it's going to be so much fun the whole of us being together again. Just like old times!

Me: Brooke, there will be one major change… (deciding to get the big news out of the way so at least one person won't be shocked when we get home. Well, this is Brooke, so everyone would know by the time we got home anyway)

Brooke: Ooh! Like what? Good or bad?

Me: Good. Well, I think it's good. I mean… no, yes, no it's good. Yup, good, good, good.

Brooke: Oh-kay tuto girl, what's with the rambling and the contradictions? Oooh! I just used like, a big word. I'm a college student, I do things like that now you know. Ugh, anyway, so what's this 'major change'? ANd please stop with the rambling. It makes my head hurt.

Me: (Big breath) Me and Nathan have… went just about as far as it is possible for two people to go.

Brooke: (Squeal) You had sex! Right? Right!

Me: Um… even further than that…

Brooke: What's further than that? Except for threesomes, but you've already said between two people, so that doesn't add up - yes, I can suddenly do mathematics too! Isn't it cool?

Me: Brooke, we've went to the last level in a relationship. We've…

Brooke: Oh my God! You guys have broken up, haven't you? This is terrible! Oh my God! It's never going to be the same again… what happened? Is it definitely over? Is there no way of a reconciliation?

Me: Uhm… How the hell did you come to that conclusion?

Brooke: the last level in a relationship… it's the break-up. Right? I mean, except for marriage, and that's just ridiculous.

Me: Uh…

Brooke: God, can you imagine Dan Scott if Nathan got married? Insane doesn't even come into it! He'd probably cut him off. In fact, he'd probably financially castrate him. And then there's everyone else. I mean, marriage is just silly at your age, isn't it? With college and everything.

Me: Uh…

Brooke: It's… not marriage, is it?

Me: No, no. Not marriage. We uh… yeah. We broke up.

"What do you mean it just happened?" Nathan asks, his face a little bit red because he's just been shouting at me. I bury my head in the pillow, hoping that the alcohol in my system will make me slip into a catatonic state where I can escape from feeling this wretched, and Nathan can't shout at me anymore. God, this must be the worst feeling in the world. Being drunk and hungover at once, with the person you love more than anyone in the world yelling at you and angry as hell.

"I… I'm sorry Nate. I just…"

"What? You just what? I mean, why would you say that? Do you want it to be true? Aren't you happy? Do you want out?"

"No!" I yell, hoping that my head doesn't rip open with the effort. "I would never want that."

Nathan looks at me and his eyes soften, he seems to deflate and he sits down on Gwen's bed, putting his head in his hands. "Then why… why would you say it Hales?"

"I didn't," I say quietly. Nathan opens his mouth to protest, but I cut in before he can. "I mean, not initially. I was going to tell her that we were married, and she got the wrong idea and thought we'd broke up, and then… and then she went on about how Dan would cut you off if you got married, and I panicked. I went along with her. I said we'd broke up. I was scared Nate! If your dad cut you off, what would you do? What would we do?" I start crying and am relieved to feel Nathan's arms around my shoulder. I lean into him.

"Okay. It's… it's okay. We'll just ring Brooke tomorrow and tell her the truth…"

"But…" I start to protest. Has he not jut heard what I said about Dan cutting him off?

"You're right about not telling anyone. We don't have to do that. We'll just tell Brooke. I mean, she can keep a secret if we want her to. We'll just go home winter break as girlfriend and boyfriend." He lifts up my left hand and kisses it, before pulling off my wedding ring. "And that means your wedding finger will be a little bare. That okay?"

"No," I squeak. "But… it's necessary I guess. We'll call Brooke tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow."

Tomorrow comes too soon. Well, actually, it never comes, because by the time it's tomorrow it's actually today and tomorrow is tomorrow.

Uh… yeah, I'm trying to put this awful chore off, as you can probably tell.

"Do you want me to do it?" Nathan asks. I nod, of course I want him to do it, but that's just irresponsible. I got us into this, I have to get us out.

"We could both do it. With speakerphone…" Well, maybe not by myself. Nathan smiles and holds my ringless hand. It feels so empty without my wedding band there. It became part of me, and now I feel like a little bit of me is missing. I squeeze Nathan's hand back and he dials in Brooke's number.

"Haley?" she asks, her voice ringing around the room. I briefly wonder how she knew it was me, but before I have any daydreams about psychic powers, I realise that I'm ringing her cell phone. Duh Haley.

"Uh, yeah. Look this is about yesterday, and um… what I said yesterday…"

"Oh Haley!" Brooke coos, "you sound terrible. Look, you don't need to worry about telling anyone because I've done it for you. I swear, Dan sounded positively delighted. He is such a nasty piece of work, I swear."

Me and Nathan exchange horrified glances. This is not going according to plan. I widen my eyes at him and he shakes his head.

"What do I do?" I mouth.

He shrugs his shoulders and wordlessly mouths back. "I don't know."

"Haley?"

"Uh… Here!" I say in a strangled voice.

"Look, you don't need to worry about where you're going to stay. I mean, you can't stay at Nathan's, obviously, and Peyton's dad is away so she said that you're staying with her. Hasn't she phoned you yet? Actually, she wouldn't have. I've just told her. She was devastated, as you can imagine. So was Lucas, which kind of surprised me, but I guess even he saw how perfect you two are…"

"Brooke…"

"Oh God! Sorry, I meant were! How good you two were. Ugh, I so suck at consoling over the phone. I need to make you a break-up pack for when you get home. So, what exactly happened? You didn't say yesterday and I didn't want to sound insensitive, but the curiosity is just like, eating away at me so… spill."

"Uh… Brooke, Nathan and I never broke up…"

Nathan grabs the phone and puts his hand over the mouthpiece while Brooke says, "what?" in a really confused voice.

"You can't tell her now!" he says urgently. "She's told everyone. Everyone thinks that we've broke up! We can't just say 'oh guess what guys? Yeah, it was all just a joke'."

"Well, what the hell am I supposed to do?" I ask, feeling my heart beat a thousand times a minute.

"We're going to have to play along," Nathan says resigned. "We can… uh, we can get back together once we're back home, and then say we got married in the next term and go through the 'putting-off-telling-everyone' game all over again."

"Are you serious?"

"Can you think of anything else?"

Honestly, no. And… well, I hate to say this but a part of me was hoping something like this might happen. Something that would just show up and allow us to not tell everyone about us getting married.

"Haley? Are you still there?" Brooke goes on.

"Oh, yeah," I say, snatching the phone off Nathan and holding it in my palm. "I was…" I look around for inspiration and all I can see is Nathan. "Uh… I was… crying! I was crying it's just so… it's so painful, you know."

Nathan raises an eyebrow at me and I shrug.

"Just let it all out Tutor Girl. But… what were you saying?"

"When?"

"You just said You and Nathan never broke up."

"Oh… uh, I meant amicably. We didn't break up as friends. We… well, it was horrible," I say, just spewing out whatever comes into my head. Nathan's eyebrows practically disappear into his hair line.

"Oh baby! What happened?" Brooke sounds like she's got a tub of popcorn in her lap and she's settling in for some drama. I can only think to give it to her.

"He… well, he cheated on me," I say in a rush, closing my eyes and wondering why the hell I just said that.

"What?" Nathan cries, and my eyes fly open as he clamps his hand over his mouth.

"Who was that?" Brooke asks now. I glare at Nathan and try to think on my feet.

"Uh, that was Rick. He um… stayed the night last night."

'Rick?' Nathan mouths, and I'm thinking the same thing.

"Woo boy," Brooke says, sounding gob smacked.

"And he's in the bathroom taking a shower. He must have realised there is no 2-in-1 shampoo or something. He's a complete moron."

"And you brought him home?" Brooke asks. "Did you do anything? Oh, why am I asking that? He's taking a shower of course you did something."

"I was drunk last night."

"Evidently. I can't believe Nate would do that, he was crazy about you…"

I smile at Nathan when she says this but he just scowls back. Ah, he's mad.

"Who with? Did you know her?"

"Um… Gwen, my dorm mate," I say, staring up at the ceiling. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Nathan almost fall off the bed. I've watched way too many daytime television. My 'life' sounds like something off Oprah Winfrey or Movie of the Week.

"No way!" Brooke yells, absorbing my whacky story like a sponge. "are you still living with her?"

"Who?" I ask, pre-occupied and looking at Nathan who is staring at me with his mouth open.

"Your dorm mate! Slutty Gwen!"

"Gwen's not a slut," I say defensively, before I realise that she is supposed to be a slut.

"What?" Brooke asks. "She slept with your boyfriend."

"Oh, uh… she didn't know he was my boyfriend. I never said and Nathan didn't tell her."

Nathan drops his head back on the pillow and shakes it vigorously, like he's trying to get rid of everything he's just heard.

"But he knew she was your room mate?"

"Yes?"

"That doesn't sound like Nathan at all! What the hell has got into him?"

I shrug and bite my lip, pleading with my eyes at Nathan to forgive me. "I guess he's just back to his old self."

Nathan glares at me.