CHAPTER TWELVE
Just a little bit
Brooke closed her eyes, her head resting against a locker. Despite the noises that she could hear from a distance ─ the referee's whistle, people chanting, her squad cheering ─ she did not get up.
The dull, throbbing pain on her head was worrying her. She could feel something warm trickling down her neck: her blood. It hadn't stopped since she had woken up a few minutes before.
She groaned and pushed herself on her feet. For the first five steps, she steadied herself by keeping a hand on the lockers. When it was clear that she was not staggering nor passing out, she let go, walked around the room and stopped by the showers. She found what she needed in a cabinet: a clean towel that she used to wipe the blood off her neck, then pressed firmly against her wound. She then took another one, and after dampening it, used it to clean the blood on the floor.
She was thinking of an explanation to give to her squad once she would get back to the court, and had just finished scrubbing off the last visible stains of her blood, when the timer went off with a loud buzz. Not the one in her head, but the much real one on the court. The walls immediately started trembling around her as half of the crowd was roaring in unison. Which half, she didn't know─ the sounds were too muffled for her to tell.
She had to get back there. She had already missed the entire last period, and if she didn't reappear now, people would get suspicious. She couldn't say she had fainted again, but she believed that she had come up with a good lie, a story people would not question. Before leaving the room, she put the two bloodstained towels in the laundry bag and carefully touched her head. It wasn't bleeding anymore.
When she walked onto the court, her senses got overwhelmed by everything going on around her: the lights, the colors, the music, the shouting. She momentarily covered her eyes, and after a few seconds, blinked and through her fingers saw that most of the crowd had come down on the court and that half of them were celebrating. The gazillions of gold and sparkling confetti falling everywhere made it difficult for her to see which side exactly was celebrating. But then she saw someone being repeatedly thrown above the crowd. Whitey.
She smiled and quickly made her way to the center of the court, where most of the crowd had gathered, walking by people who kept pulling her into random hugs. Through this swarm of people and confetti, she caught glimpses of familiar faces: Nathan kissing Haley, Mouth laughing with Skills, Lucas hugging his parents. She could only see the back of his head, but from the way it was frantically moving left and right, she could tell that he was searching for someone, and her guess was on─
Before she could move even a step in his direction, fingers tightly gripped her elbow and made her spin around. For a moment all she could see was a swirl of blonde locks, and then she heard Peyton's voice screaming in her ear: "We won!"
Brooke giggled and hugged her back. She closed her eyes, her mood getting somber as she recalled the article she had just read in the future. Well, only its title ─ correction: part of its title. If only she had had more time or used her time more intelligently…
Peyton pulled back, her hands lingering on Brooke's shoulders. "Where did you go?" she asked bemusedly. "One minute you're there and the next─" Her cheerfulness vanished so fast that it gave Brooke goosebumps. Peyton's fingers moved away from her right shoulder and traveled to her neck, brushing her skin with her thumb. Her voice hardened when she asked, "Is that blood?"
Shit. "Uh, yeah," Brooke said, taking a step back from her best friend's inquisitive stare. "But I'm fine, I just─"
"What the hell happened? Did someone hurt you?" Peyton looked ready to jump at anyone's throat if necessary.
"No," she said hastily, before remembering the explanation she had come up with. "I mean, yeah, but not on purpose. It was during our last routine, someone's elbow knocked my head, and I started bleeding, so I left to find a towel."
Peyton blinked and soon after, her shoulders relaxed. Good, she was buying it. "Did you find one?"
Her thumb moved above her shoulder and pointed to the opposite end of the court. "Changing room. It's nothing bad, it's just a small cut."
"Let me see that." Before Brooke could put more distance between them, Peyton grabbed her shoulder and forced her to stay put while she was examining her scalp. Brooke locked eyes with Mouth, who was talking with a couple of cheerleaders, and silently begged him to come over. Before she could see if he had gotten the message, Peyton's voice caught her attention. "Woah, this isn't good."
"What? No, no, it's nothing. Just a scratch."
"Just a scratch? Brooke, you have to see the doctor. You need stitches."
Blood drained from her face. Stitches, on her scalp? Didn't that mean that they would have to shave her head? An old picture of her father flashed in her mind. "Nope," she said, shaking her head and immediately regretting doing so as it woke up the pain. "Not happening."
Peyton let out an annoyed sigh. "We're going." She tried grabbing Brooke's wrist, but Brooke jerked it free. Peyton frowned at her, "Brooke…"
She didn't finish her sentence, thanks to Mouth appearing from behind her and pulling Brooke into a bear hug.
"Brooke, we won!" he shouted with what she could tell was fake enthusiasm.
"Thanks," she whispered to him urgently. "I need you to distract her."
"Got it," he whispered back.
She held back a laugh when Mouth moved away from her and launched himself at Peyton, jumping up and down and shouting about their great victory. She quickly spun around and walked through the crowd, stopping here and there to hug Ravens and cheerleaders. She gently removed her hairband and let her hair down, carefully placing it on her right shoulder: this should be enough to cover the bloodstains she had failed to wipe. Her eyes scanned the court; she could either go back to the changing room and clean herself up properly ─ there had to be a mirror somewhere ─ or she could go to straight to─
Lucas didn't leave her a choice when he sneaked up on her, tightly held her waist in place and crushed his lips onto hers. She could tell from the way his fingers curled onto her skin, and the way he picked her up from the floor and groaned when she deepened their kiss, that he was exhilarated. Her legs lifted and her arms circled around his neck; for a moment there, she managed to put aside everything else, including her recent travel, and as long as she kept her eyes closed, she could swear that they were all alone in their own world. He eventually broke their kiss but kept her up, burying his head in her neck, his warm breath tickling her skin. Her fingers ran through his hair, making him look up at her. His eyes were brimming with pure delight, and his lips were stretched into a broad, contagious grin.
"Congrats, Mr. State champion."
Somehow, that made him even more ecstatic. "Thanks," he said, pecking her lips and putting her down.
She shifted on her feet, and her hands slipped to his chest, but her eyes wouldn't leave his. They couldn't. Not because his body shifted closer to hers, until their noses were almost touching, but because of his sultry gaze. She knew that if it hadn't been for the hundred of people surrounding them, including his friends and family, he would have gladly proceeded to do more than just kissing her. She felt a familiar heat waking up below her navel, and caught herself thinking about Whitey, or rather, about what he had said earlier: they really were just a bunch of horny teenagers.
"Hey," she murmured, her voice huskier than usual, "what if instead of going straight to Nate's we─"
"What's that?" She wondered what he was referring to until his fingers grazed her hair. "There's something sticking to your…" His voice trailed off as his eyes traveled down to her neck and his fingers gently removed her hair, revealing her bloodied skin. "You're bleeding," he said alarmingly. His hands went up to her head and his eyes narrowed while he was trying to see where the blood had come from. His fingers fell on her wound, making her flinch, and he immediately raised his hands. "Shit, sorry, I─ What happened? Did you…"
"There you are!" another voice shouted from their side, startling them. Peyton had caught up with them, and Mouth was closed behind, struggling to get past the crowd. She gave Brooke a dark look, then turned to Lucas. "I'm sorry, I know you want to celebrate, but she needs to see a doctor right away."
"Yeah, I know," he replied.
They both turned to stare at her. Great, now they were ganging up on her. But there was no way she was getting her head shaved; before she could argue with them, someone else interrupted them by ramming into Brooke with so much force that her breathing stitched and she seriously thought she was being knocked down, until she felt a pair of strong arms holding her from falling to the ground and crushing her rib cage.
Amid Peyton's hissing and cursing, Brooke heard a familiar laugh─ Haley's.
"Let her go!" Peyton shouted at Nathan, trying in vain to tear one of his arms off Brooke. "Just look at her head, she's bleeding!"
"What?" Haley said from somewhere behind Brooke.
Nathan immediately stopped smothering her and released her from his grasp. After looking momentarily befuddled by Peyton's statement, he stared at Brooke's neck, and was suddenly panic-stricken. "Oh God, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to─" He blinked at her confusedly when all she did was laugh.
"It wasn't you," she told him with a chuckle. "I got this during the game."
"Good," Nathan said with genuine relief. "I mean, Lucas I can take on, but I don't think I could handle Peyton's wrath."
"You're right," Peyton chimed in with a hint of amusement. "You couldn't." Her eyes fell on Brooke and her voice got stricter. "Let's go, the doctor is still here."
Brooke's eyes traveled from one friend to another, but it did not look like any of them would listen to her plea. "But what about the trophy and the pictures─"
"Screw the pictures, you're getting that wound checked up."
Haley, who had been standing next to Mouth, stepped forward and clenched Brooke's shoulder. "You're both right." She glanced at Brooke and said, "You have to see the doctor" ─she turned to Peyton, Nathan, and Lucas─ "and you all need to stay here for the pictures. So, I'll take her." Her voice left no room for discussion.
She held Brooke's hand and started walking toward the opposite side of the court. When they passed by Mouth, he whispered to her not to worry and that he would keep an eye on her. By her, he meant Peyton, because he still thought that something could happen to her at any time. Brooke couldn't risk speaking here, so she simply gave him a nod and followed Haley to a door leading to a long, dimly lit corridor. They walked until they reached a dead end with several chairs; someone else was here, one of the Durham Cheetahs. He was sitting on the chair nearest to the doctor's office door, his foot resting on the next chair, although Brooke couldn't say if it could still be called a foot: it was bloated and apart from the toes, it had turned completely blue. After sharing a knowing look, both girls decided to sit as far from him as possible, so that he would not hear them.
"What happened? Did you travel?" Haley asked in a hushed voice. Brooke gave her a nod. "I knew it! I don't think anyone else noticed it because they were too busy watching the game, but right when the last period started, I saw that your squad was fussing about something, and that you were gone."
"I went to the changing room, but I didn't get time to sit before I traveled."
"Where did you go?" Haley asked anxiously.
Brooke sent a wary look to the blueberry-footed guy. "2025, but I didn't stay long," she whispered disappointingly.
"So, you didn't find out─"
"I did," she said. "I know when it…" Happened? Will happen? Could happen? What was the correct tense to use in this situation? "When it happens," she eventually said.
Haley grasped her hand. "When?"
Brooke lowered her voice even more. "Prom."
"That's…"
Brooke felt a mix of relief and dread when she spoke. "Four weeks from now."
She was relieved to have finally found out something that could help them save Peyton, but at the same time, things were now much more real. Not that they hadn't been so far, but finding an article about Peyton's death was, simply put, chilling.
"There's more," Brooke said, recalling the title she had read. "Someone else─"
They both startled when the door opened and two men came out of the doctor's office. The one leading was wearing a long white coat, leaving no doubt as to his identity. The man following him and shaking his hand with a grateful smile was someone both girls knew.
"Keith!" they called in unison.
He turned to them in surprise and, after bidding goodbye to the doctor, came to sit across from them. The Cheetah with a gigantic foot got up and hopped into the office, helped by the doctor who acted as a human clutch.
"What are you doing here?" Keith asked them once the door had closed. "Are you okay?" His eyes grew wide in fear. "Haley, is it you? Is it the baby?"
"No," Haley shook her head. "No, I'm fine. We're here for Brooke."
"I got elbowed in the head. But why are you here?"
"Karen insisted," he said with a shrug. "Haley, you can go, I'll stay with her."
Haley raised her eyebrows. "But─"
"Come on, you don't want to miss Nathan and Lucas getting their trophy."
He had a point; Haley glanced at her hesitantly. "He's right," Brooke told her with an encouraging smile. "Go," she added with a nudge, "and maybe tell Mouth that he can, er…"
She fell quiet; the words 'stop stalking Peyton' would surely raise questions from Keith.
"Sure," Haley said in understanding.
Brooke watched as her friend left, then gazed back at Keith. "How is your jaw?" The left side of his lower lip had split open, and the skin around it had taken a deep shade of purple.
"Sore, but nothing that needs fixing." He paused then asked, "Are you okay?"
"Oh, yeah," she replied, mechanically touching her head, "that's just a scratch."
"No, I'm not talking about that, although I'm glad it's nothing bad."
"Then what?"
He sighed and scratched his head. "Well, you saw what happened with Dan."
"Oh, that," she murmured. Now that she thought about it, if Lucas had been told about this incident, his mood probably would not have been this ecstatic. "So, what did you tell Lucas?"
"I, um, I'll tell him the truth tomorrow," he admitted in embarrassment. "We didn't want to ruin his night."
"Don't worry, I won't say a word," she told him with a smile that seemed to relieve him.
"Thanks. We've told him that when Karen got out of the car, she opened the door in my face."
She couldn't help but giggle. "Got it." Her smile faded away as she remembered how Dan had gone, in an instant, from being upset to being filled with rage. "Is it the first time he's hit you?"
She was surprised to hear him chuckle. "No, definitely not the first time, but I've hit him too before. I mean, we're brothers."
Being an only child, Brooke could not understand what that meant or why there was no bitterness in Keith's voice, but then she remembered how Nathan and Lucas used to get into fights back when they had just started high school. It had mostly been fueled by Nathan's provocative statements, although Lucas had known which buttons to push to hurt him back. Yet here they were now, winning a state championship together.
Keith's voice dragged her from her thoughts: "But he did take me by surprise. I mean," he added pensively, "I didn't see it coming this time." He chuckled. "I must be getting old."
"I didn't either," Brooke said with a frown.
"He scared you, huh?"
"No," Brooke said defensively. He gave her a knowing smile and she sighed in defeat. "A little, I guess."
"Dan has, um…" He paused, looking for the right word. "Outbursts. Always had them, even when he could barely walk."
"You don't sound like it bothers you."
"Probably because I've known him like that my whole life. I mean, despite everything, I care about him. Deep down, he's a good person." How deep did he have to go to see that though? "He's made some very wrong choices and," he hesitated, but went on, "and he hasn't cared much for his family. And now that he's lost them, it's too late for him to get their trust back." He sighed and shook his head. "It's a pity, really… He did it with Karen and now he's doing it with Nathan and─"
"Karen?" Brooke repeated, surprised.
"Yeah, he was, um, jealous. When we got together, he used to come to the Café to, I don't know, try and intimidate us." He seemed to remember something and laughed. "But you know Karen, she wouldn't have any of it. And then when he heard about the wedding, he called me to ask how it felt to steal his life."
Brooke's mouth fell open. "But that's insane! He's the one who, who…"
"Abandoned her. And Lucas," Keith said with a nod, agreeing with her indignation. "I know, but Dan never saw it this way. He still doesn't," he said his voice taking a sad note. "I wish I could make him see."
Brooke could tell that this was really affecting him. The troubles of being a big brother, huh? "Maybe you will someday."
He gave her a faint smile. "Who knows, I─" He fell quiet when the door opened once again and the injured Cheetah left with his foot strapped up. When the doctor gestured Brooke to follow him in, she gulped and slowly got up from her chair. She really wasn't fond of stitches. Keith cleared his throat, turned to the doctor and asked: "Er, do you mind if I stay with her? Since her parents are not here."
The doctor paused and his eyes darted from Keith to Brooke. "What are you here for?"
"Head injury," she croaked.
"Alright, you can come," he told Keith.
She let out a sigh of relief and gave Keith a grateful smile as they all walked into the office. The doctor, whom Brooke couldn't precisely age ─seriously, he could either be thirty or sixty, she couldn't tell─ asked her to sit on the exam table and to tell him what had happened. Just like she had told Peyton earlier, she explained how during one of her routines, a cheerleaders' elbow had bumped into her head.
"An elbow, huh," he mused as he was looking at her wound from up close. He took a step back, removed the headlight he had been wearing, and glanced at her from above his glasses. "Must have been one hell of an elbow."
A light pink colored her cheeks. "What do you mean?" Keith asked from the chair he had been sitting on.
"Nothing important," the doctor mumbled, not bothering to look back at him. "Anyway, you need stitches."
"W─ What?" Brooke asked in fright. "Are you sure?"
He chuckled. "Yes, I am."
"But doesn't that mean you'll have to shave my head? You can't do that, I'll look like─"
"Wow, wow, wow, who said anything about that?"
She blinked. "Well, er, my dad got stitches once on his scalp, and they had to cut part of his hair to do it," she explained, shuddering at the memory of that old picture showing his dad with a missing patch of hair.
The doctor let out another laugh, walked to a cabinet on her right and opened a drawer. "When was that?"
She shrugged. "I don't know, I wasn't born yet."
"Well, we don't do that anymore." He took out what looked like a… No, wait, that couldn't be─ "Three staples and you'll be fine."
"Staples?" she repeated, her voice strangling. "Doesn't that hurt like hell?"
He snorted. "No, not that much. But if you want, I can give you a local anesthetic."
"You weren't going to?" Keith asked.
"I can either give you one, and to do so, I'll need to jab your skin in three different spots near your wound and leave the needle in your skin for about ten seconds, which is the time I need to inject the anesthetic, then wait for five minutes for it to work and then use another three seconds to put on the staples. Or, I could go straight to the staples and we'll be done in three seconds," the doctor said, deadpan. He shrugged at her. "It's your choice."
"I, um," she stammered. "Three seconds, really?" she asked, not caring if she sounded dubious.
The doctor's feelings didn't appear to be hurt. "Probably even less than that."
"Fine, you can do it then." He gave her a nod and approached her with a tray containing the stapler, compresses soaked with an orange liquid, and a pair of medical gloves. He put back his headlight and put on the gloves. "Alright, don't move," he said while he was cleaning her wound one last time.
She gulped and closed her eyes. "Uh, Keith?" she called, her voice quavering. "Would you mind, er…"
She didn't really know how to end her sentence, but somehow, Keith got her message and came to sit next to her on the table. "Sure," he told her with a reassuring smile.
She gazed down at his forearm that he was holding out for her and tightly curled her fingers around it, squeezing it as if her life depended on it. She closed her eyes again when the doctor told her to breathe and count to three.
"One," she breathed out, only to grunt immediately when she felt a sharp pain shooting through her skull, "two─"
"Alright, done."
Her eyes snapped open. She could still feel the pain from the first staple he had put in, but it was quickly fading away. She hadn't even felt the two other staples. "That's it?"
"That's it," he repeated with a smile. "You can have them taken out in five to seven days."
"Wow," she chuckled, "I shouldn't have worried that much, I mean─"
"Brooke?" Keith called beside her.
She turned to him and wondered where his strained smile came from, until she followed his gaze and saw that her nails had been digging into his skin. She gasped and immediately released her grip. "I'm so sorry, I didn't realize that─"
"That's okay, I'll probably have trouble using it tomorrow at work, but…"
"What?" she yelled, startling the doctor.
Keith's lips stretched into an amused grin. "Just kidding. Come on, let's go."
They were about to leave the room when the doctor called her. "Take this," he said, handing her a paper. "It's a list of all the things that should make you see a doctor if they happen to you in the next 48 hours. Vomiting, fainting, headache, sudden change in your behavior, etc. Which means you can't stay on your own, got it?"
"Don't worry," Keith answered for her, "I don't think she was planning on staying on her own tonight. She'll be in a house full of people, right Brooke?"
The court was empty when they crossed it, and when they went through the exit, most of the cars had disappeared. Apart from the school bus, there was only a handful left.
To Brooke's surprise, Whitey was waiting for them at the exit doors. She thought he was worried about Keith, knowing that they were friends, but he only focused on her and asked her how she was doing. After she told him that she was fine, and only had to check for a few symptoms during the weekend, he asked to see the list the doctor had handed to her. While Whitey was busy examining it, a deep frown plastered on his face, Brooke turned to Keith and thanked him again.
"Don't mention it," he told her with a wink. "I'd better go now, but I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Sure."
"Congrats again, Coach," he said with a smile.
Whitey looked up from the paper for a short second, his face softening into a cheerful smile, and when Keith walked away from them, his usual frown reappeared. "This says you can't drive tonight," he grumbled, giving the paper back to her.
She raised an eyebrow. "Really?" She hadn't read it yet, but surely, driving was not─ Okay, it really was written there in plain English. No driving. Her eyes then stopped on the line below. No drinking. "It's okay, I'll ask Peyton to drive."
"You need adult supervision until you get home, and unless I'm missing something here, Peyton Sawyer is not considered to be one."
"Home? But we're going straight to Nathan's house, and there's not gonna be any adult there."
"I, um," he cleared his throat, "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. Anyway, until we get back to school, I'm keeping an eye on you."
"But there's no place for me in the bus," she argued.
"I'm sure we can find someone who'll switch with you," Whitey said, rolling his eyes. "I think Nathan wouldn't mind too much, would he?"
She sighed, though she couldn't blame him; despite his tendency to bark at anyone about anything, he was a teacher, and he really did care about his students' well-being.
"Now could you please go tell your groupies that you're fine so we can all leave?"
"My what?" she asked back. He nodded toward the eastern part of the parking lot and she followed his gaze: a dozen of people had gathered around her car. From where she was standing, she couldn't tell who they were, but she could throw a guess or two. "Sure, I'll be right back."
She jogged to her car and when the group of people waiting for her saw her coming their way, most of them swarmed around her, halting her before she had reached her car. It was her squad, asking her if she was fine, what had happened, why she hadn't told anyone, what the doctor had told her─ She stopped them by saying that she was fine, that they should all get back to their cars now because the school bus was about to leave, and that she would tell them everything at Nathan's.
Once her cheerleaders were gone, she was able to stop by her car and after unlocking the trunk, threw the keys to Peyton.
"What's that for?" Peyton asked her after catching them.
Brooke walked around the car and bent over the truck. "You're driving." She heard footsteps approaching her, and when she straightened her back, she met five pairs of worried eyes staring at her. "I'm fine," she told them with a chuckle. "The doctor stapled my wound" ─she snorted at Nathan's horrified expression─ "and he said I can't stay alone for the weekend and I can't drive, that's it." She glanced down at the trunk and found what she was looking for. "Whitey says I have to stay in the bus until we reach Tree Hill," she grabbed her duffel bag and slammed the trunk close, "so somebody has to switch with me. Nate, is that okay with you?"
"Er, sure, yeah," he said with a sidelong glance to Peyton, "I can survive Sawyer's driving." He ducked just in time to prevent his hair from getting pulled. "But I need to get my car too, it's still at school."
"Then I guess you'll just have to jump through the window," Peyton retorted with a smirk.
Brooke chuckled while her childhood friends were getting in her car, still bickering, and gave a knowing smile to Haley and Mouth. They had a lot to talk about, but they would have to do that later.
While they were walking toward the bus, Lucas slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. "I didn't notice you were gone."
"Mmh?" she asked absent-mindedly.
"During the last period. Peyton told me you missed it."
"Oh, that." She put an arm around his waist. "You probably had something more urgent to focus on, like, I don't know, the state championship."
He chuckled and gazed down at her, his eyes stopping on the three silver staples adorning her scalp. "She also told me what happened. But it's funny, because─"
They both startled when the school bus beeped, and after sharing a quick look, hurried to it.
Brooke went in first and laughed when she saw a herd of Ravens standing up, cheering and clapping at her sight. She knew that they were so euphoric that they would have done so for anyone entering the bus, but it was still a nice feeling. And then they got even louder when they saw Lucas climbing in; the bus shook left and right when some of them started banging against the windows. Surprisingly, neither Whitey, nor the driver told them to calm down─ they looked like they were enjoying it all.
She was about to walk down the aisle when Whitey blocked her, extending an arm in front of her as a barrier. She gave him a quizzical look, to which he stood up and pointed to the seat next to him, on the window side. "You're staying with me. I can't keep an eye on you if you're back there."
She knew she couldn't argue with him, but maybe Lucas could; Whitey always had had a soft spot for him and they had just won the championship. But when she turned around and saw that Lucas was stifling a laugh, she realized that he would not be of any help.
During the first hour of ride, Whitey didn't really speak to her. He was too busy singing ─yes, singing─ with his players. Since he wasn't paying her any attention, Brooke took out the paper the doctor had given her and turned it around to its blank side. She found a pen in her duffle bag and, after checking twice that everyone in the bus was doing anything but watching her, started writing. It was strange, writing about her quest to find out more about her best friend's possible death while a bunch of guys ─and half of them had taken their shirts off─ were singing We are the champions, but she did manage to focus on what she was doing. Her concentration broke for a short moment when Whitey gave out a memorable performance of Don't stop believing, but other than that, she did fine. When she reached the end of the page and hadn't written half of what had happened to her, she took out another blank sheet from her bag and kept on writing.
It took her a while, but after checking twice that she had gotten every detail down, she carefully folded the two pieces of paper in four and placed them in the side pocket of her bag. It turned out that Whitey had been keeping an eye on her after all, because as soon as she started yawning, he turned to her and proceeded to tell her about the final. Not the one that had just taken place, but the one he had been in, forty years before.
Yes, forty years. A time when her own parents were just toddlers.
And he didn't just spend five minutes talking about it, no, he told her about his teammates ─each one of them, names and physical descriptions included─ and his coach, and the referee, and the opposite team, and how each period had gone…
She didn't understand why he wouldn't let her take a nap. At first, she thought the euphoria had simply gone up to his head. But then she remembered that on the list he had read, it was written that one of the symptoms to check for was sleepiness. Except she was pretty sure that by sleepiness, they meant something more excessive than simply dozing off in a bus ride at the end of a long day. And what Whitey didn't know was that she had been sleep deprived for about two weeks, and that now that she had finally found out more about Peyton, she felt like she could relax a little, even just for the day, and she really wanted to get some of her sleep back.
But since she couldn't tell him that, she stayed silent and listened as he talked about the missed three-point that had kept haunting him for years.
"So are you still retiring next year?"
"Of course I am!" he retorted with a laugh that sounded like a bark. "Why wouldn't I?"
"I don't know," Brooke said with a shrug. She had just been looking for another subject, anything but that fateful game from forty years back. "Since you've just won, maybe you'd want to do it again."
"No way, I'm planning on sleeping the rest of my days off."
She chuckled. "Sounds like a nice retirement plan."
"And I heard you're going to NYU, that's a nice plan too."
"How do you know that?" she asked, genuinely bemused that he did.
"Keith," he said simply. Keith had indeed told her numerous times that they would often meet to grab a coffee─ although, Brooke was sure that by coffee, what he really meant was beer.
"You know him really well, huh," she mused.
"Ever since I've had him as a Raven," Whitey said with a nostalgic look. "Him and Dan."
"They played together?"
"For two years, they did," Whitey recalled. "Until Keith was a senior, and Dan was a sophomore."
Brooke hesitated, but her curiosity got the better of her. "How was he? Dan?"
Whitey didn't look bothered by her questions. "He was an excellent player. He could read his opponents like… Well, like Nathan, but he was too self-absorbed to be a good leader. Keith, on the other hand, that boy knew how to talk to his teammates, but he wasn't as talented as Dan."
"You should have made them co-captains." If that was even a thing.
Whitey laughed. "That's exactly what I did, but it didn't work, it only made things worse."
"Worse?"
"Keith left the team before the end of his senior year."
She raised her eyebrows. "Why? What happened?"
"Dan was driving him crazy. He was driving everybody crazy," he grumbled.
"How old was he then? Sixteen?" she mused.
Whitey gave her a nod. Her eyebrows twitched and she crossed her arms, her eyes catching a glimpse of the Tree Hill sign as the bus went past it. At the age of sixteen, Dan Scott was already driving people away. And now twenty years later, he was still doing the same, yet, from what she could gather, Keith hadn't lost faith in him. He must really love his brother.
Nathan was about to get in his car when they reached the school's parking lot; apparently, Peyton had been driving faster than the school bus. The Ravens' full team all held their trophy one more time, and after Whitey told them to celebrate responsibly ─ most of them had snickered at his choice of words─ they all dispersed to get to their own cars.
While they were walking to his car, Lucas took her bag from her hands and swung it over his shoulder. "How was the ride?" he asked with a broad grin.
"It was very, um, enlightening." She glanced at him: he looked intrigued. "He told me everything there was to know about the 1970 State Championship. And I think he talked about this game too, but I didn't listen."
"So you didn't hear about how I scored the winning shot?"
"What?!" she shouted, grabbing his arm.
He chuckled, his face beaming. "Yeah, with a great assist from Nate."
"Holy─" She jumped at his neck to kiss him, surprising him enough to make him stumble back until he bumped into his own car. "This is awesome!" Her enthusiasm was brought down a notch when she realized that she had missed it. If only she had had time to lie down before she had travelled.
His hand moved to her face, making her look up at him. "What's wrong?" His thumb brushed her hair. "Does it hurt?"
"No, I'm fine. It's just that… It's too bad I didn't see it."
"That's okay, I'm sure Whitey will tell you all about it now that you're best buds."
She gasped, snatched her bag from his hands and swung it to his chest while he was chuckling. She squinted at him, making him laugh out loud, and walked around the car to climb in her seat. Lucas was about to put on his seat belt when she crawled to the back seat and took off her cheerleading top. Her froze and stared at her like she had gone mad.
"Brooke!" he hissed, his eyes darting to the front then back to her.
"What?" she asked back. She grabbed her bag and dragged it to the seat next to her. She rummaged through it until she found the outfit she had prepared. She then flung off her sports bra and dropped it on the floor, next to her cheerleading top.
"Brooke, what the hell are y─"
She was about to put on a clean bra but stopped to stare back at him. She held back a smile when she noticed that he had shifted his body so that he was covering the space between the front seats. "What's wrong? You don't like seeing me naked?" she asked playfully.
"W─ That's not why I, er, I mean y─ you know I─" he stammered, making her giggle. He cleared his throat, "I don't like that the whole school could see you naked."
"The whole school? It's 8 pm, there's no one left," she retorted, rolling her eyes. "I'm sitting in the back, it's dark outside, and look, everyone's leaving."
He briefly glanced over his shoulder to see that she was right: all the other cars had either already left, or where driving toward the exit, away from them.
He turned back to her, and her smirk widened when she noticed that his eyes kept travelling south of her face. "Alright, but why are you changing?"
"You all got changed," she said, pointing at his suit.
"Because we were drenched in sweat."
"So am I," she retorted with a shrug. "Everyone in my squad is planning on getting changed."
"I get that, but can't you just wait until we're at Nate's? I'm sure you know one or two bathrooms there you could use."
She clasped her bra and put on her top. "Because I can do it now."
He crossed his arms, resting his chin on them. "So, you're─ Hey that's one of your designs!"
"I know," she answered with a proud smile. She looked down at her bag, wondering where her pants had run off to.
"So, um, you're really not keeping your uniform on?" Lucas asked innocently.
She sighed. "No, I told you I─" she looked up at him and paused when she noticed the way he was staring at her. She tilted her head at him, holding back a smile. "Why do you ask?"
"You know," he answered with a shrug he probably thought was casual, "I just think it, uh, suits you."
She leaned closer to him, bringing her lips to his ear. "Suits me, huh?" she repeated, her voice hoarse. "I wonder what that could mean."
His lips stretched into a grin before they captured hers, and in a swift move, he circled her waist and pulled her to the front. After knocking both her knees against the driving stick and her elbow on the dashboard, making him chuckle, she pushed him back to his seat and straddled him, her hands rushing to loosen his tie. She got rid of it and moved her lips to his jaw, then down to his neck, while her fingers were fumbling with the buttons on his shirt.
She had already undone the first four when he spoke. "Er, Brooke? W─ What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" she asked back, removing the last buttons. She leaned to her right, patting the side of the seat until she found the handle she was looking for and yanked on it, making the backrest recline to a 45-degree angle. She giggled at his surprised expression and before he could say anything, flung off her top. "I'm rewarding you for your winning shot."
She could tell that he was conflicted and knew right away what his hesitancy was about. "But we're still at school."
"Oh, come on," she murmured, "no one's left but us, and no one will know." She leaned forward, planting a soft kiss on his lips. "And I know you want this too," she added with a quick glance to his crotch.
He followed her gaze then looked back at her. "Are you sure that it's a goo─"
She shut him up with a kiss. She wasn't just hungry for him─ she was ravenous. She had spent the past two weeks tormented, and frightened, and sleep-deprived, and she knew perfectly well that Peyton wasn't saved yet, but at least she knew that for the next four weeks, she wouldn't have to wonder everyday if something were going to happen to her best friend. She had just gotten herself a delay, and she was now in a dire need to let off some steam. And the one person who could help her with that was lying underneath her.
Her fervor quickly convinced him, since his hesitant mumbling soon vanished, and his hands felt free to explore her body. Her lips moved to his collarbone, and while her fingers were unbuckling his belt, his were sliding under her skirt, running up her thighs. He slowly pulled down her panties, inch by inch, chuckling when he felt her legs clenching. She groaned against his mouth, which only seemed to amuse him some more. She leaned back while he lifted his hips and was about to pull down his pants when they heard a loud bang. Lucas stiffened, his hands gripping her hips; she yelped and jumped up, her eyes darting to the window next to her.
Her mouth fell open at the sight of Whitey, standing outside the car, his eyes looking at the ground and his arms crossed against his chest. Their teacher knocked on the window two more times.
"Oh no," Lucas muttered below her. "No, no, no, don't open─"
She didn't really have a choice though, had she? Her hand moved mechanically to the window switch and pressed it.
"I'm supposed to close the gate," Whitey grumbled, his eyes stubbornly staring at anything but Brooke, "so I suggest you two get out of here now."
"Er, yeah, sure," Brooke mumbled.
None of them dared to move while Whitey walked away from them and it wasn't until he had crossed half the parking lot that Brooke covered her face with both hands, her shoulders shaking up and down. Lucas sat up and moved his hands on her back; she leaned forward, hiding her head in his neck while he was gently rubbing her back.
His voice was unsure but gentle when he said, "Hey, it's okay, don't worry, I'm sure he won't tell anyone…" He paused, realizing something. "Are you serious?" He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back to stare at her. "You're laughing?" he cried.
She leaned back against the wheel and uncovered her face, unable to stifle her laughter any longer. "I─ I'm sorry," she quipped, holding her sides, tears coming to her eyes. "But you should see your face!" she said, before bursting out laughing.
"It's not funny!" he exclaimed, his face becoming red. "Brooke, the man regularly has lunch with Keith!"
That only made things even funnier to Brooke, whose laugh got louder. He sighed, rolled his eyes, and gently pushed her to the passenger seat. She was still laughing when she put back her top, and after readjusting his seat hastily and putting on his seatbelt, he slammed on the gas and drove away from their school, as if his life depended on it. When she noticed that he hadn't even bothered to button up his shirt, she was overcome with another laughing fit. His eyes briefly left the road to glance at her, and she was surprised by his expression. She was expecting him to be embarrassed, or annoyed, or disapproving, but he wasn't; instead, he looked relieved and was even smiling a little.
"What?" she asked, turning to him.
"Nothing." He paused, and after another quick glance, saw that she was stubbornly staring at him. "It's been a while since I heard you laugh like this."
She smiled back, until her eyes fell on the rabbit foot dangling from the rearview mirror. It was silently reminding her that she had only gotten a delay, not a solution. She shook her head, trying to put that thought aside, or at least not to let it show on her face.
Nathan's street was filled with cars; he hadn't invited just the Ravens or the cheerleaders, probably half of the school had shown up to celebrate with them. Once he turned off the engine, Lucas quickly buttoned up his shirt and Brooke hopped to the back of the car, switching her cheerleading skirt for the pants she had prepared. Before closing her bag, she took the papers with her travel entry and slipped them in her back pocket.
"Ready?" Lucas asked, watching her through the rearview mirror.
"Yup."
The night was warm and should have been silent, if it had not been for the music that they could hear coming from the house. They silently walked up the driveway, until Lucas seemed to remember something.
"Peyton told me one of the girls elbowed you."
"Mmh."
"That's strange though," he mused, his pace slowing down, "because there's a lot of contact in basketball. Lots of feet, hands, and elbows that you don't see coming. But I've never seen anyone getting a cut as big as yours, unless, you know, it wasn't just an accident." He paused then added, "Or unless they hit something hard, like a pole, or the ground."
She gulped and avoided his stare. "I, um…"
"You passed out again, didn't you?"
They had reached the front door; she turned to him and once again was surprised not to see him angry. He did look slightly annoyed, but he was mostly… worried. Again.
She sighed and nodded. "I didn't want Peyton to worry, she's seen me faint several times and─"
"I won't tell her," he murmured, bumping her forehead with his. "I just want to make sure you're fine."
She lowered her gaze. "You don't have to worry about me," she murmured back.
"If I don't, who will? Unless you told someone about why you keep─" He paused, startled by her nervous face. He took a step back and said, "You did."
Great, now what was she supposed to say? She still didn't feel like this was the right moment to tell him the truth, not when they were about to enter a house filled with half of their school. And before she could tell anyone, she would have to ask Haley and Mouth's opinions first. Not to mention, Mouth had probably been right when he had said that no one in their right mind would believe her now that she also had to explain that Peyton was going to die.
"It's not that I don't trust you," she said, unsure of how to word this out, "because I do, I really do, but… I can't explain it, not yet."
"Not yet, huh," he repeated with a vacant look. He was lost in his thoughts for a moment, until his eyes shifted to her. "So you're fine?"
To a certain extent… "Yes."
"But you're gonna keep passing out?"
"Yes, probably."
"And you'll have Mouth and Haley to look after you?"
"Ye─" Her mouth fell open. He smiled, apparently proud to have reduced her to silence. "H─ How do you…"
"Well, you obviously didn't tell Peyton," he explained with a shrug, "and the next person on the list should be Nate, but my money's on them. That's why you keep meeting up, right?" She answered with a silent nod. "And that's why Haley's been acting so weird lately, she keeps telling me it's the pregnancy but I knew there was something else. So… They are looking after you?"
She gave him a faint smile. "Yes. But you already know that too, I mean, you've known them for a while."
"True." He leaned forward, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. His hand lingered on her cheek. "And you'll tell me when you're ready?"
"Definitely," she replied without missing a beat.
"Alright then," he said, kissing her forehead.
This wasn't the first time he was agreeing not to know about her secrets, but it still wondered her all the same every time he did. She knew that in his shoes, she would be snooping in his closet, trying to find the answers he wouldn't give to her. Or she would at least be obsessing over it and badger him until he gave her some kind of clue.
Or maybe she wouldn't do all that, because she trusted him as much as she loved him.
Her fingers curled on the collar of his shirt. "Luke, I…"
The front door opened wide, revealing two Ravens who froze at their sight: Skills, and a red-headed substitute whose name she wasn't sure of.
"He's here!" the red-headed one shouted at the top of his lungs. "Luke come on, you have to get a drink!"
"Er, yeah, I'll be right─"
"It's okay," Brooke told him with a chuckle, pushing him towards his teammates. "I'll see you later."
"Don't worry, we'll take good care of him," Skills told her with a wink.
"I'm sure you will," she said, watching with a wary eye as Lucas got yanked into the house. "Just don't touch his hair, alright?" She still remembered vividly how Nathan had ended up with a buzzcut two years earlier, after a drunken night spent with his teammates.
"I'll do my best," Skills replied with a laugh.
Brooke spent the next half an hour running into people she knew, being asked to show her staples ─by then, everyone in the house had apparently heard of what had happened─ and refusing drinks since it was against the doctor's advice. She saw Peyton standing in the dining room, near the fireplace, chatting and drinking with a group of cheerleaders. She waved at her from the other end of the room and signaled her that she would be right back; she swept the other rooms until her eyes finally landed on the two people she was looking for and who, as she had guessed, had stuck together and were seemingly waiting for her.
Haley saw her first; she had been standing by the kitchen island, holding a cup in her hand when she shook Mouth's shoulder and told him to look behind him.
"How are you? How's your head?" Mouth asked her when she reached their side.
"Not that bad," she told them with a smile. "I have something to show you."
They shared a look. "We figured you'd say that," Haley said, scanning the room. "But not here. Follow me."
She made them cross the entire house and go upstairs to Nathan's room. Well, not just Nathans', now it was hers too. Haley closed the door behind them and invited them to sit on the bed.
Mouth turned to Brooke. "Haley told me about the date."
"Prom," Brooke murmured, her mood darkening. She looked at Haley, who was sitting crossed-legged next to her, and took out the entry from her back pocket. "I've got it all here, but…"
"But what?" Haley asked when she left her words hanging.
"I know we haven't changed it yet," Brooke told them with a sigh. "I mean, the future. Peyton's future. I know it's not changed, but now that we know exactly when it's gonna happen, and since it's not before another month, I was thinking…" She paused, lowering her eyes to the papers she was holding. She put them down on the bed and sent a hesitant look to her friends. "This is gonna sound selfish, but what do you say that, and I mean just for tonight, we try to forget about this? And then tomorrow we can get back to it."
Mouth chuckled. "Doesn't sound selfish to me."
"Yeah, I could use a break too," Haley added with a faint smile.
"Not just from this, huh? What did Dan tell you?" Brooke asked her.
"He asked me how I was doing," she replied with a frown, "and then when I told him that I didn't want to talk to him, he begged me to listen to him, that he was sorry for what he'd said."
"Was he angry?"
"No, not angry… He was more, um…"
Mouth found the word she was looking for: "Desperate."
Haley nodded. "And then before I could tell him to leave, Nathan came. Deb told us what happened on the parking lot, something about Karen slamming a door at Keith, but that's not what happened, is it? And when I told her I didn't believe that, she said we shouldn't worry about it, and then we were too focused on the game to ask again."
Brooke crossed her arms. "Dan punched Keith." Her friends didn't look surprised by the news; and if they hadn't bought Keith's car door story, then chances were that Lucas had not either. "Well, first he blamed him for whatever's wrong with him, and then he punched him."
"And then what happened?"
"Nothing." She paused and corrected, "I mean, I really thought he was gonna attack him again, but he didn't, he just left."
"Do you still think he should get another chance?" Mouth asked Haley tentatively.
She sighed and looked down at her hand that was mechanically rubbing her belly. "I don't know. All I know is that it all makes me uncomfortable."
"Alright, then it's settled! No talking about Dan, or the future, or anything depressing for the next twenty-four hours!" Brooke announced with a grin that seemed to ease Haley.
"Can we make it forty-eight?" Haley asked in a shy voice.
Brooke shared a look with Mouth and they both chuckled. "Sure, that's even better."
"So, when are we meeting? Monday morning, tutor center?" Mouth asked.
Haley thought about it for a second and shook her head. "I'm tutoring someone."
"Then how about Sunday evening, my place?"
"Sounds good," Brooke told him.
"Yup," Haley agreed with a smile. Her eyes fell on the entry sitting between them. "But what do we do with─"
They all startled when the door flung open and Nathan came in. He froze and blinked at the sight of the three of them sitting in a circle on his bed. He was clearly wondering what they were doing here, away from everyone else, and in what seemed to be the middle of a very serious conversation. From the corner of her eye, Brooke saw that the papers had disappeared, and with a quick glance, noticed that Mouth had just put a hand in his pocket.
"What, um, what are you doing here?" Nathan asked them.
"What are you doing here?" Brooke retorted, unfazed.
He pointed at a huge stain on his shirt. "I need to change." He walked to the drawers and opened the top one. "Y'all look like you're plotting something." He threw a glance over his shoulder at Brooke, squinting at her. "Don't tell me you're starting another rebellion," he said with an amused voice. He took out a t-shirt, closed the drawer and turned back to them.
Brooke hopped down the bed and shrugged. "I tried, but Haley won't follow us."
He laughed and walked to the bed, stopping behind Haley; his hands slipped around her belly, covering hers, and he leaned to kiss her hair. "Another rebellion?" Haley asked, bemused.
"Yeah," Nathan said with a chuckle, "she tried to get the whole class to follow her in kindergarten."
Haley giggled. "Why am I not surprised by this?" She turned to her and asked, "What were you rebelling for?"
"To get more chocolate pudding," Brooke said, making them laugh. "Unfortunately, only two people followed me, so our movement was cut short."
She shared a knowing look with Nathan. He grinned, "Bunch of cowards."
"But it did get me two pretty good friends," she added with a wink.
He rested his chin on top of Haley's head. "And now you're trying to get Hales into trouble too?"
"Oh, I wouldn't dare to," she retorted with an angelic expression that made him snort. "Come on Mouth," she said, pulling on her friend's arm and dragging him out of the room, "we should leave them alone before things become too shocking for our innocent eyes."
The corridor was full of people who kept bumping into them as they went downstairs. Mouth was about to go outside, to the court, when she stopped him and dragged him in the opposite direction.
"No, no," she told him, yanking on his arm, "I can't drink, so you're drinking for two tonight!"
She laughed at his terrified expression and took him to the bar. After serving him a couple of drinks, she let him go and told him to have fun. She went around the house and found Peyton; Brooke felt like a lifetime had gone by since she had been so carefree about… well, everything.
She could have enjoyed herself longer, but after a couple of hours, she was caught stifling a yawn, and soon after her eyelids became heavy. Everyone kept telling her to go and take a nap, so she decided to follow their advice and after finding Haley, told her that she was borrowing one of the guest rooms. She would lie down for half an hour and then would go back to partying with her friends.
As soon as she slipped into the bed, her eyes closed, and she fell asleep. What should have been a short nap turned into hours of deep, nightmare-free slumber.
When she opened her eyes, it only took her a few seconds to understand that she had slept through the whole night: she couldn't hear a single noise, apart from a bird chirping at the window, and although the room was still plunged into darkness, she could see a few rays of light shining through the heavy curtains. She groaned and reached her hand for the alarm clock, until she remembered that she wasn't in her own bedroom and her nightstand wasn't there. Her mouth was so dry it was burning up; she shifted on her right side and was about to get up when she heard something. Actually, not something, but someone.
Someone who was lying on the bed with her, and who moved closer to her; she felt a warm breath on her neck, and a hand lifting her top and gliding on her stomach, making her skin crawl. She let out a sharp, frightened cry, clenched her fist, and rammed her elbow backwards, straight into the intruder who yelped and rolled away from her. Her body jerked up and she swiftly turned around, ready to beat up to a pulp whoever had had the idea to crawl into bed with her, but she froze when she recognized the voice who painfully called her name.
"Lucas?" she called, unsure. He answered with a grunt. She jumped up and drew the curtains, letting in a stream of daylight.
It really was him, wearing only a pair of shorts, curled up in a fetal position and rubbing his stomach. He groaned again and covered his eyes. "Jesus, Brooke, are you trying to kill me?" he cried with hoarse voice.
"Oh god," she said, rushing to his side, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I thought it was someone else!"
He removed his hand from his eyes and scowled at her. "Like who?"
"I don't know, someone drunk! I panicked!" His eyes softened and he sat up, wincing as he did so. "I didn't miss, huh?" she asked, her mouth turning into a frown.
"Right on the solar plexus."
She groaned and dropped her forehead on his shoulder. "I swear I didn't know you were here." She lifted her head and stared at him. "When did you even get here?"
"Around 3, I think. Haley gave me the key."
"The key? What key?"
"When you didn't come down, she figured you were asleep so she locked the door to make sure no one would disturb you." Wow, she was really getting ready to be a mother. "And then when I came in, you were sleeping so peacefully that I didn't want to wake you." With an apologetic look, she held his face and kissed the corner of his lips, making him smile. "I guess I don't have to worry about you not being able to defend yourself."
She chuckled. "I should get you some ice," she said, her eyes lingering on his stomach. "Do you want something to eat too?"
"Sure." She was about to climb down the bed, but he grabbed her wrist and pinned her to the mattress. She looked up and sent him a quizzical look. "I'm starving," he murmured, his lips tracing a line of kisses from her chin to her ear.
She giggled and put her hands on his chest. "Then I should go to the kitchen. I'll be right ba─" She closed her eyes and let out a moan as he nibbled her earlobe.
"All I need is here, Pretty girl," he murmured against her skin.
His hands fumbled with her pants, swiftly pulled them down to her ankles, and were now rolling up her top. "Luke? What happened to your clothes?"
His lips moved down to her collar bone. "Drying."
"What?"
He sighed and propped himself up on an elbow. "On the heater," he said, pointing to a spot above his shoulder. "They were drenched."
To his dismay, she sat up and noticed that there was indeed a pair of pants and a shirt lying on the heater. "You took a midnight bath without me?" she asked with a pout.
He laughed and shook his head. "It wasn't a midnight bath. But I did get thrown into the pool. Several times." He gently pushed her back onto the bed and watched her with hungry eyes. "Now where were we?"
His lips went back to mapping her body, while his hands swung off her top and threw it across the room. He was about to take care of her bra when her phone rang. He grunted and dropped his head on her chest, gently biting her skin.
She chuckled, pushed him off her and rolled on her side to get her phone from the floor. She was about to hang up when she saw who was calling her. "Shit," she muttered, immediately picking up. "Mom? Hi! No, no, you're not waking me up. I know, I know, I'm sorry, I completely forgot to call you" ─she sighed─ "yes, and to text you." She was listening to her mother berating her when she felt Lucas' weight in her back, and while his hands were playing with her panties, his lips were kissing her shoulder. "Er, yeah, M─ Mom, I, um…" She couldn't think straight, not with the way he was touching her. "Yeah, yeah, we won, but I'll call you back, alright? I'll call you right back!"
She did call her back, but not before another thirty minutes. Lucas had been putting his clothes back when she told her mother that she had gotten hurt during the game.
Victoria's voice shouted from the phone, loud enough to startle even Lucas. "What? When? How?"
"It's nothing bad, Mom, I swear." She threw a quick, guilt-ridden look at Lucas and added, "One of the girls elbowed me on the head during a routine."
"Did you get stitches?"
"Staples," she corrected. "I got three."
Her mother yelled again, making her flinch. "And you're only telling me this now?!"
"Well, yeah, I mean it was nothing urgent. There was barely any blood," she said, avoiding Lucas' accusing stare. "And Whitey kept an eye on me during the whole ride home."
"Brooke, I know we have a good health insurance, but it's not a reason to get hurt every five minutes!"
She ignored Lucas as he mouthed the words 'she's right' and snorted. "I'm not getting hurt every─."
"You kept fainting at the beginning of this year, then you fell down the stairs at Nathan's, you had a car accident and dislocated your shoulder, and now this!" her mother ranted. "Don't you think it's a little too much in less than a year?"
She gulped; she could see from Lucas' expression that her mother's words were weighing on his mind. "I'm just out of luck, alright? So anyway, I'll come home in the afternoon but I'm having dinner with Lucas' parents tonight."
"Do you have your keys? I'm not home and I'll only be there in the evening."
"Yeah, don't worry, see you tomorrow then. Bye Mom, love you."
The entire house was a warzone; as soon as they stepped outside of the room, they knew there would be a lot of cleaning up to do. Upstairs, cups, empty bottles and clothes littered the floor, along with a few people who were sound asleep in what looked like very uncomfortable positions; they had to tiptoe around them to reach the staircase and once they arrived downstairs, they realized that things were even worse here─ Lucas even saved her in-extremis from stepping into a very suspicious puddle.
The kitchen was a contrast to the rest of the house; Peyton and Haley were the only one there, and unlike the rest of the people they had passed by, they were wide awake. Haley was sitting at the table, sipping a cup of tea, and Peyton was standing by the kitchen island, preparing a pot of coffee. Brooke's eyes swept the room: it was messy, sure, but mostly clean, which suggested that Haley had been up for a while.
Lucas slouched on a chair next to Haley, while Brooke walked around the room to get three mugs out. While they were waiting for the coffee to be ready, Peyton told her that she had slept in another guest room with a couple of cheerleaders.
"What time's Deb coming home?" Brooke asked Haley as she sat across her.
Haley smiled at her from over her cup. "We have the whole day to clean the house, if that's your question."
"Good," she said, pouring three mugs of coffee and taking one for herself. She eyed the open pack of waffles sitting on the table, and after Haley nudged it in her direction, took one out.
Peyton took one too, and after biting into it, turned to Lucas. "So, how's your first morning as a state champion?"
Lucas drank a mouthful of coffee. "Painful," he said, his eyes smiling at Brooke. "Some girl attacked me this morning."
Brooke scoffed, while both Peyton and Haley were staring at her in confusion. "I said I'm sorry!" She shook her head, her eyes darting between her friends. "Fine, then how do you react if you go to sleep alone, and you wake up with someone sneaking up behind you and sliding his hand on your─"
"Ew, Brooke, I don't wanna hear that!" Haley cried, plugging her ears.
They all laughed and Brooke leaned over the table to pull on Haley's hands. "On your stomach, you perve," she said with a chuckle.
"Oh, good," Haley said with a sigh of relief.
"So?" Brooke asked the girls. "How would you react?"
Peyton took another bite of her waffle. "Kick in the nuts. Simple but always effective."
"See?" she retorted with a triumphant look to Lucas. "If anything, you should thank me for not aiming lower."
"Gee, thanks a lot, Brooke," he deadpanned, making them laugh. He then turned to his best friend and asked, "Aren't you working today?"
"Only the afternoon shift, so I'm free until 1.30," she explained, putting down her empty cup of tea. She stood up, and while Lucas was asking Peyton if he shouldn't expect any other surprise attack from his girlfriend, Brooke watched Haley disappear into the pantry and reappear with two rolls of garbage bags. She stood up and walked to Haley's side, eying her as she knelt to get a bucket from under the sink.
"It's okay, finish your breakfast," Haley told her when she saw her take the garbage bags.
"I'm done," she answered with a shrug.
Leaving her best friend chatting with her boyfriend, Brooke followed Haley out of the kitchen and into the dining room. Her eyes landed on the half-naked guy sleeping on the table, then moved to the rest of the people scattered across the room.
"How do you want to do this?" Brooke asked her in a whisper.
Haley was scanning the room, her hands on her hips. "Let's start with everything that goes in there," she said, handing her a garbage bag. "It's almost nine, people will get up eventually."
"Or we could just kick them awake."
Haley stifled a laugh and motioned her to take left, while she would go right. They did so in every room downstairs, and just as Haley had predicted, people were starting to emerge, one by one, and were all looking around the place for their clothes. Now that they were down with the main rooms, they decided to take a look around the pool since apparently, that was where the party had ended, only a few hours ago.
"Wow," Brooke muttered at the sight in front of them.
People were sleeping, half-naked, on the deckchairs, using towels to cover themselves. Empty bottles were everywhere around them ─there wasn't an inch square not occupied by either a bottle or a cup─ and some were even floating in the water.
"This is gonna take long," Haley said with a sigh, before nudging Brooke. "Hey, look who's here!"
Brooke followed her gaze to see a silhouette on a deckchair covered by a towel, lying flat on their stomach, arms dangling on each side, mouth slightly open with drool dripping to the ground. "Holy─" Brooke clasped a hand on her mouth, holding back a loud giggle that was threatening to wake everyone up. She quietly walked to Mouth, took out her phone and snapped a picture of him. She shared a look with Haley; they decided silently not to wake him but instead took another towel and put it on his back. After a short while, Haley was done cleaning the ground; she had made a pile of abandoned clothes on an empty deckchair. Brooke was just finishing sweeping the pool when the only person who hadn't woken up yet seemed to emerge. There was a grunt, then an arm moved, a leg, and another arm. Eventually, Mouth wrapped the towels around him and, with much difficulty, managed to sit up on his chair.
"Now that's what I call a decent hungover face," Brooke told him with a grin.
He groaned and dropped his head in his hands. "My head is gonna explode," he croaked.
Haley chuckled and knelt in front of him, "You should get inside, there's coffee and food."
Brooke lifted the net and put it down at her feet before walking around the pool. She turned around when she heard Mouth's voice: "Brooke, I'm not feeling great. What did you put in your cocktails?"
She smiled, sat next to him and patted his back. "I don't think my cocktails are the problem. I think it's the 3 liters of alcohol you drank after that. Did you have fun?"
"Oh, yeah, it was great," he said before looking down at his bare legs. "Er, where are my clothes?"
Brooke and Haley shared a look and laughed. "They're over here," Haley told him, pointing at the pile behind him.
"Oh, great," he said, standing up and taking slow, cautious steps to the neighboring chair.
Brooke turned to Haley. "Are we done here?"
"Er, yeah," Haley replied, her eyes darting around them, "I think so. We still have to clean the water but I'll ask Nathan to do that." She glanced over her shoulder. "Maybe we should check the court too, I don't think anyone hung out there, not with the pool, but─"
"Er, guys?" They both spun around to face Mouth, who was standing over the pile of clothes and scratching his head with a lost expression. "They're not here. My clothes."
Brooke giggled. "I can't believe I missed your strip-tease!"
"Where did you take them off?" Haley asked him with a chuckle.
"I don't know… I think it was inside," he said with a thoughtful frown. "Last thing I remember was being in the living room with Skills and, um, what's the name of that girl with the long─"
"Mouth!" Haley gasped and dropped the bags she had been carrying. They both turned to her, startled by her alarmed tone. "The entry! It's in your pants!"
Brooke's blood went straight to her head, making her dizzy. How had she not thought about it sooner? "What entry?" Mouth asked, befuddled by their reactions. "Wha─" His eyes grew wide, as if they were about to pop out of their sockets, and he slowly sat down next to the pile of clothes. "No," he muttered with a blank expression, "no, no way I've…"
"If someone finds it," Brooke murmured, her voice shaking, "they'll have me locked up."
"Wha─ No, Brooke, that's not gonna happen!" Haley assured her. When Brooke sent her a dubious look, she added, "First of all, we're gonna find it before anyone can read it, and second of all, even if someone does find it first, they have no way to know you wrote it!"
"Haley, my name is on it, several times!"
"Doesn't mean you're the one who wrote it."
"But I used the list the doctor gave me! Who else would have that?"
"Er, well, fine but we can still make up a story about, I don't know, you trying to become a writer─ Whatever, we'll worry about that only if we have to!" She grabbed her arm and forced her to stand up. "Come on, we need to find it now!"
Mouth jumped on his feet a little too fast and staggered. "I'll help too."
Haley's voice was firm. "No, you can barely stand. Go get some coffee, we'll handle this."
She grabbed Brooke's hand and yanked on it so hard, Brooke thought she was going to end up once again with a dislocated shoulder. They hurried to the house and decided to split up to cover more ground quickly; Haley rushed upstairs, while Brooke started looking around the living room. There were only a couple of people left in the room now, which meant it would be easier to search for the entry. It also meant that the probability of someone reading it was bigger than what she would have wished for.
There were a few clothes around the living room, but nothing that looked like what Mouth had been wearing the night before; she did check every clothes she found just in case, but didn't find what she was looking for. She moved on to the dining room, and ran into Lucas, quite literally─ she had been looking everywhere but upfront and rammed head first into his back.
He spun around and was surprised to see her. He was holding a laundry basket filled with clothes. "Hey wh─"
"Gimme that!" she commanded, ripping the basket from his hands. She put it down on the table and rummaged through it, checking each item one by one.
Lucas was standing next to her─ she couldn't see his face, she was too focused on the clothes she was checking, but from his voice she could tell that he was puzzled by her strange, erratic behavior. "Er, Brooke? Is everything alright?"
"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, and her hands reached out for the last piece of clothing that had filled the basket. She cursed; Mouth's pants were not here either. "Have you seen Mouth's clothes?"
"Mouth?" he repeated, raising an eyebrow. He looked down at the table where now lay all the clothes he had picked up. "Er, no, I don't think so. Is that what you're looking for? I can help if─"
"No!" she shouted, clenching his arm. She immediately released her grip and tried to lower her voice; giving into panic was not a solution. "Sorry," she said, clearing her throat, "I just need to find it. On my own."
"Um, okay," he said, perplexed. "Well, you might want to check out the laundry room then."
"Why?"
"Because that's where I was going with this," he explained, pointing to the clothes. "We put them all there, we figured it would be easier to fin─ Hey, Brooke!" he called in vain.
She ran to the staircase, shoving a couple of people out of her way, and hastily jumped down the steps leading to the laundry room. Her eyes swept the room until they landed on several piles of carefully folded clothes─ male on the left, female on the right.
She let out a long sigh when she found Mouth's clothes, and with them, the entry that was still hidden in the back pocket, folded in four. She put it back there and after taking a minute to calm don, went upstairs, carrying the clothes with much care.
Mouth was sitting at the kitchen table, wrapped in his towels, and was drinking a cup of coffee when Brooke walked in. With a glance, he knew that she had found the entry, and his crumpled face seemed to get back some color.
"Hey Nate," she quipped as she walked past him. He answered with a wave and a yawn, then went back to moping the floor. "There you go," she told Mouth as she handed him his clothes.
"Is it…"
"Still there, untouched," Brooke whispered with a grin.
"Oh thank god," he whispered back, shaking his head in dismay. "I'm so sorry Brooke, I can't believe I─"
"Don't be." She sent a sidelong glance to Nathan then said, "We got it back, that's all that matters. Plus, I'm the one who told you to get hammered, remember?"
Still, Brooke would have rather not have to explain to anyone what the words she had written meant. She didn't know how she could come up with a plausible explanation that wouldn't be the truth─ if the truth was even considered to be plausible.
She didn't linger in the kitchen, but instead turned on her feet; she had to tell Haley she could stop searching. Haley had been looking around the guest rooms when Brooke found her; relief crossed her face when she told her the good news. They were both heading back to the kitchen when they saw Peyton coming out of a bathroom, struggling to carry three different garbage bags.
"Thanks," Peyton told Brooke when she took one from her hands. "Are you done with the pool?"
Haley led them down the stairs. "Yeah, it's all good."
Peyton followed her, and when she walked by, Brooke noticed her vacant expression. "You okay Sawyer?"
Her best friend slowed down and halted so suddenly in the middle of the staircase that Brooke almost bumped into her. Peyton spun around to have her green eyes staring up at her; for a moment there, Brooke could swear she was conflicted about something. Peyton opened her mouth, only to close it, and to open it again and finally speak: "Yeah, I'm fine, I just, um…" She paused, and eventually said with a faint smile, "I got a message from the Post. They want to see me early, so I have to leave soon."
Brooke watched as Peyton turned her back to her and walked down the rest of the stairs. "Really? Why?"
"I don't know. Something about an urgent meeting."
"Do you want me to drop you off?"
"No, you should stay, there's still a lot of cleaning to do." They arrived on the landing and Peyton looked around them. "I'll get a ride with someone."
Fifteen minutes later, most of the remaining guests ─including Peyton─ were gone. Mouth insisted to stay and help them, but he really was in no shape to help anyone, not even himself, so they told him to go home with Skills. The only two guests left were now Lucas and herself.
Haley gave them each a pair of gloves, a bucket, cleaning products, and instructions on where to go and what to do exactly. With the four of them scrubbing the house from top to bottom, they managed to cover the entire place in a couple of hours, so that right before lunch, every corner of the house was shining. As soon as she was done, Brooke slouched on the couch and lied down, her head resting on a cushion. After a few minutes, she opened her eyes when someone lifted her legs to sit next to her. She stretched out her neck and watched as Nathan put her legs back on his lap.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his head resting on his hand, his elbow propped on the couch.
"Just a little" ─ she yawned─ "sleepy."
He furrowed his eyebrow. "Isn't sleepiness one of the signs to look for on your list?"
She blinked at him. She had never shown him the list, so how could he… Her heart skipped a beat and when she spoke, she tried not to sound nervous. "How do you know that?"
"Whitey gave me a rundown," he answered with a shrug. Good, so he hadn't seen the list, including what was written on its back. But when had he talked to Whitey? "When we got back to school," he added, reading her thoughts. His lips curled up, "He said you were under my responsibility."
"Four years and he still hasn't figured you out, huh."
He laughed. "So? Isn't that on the list?"
"Maybe, but─"
"Alright, let me see it."
She raised her eyebrows. "See what?"
"The list."
She really should have used another support for her entry. "I lost it."
"What do you mean, you lost it?"
"I can't find it," she replied with a shrug. She sat up and brought her knees to her chest. "But I'm fine, I just need to catch up some sleep."
"That's weird," he mused, "Haley also has trouble sleeping."
"Oh, really?" she asked, averting her eyes.
"Yeah. She says it's because she's worried about our finals, but I'm guessing you have a different reason?" Her eyes stayed fixed on the ground. "I'm not blind, Brooke. I can tell you've been stressed about something. Really stressed. You barely eat at lunch." He paused and sighed when she refused to meet his eyes. "I know you told Peyton it's because of the grant Lucas applied for, but you're not telling her the whole truth, are you?" She glanced at him, and he chuckled at her surprised expression. "Come on, Peyton's not the only who can read you like a book."
"Did you tell her that?" she asked. She really hoped her fear wasn't too visible, but hadn't Nathan just told her that he could see right through her?
"No. And I'm not asking you to tell me the truth, but… I don't know, I just want you to know that I'm here if you need me."
"I know that," she said, squeezing his shoulder.
"Good," he said with a smile.
They all had lunch together ─grilled-cheese sandwiches that Lucas prepared masterfully─ and left the house an hour later; Haley was heading to the Café, Nathan to Keith's shop, and Brooke was planning to go home. She hadn't sewn much in the past two weeks, too busy obsessing over her travels, so maybe now was the time to finally finish the dress she had been working on.
That had been the initial plan, but as she walked down the Scott driveway, and when she stifled a yawn for the third time in a row, she realized that she probably would not get much work done. She had slept for nine hours straight, without interruption, without any nightmare, yet she still felt like she needed to rest some more.
Lucas' voice rang in her ear: "You know, if you're just gonna take a nap, you can do that in my bed."
She turned to him and glanced at her car that they had just reached. "I thought you were going to the Court this afternoon?"
"Not anymore," he answered with a glint in his eyes. "Apparently Skills and Fergie are too hungover to come, and I don't think Mouth will be physically able to leave his house in the next twenty-four hours."
"I see," Brooke said as she leaned against her car.
"Plus, you're not supposed to stay on your own, and your mother's not gonna be here, right?" he pointed out with a crooked grin. "And since we're having dinner at my house tonight, you might as well come straight to─"
"Alright, alright," she said with a chuckle, "I get it." She kissed his cheek and climbed into her car. "Go, I'll be right behind."
Lucas' house was closer than hers, and from the way she was fighting to keep her eyes open while driving, she had to admit that it probably was for the best that she was going to his place rather than hers.
Ten minutes later, she pulled over his driveway and parked her car right behind his.
"I think I'm gonna collapse on your doorstep," she murmured to Lucas when he walked to her.
He chuckled, took her sports bag from her and slipped his free hand into hers. Since both of his parents were working, the house was empty and quiet. Brooke was taking her shoes off when Lucas said something about checking the mail and disappeared toward the hallway. She took off her jacket and glanced at the bed; she felt a dire need to sleep, but she also really wanted to take a shower. She put her bag on Lucas' desk and opened it to take out the extra outfit she had thought to bring with her. She frowned and rummaged through it, wondering where her towel had gone off to. Maybe she had forgotten to take one. She left the bedroom and was about to enter the bathroom when she figured that she should at least ask Lucas before borrowing one of their towels, though she knew what his answer would be.
"Luke," she asked, walking in the kitchen, "can I use a towel?"
He was standing still, next to the table, and was gaping down at a letter he had just opened.
"Lucas?" she called. Still no answer; her sluggishness vanished in an instant, and instead she felt suddenly anxious. "What's wrong?"
"It's, er…" he stammered, his eyes still fixed on the letter he was holding. "It's the grant. The federal grant." He paused, looked up at her and when he spoke again, he sounded as though he couldn't believe his own words. "I've got it."
Her heart skipped a beat. "W─ What?"
He gazed down at the letter. "Yeah," he murmured in a slow, dazed voice. "It says that they can give me a─"
He was so hypnotized by the paper he was holding that he didn't see her coming when she squealed and rammed into him. He drew a sharp breath, and after a second, broke out of his stun and lifted her up, making her twirl and laugh before crashing his lips onto hers. Brooke dropped the clothes she had been holding, and clung onto his neck, bringing him as close to her as she could.
"I'm in!" he exclaimed with a wide grin as he put her down. "I can't believe I'm in! I can go to Columbia!"
Brooke gave him a knowing smile. "See? I told you things would work out."
He laughed and kissed her again. "This calls for a celebration."
She giggled against his lips and stepped back, her hands clutching his shirt so that she could drag him with her into the hallway. "What do you say we start celebrating in the shower?"
His eyes gleamed with anticipation. "As you wish."
Two hours had passed when Brooke's eyes fluttered open. She sighed, stretched her arms and turned around to see that she was alone on the bed. She shivered, a chill running up her spine, and noticed that the thin blanket draping her body had slipped down to her waist. She pulled it to her chest and slowly sat up, blinking at her surroundings in confusion. Had she slept for the entire afternoon? The room was dark, and Lucas was sitting at his desk, doing his homework, and had turned on his desk lamp.
"What time is it?" she asked hoarsely.
He glanced up from his work and smiled at her. After a quick look to his watch, he answered: "Past 4."
"Why is it so dark?"
He chuckled and nodded to his right. She followed his gaze to the window's drawn curtains. "I didn't want you to wake up." He hesitated then asked, "No nightmares?"
"No," she answered with a fleeting smile. She climbed out of the bed and slowly made her way to the window, and after opening the curtains, noticed that something had been waiting for her on the mattress, right next to where her feet had been. She sat on the edge of the bed and took the stack of papers in her hands. She felt a rush of excitement; her lips twitched, and she gazed up at Lucas, who had been silently watching her. "When did you finish it?" she asked him, her eyes lowering to the chapter.
"Just now," he answered. "It's, er…" He seemed to ponder on what to say to her. "Well, you'll see."
She gave him a quizzical look, but he simply gave a nervous shrug and went back to his homework.
He had never been this uneasy to hand over a chapter, even when he had been writing about how heartbroken and disappointed he had been after the whole Peyton fiasco. Yet, for some reason, he seemed wary of her reaction to what was in her hands. She stared at the chapter, wondering what kind of dark, twisted secret could be hidden inside. She silently laughed at herself: dark and twisted were hardly the right words to describe Lucas. Whatever it was, surely it could not be anything too shocking.
This chapter was about Dan, and how he had spent years fantasizing about a relationship with him, only to get his hopes crushed at a very young age, when he had officially met him for the first time. He had spent ─and wasted, from the way he put it─ a lot of time hoping for just a short conversation with his biological father. Not that he didn't enjoy the time spent with Keith, but it simply wasn't the same, especially considering the fact that his uncle hadn't been dating his mother yet.
And then high school had come, and with it, many more unfortunate opportunities to run into Dan. Every time, Dan kept putting him down, always comparing him to the basketball genius that was Nathan. Over the years, his yearning for a bond with Dan had gradually turned into resentment towards him ─ until a fateful night a year ago when Dan had…
"W─ wait, what?" Her head jerked up to stare at him. Her mouth fell open, and for a moment, she found herself unable to utter a single word. Lucas put down his pen and let out a small sigh before leaving his desk to sit next to her. "How much of this is fictional?"
"None."
"But you mean…" She briefly glanced at the chapter. "He strangled you?" she asked in horror. "And this was a year ago? When was that? Do your parents know about this? Did you tell Na─"
"Wow, slow down," he cut her off with a chuckle.
"Sorry, it's just that… This is…"
"I know," he said when she couldn't find the right word. "That's why it took me so long to write this. I wasn't sure I even wanted to write it down."
She shifted closer to him and tilted her head. "Why not?"
"Well, because…" He sighed and ruffled his hair. "This is gonna sound stupid, but no guy likes to admit that he's…"
"Scared," Brooke murmured. She lifted a hand and ran her fingers through his hair, making him meet her eyes. "What happened?"
"I was at the River court with Nate, we were just training. He went home but I stayed longer, so I was alone when Dan showed up." His eyebrows twitched. "He was looking for Nate. I told him he went home, and… It's kinda my fault, I started it."
"What did you tell him?"
"That, um… That I was glad Nate was getting away from him. That he was a bad influence on anyone around him." Brooke lowered her eyes and noticed that his hands were clenched into tight fists. "I couldn't shut up, I mean I was so angry… I had been for years. I guess it all just came out."
"What happened then?" Brooke asked him when he stayed silent.
"He said some stuff, about my mom and Keith."
"My guess is that didn't calm you down."
He scoffed. "No, not really," he said dryly. "I said something back, about making sure Nathan would see the kind of asshole he was and that's when he… He, um, grabbed me by the neck and pushed me against the pole." His eyes weren't looking at anything in particular, but his hand moved mechanically to rub his neck. "I tried to get his hand off but he was too strong. But then after a couple of seconds he snapped out of it. He told me to stay out of Nathan's life and left."
The more she learned about Dan, the less she wanted to know him, but this? He was redefining the word despicable. "A couple of seconds?" she asked with a frown.
"Felt like minutes," he admitted, averting his eyes from her gaze. "I even thought he was gonna─ Whatever," he said, shaking his head and forcing a smile, "it was just a few seconds and he left after that. And I made sure to, um, not run into him again."
She sighed and embraced him, her head resting on his shoulder. "I always thought it was because you hated him. You know, because of what he did to you and your mom."
"I do," he murmured, playing with her hair. "But that's not why I'm avoiding him."
That was when it dawned on her. She pulled back and said, "That's why you tried to follow Nate last night! Not because you're mad at Dan, but because─"
"I was worried about Nate, yeah. Dan can be… frightening."
Dan's expression following the moment he had punched his brother came across her mind. "I get it."
"You do?" he asked, puzzled. "When did you─ Oh, you're talking about what happened with Keith, huh?" She had a hunch he hadn't bought Keith's story, but was still surprised to hear him confirm it. "Nate said that when he left the parking lot, Keith was fine, and Dan was still there."
"I see…" she murmured. "Keith is planning on telling you the truth, he just didn't want to ruin your night. But yeah, Dan punched him." She paused hesitantly. "And he looked, um… He scared me a little. And now that I know what he did to you─ Wait, who knows about this?"
"No one."
So Haley didn't know … And if she did, maybe she wouldn't have so many second thoughts on Dan. But if Lucas hadn't told her yet, it meant that he didn't want her to know. "You didn't even tell Keith?"
He snorted. "And have him start a manhunt against Dan? No, no way."
That day, he didn't ask her to keep this story to herself, but only because he didn't need to; she knew that he didn't want anyone else to know about this, at least for now. She dropped the subject and didn't bring it up for the rest of the evening, or the next morning. After getting breakfast with Lucas and his parents, she went home and was welcomed by a hundred questions from her worried mother. She told her for the hundredth time that she was fine, that it was just a minor injury, but she could tell that her mother was concerned about her.
Peyton came over for lunch and was a nice distraction for Victoria, who kept asking her questions about her plans for… well, the future. Brooke's light-heartedness started crumbling down from that moment, and with each passing hour, more and more depressing thoughts kept seeping through her mind.
"Are you okay?"
Brooke lifted her head; she had been lying on her bed, doing her trigonometry homework. Well, doing was an overstatement: she had mostly just been staring blankly at the numbers. Peyton was looking at her from the desk with a worried expression. "Brooke, um," she said with unusual hesitance, "you know you can talk to me, right?"
First Nathan, now Peyton. She really needed to get a grip on herself. "I'm fine," she said, stifling a yawn. Another one, huh. She hadn't had a nightmare during the last two nights, she had slept like a log each time, yet she still felt like taking a nap.
Her eyes snapped open, and it took her a full minute to realize that she had fallen asleep again. She was still a little groggy when she sat up and saw that she was alone. She thought at first that Peyton had gone to the bathroom, but after ten minutes had passed with her friend still nowhere to be seen, she decided to stop torturing herself with trig and walked down the stairs, calling Peyton's name.
No one answered, and the bathrooms were empty. A dreadful sensation crept into her: what if something had happened? She shook it off almost immediately; if anything were to happen to Peyton, it wouldn't be now, it would only be in several weeks. She went upstairs to get her phone and text her best friend, only to find out that Peyton had already texted her. Something had come up at the Post and she had had to leave. She hadn't wanted to wake her up. Brooke texted her back, asking if something was wrong. Peyton explained after ten minutes that something was up with this week's drawings. Brooke read her friend's text one more time and eventually sighed in relief and dropped her phone on the bed; she could stop worrying for now.
Later that afternoon, and as planned, Brooke went to Mouth's house. When she climbed into the attic, Haley and Mouth were already there, sitting down and waiting for her. Haley had just finished reading her entry when Brooke sat down next to them.
"Are you feeling better?" Brooke asked Mouth with a faint smile.
"Yeah, much better. Peyton…" He paused for a second. "She, er, she gave me a recipe for my hungover. It really worked." His eyes moved down to the papers Haley was still holding. "So, Prom night, huh?"
"And not just that," Haley said, raising her eyes from the entry. "She's not the only who…"
Brooke sighed. "I know. If only I had read this earlier, I would have had time to read more─"
"Don't beat yourself up about that," Mouth told her with a comforting voice. "Maybe we can figure out who that other person is."
"How?"
"Well, we know who it isn't," Haley said as she put the papers down on the table. "It's not any of us. And it's not Lucas or Nathan."
"Karen and Keith are safe too," Mouth added with a nod.
"And my parents," Brooke murmured. "Oh, and Skills, Fergie, and Junk," she said, recalling Future Mouth telling her about his roommates.
Haley's head shot up. "Wait, what about Deb? I don't remember you ever seeing her."
Brooke scrolled through her memories, trying to remember something, anything about─ "She's fine. Future Lucas said something about her, I'm sure of it. It was when Jamie was just a toddler, in 2021. He said something about Deb keeping you up."
"Good," Haley said with relief. "So basically, it's not someone we usually hang out with," she summarized. She sighed and voiced out what they were all thinking: "How are we supposed to protect a person we're not even close to?"
"By keeping an eye on Peyton?" Mouth suggested tentatively. "I mean, that person will clearly be with Peyton when… when it happens, so, if we can save Peyton, then chances are we'll save this other person too."
"It's probably someone from school," Brooke mused. "I mean, it takes place during Prom, so it has to be, right?" They both nodded in agreement. "So, since it's during Prom… Maybe the easiest way to save Peyton is to stop it from happening."
Haley raised her eyebrows. "You mean, cancel Prom? Can we even do that?"
"We can't, only Turner could do that, and I bet he doesn't want a hundred of angry seniors banging at his door at night… But maybe we could force him to cancel it."
"How?"
Brooke thought about it for a moment, then sighed in defeat. "I don't know." She shrugged and said, "We could burn down the gym." Mouth knew she was joking, but Haley's top-of—the-class instincts kicked in: she gasped and stared at Brooke, wide-eyed. "I'm kidding!" Brooke cried, rolling her eyes.
"Even if we somehow manage to have it cancel," Mouth said with a frown, "don't you think they'll find some kind of alternative?"
Brooke imagined what she would have done in normal times if someone told her Prom was cancelled. Yup, she would definitely go out of her way to have it happen, no matter what. People would riot. "You're right," she admitted, feeling dejected.
"So we don't cancel Prom," Mouth murmured pensively. "But we make sure Peyton doesn't attend. That's what it said, right?" he asked, his eyes lowering to the entry. "Tragedy strikes Prom night. Not Tree Hill, but Prom night, so if Peyton doesn't go there…"
"Then surely she'll be fine," Brooke whispered. She gazed down at her lap and noticed that her hands were shaking.
"And Keith too," Mouth added. "If he really feels guilty, then we should make sure he's nowhere around Prom or Peyton when it happens."
Haley crossed her arms on the table and rested her head on them. "So how do we do that? How do we convince Peyton not to go?"
They all stayed silent. None of them knew how to keep a senior from attending their Prom; all they knew was that they had twenty-six days left to figure it out.
That's it for now!
I know I'm repeating myself, but seriously, thank you so much for the reviews and for your very kind words.
There should be about three chapters left + an epilogue. Might be four depending on how long the chapters are, if I have to cut one into two etc.
I'm going back to work, which means I'm also going back to a slower writing... You can expect the next chapter in about a month, so by the end of August.
