CHAPTER SEVEN
The nearness of you
Brooke's eyes snapped open. She was lying on her side, one arm slipped under her pillow, the other dangling off the bed. It took her several seconds to notice that it was completely numb.
She sighed and rolled on her back, pulling her unresponsive arm with her. Now that it was resting on her stomach, it seemed to slowly come back to life. She smiled to herself, remembering that something quite similar had happened to Lucas two weeks earlier, when he had woken up after spending a night with Brooke's head resting on his arm.
The night of Tric's reopening, they had patiently waited for Haley to finish all her songs. The second she had been done performing, Lucas had grabbed Brooke's hand and led her once again to his mother's office upstairs. They had settled down on the couch, just like they had earlier that night, but this time they had done a little more than talking.
They had been making out for several minutes when Karen had walked into the room. She hadn't knocked, and why would she have done that? It was her own office, after all. At least, as Brooke had pointed out to Lucas later that night, when his mother had seen them, their hands had still been over their clothes. In a span of a few seconds, Karen's expression had gone from surprise, to amusement, to a slight annoyance. She had asked them if she could get her office back and they had both hurried off.
Lucas had looked like he was about to die from embarrassment, and when Brooke couldn't help but laugh heartily at what had just happened and his reaction, he seemed to relax. He had then asked her if she wanted to get out of here. After all, Haley was done performing, and all he wanted was to be with her. Preferably, without any parents walking in on them.
Before leaving, Brooke had noticed Haley and Peyton standing by the turntables and staring at them. After sharing a quick, dumbfounded look, both girls cheered enthusiastically as they watched them go.
They had gone to Lucas' room, where they knew no one would bother them. They had spent the rest of the night lying on his bed, talking and kissing until they had both fallen asleep.
When she was around eight years old, Brooke's father had given her a brain teaser: two halves of a disk that she had to put back together. She had struggled for hours before finding the right angle for each piece, but once she had managed to do that, the pieces had magically and smoothly clicked into a perfect disk. So much so that she had even wondered how she had not figured out the trick earlier. Being with Lucas reminded her of that.
She had asked him when he had started having feelings for her. He had answered at first that he couldn't put a precise date on it, which she understood perfectly as she felt the same, but after insisting a bit, he had eventually admitted on being interested with her for almost a year. He was only confirming her suspicions, yet she was still surprised to hear it from him. Why hadn't he said anything? Why had he waited a year?
Lucas' answer was that he didn't think she would like him back, in spite of Nathan and Haley repeatedly telling him otherwise.
That made him sound like he wasn't confident enough, and that was something Brooke simply couldn't grasp. Sure, he was a bit of an introvert, but other than that, he had nothing to feel insecure about. Though, she did know a thing or two about insecurity…
Still, her guts were telling her that there was something he was keeping to himself, but despite the urge to get to the bottom of things, she knew she couldn't just expect him to open up to her overnight.
That night, she hadn't taken her hands off him for even a second. Be it his hands, his arms, his face, his hair… She had felt the need to touch him. To make sure that she wasn't just dreaming all this. That it really was happening, in the here and now.
Finally, the numbness was gone. She got up and sluggishly made her way to the bathroom. She was supposed to meet with Lucas this morning at the Café. While brushing her teeth, she recalled the last time she had discussed her travelling with Mouth, two weeks earlier. After waking up in Lucas' arms ─or rather, on Lucas' arm─ she had texted her friend to notify him of her latest travel.
They had met on the following day in his attic. She had stayed evasive about the content of her conversation with Future Lucas, especially the parts about her fears and feelings. She felt as though that belonged to them, and only to them. Mouth understood that too, as he didn't try to get more details. He had then updated the timeline he had drawn on the whiteboard and had told her that it was all quite fascinating. She hadn't understood why; she hadn't received any answer to their questions. She still didn't know why she could travel, if it had anything to do with the accident Lucas had slipped about, what that accident was, or even why rabbits kept showing up everywhere in her life.
Mouth had then pointed out that she had found out about her engagement ─ gosh, she still could not believe that she would ever get married─ to Lucas in 2026, and that Future Lucas had said something about her being the first to tell him that they would one day get married. And it was precisely what had happened in June 2021. That was what Mouth found fascinating: the way the future influenced the past, and the past the future. He reminded her of the diagrams he had hastily drawn almost two months before, on Karen's Café's napkins: the two different ways he had thought time could work. It seemed more and more likely to him that it worked as a loop, endlessly repeating itself. Brooke didn't fully understand how he could come to that conclusion, but she didn't mind that at all. As far as she was concerned, she was perfectly fine with the past events happening over and over again.
She was still brushing her teeth when she noticed what she should have seen right away: through the bathroom window, the sky was still pitch black. She frowned, then recalled not hearing her alarm clock going off. She went back to her bedroom and one quick look at her phone later, she knew that she had awoken two hours too early.
She didn't feel like going back to sleep; instead, she went to her desk where sat a red colored file. She took it in her hands and slid back under her covers, flat on her stomach. There were now four chapters in there: the first three that she had already read once, and the latest that Lucas had just finished writing. He had given it to her the night before, when he had driven her home after their dinner with Karen and Keith. At first, he had planned on only handing her the latest addition, but she had asked him if she could get them all. He had been a little surprised by her request but had still complied.
She knew how private Lucas was with his writing; he himself had said that she was the first one to read it. He had shown it to her before they had started dating, which, according to Brooke, meant two things. One, that he trusted her completely with this, and two, that he wanted her to know him better. Because that was what these chapters were to her: a window into his mind. Reading them made her feel like she was getting closer to him, or at least that she was getting a sense of how he had grown up to be the person he was right now.
Chapter four was centered around his meeting with Haley ─well, Haley's counterpart in his book. They had been six years old at the time; both feeling outcasted by the people around them. Lucas, because he had learned very early in his life that his father wanted nothing to do with him, and Haley because her parents were… Well, negligent may have been an overstatement, but from Lucas' depiction of them, they weren't always around, mainly because they trusted their children to look after each other.
Haley was the youngest of six brothers and sisters; the eldest was 14 years older than her. So, when she started going to school, her siblings were often taking turns to look after her. And since she had always been the quiet and obedient type, her parents had thought that they need not worry about her, at least not as much as with their other children.
They might not have realized it, but they created a need in their daughter; that was how it sounded to Brooke as she went through the pages in her hands. That need got fulfilled when she met Lucas, then Karen and Keith.
Brooke already knew how close Haley and Lucas were, but reading about their relationship made her realize that they were family, and that they had been for a long time. This only strengthened her belief that Haley and Nathan better come clean to Lucas soon, or else he would really feel betrayed by them.
She still couldn't believe that they hadn't told him yet. And it wasn't like they hadn't had numerous opportunities to do so. Yet somehow, Lucas still didn't know anything about his best friend's relationship to his brother. At least, now that Peyton was in the know, they used her too, not just Brooke, as an alibi.
Brooke understood why they were wary of Lucas' reaction, but she genuinely believed that he wouldn't be mad at them; why would he be upset about them being happy? And reading this chapter about Haley, and the words he had chosen to describe their bond, only seemed to convince her further of that.
She shifted her focus back to the chapter and kept reading, not paying attention to the sunrise eventually lighting up her bedroom. She still had a dozen of pages left to go through when she heard a soft knock on her door. She decided to ignore it, hoping that her mother would believe her to be asleep if she stayed silent.
To her surprise, she heard the door open and footsteps entering her bedroom. Not bothering to look up from her reading, she said in a pleading voice, "I'll be up in a sec, Mom."
"Who are you calling Mom?"
Her body jerked up as she recognized the voice. Lucas looked like he had woken up not long ago: his hair was seldom this unruly and she could see a t-shirt sticking out at the bottom of his grey hoodie. He was holding his car keys in one hand, and a brown paper bag in the other. He quietly closed the door with his left elbow, eased his shoes off with his feet, then walked over to her bed. He put his keys and the paper bag on her nightstand, then sat down next to her, with his legs stretched out and his back resting against a pillow.
Brooke must have still looked struck by his presence, because he looked clearly amused by her lack of reaction. He leaned forward so that his lips could meet hers for a brief kiss, then stretch into a grin. "Hi," he said with a hoarse voice.
She blinked, feeling like she was still in a daze. "What are you doing here?"
He tilted his head, "Should I leave?"
"No way," she said as she threw her arms around his neck and pulled herself on his lap, making him chuckle. Noticing the fondness in his gaze, her cheeks took a light pink shade, and she brushed his nose with hers. "Didn't you say we'd meet at the Café?"
His arms wrapped around her waist. "Yeah, I know that was the plan," he said hesitantly, "but when I woke up I remembered that Haley was working shifts today."
Brooke frowned. She pulled back a little, staring at him confusedly. "So? Are you mad at her?"
"Wha─ No," he said, shaking his head, taken aback by her question. For a short second, he looked like he was about to ask her why she had just said that, but he changed his mind. "It's just that, every time she sees us, she's got this look on her face."
"How dare she! A look on her face!" Brooke cried with mock outrage, making him laugh. "Okay," she said on a more serious tone, "what look?"
"You know, like she's the best matchmaker in the world."
She laughed quietly. "Yeah, I know the look."
"Peyton?" he guessed.
She nodded. "But you gotta admit, Haley was a good wingman to you."
"Still, I figured I'd rather be alone with you this morning," he said with a casual shrug. "And I brought you breakfast," he added, motioning to the brown paper bag.
"What's in there?" she asked with a curious look to the bag.
His left arm moved from her waist and reached out to grab the bag. He opened it under her nose and said, "Our President's favorite, blueberry muffins, straight from the oven." Her smile faded away and she moved back slightly. He looked intrigued by her reaction. "They're not your favorite anymore?" he asked tentatively.
"They are," she said with a disappointed face. "But I'm not President anymore, remember?"
The election had taken place the day before, and after a briefing with her successor, she had officially been relieved from her functions. Which was good news, really, because juggling between the cheerleading trainings, her homework, and the student council had been, in the past weeks, exhausting. Her random travels to the future probably didn't help one bit, either. She knew she should feel glad to get more free time, but part of her was disappointed that it was over.
"Right," Lucas said with a thoughtful nod, "but I don't think that means you have to give up your presidential privileges. Like" ─he took out a muffin─ "getting your breakfast delivered to you. And I'm pretty sure I'm still allowed to call you Pres."
Her lips twitched. "Is that in the school's rules and regulations?"
"It's in the Constitution," he said, making her giggle. "So, what were you─"
His phone vibrated, interrupting him mid-sentence. After checking out who was calling him, he gave her an apologetic look and answered his phone. It was Keith, asking him where he had put away the ignition-something-cable.
While Lucas was busy guiding his uncle, she kissed his cheek and grabbed the muffin, then wiggled her way back under her blanket. She took a bite of the still warm pastry and went back to her reading, resting on her elbows. She was so caught up in it, that she didn't notice when Lucas hung up, or when he slowly lifted the blanket from her, or when he silently slid on her bed, so that he would be lying next to her.
"Hey Brooke?"
"Mmh?" she mumbled, chewing on another bite.
"There's another reason why I thought I'd meet you here," he said, and she finally paid attention to the shift in his tone of voice.
Lucas' hand slid under her pajama top, his thumb slowly stroking the small of her back. With his other hand, he took the muffin she had been eating and put it away. His lips then left a trail of kisses on her arm, skipped her covered shoulder and went to her neck.
When he started nibbling her earlobe, she closed her eyes and let out a soft moan. "I'll read this another day," she mumbled, pushing the clipped stack of paper until it landed on the floor with a muffled thud.
"Yeah, I heard it's not that good of a story anyway," he murmured in her ear.
She giggled and looked up at him. "So that's why you came here, huh?" she asked playfully. "How did you sneak in anyway?"
His hand moved to her wrist, grabbing it tightly to flip her on her back. "Door was open."
Where was her mother? Not downstairs, because she would have heard him coming in, and she would have heard him from her room too. She was probably taking her shower then.
Her mind stopped wandering when Lucas moved to her lips. Gosh, she was really glad she had brushed her teeth before his impromptu visit. Her hands went around his neck, pulling him closer as she intensified their kiss.
She completely lost track of time; she didn't know how long it took─ though it must have happened fairly quickly─ but eventually a warm tingle appeared in her lower belly and gradually seemed to take over her whole body. She became aware of Lucas' every move: his hands tightening on her wrist and waist, his breathing speeding up, his body stiffening.
He broke the kiss and, his eyes still closed, leaned his forehead against hers. She began stroking his hair, watching him as he was, just like her, catching his breath. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips were slightly swollen, and her hair was an absolute mess, yet when he opened his eyes and stared back at her, he told her that she was beautiful.
His eyes travelled from her face to the buttons on her shirt. She knew straight away what he was thinking and softly tugged on his hair, making him look at her again.
So far, they hadn't gone further than kissing and some over-the-waist touching, but Brooke didn't mind that. She liked that he was taking his time to know her, both emotionally and physically. She also had a hunch that he didn't want to rush anything, and that maybe it had to do with his insecurities.
So far, it had been working for them. But this morning was different: she could tell from the way he was looking at her that he wanted more. And she wanted that, too.
"Take off your clothes," she told him, still short-of-breath.
"As you wish, Pres," he said, making her grin. He sat up, hastily removed his hoodie and t-shirt, and threw them across the room. He then bent down and kissed her again, his hands busy unbuttoning her shirt.
Somehow, both had forgotten that they probably weren't alone in the house. So when Victoria's voice came from the hall, calling her daughter's name, they both startled. Lucas had only had time to remove the first button; his head jerked up, panic spreading on his face.
"Shit," he whispered, looking back at her.
"Aren't you up yet?" Victoria's clear voice said from behind the door.
Just as her mother was knocking on the door and turning its knob, Lucas threw himself on the side, groaning as he hit the floor and fell quiet as soon as Victoria's head appeared in the doorframe.
Her mother had indeed been in the shower: her hair was still damp. "Breakfast is ready," Victoria told her before closing the door.
Brooke heard footsteps getting away from her room, then coming to a sudden halt. Two seconds later, Victoria opened the door again, this time fully entering her daughter's room. Brooke sat up and followed her gaze: her mother had spotted Lucas' shoes.
Victoria's eyes then travelled to the brown paper bag on her daughter's bedside table, and to the male grey hoodie on the floor. She couldn't see Lucas from where she was, since he was hidden by the bed, but she didn't need to. She frowned slightly, and just when Brooke was getting ready to be yelled at, her mother's traits relaxed and before leaving she said: "Tell Lucas there's enough food for three."
Brooke couldn't help but laugh when she bent over the bed to see that Lucas was lying on the floor, looking mortified. He slowly got on his feet and put his clothes back on.
"I shouldn't have sneaked in," he muttered as he was picking up his hoodie from the floor.
"It's okay," Brooke told him with a chuckle, "she doesn't bite. And if she was mad about you being here, trust me, we would already know about it." He sat on the side of her bed and threw a sharp, frightened glance at the door, as if he was expecting Victoria to come back any minute with an ax. She rolled her eyes and climbed off her bed, "Come on, go ahead, I'll be there in a minute."
"Wh─ Where are you going?" he asked, panic rising in his voice.
"To take a shower. I would invite you to come with me, but I'm not sure my mom would agree," she said with a playful wink.
That seemed to lighten his mood a little; he still looked incredibly nervous as he went down the stairs, but at least his face wasn't ashen anymore.
As funny as she thought his embarrassment was, she knew how uncomfortable he felt right now, so she took a very quick shower, and after ten minutes, rushed downstairs to the kitchen.
When she saw her mother and Lucas chatting around the table, she realized that she could have taken her time. They were eating pancakes; Victoria asked him if he wanted more orange juice, which he politely declined. Brooke held back a smile and walked around the table, to the island and reached out for the─
"No coffee," her mother's voice said behind her.
Brooke groaned and let go of the coffee pot. She dragged her feet to the table and sat down next to her mother, who poured her a glass of orange juice. Sipping on it, she shared a look with Lucas who looked amused by her reaction. Her eyes then landed on the muffins, now standing on a plate. She grabbed one and took a bite, then turned to her mother who was explaining to Lucas that she had started reading his memoirs.
"Whose memoirs?" Brooke asked with a frown.
"Tennessee Williams," her mother answered. "Lucas was just telling me that he finished reading In the winter of cities."
Brooke chewed thoughtfully. "Didn't we study him last year?"
"Yeah," Lucas told her with a nod, "it was Sweet bird of youth."
"Right," she answered. "The one with the escort."
"It's nice to talk books with someone," Victoria told Lucas. "This one" ─she pointed at her daughter─ "has no interest in reading at all."
Brooke rolled her eyes. "Come on, I do read a bit… Sometimes."
"And you can quote Shakespeare," Lucas said, drinking his orange juice.
Victoria raised her eyebrows at her, "Really?"
"You don't have to sound so surprised, Mom," she said with a chuckle. "Dad made me read his plays, remember?"
"Oh, that's right," Victoria said with a nostalgic look. "He's always been fond of them…" her voice trailed off and she fell silent, looking down at her coffee.
Brooke shared an uneasy look with Lucas, then cleared her throat. "So, um, Tennessee Williams, you're reading his memoirs right now?"
Her mother's shoulders relaxed. "Yes, it was the only one missing in my collection."
Lucas raised his eyebrows. "The only one?" he repeated, stunned. "You mean you have… All of them? All of his books?"
"Wanna see them?" Victoria asked him, standing up.
Lucas hesitated for a second, as if he was wondering if it was not a trap for sneaking in Brooke's room. He gave her a sidelong look, and after seeing her lopsided grin, decided to follow Victoria out of the kitchen, to the reading room upstairs. Brooke watched as they left and wondered if she should follow them, but her eyes fell on the pancakes her mother had prepared and she decided to stay put.
She had already brought boys in her room, without her parents knowing ─or maybe they had known but had pretended not to─ but it was the first time one of her parents had ever interacted with one of them.
Victoria had seen how miserable Brooke had been after the whole Rocky Horror fiasco, so she had been genuinely pleased to hear the news of them going out. While Ted had badgered her with interrogations on Lucas, to the point that she had jokingly promised him to send him his resume, Victoria hadn't had a lot of questions about him, so seeing her warm up to him was a relief.
When they came back, her stomach was full. Lucas was carrying a book in his hands; he put it down and went back to eating, cheerfully talking about some other author that Victoria was also familiar with. Brooke bent over the table and reached out for the book he had picked out. She sat back and read the title: The glass menagerie. She turned it around to read the back cover. Abandoned by her husband, Amanda Wingfield comforts herself with recollections of her earlier, more gracious life in Blue Mountain when she was pursued by 'gentleman callers'. Her son Tom, a poet with a job in a warehouse, longs for adventure and escape from his mother's suffocating embrace, while Laura, her shy crippled daughter, has her glass menagerie and her memories. Amanda is desperate to find her daughter a husband, but when the long-awaited gentleman caller does arrive, Laura's romantic illusions are crushed.
"Sounds depressing," Brooke said as she put it back on the table.
"That's Tennessee Williams for you," Lucas told her with a chuckle. "He wasn't into happy-endings."
"Yeah, the one we read in class was depressing enough, but this one" ─she motioned at the book─ "seems even worse."
"It's the one that's the closest to his own personal life," her mother explained. She stood up and picked up the empty plates. Lucas started imitating her, but she made him sit down again. "It's okay, finish your meal. I have an errand to run, Brooke do you have your keys?"
Brooke gave her a nod and stood up, carrying her empty plate and glass to the sink. "Yup."
Her mother opened the fridge and put away the orange juice. "Are you stopping here after lunch or will you go straight to Nathan's?"
She thought about it for a second. "No, I'll come back before that. Peyton has this thing with a newspaper this afternoon."
Victoria closed the fridge. "What thing?"
"She's got an interview at the Post to publish her drawings."
"Wh─ At the Post?" her mother asked in amazement. Brooke nodded at her with a proud smile. "That's great!"
"It would only be for a few months, until graduation, but it's a bonus for college applications."
"Wish her good luck for me then," Victoria said, kissing her cheek. "I'll see you later." She stopped by Lucas on her way out. "It was nice talking to you, Lucas, but next time you come by, I'd rather know about it," she told him with an amused, yet serious tone.
Lucas almost choked on his pancakes, and after a coughing fit, nodded vigorously at her. "Sure," he said, his voice croaky.
Brooke watched as her mother left the kitchen and went to sit next to him, barely containing her laugh. They both heard the front door close. "That was fun," she told him with a grin.
"Fun?" he repeated, raising an eyebrow. "I was scared as hell. I swear, when she took me upstairs, I thought she was gonna murder me."
Brooke laughed at that. "I know, I could tell." And she was certain that her mother could, too, and played on it. "But she definitely likes you. I mean she let you borrow her book, that's not something a lot of people can brag about."
"Really?" he asked with relief.
"Yup," she said, grabbing the book once again. "But seriously, I don't know how you can read those."
He chuckled. "Because they don't have happy endings?"
"Yeah. And you know that, even before reading it. You know it's not gonna end well."
He put down his fork and looked at his empty plate, then glanced up at her. His hand reached out for a loose strand of her hair and started playing with it, wrapping it around his finger. "That's actually what I like about Tennessee Williams. He… He writes about life, you know? All of it, not just the rosy parts."
"Well…" Brooke said, leaning closer to him. "How about we forget about him for now and get back to what we were doing before my mother interrupted us?"
He tucked the strand behind her ear and let out a small sigh that she had not expected. "I can't," he said, clearly disappointed. "I promised my mom I'd help her with the inventory. And then I'm working at the body shop."
"Rain check, then?"
He leaned in for a soft kiss. "Definitely." His smile faded and he groaned, dropping his head on her shoulder. "I still can't believe your mother saw all my clothes on your floor."
She chuckled and stroked his hair. "Just be glad it wasn't my dad."
This seemed to give him some perspective, and when he left for his mother's Café, Victoria's book tucked under his arm, he didn't look so mortified anymore.
Now alone in her house, Brooke went back to her bedroom and to the chapter she had started earlier. Once she was done reading it, she placed it back in the red-colored file and put it on her desk. She could give it back to Lucas in the evening, at Nathan's party, but she wondered if she couldn't just keep it. She would have to ask Lucas, but she didn't think he would mind. She was texting him about that when she received a video call from her father.
Even with the three-hour time difference, Ted had woken up before Brooke had. He told her that he had worked this morning but was now going to the beach. He showed her the view from his study and laughed at her jealous face. Who wouldn't want to work facing the ocean? He told her she could get the same view too. When he asked her if she had thought about coming over for the next vacation, she dodged the question with an appalling lack of subtlety and told him that she was late for her lunch with Peyton. He looked disappointed for a fleeting moment, then told her to have fun and say hi to Peyton for him.
She knew her father was hurt by the way she repeatedly shot down his invitations, but what else could she do? With her travels happening anywhere, anytime, she couldn't take the risk to wait in an airport for two hours, then hop on a plane for another five. And she couldn't tell him the truth, either… She stared at her phone's black screen, wondering how else she could have answered him, and eventually shook her head and decided to put that thought away for the moment, or else she would really be late for lunch.
Her best friend probably wouldn't even have noticed her absence if she hadn't shown up. Indeed, Peyton was incredibly nervous; she managed to loosen up a little after Brooke told her about Victoria almost walking in on Lucas and her this morning, but she was still absent-minded for the rest of the afternoon. Brooke offered to give her a ride to the Post, but she declined, saying that she'd rather go on her own, and that she'd tell her how it went.
Peyton never texted her that afternoon, which worried her about the outcome of her friend's interview, but when she saw her again that night, at Nathan's, and when she saw how relaxed she was, she knew right away that it had run smoothly.
Nathan's house was once again swarming with people, though much less than for his end-of-summer parties. He had decided to host this one last week, almost on a whim, while they were having lunch at school and Haley had pointed out that Brooke was soon going to pass the presidential baton. Though it sounded like a pretext, Nathan had decided to throw an end-of-presidency party for her. He had said that he would keep it as a 'small gathering of friends', but Brooke knew better. She hadn't been surprised one bit to see all these cars parked alongside Nathan's road, or to notice that, on her way to the kitchen, she didn't know half of the people she had run into.
Haley and Peyton were there, chatting around the countertop; the latter was fixing up a drink, with what looked like cranberry juice and a bottle of alcohol. Brooke was about to get their attention and wave at them from the corridor when she realized that Peyton wasn't making this drink for herself. It was for Haley.
She hurried to their side, shoving her way through the crowd, and arrived in time to steal the drink from Peyton's hand just as Haley was about to grab it.
"And thank you for that!" Brooke said with a grin, bringing the cup to her lips.
Haley turned to her, startled. "Hey, that was mine!"
"Where did you come from?" Peyton asked her.
Brooke turned to Haley and said, "It's okay, I'll make up for it." She went around the counter and pushed Peyton away. "Come on," she said when she noticed her best friend's baffled look, "I'll handle it." Peyton looked like she was about to argue but eventually went to stand next to Haley. "I'm guessing you got the job?" she asked her.
Peyton's lips stretched into a broad grin, "I did, yeah."
"And we were about to drink to that," Haley said, squinting at Brooke.
"Alright, alright, your drinks are coming," she answered with a chuckle. She looked down at the bottles and the shaker in front of her. Cranberry juice and gin. She cleared her throat, "So, um, what were you talking about?"
It was Haley who replied. "That my parents left on another trip." Although she had tried to sound nonchalant, Brooke could perceive something else in her voice… Bitterness, maybe? And after reading Lucas' latest chapter, she thought she knew why.
Brooke poured gin and juice in the shaker and added a few ice chips. "So Taylor's back?" she asked with a quick glance at Haley.
"Not this time, no. I think my parents figured I could take care of myself. Or maybe Tay just told them she was done babysitting me," she said with a shrug.
Brooke handed a drink to Peyton and began preparing Haley's. "So how long are they gone?"
"A month," Haley said with a slight frown. "Or maybe more."
"That long?" Peyton asked, surprised.
"It's their anniversary, so they wanted to mark the occasion."
Brooke stopped listening, focusing on the shaker in her left hand, and the bottle of gin in her right. She couldn't possibly put that in for Haley, not if there was a chance of her being pregnant.
She didn't know Jamie's exact birth date, but Mouth had narrowed it down to October of this year. With February approaching in a couple of days, Haley could very well already be pregnant. And if she was, there was no way Brooke was letting her drink any drop of alcohol.
She only needed her friends to stop looking at her for three seconds. She asked them if the person standing on the other end of the room was Mouth, and while they followed her gaze and had their backs turned to her, she put the bottle of gin back on the countertop and filled the shaker with ice chips. The drink Brooke handed to Haley when she turned back to her was, unbeknownst to her, alcohol-free. Haley did point it out, saying that she couldn't even feel the taste of gin, but Brooke shrugged it off by saying that it was thanks to her blending skills.
That only worked once, though. After that, Haley kept getting more drinks, which made sense since she didn't feel like she was getting drunk at all. For about two hours, Brooke tailed Haley and used different stratagems to prevent her from getting any alcohol.
She bumped into Haley twice, apologizing profusely when her drink spilled on the floor, and told her she'd get her another one. She tried it another time but failed, now that Haley was wary of Brooke's precarious balance.
After they sat down, she then proceeded to only get soft drinks for herself and switch them with Haley's, getting her attention to that person by the window, or this stain on the wall, and swiftly exchanging their drinks. Fortunately, Haley didn't catch up on her weird behavior, and Peyton, who did point out that she was being unusually clumsy, left them to talk to the cheerleading squad.
Now slightly drunk, just enough to feel lightheaded and dizzy if she got up too fast, but not enough that she could still hold a conversation, she was sitting on the couch, next to Haley, and half-listening to her talking to Fergie, who was on the armchair to their right, and Skills, sitting on a cushion on the floor. She looked around the room, wondering where Lucas was. He had texted her earlier to say that he would be a little late, but it was now almost past nine and he was still nowhere to be seen.
Something bumped her forehead. She startled and gazed down at her lap to see a Cheeto there. She looked up and saw that Skills was holding a bucket full of Cheetos and was ready to throw another one at her face.
She squinted at him and asked, "What was that for?"
He gave her a cheeky grin, "Just bringing you back to us."
"Sorry," she said with a chuckle, "I was just wondering where─"
"Let me guess, where Luke is?"
"Do you know?"
"Nope, no idea," he answered with a shrug. "But you know, that reminds me," ─he rested his elbows on the coffee table─ "we haven't had the talk yet."
Brooke threw a quick glance at Fergie and Haley, but they looked like they had no idea what he was talking about. She looked back at Skills and leaned forward to him. "The talk? What talk?"
"About your intentions with our boy Lucas," Skills answered.
They all laughed at that, and even though Skills kept a straight face, she noticed that his lips slightly curled up. "Leave her alone, Skills," Haley told him.
Fergie rolled his eyes at him, "What are you, his mother?"
"Kinda, yeah," Skills said, unfazed.
"I think Karen begs to differ," Haley said, making Brooke chuckle.
"Wha─ Come on!" he said, looking back and forth at his friends. Brooke finally noticed that the subject of their conversation was standing not far from them, listening to Skills with an amused grin. She nudged Haley and with a sharp movement of her head, motioned to him. Haley stifled a laugh while Lucas walked over to them and stopped to stand right behind Skills. "We practically saw him grow up," Skills kept going. "And he got pretty heartbroken the last time he" ─Lucas put a hand on his friend's shoulder and gripped it with enough strength for him to wince in pain─ "f─ Argh! What the─" He jumped up and turned to Lucas. "Wha─ How long were you listening?"
Lucas' grip seemed to diminish when Skills' shoulders relaxed. Brooke didn't pay much attention to it though, she was too busy laughing with Haley and Fergie.
"Long enough to know that you care a lot about me, Mom," Lucas told his friend with a smirk.
He patted his shoulder then walked around the coffee table to sit on the couch's arm, right next to Brooke.
"Hi," he told her with a quick peck on her temple.
Brooke grinned at Skills, who was sitting back on his cushion, then turned to Lucas. "Where have you been?"
"Helping out at the Café."
"Aren't you the perfect son?" Brooke asked, making him chuckle. She turned back to Skills, "So what were you saying?"
Skills opened his mouth, about to answer, but Lucas said, his voice suddenly firm: "Nothing, I think Skills got too much to drink. Right Skills?"
Brooke frowned, and shared a look with Haley who, just like her, didn't seem to know what had just happened.
Skills, however, looked like he got the message. "Probably, yeah," he said with a nonchalant shrug. He then stared at Brooke. "So, what are your intentions with our boy?"
"Please stop calling me that," Lucas said, rolling his eyes, his tone back to being lighthearted.
"No need for embarrassment, my boy," Skills said with a wink. "So? What are they?" he asked Brooke once again.
She took a sip of her drink and stared back at Skills over the rim of her cup. "Nothing but bad," she replied with a cheeky grin.
They all laughed at that, including Skills, until Haley asked him: "What about your intentions?"
"What do you mean?" he asked back, puzzled by her question.
"You know, that red-headed girl I saw you hanging out with last week."
"Wh─ When did you see that?!"
As Haley was explaining to him how she had noticed them walking on the pier, Lucas leaned towards Brooke. "Speaking of bad intentions…" he whispered in her ear. "How about we get back to what we started this morning?"
She glanced up at him and was about to answer positively when she remembered the maybe-pregnant girl sitting next to her and surrounded by alcohol. Thankfully, before she could come up with something that could only sound as a lame excuse, Nathan's voice came from the other end of the room, calling his brother's name.
They all looked up as he made his way to them and stopped next to Lucas, giving him a fist bump. "Where have you been? I've been looking all over for you!"
"And where were you?" Brooke asked him back with an inquisitive look. This was the first time she had seen him all night, which was quite strange, considering it was Nathan's house. She looked more closely at her friend and noticed that he looked nervous.
"Around," he said with what he meant as a casual shrug. He then turned to Lucas, "Come with me, there's something I gotta show you."
Before Lucas could say anything, Nathan grabbed his shoulder and dragged him away. Brooke watched as they quickly disappeared in the crowd; Lucas clearly felt dejected. She turned to Haley, who was also looking at them go, and noticed that she didn't seem surprised by Nathan's blitz entrance, but rather…
"You look worried," Brooke told her with a frown.
Haley gave her a surprised look, then threw a sidelong glance at her friends who were also staring at her, and said, "No, I'm fine."
She didn't look fine at all, Brooke could tell, but she obviously didn't want to talk about it in front of Skills and Fergie.
They kept talking and drinking for a while, Brooke switching her cup with Haley's two more times. When she finally saw Mouth's head sticking out from the crowd, she jumped on her feet a little too fast, forgetting her now increased level of drunkenness: she lost balance for a second, held onto the couch not to fall flat on her face, and when she knew she was stable again, she made her way towards him.
"Mouth!" she yelled as she was walking to him. She stopped for a moment, holding on to the wall next to her, feeling dizzy. Moving too fast made her see double. When she knew it was safe again to go, she started walking again and called Mouth's name one more time. He didn't react; her voice was probably drowned by both the people around him and the music blasting. "Hey, Mouth!" she said, punching him on the shoulder.
He turned around and smiled at her. "Brooke! Wow," he said, grabbing her elbows when he saw her losing balance, "what's up?"
"Where the hell were you?!" He opened his mouth, but she didn't give him time to answer. "You know what, it doesn't matter! I need your help with Haley! She's been getting drinks left and right and she can't─"
"Drink alcohol," Mouth said with a sharp nod. "Yeah, got it. Where is she?"
"On the couch. I've been swapping our drinks all night."
He chuckled. "I can see that."
"Can you watch over her for a while?"
"Sure, but where are you going?" he asked her with a worried frown.
"Have you seen Luke?"
"I just ran into him, yeah. He was going to the kitchen to get something for the guys at the poker table."
"Kitchen, huh? Thanks Mouth," she said, hugging him, "you're the best."
He chuckled and tilted his head. "Maybe I should come with you."
"Nah," she said, waving her hand two inches from his face, making him blink. "Go to Haley!"
"Yes, sir!" he said, still watching her closely as she walked away from him.
Now that the duty of watching out for Haley was off her shoulders, she felt much more lighthearted. She giddily walked down the hall, greeting a few people here and there on the way, and eventually arrived in the kitchen. She quickly scanned the room but there was, apart from a couple of girls from her squad, no one she knew. She was about to turn around when she remembered what Mouth had told her. He had said that Lucas was getting something from the kitchen.
She walked over to the kitchen door and turned left, facing the pantry. The door was ajar, allowing her to peek into the room.
There he was, leaning against a cupboard, holding a bottle of soda in one hand, his arms crossed against his chest. He was staring at the floor, with a frown that made him look conflicted.
Brooke gently pushed the door to get a better view. Peyton was there too: she was leaning on the opposite wall, staring at him with pleading eyes. "Please, just… Just promise me," she told him, her voice faltering.
Lucas let out a sigh. "Fine," he murmured, his voice betraying his uncertainty. "I promise."
Brooke felt dizzy all of a sudden; she stumbled forwards and pushed open the door, startling them all. They both hurried to her side to prevent her from falling.
Lucas slid his arm around her waist. She put an arm around his shoulders, and the other around Peyton's. "Promise what?" Brooke asked him, before sending a quizzical look at Peyton.
"What are you doing here?" her best friend asked her in surprise.
Brooke giggled. "Looking for my two favorite people, of course!"
"You're drunk."
Brooke removed her arm from Peyton's shoulders and approached her hand from her friend's face, bringing her thumb and forefinger close to each other, without them touching. "Just a tiny little bit. So what was this promising about?"
"I was making him promise not to let you drive tonight, Winston."
"Winston?" Lucas repeated, confused.
"Churchill," Brooke said with another giggle. "That's her funny nickname when I'm drunk, which I am absolutely not."
He gave her a worried look, "I think you should sit down."
She ignored his remark and poked the bottle in his hand. "What are you gonna do with that?"
"I'm taking it to the poker table, we're playing…" his voice trailed off as he kept staring at her. "But maybe I should get someone to take over for me."
"Why? You worried about me?"
His expression softened. "You can barely stand, Brooke."
"That's okay, Peyton will carry me. Right Peyt?" She turned her head too fast, making the room spin around her. Lucas' grip tightened around her waist.
"Yeah, don't worry, I won't leave her side," Peyton said. She lifted Brooke's arm and placed it around her shoulders. "Come on Winston, let's get you some food. And water. Lots of water."
Clinging to Peyton, Brooke walked through the kitchen, where her friend stopped to get food from the fridge, and then made her way to the living room. Haley and Mouth were nowhere to be seen: the couch was now occupied by their squad.
One of the cheerleaders─ Brooke couldn't tell whom, their heads were all dancing around the room─ stood up to make room for her on the couch. Brooke plumped down on it and rested her head on Peyton's shoulder, who sat next to her. She listened quietly as the girls were talking, ate when Peyton told her to, and drank water when Peyton told her to.
She eventually dozed off, lulled by the girls' conversation. When she opened her eyes again, her head wasn't spinning anymore but it was still resting on Peyton's shoulders. One quick look around the room showed her that there was only a few people left: a couple of cheerleaders and three Ravens who were playing cards with Peyton.
"What time is it?" Brooke asked her in a groggy voice.
"Past one," Peyton answered, glancing at her. "How are you feeling?"
"Not so Winston anymore." Peyton chuckled and looked back at her deck of cards. "Where's Haley?"
"Haley?" She frowned, as if thinking about the last time she had seen her. "I saw her with Mouth, I think they were going outside."
"Outside?"
"Yeah, they're at the court. Lucas wanted to stay with you, but I told him I'd watch you like a hawk."
"At the court, now? Isn't it like freezing outside?"
"Tell that to Nathan," Peyton said with a shrug.
Brooke stood up and stretched her arms, stifling a yawn. "Thanks for looking after me, P."
"Where are you going?" Peyton asked her, glancing up at her.
"To see Haley."
She made a little detour upstairs to get her coat; once she knew she wouldn't get cold, she left through the front door and walked around the house.
The usual River court team was playing there, with Haley and probably Mouth on the side. Probably, because she couldn't really see him: he was lying on his side, his face covered by the shadows.
Lucas was dribbling towards the hoop, struggling to get past Nathan, until he noticed her walking towards them. He smiled at her and threw the ball at Nathan, who caught it with a dumbfounded look on his face and after following his brother's gaze, realized what had just happened.
"Come on, we're not done here!" Nathan shouted at Lucas who was jogging out of the court.
"I'll be right back!" his brother answered without looking back at him. He ignored his friends' booing and stopped right in front of Brooke. He linked his arms around her and looked at her with a fond smile. "Feeling better, Winston?"
"Yeah," she said, before blinking in confusion. What had he just called her? "How do you know about Winston?"
He tilted his head. "Um, you told me about it. Like, two hours ago. You don't remember?"
She frowned, trying to recall that moment. "Not really no. I remember seeing you in the pantry with Peyton, but the details are a little fuzzy."
"But you are feeling better?" he asked with concern.
"Much better. Just a little tired that's all."
"Good," he said, giving her a light kiss.
"Hey Brooke!" Nathan shouted from the court. They both turned to look at him. "Could you please allow my brother to finish this game?"
They all laughed and Lucas turned back to face her. "I'll allow it," she told him with a chuckle.
"As you wish, Pres."
While Lucas was jogging back to the court, Brooke walked over the patch of grass and sat next to Haley. She leaned back to see that it was indeed Mouth who was vegetating next to them.
"What happened to him? Hey Mouth, you okay?"
He groaned as an answer. Haley glanced at him then turned to Brooke and said, "He got drunk. I don't know how it happened, we kept getting the same drinks and I'm completely fine."
"I guess you're just better at holding your liquor," Brooke answered, holding back a chuckle. "Who's winning?"
"I have no idea. I don't even know who's playing against who," she admitted with a quiet laugh.
"And when are you gonna tell Lucas?" Haley stared at her blankly. "You know, about you and─"
"Brooke!" she hissed in panic, gesturing to Mouth next to them.
"He's sleeping," Brooke said, rolling her eyes. And he already knew about Nathan and her, and about many more things that they didn't even know about yet. "Come on, what are you waiting for?"
"I…" She threw a nervous glance at Mouth, then at Lucas who was now guarding the hoop. "Nathan was supposed to tell him earlier."
"Tonight?"
"Yeah, he even practiced his speech before the party, but, um… I guess he chickened out," she said with a sigh.
Brooke shrugged at that. "So, you tell him then."
"I don't want to ruin your party," Haley answered, averting her eyes.
"My party?" she repeated with a scoff. "Please, I don't think a single person here tonight, apart from us, knew that this was to celebrate my end of presidency. This is just some random party Nathan wanted to host." She fell silent, thinking about it for a moment. "Or maybe he just wanted plenty of witnesses around to make sure that Lucas wouldn't murder him and bury him in the garden after he told him about you and him."
Haley chuckled nervously. "But still, I… I've waited so long now, I think you were right. You know, when you told us that the only reason he would get upset was if we waited too long to tell him."
"Come on, even if he does get upset, it's not gonna last long."
"How do you know that?"
Because she knew how important she was to Lucas, she had read about it just a few hours ago. "I just know it, alright? Now get up and go tell him!"
"I… I'll just wait for their game to be over."
Unsurprisingly, she didn't' just wait for the game; she also waited for the day, then for the weekend to be over. When Monday came and they all went to school, Haley had yet to spill the beans to Lucas.
Usually, Brooke would have badgered her into talking to him, but her attention got caught by someone else's weird behavior: Peyton.
It was an accumulation of little things, a pattern that Brooke had been oblivious to so far. She realized that something was wrong on Tuesday evening. They were both sitting at a table at the Café: Peyton was busy with her drawings for the Post, and Brooke was focusing on her sketches. After a while, they had been joined by Lucas, and not even five minutes after that, Peyton had dashed off, saying that she had an errand to run before going home.
That was when Brooke realized that it wasn't the first time Peyton disappeared as soon as Lucas arrived. It only happened when it was just the three of them, as if… As if, somehow, she was uncomfortable around him.
From then on, she started noticing how her best friend had stopped sitting next to her at lunch, so that Lucas would take that spot, or how she would arrive later than usual in the mornings to give her time to spend with him.
The last straw came during lunch, on Thursday that same week. They were all talking about their plans for the weekend, and Lucas said that they were planning on watching Emma, the newest Jane Austen movie adaptation that had just been released. After looking at the movie time schedule, they were struggling to find a time that would fit them both. They couldn't go in the afternoon because Lucas was working at the body shop, nor on Sunday because Brooke's mother had asked her help with rearranging her father's former study.
And then Peyton chimed in, saying that they could just go on Saturday morning, right before lunch. Brooke had retorted that if they did that, she wouldn't be free for lunch. To which her friend replied that it didn't matter.
But Brooke didn't agree with that. It did matter. Lunch time on Saturdays at Peyton's had become a ritual, and it had been for years. And now suddenly it was okay to just skip it? To go watch a movie with her boyfriend? And Peyton didn't seem to see what was wrong with that at all?
That Saturday, right before noon, Brooke drove to her best friend's house. She came in using her personal key and quietly walked to the kitchen. Peyton was there, her back turned to her, stirring something in a pot.
"Smells good."
Peyton jumped up in fright and spun around, her wooden spoon held up as a defensive weapon. "Wh─ Brooke?! What the hell, you scared me to death!"
"Sorry," she said unapologetically. She walked up to her and glanced at the stove. "What are you cooking?"
Peyton blinked in confusion. She turned off the stove and gestured to the open book sitting on the kitchen table. "Cacio e pepe. Basically, just pasta with pepper and cheese. What are you doing here?"
Brooke glanced at the mouth-watering pot. "Any chance you've cooked enough for two?"
"I've cooked enough for five."
"Great," Brooke said, moving to the cupboard to get herself a plate. After taking another set of fork and knife, she placed it all on the table and sat there.
Peyton hadn't moved an inch from her spot, staring at her as if she had gone mad. "What are you doing here?" she repeated.
"Having lunch with you," Brooke answered with a shrug.
"But… Weren't you supposed to go with Lucas─"
"Cancelled."
Peyton blinked at her again, and finally brought the pot on the table. She sat down across from her, and seemed to hesitate before asking: "Why?"
"Why are you being distant?"
"Wh─ What?"
Brooke crossed her arms on the table. "I said, why are you being distant?"
"I… I'm not," Peyton said, averting her eyes.
She snorted. "Bullshit."
She looked back at Brooke. "Is that why you cancelled your plans with Lucas?"
"Yeah, I wanted to know what was wrong with you."
"Nothing's wrong with me," Peyton said, rolling her eyes.
"Bullshit again."
Peyton frowned at her, "Stop saying that."
"Then start telling me the truth," she answered with a shrug. "Why are you being distant?" she asked for the third time.
Peyton stayed silent for a few seconds, and finally seemed to give in. "Fine," she said with a sigh. "I am kinda being distant. I just… I just wanted to give you guys some space."
"Space?" Brooke repeated, baffled.
"Well yeah, I mean we're always together, so I figured…"
"What?" Brooke asked when she didn't finish her sentence. "That Lucas would mind that?" Peyton nodded. "He doesn't. He doesn't mind at all. I mean he spends like half of his time with Haley, well maybe less now that she's with Nate, but… Still, you know what I mean. He doesn't care about that."
Her friend didn't seem too convinced by that. "If you say so," she told her with a weak shrug.
"I know so. And…" Peyton looked up at her, noticing her hesitation. "You know, you've never acted like that before with any of my exes."
Peyton looked surprised by that statement. "Yeah, but Lucas is different."
Brooke felt a sudden pang of emotion that she couldn't quite identify. All she knew was that it made her very uneasy. "Different?" she repeated, her voice slightly quavering. "Why? Because he used to have a crush on you?"
She didn't know where these words had come from, but it felt as if they had just jumped out of her mouth before she had even thought of them. What was wrong with her?
Peyton raised her eyebrows: she looked genuinely taken aback by that question. "What? No," she said, shaking her head. "I mean he's different because I know you really want this to work with him."
"Oh," Brooke said, her uneasiness fading away just as quickly as it had appeared. She sighed and broke into a smile. "Well, as much as I do want that, I also want to spend quality time with my best friend. So, we're gonna keep having our Saturday lunches, alright?"
Peyton's shoulders relaxed instantly and she chuckled. "Noted," she said with a relieved smile.
"Now can we please eat? I'm starving."
Things got better after that. The following week, she even had dinner with them and Victoria; Brooke didn't sense an ounce of awkwardness in the air that night.
Now that her worries about Peyton were behind her, she had more time to focus on Haley and her inability to come clean to Lucas. Brooke had planned on talking to her about this, one more time, at school, but that week, Haley happened to be extremely busy at the tutoring center. She missed lunch several times, and the rare times Brooke actually ran into her, she always had something urgent to do and didn't have time to talk.
Lucas noticed her strange behavior too, and asked Brooke if she knew something about it. She kept saying that no, she had no idea what could be wrong with Haley. Nothing to do with the fact that she had been secretly dating his brother for several months now. Lucas wondered if it was related to her parents leaving town again; he invited her over for dinner several times that week, and Haley refused every time, saying that she felt too tired. This only increased his concern about her, because as he explained to Brooke one day at lunch, Haley would usually never, ever, miss an opportunity to have dinner with him and his parents. Brooke tried to reassure him, telling him that if there really was something wrong with her, he would probably be the first one to know about it, but he only seemed half convinced of that.
Haley didn't show up at school that Friday. She texted Lucas to tell him that she was sick. Brooke wondered if it had anything to do with soon-to-be Jamie, but when she saw that Nathan didn't look worried one bit, she figured Haley was maybe really just sick. She decided with Peyton to go check on her the next day, and that if she was in fact faking it, they would drag her out of the house, force Nathan out of his too, and bring them both to Lucas, whether they wanted to or not.
But before doing that, they still had school to go through. The day went by pretty quickly, since it was a game day. The whole school was excited about the evening; even their homeroom teacher had decided to shorten their first period so that the Ravens could get a bit more sleep than usual. It was a decisive game for them: if they were to lose this one, they would be out of the championship. That brought the stakes much higher for Nathan, since everybody knew that scouts would start coming to games starting next week. He didn't seem too nervous about that, though, and Brooke realized why that night.
She had never really been into basketball. Cheerleading, yes. But basketball? It was entertaining, sure, but she wasn't passionate about it, not the way Mouth could be. Yet, that night, even she felt enthralled by the game. The Ravens were killing it. So much so that even Whitey, who usually always paced around the court with a permanent scowl ─a friendly scowl, as Keith had said the other day─ even he looked genuinely proud of them.
They won, hands down. When the crowd had exited the gym, and after stopping by the locker room, Brooke left the school alongside Peyton.
"Nate!" Peyton shouted when she saw him walking a few feet ahead of them.
He looked over his shoulder and stopped when he saw them. His lips stretched into a broad grin. "Hey," he told them when they reached his side. "Are you going straight to my house?"
"I am," Peyton said with a smirk.
Nathan frowned and glanced at Brooke. "But you're not?" he asked her in surprise.
"I, um… I'm not sure I'll make it," she said, averting her eyes.
"How come?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. "You can't bail out tonight, we won!"
"I'm having dinner with Luke," she said with a casual shrug.
"Yeah I know, he told me. Just stop by later."
Peyton chuckled at him. "Oh Nate, you don't know the whole story. See, they were supposed to have dinner with Victoria, but she texted Brooke this afternoon to tell her that she wouldn't be there tonight."
"So? That's even better, just skip dinner and come right to the party."
Brooke felt her cheeks going red. She could tell Nathan anything, anything at all, but him being Lucas' brother just made this conversation extremely embarrassing. Peyton, on the other hand, looked like she was having a lot of fun. She laughed, and when Nathan sent her a quizzical look, she turned to him and said: "Seriously, do you need a picture? Since Victoria's not here, they'll finally be able to get dessert."
"Get dess─ Oh, I get it… Oh, ew, I don't want to know that!" Nathan cried, wincing. "Wait, you said finally?" He glanced at Brooke. "You still haven't─ you know what" ─he shook his head, as if trying to erase a horrifying image from his mind─ "I really don't want any detail. Just, er, stop by later, or don't, whatever you want."
He sped up his pace and almost ran to his car. They watched him go and laughed heartily. "I'm pretty sure he's gonna have nightmares because of you," Brooke told Peyton.
"And I'll make sure to remind him of that tonight," she answered with a chuckle. "Look who's waiting for you," she said, gesturing towards the car right next to Nathan's.
Lucas was there, sitting on his car hood. He said something to his brother, who didn't linger too much, hurried into his car and drove away as quickly as possible, making them laugh at him again.
Brooke turned to Peyton, "See you tomorrow."
"Sure," her friend said with a smile. She waved at Lucas and left to get to her own car, parked in the opposite direction.
Brooke walked over to the car, trotting as she came closer. Lucas hopped off the hood, greeting her with an inquisitive look. "What were you talking about? Nathan looked traumatized."
She giggled, "Nothing bad."
"Somehow, I doubt it," he said with a chuckle.
As Lucas drove to her house, he told her he had briefly spoken to Haley over the phone, and that she was apparently feeling a little better. Brooke wondered how much of that was the truth, and thought it was still better to go check on her as planned.
Her eyes stopped on the lucky rabbit's foot dangling from the rear-view mirror. As usual when she was riding this car, Brooke felt hypnotized by it. Lucas had told her that Keith had given it to him when he had gotten his driver's license, out of pure superstition. Lucas had thought it was creepy at first, but had grown used it, and now wouldn't feel comfortable driving without it.
He parked the car in her driveway and followed her to the front door. He turned on his phone's flashlight and held it over her bag while she was rummaging through it.
"Where the hell are these keys, I know I─ Ah, there!" she cried triumphantly.
Lucas put his phone back in his coat. "I don't get it, isn't your Mom already there?" he asked her as she was opening the door.
"Well, about that…" she said as he walked into the house with her. "She told me she can't make it."
"When?" Lucas asked, closing the door behind them.
She took off her shoes and looked up at him. "This afternoon."
"This afternoon?" he repeated, puzzled by her answer. "No, I mean, when can't she make it?"
"Oh," she said, hanging her scarf on the rack, "tonight."
Lucas' movements slowed down. He was taking off his coat and stopped midway, giving him a strange look as his left side was still covered. "She's not here tonight?" he asked, as if he was making sure he hadn't misheard. She held back a smile and nodded. "So… We're alone?" She gave him another nod. "No interruptions?"
She shook her head. He finished taking off his coat and hung it, brushing her shoulder with his arm. "So, erm… Do you want to eat first or─"
He didn't let her finish her sentence. He pulled her to him, crashing his lips onto hers. She smiled through the kiss, then felt his arms surrounding her and his body guiding hers towards the stairs. They stumbled on the first steps and fell down, both laughing out loud. Brooke jumped on her feet and grabbed his hand, tugging on it. They ran up and started kissing again when they arrived on the landing. They bumped against a wall, then against her bedroom door. His hand felt for the doorhandle and pulled it down.
Brooke pushed him inside and kicked her door closed. Lucas walked back until his legs bumped against the bed and he sat on it, all the while staring at her with a broad grin. She leaned against the door, taking a moment to catch her breath, then slowly unbuttoned her coat and let it drop on the floor. When she saw the look on his face, she knew she had been right to keep her cheerleading outfit on.
She climbed on the bed, straddling him. Her heart was pounding with excitement. She felt his fingers curl up on her thighs and move up along her back until they reached her ponytail. He gently pulled on her hair tie, removing it slowly, and played with her hair. She brushed his lips with her thumb, parting them slightly, and kissed him.
It was soft at first, but she let it become more and more intense, until he dug his fingers into her waist, as if he were clinging to her. She knew he felt exactly the way she did right now: time had stopped, and there was no one else in this world but them. Her hands made their way to his tie, gently loosening it and pulling it over his head. She then took care of his shirt, and soon enough, he was bare-chested.
Lucas pulled back and rolled up her cheerleading top. She moved her arms, helping him to take it off her. She ran her hands over his chest, up to his head, caressing his neck, and kissed him again. He groaned as he fumbled with her bra clasp, but after a few seconds, she heard a click sound as he unhooked it.
Well, actually, she heard two sounds: a click, and her doorbell.
They froze, and Brooke swiftly turned to the door, wondering if she had imagined that. When she looked back at Lucas, she realized that no, he had clearly heard it too.
He groaned and buried his head in her skin, right above the curve of her breasts. "You have got to be kidding me."
She chuckled, caressing his hair. She wondered whether she should check who that was, but Lucas looked like he had an answer to that. He grabbed her waist, flipped her on her back and moved atop of her to brush her neck with his lips. "Just let them leave," he pleaded to her in a murmur, his fingers tugging at the zip of her skirt.
She closed her eyes and let out a soft moan as he kissed her neck then went down her collarbone.
Maybe he was right. Maybe they would─
The doorbell rung again.
Lucas stiffened. "Shit," he mumbled, rolling on his back.
Brooke sat up and hooked her bra. She turned to him and, as frustrated as she was, giggled when she saw his sad puppy eyes. "It's okay, I'll be right back."
She swiftly got up, picked up her cheerleading top and coat from the floor and hastily put them on. She ran down the stairs and yanked the front door open.
Her mouth dropped as she walked onto the porch. "Haley?"
Haley was standing there, looking… Exhausted. "Hi," she said in a faint voice.
"Wh─ What are you doing here?"
"Sorry, I know it's late, and I didn't even know if you'd be here tonight, but erm, I… Can I…" her voice trailed off. She frowned slightly and looked down at Brooke's open coat. "You're still in your cheerleading outfit? And it's inside-out… Oh!" she cried, her eyes growing wide. "Oh god, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have come!"
She turned around to the porch steps, but Brooke stopped her by grabbing her shoulder. "Wait, just wait, okay? Just let me tell Lucas that you're here and we'll─"
"No!" she shrieked, startling Brooke. "He can't know I'm here, Brooke, I can't─"
"Okay, fine, I won't tell him," she said in a soft voice. "I'll just, erm…"
"I should just go."
"No, no way," Brooke said in a firm tone. She couldn't just let Haley go when she looked like she was about to burst into tears at any moment. "Just go in the kitchen, close the door, and I'll ask him to leave. He won't know you're here."
Haley looked at the door hesitantly. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," she answered, pushing her gently towards the door.
She pointed her in the direction of the kitchen, then slowly made her way back to her bedroom. Lucas was now sitting cross-legged on the bed; his head perked up when she came in. How was she supposed to tell him to leave? She closed the door and walked up to him. She took his face in her hands, looking at his expectant eyes.
"So, um… You're gonna have to go."
He scoffed. "Yeah, right," he said with a snicker. But then he saw that she was being serious, and his face fell. Brooke's heart sank at this sight. "You're serious?"
She sighed and sat next to him. "Yeah. It's kind of an emergency."
"An emergency?" he asked with a slight frown.
She nodded. "I really have to deal with it now."
His expression softened and he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. "So, you're telling me that you lured me in here just to kick me out?"
She bit her lower lip in guilt. "I'm so sorry Luke. You have no idea how─"
"It's okay," he said with a chuckle. "Another rain check it is, then."
He quickly got dressed and a few minutes later, they were saying goodbye on her front porch.
"So, erm, you're really not mad?" Brooke asked him in disbelief.
"I'm not," he said without hesitation. "Actually, I should have known this would happen. Tennessee Williams is always right." When he saw that she looked utterly confused, he pulled out a book from the inner pocket of his coat. The one he had borrowed from her mother. "I just finished it, and there's a sentence about you in there."
"Really?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "What does Tennessee Williams have to say about me?"
"All pretty girls are a trap," he quoted. "And you, Brooke Davis" ─he grabbed her coat and pulled her close to him─ "you've definitely trapped me." She blushed, making him grin. Before she could react, he gave her a peck on the lips and after handing her the book, let her go. He walked down the steps but instead of going to his car, turned around to face her. "Hey, this emergency you have, um…"
She managed to break out of her daze. "What about it?"
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
She fought the urge to jump in his arms. "No. But thanks for asking."
He shrugged and gave her a charming smile. "Anytime, Pretty girl."
Her heart skipped a beat. She had already heard him call her this before, but it had only happened in the future… until now. She let out a long sigh and watched him as he walked to his car and drove away.
Haley was sitting at the kitchen table, her coat still on, her backpack lying at her feet. Brooke poured her a glass of water and sat next to her.
"Thanks," Haley told her with a faint smile. "I wasn't even sure you'd be here tonight, with Nathan's party…"
"Why did you come then?"
"I was on my way home from, erm, the store, and I passed by your house, so I figured I could stop by." She drank a mouthful of water. "I didn't even notice Luke's car, I was… I don't know."
"Lost in your thoughts?" Haley looked down at the glass in her hands and nodded. "So, what did you want to talk about?" Brooke asked, though she already knew the answer.
"I, erm," her voice cracked. Haley glanced up at her with frightful eyes. "My period is late."
"Okay." No, wait, she had to sound more surprised than that. "Are you sure? Maybe you're just stressed and─"
"I'm sure."
"Did you take a test?"
Haley shook her head and picked up her bag from the floor. She placed it on her lap and took out a small rectangular box from it. "That's why I was at the store. I just… I didn't want to be alone."
Brooke took the pregnancy test in her hands. "Come on, I'll show you the bathroom," she told her softly.
She waited in the hall while Haley was using the test, bemused by the fact that she had shown up at her doorstep. She hadn't expected her to trust her this much. Although, when she really thought about it, it shouldn't have come as a surprise: apart from Peyton, she was the only one who knew about her relationship with Nathan. Who was she going to talk to, Lucas? 'Hey Luke, guess what, I've been secretly going out with your brother and he knocked me up!' No, she couldn't possibly do that.
There was something else that she hadn't thought about, but that seemed obvious now. In her mind, Jamie was associated to good news, because she knew that Nathan and Haley were going to be happy in the future. She had seen it. But Haley didn't know that. She was just an eighteen-year-old girl, still in high school, about to go to college, and pregnant with the boy she had been dating for less than a year. Of course she would be terrified by the thought of having a child.
Haley came out of the bathroom. She looked more anguished than when she had gone in, if that was even possible. She burst into tears and said some words that, mixed with her crying, Brooke failed to make out. It didn't matter though, she knew exactly what Haley was trying to say.
Brooke walked up to her and hugged her tightly, stroking her back. "It's okay," she told Haley, "you're not on your own here."
Haley's hands tightened around Brooke. It took a few minutes, but she eventually grew calmer and her sobs subsided. "I don't know what to do," she said, her voice trembling.
"Have you told Nate?" Haley shook her head. Brooke took a step back and grabbed her shoulders. "Well, this is just a stick anyway. We need to confirm it."
Brooke had a feeling that Haley didn't want to be on her own that night, so she asked her if she wanted to sleep over, which Haley gladly accepted. They didn't stay up late; after lying down on Brooke's bed, Haley fell asleep in a matter of minutes. She looked like she hadn't slept all week.
They woke up early the next morning; Brooke had figured they should go to the family planning clinic as soon as possible. Victoria was still sound asleep when they left.
The reception lady was the same one Brooke had met a year before, the only time she had come to the clinic, to get a morning-after pill. She asked Haley to fill out a form and wait in the corridor until the nurse would call her name.
"Brooke?"
Brooke turned to Haley, who was looking at her hesitantly. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, just…" She nervously tapped on the paper sheet with her pen. "They're asking for the name of my trusted person."
"Trusted person? What's that?"
"It's the person they're supposed to call if something goes wrong. I don't think they'll need to in this case, but I guess they have to ask one for every person who comes in here. And I can't really put my parents' names, they're not even in town anyway, but I was thinking maybe─"
Brooke stopped her rambling with a chuckle. "Sure, you can write my name."
Haley sent her a grateful look then went back to answering the other questions.
After ten minutes, a white-haired woman wearing a pink coat guided them to an examination room. The walls were all painted with the same pastel green color. The nurse invited them to take a seat, gesturing at the chairs, and walked around them to sit behind her desk. She asked Haley if she had talked to her parents. Haley answered that no, she had only told one friend, and that was Brooke. The nurse then read Haley's form and told her that she needed to draw some blood. They would have to wait another thirty minutes to get the result.
She made them sit in another waiting room, this one pastel blue. There were many prevention posters sticked to the walls, mainly about STDs and birth control. Two other girls were waiting, but they had come on their own. Just like Haley, they both looked extremely nervous. Brooke walked around the room, detailing the posters, then noticed a coffee table with many leaflets and took a handful. She went back to sit next to Haley, who was staring at the ground, biting her nails. She offered her some of the leaflets, but Haley silently refused by shaking her head.
They were called in again into the green room. They sat in neighboring chairs when the nurse, from across the desk, told Haley that she was indeed about 5 weeks pregnant.
Haley grabbed Brooke's hand and held it tightly as she listened to the nurse detailing her options. She told her that she still had time to make up her mind, and that if she had any question at all, she shouldn't hesitate to call her.
They silently rode to the Café, where Haley was supposed to take her shift. Brooke parked her car right next to it and after pulling on the handbrake, turned to her.
"Are you sure you don't want to call in sick? I'm sure Karen would understand. I could even fill in for you if that's what─"
"No, I'm good Brooke," she said with a faint smile, "but thanks. For everything, I mean it."
"Do you know, erm…"
"What I'm gonna do? No, I have no idea," Haley told her with a sigh.
"Maybe you could start by telling Nate?" she said tentatively.
Haley averted her eyes. "Yeah, I guess that would be a good start. I─ I'm gonna be late, thanks again for everything, Brooke."
Before Brooke could tell her to make sure to call her, Haley dashed out. She watched her tie up her hair as she entered the Café and rushed to the countertop.
She went back to her house and plumped down on her couch. She looked down at her bag and took out the leaflets she had gotten from the clinic. The one she was holding read: Abortion, answers to your questions. She sighed and shook her head at it. She didn't know what to think of all this. If only she hadn't been to the future, then she wouldn't have met Jamie, and she wouldn't feel conflicted about this situation. She shouldn't even feel conflicted about it, because it wasn't even her situation to begin with.
"What are you doing with this?"
Brooke jumped up and looked over her shoulder to see her mother, standing right behind the couch and looking down at the leaflet in her hands. Victoria's eyes grew wide as she read the title. She walked around the couch to face her daughter and snatched the leaflet from her hands.
"Abortion?" she read, her voice unusually high-pitched.
"It's not for me, Mom." Brooke said with a sigh.
"Really?" she asked, sitting down next to her.
"Really", Brooke answered in a firm voice. "Lucas and I haven't even… Whatever, it's not for me, it's for a friend. She's pregnant, she just found out this morning."
Victoria still looked aghast. "Peyton is pregnant?"
"No!" Brooke cried, stifling a laugh. "It's someone you don't know, and she doesn't want anyone to know about this, but I swear to you, it's not me, and it's not Peyton, alright?"
"Good," she answered, relieved. "Is she from your school?"
"Yeah, she's a senior too."
"Did she tell her parents?"
"No, not yet… Do you think she should?"
Victoria was about to answer, but instead stayed silent for a moment and stared at the leaflet thoughtfully. "As a mother, yes I think she should tell them."
"But?" Brooke asked, sensing that there was more to her answer.
"But I remember what it is to be eighteen, and… There's a reason why these clinics exist. If she's not comfortable telling her parents, then she shouldn't be forced too. But she shouldn't go through this alone, either."
"Yeah, but that's the thing," Brooke said with a frown, "she doesn't know what she's gonna do."
Victoria raised her eyebrows. "She's thinking of keeping it?"
"I don't know," Brooke answered with a shrug. "She just said that she didn't know what to do. I think she needs time to think about it." She hesitated, then looked up at her mother and asked: "What would you do if you were her?"
"I'm not her."
"But what if you were?"
"I… I don't think I would keep it. A child, at eighteen? That's too big of a burden for anyone."
Brooke frowned at that. It wasn't just a burden. It was Jamie. "Karen did it."
"And that was very brave of her, but it would be too much for most people."
But not for Haley and Nathan. Brooke knew that for sure, she knew it wouldn't be too big of a burden to them.
She needed to talk to someone who knew about all the facts. After her lunch with Peyton, she went to the River Court where she was supposed to meet with Lucas. He was already there when she arrived, playing with Skills, Fergie and Junk. He saw her getting out of her car and called a timeout with his friends. She waited next to her car while he jogged to her.
"Hi," he said with a wide grin, wrapping his arms around her. He gave her a soft kiss. "I missed you last night."
She closed her eyes and buried her head in his chest. "I missed you too."
Lucas pulled back a little to take a better look at her. He frowned slightly and tilted his head. "Are you okay?"
"Just a little tired," she said with a shrug, avoiding his inquisitive gaze.
"Did you handle your emergency?"
"It's, erm… Still on-going."
His frown deepened upon hearing that. "Are you sure I can't help you at all?"
She couldn't look him straight in the eyes, because when she did, all she wanted to do was to tell him the truth. "Yeah."
"You know what," he said in a soft voice, putting a finger under her chin to make her look at him, "I'm gonna tell the guys I'm done for the day. We can go wherever you want."
He really knew how to melt her heart with just a few words. "Actually, I wanted to talk to Mouth first, he's here, right?" she asked, turning her head to see him sitting on the bleachers. "But maybe after that we could grab a coffee and go to the beach?"
"Deal," he said, kissing the top of her head.
They walked to the court, and while Lucas was going back to play with his friends, Brooke waved at them and went to sit next to Mouth on the bleachers.
"Haley's pregnant", she blurted out before he could even say hi to her. It really felt as a relief to be able to tell someone about this.
Mouth's jaw dropped. "A─ Are you sure?"
"She told me. We went to the clinic this morning."
"Wow." He scratched his head, looking thoughtful. "This is weird. I don't know why I'm so shocked, we knew it would happen, but still…"
"Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. But it's not just that…"
She told him about how the meeting at the clinic had gone, and what Haley had told her afterwards.
"So," she said after finishing her story, "I don't know what to do about this. We know she's supposed to have a kid in the future, so she should keep it, but…"
"But it's not our decision to make," Mouth said with a sigh. "Yeah, I get it. It's not our lives that's gonna be changed forever."
"Exactly. And I would be such a hypocrite if I tried to influence her to make sure she has Jamie, because I wouldn't hesitate to get an abortion if I were her. But then… Haley's life is not really gonna change, right? In fact, it would only change if she decided to get an abortion. But that would mean…"
"No more Jamie," Mouth said with a frown.
"I don't know what to do, Mouth. I really feel like I shouldn't influence her, because it should be her decision, and only hers, but at the same time… What if Jamie disappears because of that?"
He sighed. "I… I don't think we should do anything. First, because you're right, it's their decision. And second because… I think the more you'll try something, the more you'll take the risk to change the future. So far, everything you knew was going to happen, happened, but without you trying to make it happen."
She blinked at him in confusion. "Could you repeat that, but in English this time?"
He chuckled. "Okay, so erm… Haley's hair. You knew she was gonna turn blonde one day, and she did, but it's not like you did it on purpose."
"No, it was just a mistake."
"Exactly. And the rabbit lamp? That was before we realized you were travelling, but you knew that you were going to break Lucas' lamp and that it was going to be replaced by the rabbit one."
"And I did break it accidentally," she murmured as she recalled the day she fainted in Lucas' room. "But I'm the one who pointed out the rabbit lamp to Karen."
"No, you didn't, you pointed it out to me. You didn't tell Karen 'Hey look this is the one you should get for Lucas'. It was her magazine that she was reading, you just happened to see it, and you never told her to buy the lamp. But when she saw your reaction, she thought you liked it, and she bought it for Lucas because she already knew he liked you back then!"
"Wait, what?" Brooke asked, raising her eyebrows. "That's why she bought that lamp?"
"Well, I didn't ask Karen, but yeah, it has to be. Whatever, do you see where I'm going with this?"
She crossed her arms against her chest and glanced at Junk trying to dribble past Lucas. "Yeah, I think I do. So far, I've never tried actively to make the future happen, it just happened on its own."
"And if you changed that, and tried too hard to make it happen…"
"Then maybe it would not happen."
They couldn't take that chance; they agreed that day that they wouldn't try to influence Haley or Nathan in their decision.
In the next days, however, Brooke found that her resolve not to interfere was gradually weakening. Everyone around her, except from Mouth, made it difficult for her to hold herself back.
Haley was indecisive about everything: what to do with this pregnancy, if she should tell her parents, how to break the news to Nathan… She kept asking Brooke for her opinion, but Brooke kept repeating her that her opinion didn't matter. What mattered was what she wanted, and what she needed, not what Brooke would do in her situation.
Nathan knew something was wrong, but since Haley wasn't telling him anything, he didn't know how to act around her. Brooke hated seeing him like this, but Haley had assured her that she would tell everything to Nathan, she just needed a few days to sort out her thoughts.
Lucas saw that both his best friend and brother were out of shape and felt helpless about it, since they obviously didn't want him to know what was weighing on their minds. What he didn't understand was why Haley was suddenly being very secretive; in the twelve years he had known her, she had never acted this way with him. He kept asking Brooke if she knew something about it, and since Brooke didn't want to lie to his face, she kept evading his questions. So far, she had managed to keep Haley's secret, but she knew she would give in if Lucas kept insisting.
On Thursday morning, Brooke knew something had changed. When she got to her locker, she glanced over at Lucas' and saw that he was there alone. No Haley around him. She shared a look with Peyton and they walked over to him. Lucas told them that he didn't know where Haley was, she wasn't answering her phone.
While Peyton was asking him when was the last time he had seen her, Brooke took out her phone and texted Haley, asking her where she was. She got an immediate reply. She looked up at her friends and told them to go ahead to homeroom without her, that she'd be right back.
She left before they had a chance to ask her what was going on. Brooke went down the corridor, turned left, then right, and stopped before the tutoring center. She softly knocked on the door and opened it.
Haley was sitting at a table, her head resting on her crossed arms. She looked up and through her tears seemed relieved to see Brooke. Brooke hurried to her side and dragged a chair to sit next to her.
"What happened?"
Haley's eyes were red and puffy. "I told him."
"When?" Brooke asked, surprised.
"Last night." She looked down at her hands.
"I'm guessing he didn't take it very well?" Haley shook her head, looking devastated. "What did he say?"
"Nothing," she answered, her voice quavering. "He didn't say anything. He just left. I tried calling him, but… He doesn't want to talk to me."
"Oh, Hales," Brooke said, taking her in her arms. "Don't worry, he'll come around, just… Just give him some time, okay?"
"I don't know Brooke, he looked─"
"I know him. I know how he can be. Trust me, he just needs some time to process all this." She looked worriedly at Haley. She was a mess, there was no way she could stay in school. "You're gonna call in sick for today."
"I can't do that, we have a test─"
"Forget about the test," she cut her off. "I'm not asking you, Haley, I'm telling you. You're gonna call in sick, and you're gonna go to my house." Brooke took out her keys from her bag and handed them to her.
Haley looked down at the keys, startled. Her head jerked up, "No, I can't do that, I'll just go home…"
"You're not staying on your own, Hales. My mom is home today, and she won't mind at all, I'll call her and tell her you're coming." She hesitated before saying, "She knows you're pregnant."
Haley's eyes grew wide in fear. "What? But what if─"
"She won't tell anyone, and she won't judge either."
They waited until the corridors were empty and walked back to the parking lot. Before hopping in her car, Haley turned to her and said, "Brooke, I… I don't know how to thank you."
"It's okay," she said with a smile. "I'm your trusted person, remember?"
Once Haley was gone, Brooke called her mother to tell her about their last-minute guest. Victoria sounded surprised at first, but when she heard that Haley was the pregnant friend she had told her about and that she was living on her own, she told her that of course, she didn't mind Haley staying over.
Nathan really had disappeared. He wasn't answering any texts and calls, and didn't show up at school that day.
Brooke avoided all of her friends, including Lucas, because it was becoming more and more obvious that she knew something. Haley and Nathan had gone AWOL, and she herself had missed homeroom that same morning; it couldn't just be a coincidence. She missed lunch, saying that she had an errand to run, and hid in the library with Mouth. She had thought that Mouth would be worried about her sending Haley to her house, that maybe it would put the future at risk, but he was in fact relieved to know that Haley wasn't alone.
She went straight home after school; Haley was in the living room, sitting on the couch with a blanket over her shoulders and watching a movie in what sounded like German.
"Do you speak German?" Brooke asked her, sitting next to her.
"Absolutely not." Haley looked better than she had this morning, more relaxed. Her eyes weren't so red anymore. She noticed how Brooke was staring at her and gave her a faint smile. "Your mom is really nice."
"Yeah, she's in a much better mood now that she's divorced," Brooke said with a chuckle. "So, erm, what's the story?" she asked, watching the TV.
"This girl," she said, pointing at a brown-haired teenager, "has a crush on her teacher. But then she finds out that he's been sleeping with her mother, and a bunch of other women from her town, so she decides to kill him with a shovel."
"Wow," Brooke said, raising her eyebrows. "Talk about drastic measures."
Haley chuckled. "I know, right? But anyway, she didn't manage to kill him, she knocked him down and then she locked him in her family's shed. And now she's back to school acting as if everything's normal."
They watched the rest of the movie, eating popcorn and laughing as they were making up the English translation to the dialogues.
The next morning, Victoria told Haley that she should stay home another day, to which Haley agreed. It looked like she had realized that she did need some time off from… well, everything. Victoria called the school, and then the Café, to inform them that Haley would miss another day.
Brooke arrived late on purpose, so that she wouldn't have to talk to Peyton or Lucas. When she took her seat in homeroom, she noticed that Nathan wasn't there.
She had lunch in the library once again, sitting at a table with Mouth, telling him about her evening with Haley. Mouth was listening to her and suddenly frowned, looking over her shoulder.
"Uh-oh," he said worriedly. Brooke followed his gaze and turned around to see that Lucas was standing behind her. He threw a glance at Mouth, who in turn looked at Brooke. "I, um, I'm gonna leave you guys alone."
Before Brooke could complain, he hurried off, avoiding her scowl. Lucas took his seat and pulled the chair closer to Brooke. "Hi," he said, his voice a little tense.
"Hi," she answered, avoiding his gaze. "What, um, what are you doing here?"
"I was looking for you. I have to admit, I didn't think you'd hide here."
"I'm not hiding," she retorted.
He rolled his eyes. "Come on, we've barely talked yesterday, and you've avoided me all morning."
Her mouth turned into a frown. "Fine," she admitted with a sigh. "Maybe I am hiding."
"Did I do something wrong?"
His question was so unexpected that she stared back at him, startled. "No!"
"Good," he said with a relieved smile. "So that means it has to do with Haley, then. You know what's going on with her, don't you?"
She blinked. "Haley?" she asked, her voice betraying her. "I, erm, I don't know what you're talking about."
"Brooke, I'm not blind. I saw her car parked in front of your house the night I left. I know she was your emergency. And yesterday, after school, I stopped by your house and I saw her car again."
"You stopped by?", she asked, raising her eyebrows. "Why didn't you come in?"
"I thought I'd leave you guys alone. There's a reason why Haley came to you, and not to me. Whatever's going on with her, she's not comfortable telling me about it." He sounded hurt and lost, but didn't dwell on it. "But it's not just Haley anymore, it's Nathan too."
"Nathan?" Brooke said nervously. "What does he have to─"
"Brooke, look at me," he told her in a soft voice.
She did, and when she saw the look in his eyes, she finally realized something. "You know about them," she murmured, dazed. "Since when do you know?"
"A while," he said with a dismissive shrug. "Doesn't matter. Did they have a fight?" She frowned, looking down at her hands. After a few seconds, Lucas' hand slipped on her lap and held her left hand.
"Kind of, yeah," she said, her voice getting lower. His thumb was drawing a circle on the palm of her hand, going round and round. She looked up at him and when she saw his pleading eyes, she knew she was giving in. "She's pregnant." His thumb froze abruptly, his eyes grew wide, and his mouth fell open. She paused so that he would have time to let it sink in, and when she thought she could talk again, she said: "And Nathan's not taking it very well."
He frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked, his voice hardening.
"Well, um…" Now that she could see the anger spreading on his face, she was wondering if telling him all this wasn't just a terrible idea "He didn't say anything, he just, um, left. He's probably home, but he's not picking up his phone."
"I'm gonna go find him."
She gripped his hand so tightly that it startled him, "No! You can't do that!"
"Why not?"
Because she was quite certain that if he were to go talk to his brother right now, things wouldn't end well. "Haley asked me not to tell anyone, and that includes you."
"But I can't just─"
"At least wait a day or two before you go talk to him. Give them a chance to solve this on their own. Please."
He seemed to hesitate, but eventually said, "Fine, I'll wait."
Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned when Nathan decided to show up for the game that evening. Brooke was warming up with the squad when she saw him entering the gym, his head down, marching straight to the lockers.
A part of her knew that he could come, considering that it was a game day and that scouts were coming. But after her talk with Lucas, she had really wished he wouldn't show up.
When she saw the Ravens coming out of the locker room, a bad feeling creeped up in her. Lucas was standing as far away as he could from his brother, as if he was physically trying to keep his word to her.
This game turned out to be the complete opposite of the one from the week before. They were all lacking their usual spunk, especially Nathan and Lucas. A stranger would have probably thought that it was the first time they were teaming up. But there were no strangers here, and very quickly, everyone in the crowd noticed that something was wrong. Whitey was beside himself; Brooke didn't remember ever seeing his face this red.
He called for a time out. The referee blew his whistle, and the Ravens gathered around Whitey, Nathan dragging behind his teammates. From where they were standing, the girls couldn't hear what he was saying, but they could see their faces and they knew Whitey wasn't complimenting them. After a minute or so, the whistle blew again and the game was on. They all ran back to the court, but before Nathan could reach his position, Lucas grabbed his shoulder.
"Oh no," Brooke muttered.
Peyton threw her a look then glanced back at the court. "What's up with these two?"
"Erm… This doesn't look good."
They both watched as Lucas said something to Nathan. Nathan looked shocked for a second, stood still for another, then shrugged and stared at the floor. His lips moved, so they knew he was saying something to Lucas, but they didn't know what. And then he walked away from his brother, who didn't move an inch and kept staring at his back.
And then he snapped.
Lucas launched himself at his brother, pushing him to the floor. Brooke, along with everyone else in the gym, gasped when she saw them rolling, Lucas coming on top and punching his brother in the face.
People stood up in the bleachers, trying to see what was going on. Ravens and members of the opposite team tried to separate them, but in the process, one of the Ravens inadvertently elbowed an opponent in his ribs. Before he could explain himself and apologize, he got thrown to the floor and soon enough, a fight between two brothers had turned into a massive, full-blown brawl.
Twenty minutes later, Brooke was sitting with Peyton on the low wall enclosing the gym. They watched as the cars left the parking lot, one by one. Only the Ravens' parents were lingering, waiting with sullen faces for their sons to come out of the gym.
From their spot, they could hear Whitey yelling at the Ravens. It lasted for another ten minutes, but from their point of view it probably felt endless.
Karen was there, too. She was waiting by her car and when she noticed Brooke, came to talk to her. Great, now what was she supposed to tell her?
She stood arms crossed in front of them. "Do you know what happened in there?" she asked them, looking furious.
Peyton glanced at Brooke then said, "No, we didn't hear what they said."
"I don't understand…" Karen said, shaking her head in dismay. "Lucas hit him first, right? I didn't imagine that?" They shared a look and nodded at her. "I don't get it. That's not like him. And you really have no idea what happened? Brooke?"
Brooke, who had so far carefully avoided her gaze, had no choice but to stand up and face her. "I'm sorry, but I can't tell you."
"But you do know what happened, then?"
"He was just… worried."
"Worried? So he punched Nathan?"
"It's about Haley. That's all I can tell you, sorry. He's just worried about Haley… and trying to protect her."
This seemed to decrease Karen's anger a bit. She thanked her and went back to her car to wait in it. Brooke sat back on the low wall and turned to Peyton, who was staring at her.
"Haley?" her friend repeated with a frown. "What happened? Does he know about her and Nate?"
"Yeah, he knows," she said with a sigh. "But that's not why he attacked him."
"Then why?"
Brooke hesitated, then said, "Sorry, but I really can't say." She dropped her head in her hands, "I shouldn't even have told Luke, look what happened."
"Hey, don't beat yourself up for this," Peyton said, putting an arm around her shoulders. "They'll be fine."
"I'm not so sure about that," she mumbled.
The gym doors opened and the Ravens came out in a small pack. They both looked around, searching for Nathan, but couldn't find him.
"He's leaving through the school," Peyton said with a sigh. She shook her head then turned to Brooke. "We can still catch him if we hurry."
"No, I don't think he'd like that," Brooke said with a frown. "Not tonight."
Peyton agreed with a nod, then told her she'd see her later and left for her car. Brooke looked around once again, this time trying to spot a familiar blonde head.
Lucas noticed her staring at him, and after a quick glance towards his mother's car, walked up to her. He had a bruise on his left cheekbone, and a cut on his lower lip.
"I shouldn't have told you," she said when he stopped by her side. "Not before the game, or─"
"Before or after, it wouldn't have made a difference."
"That's not true," she said with a frown. "What about the scouts?"
He shrugged at that. "I'm not planning on playing basketball in college."
"I know that, but what about…" She paused, then shook her head. "Never mind." Maybe bringing up Nathan's name wasn't the best thing to do right now. "Go, your mother's waiting, and she's pissed at you enough already."
"That bad?" he asked worriedly. "I want to see Haley, but I don't think I'll be able to get out of the house tonight."
"I'll tell her you wanted to see her. Hey, um, can I… Can I sneak in later?" she asked hesitantly.
His traits softened immediately. "Of course, you can."
She gave him a faint smile and left to get her car. When she came home, her mother was alone in the kitchen. She told Brooke that Haley had had dinner already and was in her room, taking a nap.
Brooke went upstairs and saw that she indeed was sleeping on her bed. She quietly put the covers back on her shoulders and exited the room.
After a quick dinner, Brooke left for Lucas' house. She parked her car in the back street and knocked on his bedroom door before coming in.
He was sitting on his bed, his legs stretched out, holding an icepack in his left hand and texting with his right. Brooke took off her shoes and coat and climbed on his bed, leaning on the side against a pillow. She grabbed the icepack and gently put it on the now purple bruise.
"Thanks," he said, now texting freely with both hands. "I tried to call Haley but she didn't pick up."
"She's sleeping."
"How is she?"
"Better, I think. My mom said she was more talkative and lively than yesterday."
"That's good, right?" he asked tentatively.
She smiled at him. "Yeah, it is good." He dropped his phone on the bed and turned to her, kissing her forehead. "What did your mom say?"
"I'm grounded for two weeks."
"Ouch."
"It's not that bad, actually. I expected much worse."
"And, um…" she said hesitantly. "What happened with Nate?"
Lucas looked away for a moment, frowning as he was remembering Nathan's words to him. "I told him I knew about Haley, about her pregnancy."
"And what did he say to you?"
His jaw tightened. "That it wasn't his problem."
"He said that?" she asked, dumbfounded. "He… No, he didn't mean it. There's no way he could mean it."
Lucas didn't seem so certain. He crossed his arms, furrows appearing on his forehead. "I don't know…"
She put down the ice and gently stroked his hair. This seemed to calm him down, as his shoulders and arms relaxed, and he rested his head against her shoulder. "What are you brooding about?" she asked him after a long silence.
"Nothing," he muttered.
"Wow, if that's how you are when nothing bothers you, I can't wait to see how you are when there's actually something bothering you."
His lips twitched as he held back a smile. "It's just… Nathan, you know. I never thought he'd be such an ass."
"He's not, he's just─"
Lucas stiffened and moved back from her. "You think it was alright for him to say that?"
"Wha─ No, that's not what I said," she answered, bemused by his reaction. Why was he so quick to lose his temper on this? It wasn't like him at all. "I'm just saying that maybe we should hear him out before─"
His voice got slightly louder. "Hear him out? Why? He just said he didn't give a shit about Haley!"
Brooke swiftly glanced at the door leading to the hallway. "That's not what he said," she said tentatively, "and he wasn't thinking straight anyway."
Lucas furrowed his brow at her, "You're defending him? What's next, you're gonna go check on him, see how he's doing?" Her silence was enough to answer him. "Are you serious?"
She snapped at that. "What, you're surprised that I would dare to give my friend the benefit of the doubt?" she asked back, crossing her arms. "You can't blame me for that!" He scoffed and jumped on his feet. "And what about you, huh?"
"What about me?"
"He's your brother! You know him, you really think he would abandon Haley?"
Lucas stayed silent for a moment, then looked away at his door, his jaw tightening. "I think you should go."
She glowered at him, waiting for him to say something else, but he didn't budge. "Looks like Nathan is not the only Scott being an ass tonight," she told him in a harsh tone.
She climbed off his bed, quickly put her shoes back on, grabbed her coat and left his room. She strode to her car and once she was in it, hesitated as she looked at Lucas' door. She hated leaving like this, but… She knew that she wouldn't get anything else from him for now, not when he was clearly unwilling to communicate with her.
She didn't understand what had gotten into him. He was usually so calm and soft-spoken… Why was he refusing to hear her out? Was it so shocking that she would want to talk to Nathan, even after what he had said to him?
She went home that night and kept tossing and turning in her sleep. Haley, on the other hand, was peacefully sleeping and was still asleep when she woke up.
She quickly ate breakfast and left for Nathan's house. She didn't care whether he wanted to see her or not, she was going to make him listen to her. And she knew exactly who she needed to do that. She was uneasy sharing Haley's secret with yet another person, but she really needed some help right now. Before leaving, she called Peyton, gave her a quick breakdown of the past events, starting with Haley's pregnancy, and asked her if she could meet her at Nathan's in thirty minutes. Peyton immediately complied.
She was already there when she stopped her car in Nathan's alleyway.
"She's pregnant?!" Peyton cried when Brooke reached her side.
"Yeah, five weeks or so."
"Is she gonna keep it?"
"Ye─ I don't know." Brooke sighed. "But I do know that she should talk about it with Nathan."
Peyton gave her a sharp nod. They walked to his door and after ringing its bell twice, Deb welcomed them in. She was surprised to see them so early in the morning. She told them that Nathan was still asleep, that he had felt down for a few days, but he had still insisted that she should go to the Café, since Haley couldn't take her shift today.
They climbed up the stairs and after knocking on the door, came into Nathan's bedroom. It was plunged into darkness, with only a few rays of light coming out from below the closed curtains.
"Wake up, sunshine," Peyton said, sitting on his right side.
Nathan wiggled from under his covers and shifted to be on his other side. "Go away," he grumbled.
In a swift move, Brooke drew the curtains and let a blinding amount of light into the room. Nathan groaned, then cursed several times, grabbed his pillow and put it over his head. "Go away," he repeated, his voice getting louder.
Peyton picked up something from the floor and showed it to Brooke. It was an empty bottle of beer, and there were quite a few there. "Let me guess, Nate, you're feeling a little hungover?"
Brooke bent over the bed and yanked on his pillow, throwing it across the room. Nathan's head appeared; he blinked at her, then turned to stare at Peyton. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked them, sitting on his bed.
"I think that should be our question", Brooke told him, pointing at his face. He had a bruise on his right cheekbone; it was the exact parallel to his brother's. "How cute, Lucas has the same one on his other cheek."
He glowered at her. "That's not funny."
Peyton stood up, told them she would be back and left them alone. Brooke glanced back at him, "You're right, it's not funny. Not funny at all."
"Are you mad at me?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You said she wasn't your problem!" she cried, glaring at him.
His face fell. "I know, that was stupid. I was just… I was trying to focus on the game. We were already playing like amateurs, and then Lucas told me he knew about Haley, and I…"
Brooke's gaze softened. "It was too much to handle?"
"Still is," he admitted, lowering his eyes.
She sighed, relieved to see that she had been right about her friend. She knew Nathan wasn't the type to bail on anyone.
Peyton came back after a couple of minutes with a glass full of a green drink. She handed it to Nathan, who took it with a grimace. He knew, like Brooke, that Peyton's special homemade hangover remedy was as effective as it was disgusting.
He closed his eyes and gulped it down. Peyton took the empty glass back in her hands. "Good, now go take a shower, get dressed, and go talk to your girlfriend."
"I don't want to talk about this," he said with a frown.
Peyton sighed, "Nate, seriously, just─"
"What part of I don't want to talk don't you get?" he retorted sharply.
"Fine, don't talk to us," Brooke told him with a shrug. They both turned to her, startled by her words. "I mean, it's not even our business." Peyton raised an eyebrow at her, silently asking her what they were doing here if it wasn't their business. She gave her a meaningful look and turned to Nathan. "But you should talk to her. Haley. You owe it to her. Do you know how terrified she is right now? Because I do. I've been living with her for two days. She was a mess after you left, and she hasn't gone back to school yet."
Nathan looked like he had trouble following her words. "Wh─ She's living with you?"
"What was I gonna do? Leave her alone like you did?"
Nathan glared at her. "You think I'm proud of that? But did you even consider how I could be feeling? I mean, we've been going out for eight months, and now what, I might become a, a f…" He seemed to choke on the last word, but Brooke focused on an another one. Might. "Father," he breathed out.
He looked petrified too, just like Haley a few days before. Peyton let out a sigh, then told him, "Look, whether you want this pregnancy to be over, or not, that's something you should both figure out together."
Nathan looked thoughtful for a moment and eventually shook his head in dejection. "I ran away," he said, looking at them both. "There's no way I can face her now."
"Let's see…" Brooke said with a snort. "You're an eighteen-year-old high-schooler whose girlfriend just told him she was pregnant. Running away for three days sounds okay, as far as I'm concerned. What do you say, Peyt?"
"Acceptable, at least in my book."
He gave them a faint, grateful smile, and told them he really wanted to be alone now. They knew there was nothing else they could do to convince him, and that it was now up to him to make up his mind, so they left.
Brooke went back to her house. She checked her phone and saw with disappointment that Lucas hadn't tried to call or text her. She went upstairs to her bedroom; Haley was up now, sitting at her desk, using her laptop.
"Hi", she told her, looking at her over her shoulder. "I'm just borrowing this."
"It's okay, I won't charge you," Brooke told her with a chuckle. "What are you doing?" she asked, walking closer to her. Her smile faded away when she saw what Haley was looking for. "Why are you booking a flight for Dallas?"
Haley spun around on her chair to face her. Brooke noticed that she had a newly resolved look on her face. "I'm keeping it," she said, touching her belly.
Brooke put all her strength into fighting the urge to jump out of joy. "For real?"
"Yeah," she said with a faint smile. "I looked at it from all possible angles, and… I know it sounds crazy, but I want to keep it."
"Okay, but why are you going to Dallas then?"
"I'm gonna live with Taylor."
Brooke sat on the bed, staring at her friend in confusion. "Say what?"
"I'm gonna li─"
"Yeah I heard you the first time," she cut her off, waving her hand. "But why?"
"Brooke, Nathan doesn't want this," she told her as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"You… You don't know that!"
"But I know that Taylor said she'd look after me," she said, her eyes watering. "So I'd rather be with her than─"
"Okay, wait, just wait a minute. Why don't you stay here, then? I'm sure my Mom wouldn't mind, we could put your room in my dad's former study and─"
"Brooke," she said, her voice soft. "I can't do that to you."
"But you can do that to Taylor?"
"She's family," she said with a shrug.
"What about school?"
"I'll just enroll there."
"This is crazy, you can't just… I talked to Nathan this morning, and I'm sure he'll come around."
She frowned slightly. "Did he tell you that?"
"Well, erm, no, not really but─"
"Look, I'll never be able to thank you enough for everything you did for me. But, believe me, I've really thought this through, it's the only way."
Brooke frowned, staring down at the floor. What the hell was Nathan doing now? If he waited too long, Haley would be halfway across the country.
Jamie's face flashed in her mind. His small hand holding hers, his broad smile as he was eating his PB&J, the drawing he had made for her, his rabbit─
His freaking rabbit.
She remembered Mouth telling her that she shouldn't try too hard to make the future happen, that it could result in a completely different future. She knew he was right, but she also had this gut feeling that maybe some things needed a real push from her. She didn't know if that was what Chester meant, but in that moment, that was how she felt.
She wasn't influencing Haley about keeping him or not. Haley had already made her decision on her own: she would be having Jamie. He would have a life, a future. But if Haley left for Dallas, what kind of a life would he have? Wouldn't it be completely different from the one Brooke had witnessed?
If only she could just travel now, find out if this trip to Dallas was all part of their future and if somehow, Nathan and Haley would find each other again… But no, her travelling abilities didn't seem to want to help her.
"Nathan will come around," Brooke stated, her voice low. "He'll come around, and you, and your kid, you'll all be fine."
"You don't know that for sure."
"I do," she said, gazing up at her.
Haley looked puzzled by her answer. "No, you don't. You just said that he didn't─"
"I know it, alright! I saw it!"
Haley blinked. She frowned, as if wondering if she had heard her right. "You saw it?" Brooke hesitated then nodded. "What do you mean?"
"I, er… Okay, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but…" Maybe this was all a terrible idea. What if Haley ratted her out to her mother, who would then send her to a shrink?
No, wait, she knew that wouldn't happen. After all, she had met Future Haley.
"I met your kid."
Haley stood still, as if she was waiting for the rest of the joke. But she could see that Brooke was being very serious. "Did you hit your head or something?" she asked, genuinely worried about her health.
"No, my head is perfectly fine," Brooke said with a chuckle. "Since September, I've been able to, erm… Travel. To the future."
"The future?" Haley repeated with a scoff.
"Yeah, I've been there several times, and I've met you, and your kid, and I even got a glimpse of Nathan, so… That's how I know you'll be fine. You don't have to go to Dallas."
"You really think that kind of nonsense would convince me to─"
"It's not nonsense!" Brooke cried. "I know that's how it sounds, but ask Mouth, he'll confirm everything I just said."
"Mouth?" she asked, even more puzzled.
"Yeah, he's the only one who knows about this… Well, with you now."
Haley stayed silent for a moment. She crossed her arms and looked down at the floor. She was probably pondering on calling 911. After a while, she gazed up at Brooke and said, "You're not kidding me? You're not just saying this to make me stay?"
"I am saying this to make you stay, but I'm not making it up, I swear!"
"The future?" Haley repeated, astounded. She frowned, and said, "No, no way. That's not possible. No one can just… The future?" She sounded like she was on repeat; it was almost comical. "Alright," she eventually said with a firm voice, "then prove it."
"Prove it?" Brooke repeated, raising an eyebrow. "How the hell do I do that?"
"Where will I go next year?"
"Wh─ I don't know that," Brooke admitted, her mouth turning into a frown.
"Is it gonna rain next week?"
"I'm not a fortune teller, alright? I just… I just have these episodes, and I wake up in the future. It never lasts very long, and I can't control it… Okay, I know that sounds convenient, but it's just how it is."
"If you can't prove it, how am I supposed to believe such a thing? Time-travel?"
Brooke sighed as she could see her point. "Wait, I know. Remember Nathan's party? The one for my presidency?"
"What about it?" Haley asked, her interest piqued.
"You remember how you kept getting all these drinks, and you never got drunk at all, but Mouth and I, we spent the whole night with you and we were wasted?"
"Yeah, so?"
"That's because we knew you could be pregnant."
"You… What?"
"Yeah, I found out weeks ago about your kid, but Mouth says we can't tell anyone about anything otherwise the future may implode or something… Anyway, we don't know the exact birth date of your kid, but we figured you'd be pregnant around January, so…"
"Wait, that's why you kept bumping into me that night? You spilled my drink like three times, and then…"
"Then we kept switching our drinks with yours. I did it first, and when I was too drunk to keep going, I asked Mouth to fill in for me. You didn't drink a single drop of alcohol that night. Come on, you must have realized something was up!"
Haley's mouth fell open. Brooke could almost see the gearwheels in her brain turning at full speed. "That's… That could be just a coincidence."
"A coincidence?"
She shrugged. "You could have just guessed I was pregnant."
"How?" Brooke asked with a laugh. "You think I have a pregnancy detector under my shirt?"
"I… I don't know. It's… Yeah, it's weird, but…"
But she wasn't completely convinced, Brooke could tell. How could she persuade her that she wasn't just a nutcase and that she actually was travelling to the future?
And then she remembered something Jamie had made her promise not to tell anyone.
If she told his own mother, she wouldn't really be breaking her promise, right?
"Bob," she said with a grin.
"Who's Bob?"
"You're Bob. I mean, your second name, it's Bob, right?"
Haley looked stunned. "How do you know that?"
"Your kid told me," she said with a shrug.
Haley squinted at her; she looked like she was racking her brains out to find another possible answer. "Lucas told you, didn't he?"
She shook her head. "No, he didn't."
"He did, he's the only one who─"
"Lucas thinks it's because of Bob Dylan, right?"
"How do you… Well, yeah, that's where it comes from."
"Wrong," Brooke said with a grin. "It comes from that cat your parents had, Bob. Bob the cat. And you looked just like him when you were born, so… Haley Bob."
Haley's eyes grew wide. "No, there's no way you can… No one knows about this, not even Luke, except for…"
"Except for your family? Yeah, and that's still gonna be the case in the future. One day you're gonna tell your kid, and then he'll tell me because, let's face it, I'm the best aunt in the world, and now I'm telling you."
Haley came out of her daze, "He? He'll tell you?"
"Erm, yeah," Brooke said with hesitance.
"It's a boy?" Haley asked, her voice cracking.
Was that perhaps too much to handle at once? "Yeah," she said with a reassuring smile. "Jamie."
Haley's gaze grew a little wider until she seemed to finally process all this information. "Makes sense," she mused in awe.
"Huh?" Now it was Brooke's turn to be confused.
"Taylor and I picked out our future kids' names years ago. It was just a dumb game, but, erm, I picked my parents' names, so…"
"James for a boy," Brooke mused. So Jamie was a nickname?
They silently stared at each other for a moment. Haley's expression was unreadable, but at least she wasn't looking at her like she was some kind of freak. "You're really not lying?"
"No, I'm not." She gave her a lopsided smile. "I can't lie to you, I'm your trusted person." Haley looked like her brain was burning up. "So you have to stay here, okay?"
"I don't know, Brooke…"
"You still don't believe me?"
"I do," she said, sounding surprised by her own words. "I actually do, but Nathan is still─"
They both jumped up when a loud music started playing. It was Haley's phone; Brooke picked it up from the bed and smiled as she read the caller's name.
"Look who's calling you," she told Haley, tossing her the phone.
She caught it with ease and gasped. "You think I should pick up?"
"Are you seriously asking me this?" Brooke asked with a chuckle.
She quietly left the room as Haley was speaking with Nathan. As much as she was curious to hear what they would say, she knew it was going to be a very private conversation.
Wait a second. Nathan had just called her, which meant that they were most probably going to patch things up… So there had actually been no need to stall! Even if she hadn't told her about her secret, Haley wouldn't have had time to fly to Dallas, because Nathan was already calling her, so… Had she done all this for nothing?
Well, not for nothing. One more person knew about her secret now, and actually believed her: that, in itself, was kind of a relief. But more importantly, after seeing Haley so down and pessimistic for the past few days, Brooke was glad to have given her some hope for the future.
She checked her phone one more time: still no sign of Lucas. She sighed and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. She still didn't understand what had happened with him the night before, it had been as if… as if there was no room for discussion, at all. And that was a feeling she had never gotten around him before. Ever since she knew him, he had always listened to her, even when she had been mad at him for not telling her about her parents' divorce or─
No, wait, that wasn't her Lucas. That was Future Lucas.
She sat down at the kitchen table, frowning at herself. She was still comparing them, but she couldn't keep doing that, because they weren't really the same person. They were, but at the same time, they weren't.
Future Lucas knew her better, he had been going out with her for much longer. Her Lucas, Present Lucas, was still the brooding version she had come to have feelings for, and who was used to keeping a lot to himself. She couldn't just expect him to open up to her overnight. That wouldn't be fair to him.
But what was she supposed to do then? If he closed up and wasn't willing to explain to her why he was so mad, how was she supposed to understand him? It wasn't like she had all the answers written down on paper.
Wait, what was she talking about? She did have such a thing, it was sitting on her desk in a red-colored file!
She ran upstairs, knocked on her bedroom door, apologized to Haley when she came in, grabbed the file and stormed off. She went back to the kitchen and sat there, looking at the file in her hands. The answer she was looking for, or at least a small part of it, had to be there somewhere.
When she finally got it, Brooke wondered how she had completely missed this. It was so obvious, with his relationship to his father, his brother, and Haley, of course he was going to react the way he did. And she had called him an ass... How unsensitive could one get?
She sighed and took out her phone. Just as she was about to call him, he texted her, asking her if she would meet him at his place. She smiled and grabbed her car keys.
She knocked at his door ten minutes later. Lucas opened it; he seemed relieved to see her, as if he hadn't expected her to show up.
"Hi," he told her with a faint smile. "Come in," he said before closing the door.
She hesitated, then went to sit on his bed. He looked like he didn't know what to do with himself, until she patted the spot next to hers.
"Look, I'm sorry for the way I reacted yesterday," he said as he sat next to her. "I shouldn't have told you to leave, but I was just so mad because you were kind of defending Nate and that was, erm… I couldn't stand it, because what Nathan did was…"
"What Dan did to your mom," she said when he struggled to find his words.
He looked surprised by her guess, but gave her a nod. "Yeah, so it's undefendable to me."
Brooke was glad to see that he was back to his usual, soft-spoken state. "What made you change your mind?"
"My mom," he admitted with an embarrassed chuckle. "She saw that I was still angry this morning and she asked me what happened, so I told her."
"You told her I came here? When you're grounded?"
"No, I said I called you."
"Oh, okay. So what did she say?" she asked, feeling curious.
"She said that if you thought speaking to Nathan was the right thing to do, then it probably was, because you know him best. And then…" He hesitated. "Well, she asked me how I would react in his shoes."
"And how would you?"
"I'd definitely freak out," he admitted with a chuckle.
"Like Nathan did," Brooke said with a nudge.
"Yeah."
She nudged him again. "And then you'd come around, like he did too."
"Wh… What? Really?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Yeah, he called Haley. They're probably still talking things out right now."
He looked genuinely glad for them. But then he seemed to remember something, and his gaze darkened suddenly. "Shit. I can't believe I punched him. And with scouts watching him!"
"It's okay," she said, putting a hand on his arm, "there will be other scouts, and Nathan knows that." When he didn't look completely convinced, she added, "And anyway, even before you snapped, his performance wasn't that great."
"Yeah, I guess you're right," he said, his shoulders relaxing.
"I'm sorry too, you know," she said, her voice lowering.
He looked up at her in surprise. "About what?"
"Calling you an ass."
He laughed quietly, "That's okay, I totally deserved it."
"No, but, I mean… I didn't stop for a minute and think about why you would react like that. I didn't make the connection to Dan and your mom, and I just thought you were being stubborn and─"
"Brooke, I was being stubborn," he said with an amused voice.
"But you had a good reason to be, and I didn't get it. Well, not right away."
"So?" he asked, as if he could sense that there was something else bothering her.
"So, I feel like that's the kind of stuff I should know about you."
"How?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "I didn't tell you, I just told you to leave."
"I should have─"
"Hey," he said, taking her face in his hands. "Stop that." He stroked her cheek. "You can't guess everything about me. We're still getting to know each other. I mean, really know each other."
"How long do you think that's gonna take?" Brooke asked with a pout.
He chuckled. "I don't know, and I don't care."
"So… You still want to be with me?"
He laughed, then fell silent when he realized that she was being serious. He stood up abruptly and grabbed her hand. "Come with me."
"Where?"
"I gotta show you something."
He walked to the door leading outside, and right before he could open it, Brooke tugged on his shirt. "Aren't you grounded?"
Lucas froze, his hand on the doorhandle. He turned to her and she laughed at his sheepish face. "I forgot."
"It's okay, you'll show me another time."
"No, but this is important…" he said with a frown. "But I really can't show up where I want to take you, my mom would kill me."
"I could go on my own, you know? Just tell me what it is I have to see."
It didn't sound ideal to him, but he still thought that it was better than nothing. So he started explaining to her where she should go and what she should do once there.
"Wait, wait, you want me to take a brick out of the wall?" she asked after he was done with his instructions.
"Yes, take it out, then take the grey box you'll see there, put the brick back on the wall, and come back here."
"But I don't get it, what grey box? If I take out a brick then…"
He smiled, amused by her confusion. "You'll see once you're there."
And she did see it. She went to the Café and said hi again to Deb, then greeted Karen in the kitchen and told her she needed to go check something on the rooftop. Up there, she recalled Lucas' instructions: walk along the wall on her left, count the bricks from the bottom until she reached number 16, then count right until the 6th brick. Just as Lucas had told her, that brick was actually loose. She took it out with ease and reached her hand in the vacant space, that happened to be not so vacant after all: she touched a cold, metallic surface. She pulled out the grey rectangular box he had described and put the brick back on.
Just as instructed, she did not open the box; she put it in her bag, then retraced her steps all the way back to Lucas' bedroom.
"There you go," she said as she handed the box to him.
He grinned and took her hand, guiding her to sit with him on his bed. "So, erm…" he said, suddenly looking nervous. "We have this tradition with Haley. See, at the end of every summer, we write down our predictions for the year to come."
"Predictions?"
"What we think will happen. But most of the time, it's really what we want to happen in our lives."
"Like a wishlist?"
"Yeah, like that," he said with a chuckle.
Brooke looked down at the box in his hands. "And they're all in there?"
"7 years of predictions," he said with a nod.
"So, what did you wish for, huh?" she asked, eyeing the box with curiosity. She reached out for it, but Lucas snatched it back. "Hey!"
"You don't need to read it all, and half of this is Haley's anyway. But I'll show you the, um… The only one that matters," he said in an embarrassed tone. "I wrote it in September."
He opened the box and took out the paper that was on top, unfolded it and gave it to Brooke.
This year, I will be with Brooke.
"That was your biggest wish?" she asked, gazing up at him.
"Yeah."
"Me?"
He chuckled at her bemusement. "Yeah, you."
She knew she was blushing the moment she noticed his grin. "So, erm, you're not gonna change your mind?" she asked playfully.
He kissed her: it was soft, and warm, and left her speechless. "I couldn't even if I wanted to, Pretty girl," he said, making her smile.
She looked around them, then back at him, "So, erm, where's Keith?"
Lucas looked puzzled by that sudden question. "At work."
"He's not coming any time soon?" He shook his head, still not seeing where she was going with this. "And your mom's at the Café until this evening, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Well, erm, you're grounded, so unfortunately," she said, emphasizing on the last word, "you can't get out of your room. So really, we have no choice but to stay in here. And I know a good way to get to know each other better that could use a bed."
"Oh," he said with a wicked grin, "I see now." He leaned closer and kissed the corner of her lips. "No interruptions this time?"
She giggled. "No interruptions."
And that is it, people! As usual, thank you for taking your time to read this, I really hope you enjoyed it.
I kinda struggled writing some parts in the second half, because I really didn't want this to turn into an anti-abortion thing... So I really hope that's not how it came off.
So, I know there's still a lot of questions left to answer, and don't worry, they will be answered. For obvious reasons, I can't give you too many clues here, but some of you asked a few questions and I think I can answer some :
- Lucas is not getting his heart condition in this story; I always thought that in the show, it was introduced as a device for him to develop a relationship with Dan (at least that's how I remember it), and after that, once the secret is out, it doesn't really influence his life, apart from the fact that he can't play basketball like he used to... And I don't use any of that in my story, so no heart condition
- Many of you talk about the shooting, and I just want this to be clear : there will be no shooting; I use quite a few elements from the show that I remember, but not all of it. And the shooting is not in it.
- For those who wonder what Keith was about to tell her when she travelled to Christmas 2026, or what Future Brooke and Lucas were fighting about in 2022, don't worry, I promise you'll know it in due time
I'm just very excited about the chapters to come, there's only four left + an epilogue, so the ending is near! I'm nervous too, because you guys have differents theories, all interesting, and some of you are right, some of you aren't, and I know the ending won't please everyone, but I guess that's the risk of writing this story... I guess that even if in the end not everyone is satisfied, if I manage to stay coherent till the end, I'll be okay with that.
Thank you so very much for your kind words and reviews. You really have no idea how much it means to me. I know I'm repeating myself, but there's really no other way to say it.
And to the one person who asked if I was making a living out of my writing (you didn't put a pen name so I can't answer you directly): first of all, I want to thank you, because that is pretty much the biggest compliment I could ever get on my writing. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And the answer is no, not at all actually. I have a full-time job that is miles away from writing and that I love, but I have to admit that writing and publishing a book has been on my bucket list for a while, and I really hope I'll be able to do that some day!
Next chapter should be up around mid/end of April.
