23
By Grace (purplemud)
Pairing: Naley and a bit of Leyton and Brucas
Summary: Nathan Scott is done playing basketball. In fact, if he's going to be honest about it, he's done with living. But one funeral just might change that. AU. Totally.
Warning: Character death. Strong language. Some sexual content in the future. Maybe.
Author's note: Oh. An update. Look at that. I would like to thank everyone in advance for still being here despite the many starts and stops and delays and everything in between. This is the bit of Leyton. And Brucas too. Although this turned into a 22 pages thing and I think 10k words? Ugh. So maybe not a "bit" then. LOL. I know everyone here in this story is a little bit OC (maybe a LOT) especially Lucas. But I'm kind of using the AU excuse. So, please don't hate me. And as always, let me know what you think. Your comments, suggestions, constructive criticism, reviews are EVERYTHING.
Disclaimers: Standard disclaimers apply. Me don't own. Lines from the show shamelessly borrowed. Please don't sue.
Twenty- Interlude
LA is everything he had seen in movies and read in books. LA is also nothing that he had seen in movies and read in books. It is all tourist traps and hidden gems; the cold and weary faces of people chasing their dreams and the warm smiles of those who have lived here all of their lives, those who aren't in a hurry for anything.
LA starts out as a temporary place, like the-wait-and-see corner of the world, but it has a strange, duplicitous way of luring you in to permanency: Los Angeles. The City of Dreams.
These are all painfully unoriginal thoughts and Lucas is embarrassed at letting himself even think it. As someone aspiring to become a writer, he strives for originality but he fears this is a lost cause. Unattainable. An impossible dream to have in the City of Dreams.
Has anyone thought of that?
Lucas cringes. Yes. Someone must have already thought of it, must have felt it, and have known how to put the words together, telling it better than he could ever hope for. His days are spent biking around LA, delivering mail. He is your regular mail delivery boy for a small up and coming publishing house that had looked at his resume and said, "So, like, do you, like know how to ride a bike?"
He has to start somewhere, right? Plus, the hours were not so demanding. He liked the freedom it gave him. He'd gotten really good at going around traffic and making quick stops to admire LA or sometimes, scorn it like someone who had spent four years in the lushness of NorCal or the more down to earth Oak Lake, North Carolina.
"Originality is over rated." Haley tells him over the phone, "People don't want you to be an original. They want someone they can relate to, who had thought of the very same thing and felt the same way. Authenticity. That's what people want."
"When did you turn thirty, again?" He asks, cradling the phone as he shifts around his bed, trying to fit all of six feet frame to the tiny bed that came with the tiny one room apartment that his tiny income as a lowly office messenger could afford in this sprawling City of Dreams. Kind of hard to dream big dreams cooped up like this.
How about that one?
His feet grazes a stack of book on his bed side table, it wobbles but does not crash to the ground. Lucas smirks, unable to help himself. Okay, so he's actually, exactly five feet and eleven and a half inches; he'd known as early as Junior High that he'd never really make it to the NBA. Not with his height and his body that refuses to gain mass no matter what he tried. Then there's his heart too. He isn't even going to touch on the complicated back story of his father and his step-brother.
As soon as he arrived in LA, he remembered thinking: Please dear God, please let Nathan NOT be drafted to the Lakers or the Clippers. That would be so not funny.
And then feeling immediately guilty afterwards when it was announced that Nathan Scott would not be joining any NBA team any time soon. Whispered rumors of never were heard around the college basketball circle, of which he was on the fringes of, but news still has a way of travelling.
Lucas had wondered why but then stopped himself almost immediately because if he knew the reason, then what? He managed to stop himself from Googling about it and just accepted as it is: something that absolutely had nothing to do with him.
Lucas freezes for a second as he realizes that this is the first time in a long while that he had thought of Dan and Nathan. It catches him off guard but it doesn't come with anything. There are no more feelings tied to it. Well. Minimal. Miniscule.
Like his apartment.
"Do I sound old?" Haley is genuinely alarmed and Lucas chuckles completely forgetting about his current frustration.
"You're figuring this just now?" He teases. He is always thankful for these daily phone conversations with Haley. He misses her and missing her is tied to missing his mom and Keith and Oak Lake and the Lucas of years before, when he had been surer of things – of the future. But here he is now, the future, finally, and it's a big, fat blank page.
Maybe that's his problem. He's too afraid to do anything with that page.
"Tell me I don't sound like I'm thirty." Haley demands, growling and Lucas can imagine her face, all scrunched up and annoyed. She hates being called the Responsible One, even though that's exactly who she is. 99.5% of the time at least. And that .5% of spontaneous recklessness is always the ones that counted the most. Take her relationship with Damien West for example. That had been completely out of character for her, but there it was. Good thing though that it had ended, even if it did end up horribly as everyone had predicted and Haley had conveniently ignored.
"You sound wise."
"Wise sounds old."
"You sound smart?"
"Is that a question?"
"You know what I mean, Hales." She's easily the smartest person in a room full of people their age. And she's well aware of that. Having grown up with so much older siblings, it was inevitable that Haley had learned valuable wisdom just by watching her brothers and sisters make numerous, rebellious mistakes. She'd vicariously lived through her sisters' drama and her brothers' aggressive testosterone driven fights. This is why she knows how to throw a good punch and an impressive bitch slap. Or so she claims, Lucas has not seen her be physically violent, but her playful smacks are strong enough for him to be wary of her actual punch. Tiny little thing that she is.
"Uh-huh," She says this like she's just humoring him and Lucas lets out a small sigh, dragging his hands over his face, steering their conversation back to their original, more pressing topic.
"Maybe I should go back to Oak Lake and just, I don't know, be an assistant coach to the Lions."
"Hey, now that's original." It's her Rolling My Eye voice and it's a sign for Lucas to gear himself up for their usual banter.
"Okay, then smart ass. I'll be a chef."
"At your mom's café? Yeah. Shocking."
"I'll form a band. Be a drummer. Get a sleeves tattoo. I'll reserve a spot for your name on it."
"Euw. And when you get asked by Rolling Stone, 'So who is Haley James?' you'll tell them what?"
"Who says it's gonna be 'Haley James'?"
"Bob?" Haley lets out a hearty laugh. "Drummer Lucas Scott and his mysterious tattoo. That'll give you solid press for a while at least."
"I was thinking Bunny Beaugard."
"Oh my God, shut up! Do not ever bring up my Porn Name ever again." She snorts and giggles and Lucas let her, just soaking it all up. Damn he misses home. But he misses her more. They'd spent so much of their lives together it still takes him by surprise sometimes when he has to consider the distance and time difference between them.
"Hey, how about you come here? Visit me for a while. I don't really have the space for a guest," he confesses, looking around his apartment, "but you can sleep on top of me."
"That sounds really disturbing. And don't tempt me, Luke. We're trying this thing remember? You and I having our own separate adventure. We need this. We need to get out of our comfort zones. That's how people grow."
Lucas knows what Haley means. Between the two of them, she has always been the one that wanted to get out of Oak Lake and now she thinks by forcing herself to stay there, life lessons will be learned. Those were her exact words. But really, she's there on a mission to get over Damien West. She figures the best way to do it is to have their history together, all their memories rooted in Oak Lake, slapping her on a daily basis. People constantly asking about them were added bonus. And Haley especially liked to explain to anyone who would listen, in great detail, why they had broken up. It came to a point that Damien actually called Lucas begging to make Haley stop saying shit about him. Lucas had happily wished him a good stoning the moment he steps foot at Oak Lake before blocking his number.
But yeah, that's Haley James for you. Once she gets an idea inside her head, she'll have to follow it through, consequences be damned. Further proof that she isn't Miss Predictable that everyone had pegged her to be. She wants to escape being so unfairly boxed in by people's expectation by doing the exact opposite of everything she had planned after graduating from Stanford.
"So, how's the hometown treating 'ya?" He asks, listening as Haley puffs out a huge breath, obviously also having her own issues.
"It is driving me crazy. I can't stand it here. Everything is the same. Freakishly, you know? Like I've been gone for four years and my room scared me shitless with how unchanged it looked."
"How much damage have you wrought?" He can read Haley like a well-loved book; he knows exactly what will happen on the next page and Haley confirms this by telling him that she had repainted half of her room yellow and the other half blue. "Hey maybe I'll become one those guys that flips houses. How much are you willing to pay me to renovate your room?"
"Lucas, seriously. Just be you. Your confused, frustrated writer you. The you that you are now, trying to figure out stuff. Write about that. Oh, you know what, write about the girl you met at that record store. What's her name?"
Lucas rolls his eyes. Haley and her relentlessly one-track mind. She isn't going to let this go. She has been needling him for weeks now ever since he had off handedly mentioned that he had met someone interesting. He finally yields. He had already made her wait long enough and he knows she'd been dying to get more details about this.
"Peyton." Lucas is trying not to burst out all the details. He wants to savor everything first, wants to remember all of the details so he can tell it with the right words, the right imagery, because he's scared that he won't be able to convey to Haley how Peyton is slowly inching her way towards his life.
Haley lets out an impatient sniff. "Does she have a last name or just Peyton? That's a thing there in LA right? One Named People."
Lucas snorts. LA, City of One Named People. "Consider that stolen."
"Use it for your pleasure buddy." There's a pause and she gasp, "not that kind of pleasure."
Lucas chokes with laughter. "I miss you, buddy."
"Awww, I miss you too. So, this Peyton, no last name?"
Sawyer. Peyton Sawyer.
He didn't find out until after the third time they got talking. Their first conversation was abrupt and even cold, if Lucas was pressed to describe it.
She has warm sunshine on her hair, playful springy curls, but her eyes were the dark evergreen of a storm in spring. She stands tall, her right shoulder just slightly dipping, as though there is a fixed weight on top of it that she is reluctant to shrug off.
And this was how he met her: One incredibly lazy afternoon, he wasn't sure of the exact day (days were blending in on each other lately and Lucas had thought that it might be because he was feeling slightly depressed), he had caught her unabashedly staring at him inside Amoeba Music. He had been casually going through the vinyl section, silently reminding himself that his place was cramped enough and he should not be hoarding shit.
But he wanted to buy something for Haley and so he had been holding two records: Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Natalie Merchant's Motherland, trying to remember which one she already had in possession. Haley loves music as much as he does, although their tastes vary. She has a more sophisticated, wider range whereas he leaned towards excessive guitar riffs and whatever his Uncle Keith played in his motor shop. Mostly Journey, but let's not get into that.
Anyway, he had felt someone intensely staring at him and unable to shrug it off, he had awkwardly glanced up.
Her facial expression was stormy, almost accusatory. Frowning and then feeling strangely defensive, he quickly blurted out an explanation, "It's for Haley." And then remembering that he's in LA and absolutely no one here knew who Haley was, he felt it was necessary to add, "She's back home in Oak Lake. My bestfiend, Haley. She's my bestfriend." He knew he sounded dumb, repeating it like that and she must have taken it as some sort of pick-up line, an unnecessary assurance that Haley wasn't in fact a girlfriend and that he was pretty much available should she be interested.
She gave him a sweeping look of nothing but pure contempt, from the tips of his spiked hair, his plain dark gray shirt to his old scruffy Chuck Taylors, before derisively snorting and then walking out without a word or a glance.
Embarrassed and irritated, Lucas had rolled his eyes and wondered why her reaction had gotten into him in the first place. He had been used to those kinds of looks – although hers was probably mostly confused curiosity, not necessarily cruel and mean, not until he had mentioned Haley and then explained to her who she was, at least and he could understand how that might have sounded to her. It was a simple enough misunderstanding and girls were all mostly naturally warry about guys suddenly talking to them in public places. Still, what was with the attitude? Like had had done something offensive.
It had bothered him. He kept seeing her scowl, the way her green eyes flashed at him.
He remembered afterwards that she'd been carrying a stack of CDs, expertly balanced on her arm. He stupidly assumed that she worked there, which was why he had obsessively gone to the record store almost every day, trying to catch her. What he was going to do or say, he wasn't sure. He just wanted to see her again.
When he finally saw her, a whole month had passed. Time did nothing to lessen his need for an explanation at what offensive thing had he done to cause such a reaction. He saw her blonde hair first; the curls were shorter and it gave her an almost impish look. She was going through a used stack of vinyl, both hand resting at the first record, fingers gracefully curling and expertly going through every record her green eyes quietly scanning the titles. She had a cute dent on her forehead as she concentrated on her task. She did not even notice him hovering by her side.
"My uncle loves Journey." Lucas muttered when she had stopped at their Greatest Hits Record, the cover as familiar to Lucas as Keith's small, cramped office. There's probably a Journey poster in that room, somewhere.
She didn't seem in the least bit surprised that he was beside her like a creepy stalker, talking to her as though they were friends. There was no startled sound of surprise, or even a tiny step back. She was cool, calm, collected. Probably used to getting unwanted attention from the regular creeps.
Lucas felt a little sad at that.
She merely shifted her weight on to her left foot and slowly, taking all the time in the world, she faced him. Disdain must be her default mode, because that was how she looked at him before a flash of recognition shifts her face into a less intimidating scowl. "So, which one did you get?" She asks, turning her head and continuing her search.
"Uhm…what?" Lucas was floored both by her question and the sudden realization that she was gorgeous in a way that he had never really thought was attractive, until now, that is.
Brooke (he had not thought of her in a while) had an open, friendly face, bedimpled, fun and warm and hopeful. It made you want to be her friend. Lindsey had strong, intelligent features that made you want to listen to what she has to say. They were both beautiful and beckoned you to come closer, a kind of magnetic pull that was futile to resist.
This girl though, everything about her screamed, "Back. The. Fuck. Off" but somehow, oddly, it made him want to lean in closer, catch the glint in her eyes, that yellow-gold speckles he wasn't close enough to see, but instinctively knew would be there. He has to stop himself from stepping closer, just so he could check if he could smell the sun – no, not the sun, but sunshine, on her.
Lucas felt the tug. Right there, between his navel and his chest. It was a sharp pull that almost made him want to bend his head towards hers. It felt slightly hypnotic. Strange and not even remotely romantic, to be honest. It freaked him out. He rarely felt any kind of connection towards random strangers. Even girls. He had always had this wall that separated him from people he didn't know. He had developed it early on when he wanted to control the people he let in on his life: less chances of them suddenly disappearing for whatever reason, a disappointing footnote for his future autobiography.
"For your bestfriend Haley, which record did you get for her."
He blinked at her, her green eyes meeting his with an almost belligerent kind of confidence. A defense mechanism. He knew it almost instantly because he recognized it with startling clarity. He practiced it. Although he tended to use the broody aloofness that people mistook for loneliness and sadness. Still, Lucas could not help but feel warmed despite the almost unfriendly tone of her voice. She remembered. A month had passed and she still remembered. Just as he did.
"Both." He finally sheepishly answered. "Didn't know which one she already had, so." His sentence awkwardly hangs between them.
The faint frown line on her face deepens. "What, there aren't any good record stores from where you came from? Oak Lake, right?" There wasn't a sneering contempt in her voice, rather an oddly touching concern at the possibility of any place severely lacking in a good record store, like it was a tragedy that she could not quite comprehend.
She remembered even that. Lucas shakes his head, trying to clear it when he realized that she did smell like sunshine: warm and tangy and all summer. Oranges and lemons and tangerines. Fumbling with words, he tried to explain that there's one decent record store and that's where he and Haley used to get all their music.
"Do you know Oak Lake?" He asked, unable to contain the nagging curiosity that was sounding off alarm bells inside his head, "Or do you have like, really, really impressively good memory?" He did not want to sound accusing but it seemed unnatural for her to remember everything about that embarrassingly fleeting one-sided conversation.
"North Carolina, right?"
Lucas could only numbly nod.
"I'm a Blue Devil." She said, mischievousness displayed full on: lips curled up, green eyes suddenly alive and lit up.
"Ah." Lucas felt his stomach dropping. "Basketball fan?" He didn't want to ask that either, didn't want it to be the topic of their conversation but he could not help it and it was out even before he could stop himself. Better to know now, right?
She crosses her arms and gives him a threatening look. "Please tell me you are not from UNC. I know when I'm being called a Dookie."
"Oh no." She radiated pent up violence and he was quick to put up his hand in surrender, "Stanford. We call ourselves Stanford Students. No catchy nicknames, sorry." He grinned down at her.
An almost friendly smile. "Not really a basketball fan so please don't ask me about basketball. You can ask me about music, though."
Lucas scratched his head, "Why does that sound like a dare?"
A laugh. A short, curt one. But, still a laugh. And Lucas was extremely pleased with himself. He liked it that he was able to get a chuckle out of her. A small win for today.
"Well, Stanford Student, do you dare?"
They ended up having coffee and Peyton proving how expansive her knowledge was when it came to music. She was a walking encyclopedia and Lucas was impressed. Also, he was breathlessly attracted to her. Enough to want to see her again and spend hours upon hours trying to grill her about songs and bands and genres and concerts she had seen.
They have a lot of shared interests: Travis, Steinback, dark coffee - no sugar, no cream just pure bitterness, beer that was no longer cold, starless nights, deserts, long aimless walks. He loved hearing her rant, she was incredibly opiniated and well informed. Their discussions bordered into full on debates and sometimes outright argument, voices weren't raised, but angrily hissed until they realize how silly they were being and they'd dissolve into snorts and giggles.
She read a lot of sci-fi and was into anything that was dark and old and gothic but she could be, surprisingly, girly. Not in the way she talked or moved or even dressed, but in the way she'd look up at him, when she leaned her head into his shoulder, her fingers long and dainty. If she's nervous and stressed, she'd flexed them, curling and uncurling, her wrist an erotic arch of pale skin and bird-like bones. Their hands brushed once and her skin was so, so soft.
Their topic of conversation knew no bounds and somewhere as they agreed and disagreed about random stuff, personal tidbits of information were freely shared, shyly muttered, given up in strangled whispers until Lucas felt like they've built a solid base from which their relationship can stand on without the dangerous wobbling of something built in a heady, passionate rush.
It starts off with random trivia, secrets and moments shared, laid down beneath their feet, like a cobblestone path that was leading them somewhere. There was no hurry to get there. It was an unspoken agreement between the two of the them.
The waiting, the anticipation had somehow added a different layer to their nightly coffees and lingering goodbyes, the sweetness in their good mornings and good nights, the warm, electric current hovering between skins that they were consciously trying to keep apart. And when accidental touches happen, they'd share knowing looks and nods of their heads, confirmation that their story is now about to drastically change.
It was just a matter of when and of course, who will be brave enough to make the first move?
Four and a half months into their friendship, which was a flurry of really early breakfast and really late coffee runs, a few casual dinners and thousand hours of talking about everything and anything, Peyton finally invited him to a small, surprise gig by a band whose name Lucas had never ever heard of. It was inside an apartment slightly bigger than his and it was euphoric.
Everything throbbed.
It was energy and sound and the strobing lights changing from harsh red, vibrant blue to neon green and heat. Lucas remembered his shirt being soaked, the sweat just dripping from his chin down to his shirt. The sweltering heat of people crammed together in a tiny space, dancing in time with the pounding of the drums, the thudding base. He remembered looking down at Peyton, arms outstretched, moving in tiny dreamy movements. Lucas remembered watching her blonde curls sticking at the back of her neck. He remembered how it made him thirsty, his throat dry and wanting.
He remembered closing his eyes and imagining what it would be like to bent his head and suck on that patch of skin, tasting her.
He didn't kiss that night. But she did.
And everything changed. And somehow, they were both ready for it. Like they had planned it all along.
Peyton did not work at the record store. He figured this out on their second just-coffee-date when they agreed to meet at a different location. She was coming off from her work and Lucas was too relieved he had not made a fool of himself by asking her for her employee discounts.
She was interning for a film production company, xeroxing files for the assistant to the assistant of the Music Supervisor. She has to deal with getting all the information needed for licensing stuff that they'll use in the movie. It sounds boring, she confessed and not exactly what she had in mind after she graduated from her Duke, but she loved it.
Music was in her blood, she told him. She learned how to play the piano early on but her parents were snotty rich McMansion owners that growing up she had to learn only the classics. She ended up hating it so she stubbornly and rebelliously stopped playing the piano and learned instead to turn up her music real loud especially when she had her Fall Out Boy phase. Not that she had entirely given up on them but now that she had to unearth 70s music and late 80s music for the movie, she thinks she might have found her decade.
She draws too. Sketches. Dark lines of chaos and angry slashes that seems to cut through paper. She'd shown him some of her stuff. She wasn't overly shy but she'd been wary at first and did not like to talk much about it.
Lucas was in awe. She was by far the most artistic person he had ever met. She had real talent. Especially in drawing. Her confidence was a lot better than his because not once had he ever mentioned that he wanted to be a writer. Not yet anyway. He still felt like a fraud. It was different with Peyton because he could actually see her art. His was still inside his head, a mad jumble of words still struggling to make sense. A part of him was already starting to accept it, that maybe it was all just a dream and to really grow up, he has to finally learn humility and acceptance.
But one fateful night, when he was finally telling Haley about Peyton, everything became clear inside his head. The words found their places, their cadence, their rhyme and reason and when he told Haley goodnight and ended the call, he cleared his table, took out this barely used laptop and wrote the whole night until morning.
He wrote about home.
Or at least the home that had always haunted him.
It got picked up by a small literary magazine. He didn't tell anyone, not even his mom or Haley. He didn't know why. Maybe because what he wrote was a confession of a little boy that they both would not recognize. They'd be surprised at how much he still thought and wondered about that abandoned life. He worried that it will hurt their feelings, that they would not understand that this was just a way for him to exorcise the demons of regret.
But mostly because it had been slightly disturbing, heavily influenced by Peyton's gothic art.
Everyone leaves. Dark shadows surrounding a lone street light. The red light is turned on, its crimson ink standing out like fresh blood from an open wound. Like the way he had felt the first night they kissed: alive and throbbing.
His story though, did not have a happy ending.
And also, because he made Nathan fall in love with Haley. Which was insane, because in his story, Lucas was Nathan and Nathan was Lucas and they were also both Dan and Keith, two generation of Scott Men, brothers at war with each other, only it's just one person. That one character all muddled up inside a fantasy world.
They liked the story exactly because it was dark and depressing, weaving in and out of the glories of high school days and how quickly things get confusing once the golden boys turn into men that needed a steady income. His was a generation of early burn outs. It was gritty and had an unflinching look at the mental state of people his age suddenly far from home, suddenly alone. People enjoyed that shit. Knowing that there's someone more fucked up than them.
Or so the editor told him in the letter. It was just a short story, barely touching the surface but it was personal and he would not have had the courage to submit it if he knew that there was a chance that it will be published. He had been expecting a rejection letter and now that it had been published, he wished it would stay at the one-thousand-LA-based-reader magazine. That no one he knows will read it.
It's merely shadow of who he is, but he didn't think Haley and his mom would understand that side of him and they'd worry about him.
And then Peyton came at his house at three in the morning, pounding on his door, tears in her eyes, a copy of the magazine clutched in her hands, pressed against her heart.
And she understood.
He changed everyone's name of course, even the place. It was Noname Nowhere Somewhere Small City. But there was a basketball team and their mascot was a Raven, like the one they had in Tree Hill. It used to run around their court, flapping its dark wings. Lucas had loved that. It reminded him of Edgar Allan Poe and he was sad that this fact seemed lost to the whole Ravens team, who quoted the poem for their hands-in, but do they know what it means?
Nevermore.
He thought about that a lot, so he named the story after it, "The Unkindness of Ravens".
Peyton was happy for him and insisted that they celebrate. And in the middle of celebratory drinks and the opening of bottles and hand holding and kissing and Peyton loudly declaring that he will be a great writer not someday but now, yes, Lucas, now! he leaned forward and told her that he loved her. That he was in love with her. And that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
It wasn't a proposal exactly but her green eyes shone with tears and she told him, yes. Yes let's spend it together, Lucas Scott.
It was relatively fast but this was something neither High School Star Basketball Player Lucas Scott or Shy Unsure Stanford Student Lucas Scott would ever do and wasn't growing up all about opening your heart and taking risks? They moved in together. He got rid of his mini apartment, everything he owned snugly fitting inside two large boxes. That was it. His previous life boxed and labelled and on its way, hurtling through the highway in Peyton's Comet as they moved forward to their new life.
He still had not told Haley about his first published story. Which was tricky because Peyton and Haley had gotten into phoning each other every day – his fault, this was how he had to introduce them: Haley on speaker phone, gushing as she and Peyton chattered like long lost friends – because Peyton might suddenly bring it up and what was he going to say?
Lucas will have to practice a convincing answer. Other than not sharing his first success as a writer, Lucas's life was perfect – not at all steady and sure – but it was no longer filled with crippling anxiety and loneliness. He's on the verge of finishing another story and this time, it's about Peyton. She doesn't know it yet but Lucas is sure that she is his muse and he wants to capture her on paper and let everyone know how much he love her.
"My ex-boyfriend is inviting us for dinner." Peyton tells him as they cuddled on the sofa, reading. His, a new book he had purchased ("Rashomon", he's going through a Japanese author phase just because he felt like it) and her, a licensing agreement she has to double, triple, quadruple check until she is crossed eyed and every word looks like it is spelled incorrectly. This was her constant complain. Her business course in Duke gave her a background on the legal stuff, but she wasn't being asked to check on that.
No, no, leave the technical jargons to the executives, you just need to make sure the commas are where they are supposed to be.
Which was insulting and made Peyton grind her teeth, even in sleep. This was probably the most crippling part of being an adult. Lucas is sympathetic, having been promoted from messenger boy to All Around Office Assistant which really meant doing everything and anything anyone asked him to. The hours had become slightly more demanding and he missed being out in LA smog. The only perk was during summer heatwaves when it was a blessing to be inside an airconditioned room organizing someone else's shit.
But back to the dinner and ex-boyfriend situation. There was an honest casualness in her statement, no change in her tone of voice, no tensing of her shoulder, nothing that bothered Lucas anyway. And he thought it this was just one of the amusing quirks of their relationship. If she isn't making a big deal out of this, why should he? Didn't mean that he wouldn't tease her about it.
"Which ex-boyfriend," he asks slightly curious. They've had this talk before. He'd asked her to skip over high school and the first two years of college because, well he reasoned the adult relationship mattered more. He only had Lindsey and a passing mention of an intense crush that he could not get over until he finally graduated. Peyton shared as much as he did, which was just bare necessities. Names weren't even mentioned.
Peyton, lying on his lap, arched her neck to look up at him, "Julian Baker. Another intern. A production assistant who also happens to be the son of the producer."
Lucas whistles. "You didn't mention you were dating Hollywood royalty." He gives her a playful pinch and Peyton rolls her eyes. He enjoys the fact that he is able to tease her and not agonize over the mention of this ex-boyfriend. Lucas is partly surprised at how easily they have settled down into this comfortable companionship that was never complicated. There isn't any second guessing when they talked to each other. Everything feels open.
Of course, there were still parts of their lives that they have yet to talk about. She knows about the Abandoned by the Father and Scorned by the Younger Half Brother Arc of his life and it wasn't like he had any skeleton in his closets. Hers were more or less the same as his: recalcitrant only child southern Princess who had no wish to inherit any of her parent's business or money. Lucas thinks that Peyton's only skeleton in the closet is that she knew all the words and dance steps to all the Spice Girls songs.
This ex-boyfriend does not feel like threat, not with the unconcerned way Peyton had brought him up. "It was a brief fling. He was practically, an almost boyfriend."
"Almost how?" He rakes his hand over to her hair, his favorite part of all of her. Peyton is naturally rebellious. Like her hair, or so she would like to think although it obviously isn't true. Her hair is all curls, true but they are the tamed kind, not at all wild and unruly. It is the complete opposite of her personality: soft golden sunshine and most of all, pliant to his whims and fancies. He twirls his finger around and around and her curls clings and wraps itself around his hand and Lucas adored every strand of her hair.
Peyton knows this and is sometimes annoyed by how obsessed he is with her hair. It isn't natural, she told him once and he merely wrapped it in his fist and pulled her to him, soundly kissing her on the mouth.
She coaxes out the rebellious, unruly side of him and Lucas is equal parts excited and cautious about that. He hasn't done anything crazy yet. He has no plans of moving here in LA to stay with her but their relationship feels serious enough for him to start planning for a trip to Oak Lake, but for now, he is happy to deal with the appearance of an old flame.
Peyton shrugs. "We met at pre-prod when it wasn't hectic yet but then we hit actual production and we just didn't have the time or the energy left for anything. So, almost boyfriend."
"So dinner with him and then what? Late night coffee at our place?"
"That's a creepy threesome." He and Peyton both make a face, forehead scrunched up and they both burst out laughing at their mirror expression.
Lucas feels he has found his soul mate.
"Nah. More like a double date. He's bringing his new girl. Some up and coming young designer. Not part of the production, definitely not in the costume department." She makes a face. "Julian had to make sure I got that part, because to him it sounds like just because he is the son of the Producer, he gets the girls he wants."
"Sounds like he has weird daddy issues."
Peyton nods her head. "All the men I have ever dated have weird daddy issues."
Lucas chuckles. "Sucks for you."
Peyton sits up, takes his hand and squeezes it. "Sucks for everyone, actually."
Lucas could not help but wince at that, but before he can say anything, Peyton lets go of his hand, brings hers up to cradle his face, her thumb moving in small, soothing circles against his skin. "Hey, sorry, didn't mean to sound like an ass."
"It's ok. You're ok. You're not an ass."
"Oh you think that now. So, double date with Julian?"
"Sure," He nods. It might be time for his to expand his circle of friends. Besides, how bad could it be?
It's Brooke Davis.
Julian Baker, Peyton's ex-boyfriend, is dating Brooke Davis.
God.
Lucas stands like a dumb statue as introductions were made and like the last time, like always, Brooke gives him that same radiant smile that feels like a sharp kick in the gut, as she reaches over to shake his hand. "Oh! Yes, I remember. Lucas Scott. Small world!" She beams at him.
Lucas feels slightly off balance. This is beyond small fucking world. This is his life and he feels like someone is playing tricks on him.
He is like Peyton in a lot of ways. That she has a real tight circle of friends is just one of their many similarities. But he could not quite appreciate it when she had so easily welcomed Brooke Davis into her circle. Every day, they seemed to meet up and spend so much time together. Lucas could not imagine why. They were at the end of opposite ends of everything.
What could they find in each other that was interesting enough to hold their attention for hours and hours on end? He could not imagine them finishing each other's sentences. It's whacked. It's driving him nuts. But he realizes too that he didn't know Brooke Davis, not like how he knows Peyton and all he ever has of Brooke were his fantasies and the made-up stuff that he used to fill in the gaps of what he knew of Brooke from second hand information and yes, from stalking her. He could admit that now and he is sorry that he had ever acted like a complete and total creep. He had been young. And stupid. He regrets the stalking part, even though it wasn't like that kind of stalking.
"You sound jealous." Peyton told him the other day when he had off handedly mentioned the amount of time she was spending with Brooke doing God knows what.
It isn't jealousy per se. It's probably, if he's really going to be honest about it: guilt.
He has not told Peyton about Brooke. Well he has, technically. He tries to word it inside his head, how he was going to confess his embarrassing fixation with her. The object of his affection, crusher of his heart and all that. Remember that intense thing that I had in Stanford? Yeah, that's her. Brooke Davis. Everything about her tormented me in all of my four years in Stanford. She does not know it but I was in love with her. Or the idea of her since I never really got to know her.
Peyton eyes him when he does not say anything. She lets out a frustrated breath of air, puffing her hair out of her forehead, springy curls bouncing as they settled back down. "She just needs more friends. Like real friends. Especially since she and Julian went pfffft."
Lucas didn't ask for details about what pfffft meant. He's assuming that one time dinner date turned exactly into that. Just a one time thing. But he didn't want to dwell on that either so he shoves that information out of his head, shreds it away, so he won't be forced to re-examine the whys and hows of that relationship pfffting.
Peyton does not notice his pretend lack of interest. "You need to get to know Brooke, I think you'll really like her. "
No. I do not need to anything Brooke.
"I just -" He starts haltingly and manages a wince. "I miss you. I feel like we have not spent any time together lately."
This is also true but this is also isn't Peyton's fault. It isn't like she and Brooke would go out until late and come crawling home when he's asleep or pretends to be asleep, so he wouldn't have to face Peyton when she tells him how awesome Brooke is and how much she loved that they have nothing in common, except maybe Julian. Of course. He isn't their something in common and Lucas isn't sure how he feels about that exactly. Relieved? Slightly envious? Should he actually feel anything about it? What he's actually more concerned is how Brooke Davis seems to always, always have a way of barreling into his life right when he least expected it. Or wanted it.
Because he didn't.
Want it. Her. Whatever.
He's with Peyton now. That is what matters. He tells himself this and then pretends to sleep and dream when he hears Peyton opening their bedroom door. It's only 10:00pm. Soon, Peyton will notice that he isn't tired from office coffee runs and being at the beck and call of his sadistic bosses. Soon, she'll figure out the truth that he was avoiding her and then she will ask and Lucas hopefully, by that time, would have gathered enough courage to tell her the truth.
He makes the confession. As always, whenever he feels lost or confused, he goes to the one person he would trust with his life.
"Holyshit, Lucas that is some third-rate, primetime CW drama plot thickener."
Haley rarely swears and Lucas cringes a little. Also, why can't he think and write made up words like her? Plot thickener. He's going to also steal that.
He grips his phones, stares at the ceiling, willing Peyton to stay out later than usual. She and Brooke have started hitting up the clubs every Tuesday, because it's the safest, apparently. It's the weekend that they have to avoid because by then all the pathetic men would have talked themselves into trying their luck with girls at the bar, buying them drinks and spilling out dumb pickup lines. Tuesdays are slow days, no one ever bothered them on a Tuesday. "It shouldn't matter right? 'Cause I'm happy with Peyton. She makes me happy, we're a good match."
He could envision Haley nodding her head in agreement. "You are buddy. She makes you stable. Less neurotic."
Lucas squints. "You think I'm neurotic?"
"Well yes, but in a completely loveable way."
"Gee, thanks."
"Do you still have feelings for Brooke?" Haley goes in for the kill, always know how to voice out the unvoiced question inside his head. He already has an honest answer for this.
"I remember how I felt about her."
There's a long pause at the end of the line. "I guess that is different. Maybe it's just, you know, nostalgia."
Right, Lucas thinks. Nostalgia.
It turns out, he likes that word. Likes it enough to feel annoyed at Haley for connecting it with Brooke Davis. The girl who never knew had crushed his heart. But that was years ago. Almost ancient history. He could always tell her. Maybe he should.
But then that might upend his entire world with Peyton. What they have has always been built with love and care and yes, honesty.
Honesty is so much better than nostalgia. Lucas decides he will tell Peyton. It's the right thing to do.
Except, like everything else in their relationship, she tells him first.
"It's her, isn't it?" Peyton asks him from out of nowhere as they were having their usual late-night, after dinner coffee. All the window blinds are pulled up, bathing Peyton's – no, no their – apartment in golden moonlight that was made specifically for Peyton's hair and her eyes and her skin, which glows and looks cool and inviting. He reaches for her, touches her bare thigh and he feels that same tug from a year ago, right there: his heart nudging its way towards his rib cage.
"Who?" He asks, distracted by the realization that he never got to ask her why she had given him that look at the record store the first time they met.
"Brooke Davis. She's the one you had an intense crush with at Stanford."
Peyton had always been smart and observant and never one to let things go unsaid. The silence of secrets is the most effective poison in the whole world. It will eat at you slowly and agonizingly. Better to confront it before it starts destroying everything.
He looks up at her green eyes and he knows that she sees the truth in his face. "How'd you figure?"
"You never want to hang out with her even though I'd also be there. It's like, you're afraid to be near her."
Lucas has nothing to say to that, so he quietly nods his head, his fingers moving gently across Peyton's moonlight-kissed skin.
"And also, you had that look that night we went to dinner. You were all shades of gray and yellow at the edges, except for two bright spots here," and she taps her fingers on the curve of his cheeks. It is a tender touch and it radiated sadness and half a heartbeat later, he grabs her, crushing her to him.
"I thought it's because you thought Julian was really hot and maybe you were a little intimidated and jealous," she mumbled into his shoulder.
Lucas lets out an involuntary shout of laughter because if Julian had not brought Brooke Davis that night, that's exactly what he would have been thinking and feeling. But it was a complete reversal and damn him, because he did not have the words to comfort Peyton. So he held her and didn't let go.
He did not want Peyton to cut her ties with Brooke, they've become good friends and good friends are hard to find in this city. Peyton deserves to have that. Besides he is no longer a child. He should face this like a man. And because he wanted to assure Peyton that it didn't matter what he felt for Brooke all those years ago – it had not been real, not when it had been a completely one-sided thing – he made the effort of joining them on their weekly brunches.
It was a show of both faith and trust and Lucas was determined to be perfect for Peyton. To show her that he would chooser her every time.
Brunches were safe. It was in broad daylight, no alcohol were involved, at least he didn't drink. It surprised him, how easily he could sit across from her and get to know her like he had always wanted and dreamed off during Stanford. As long as he didn't stare at her face for too long he could carry on with normal conversations. As long as he didn't watch her dimples flashing as she smiled and giggled with Peyton.
The truth is, he enjoyed watching the easy friendship between Peyton and Brooke blossom and bloom. Brooke softened up Peyton's edges and Peyton gave Brooke a glimpse of the world that wasn't all romantic fancies and spring flowers.
And everything was fine. For a while at least.
Lucas sees it coming, like a speeding train hurtling towards him and he is for a full second, frozen, unable to move or think or even breath: here it comes.
Brooke Davis is nothing like the Brooke Davis that he had imagined. The way he imagined her, she had been all sultry voice and coyness, unattainable, like a distant star, to be admired from a far. But she isn't. She is down to earth and frank and is surprisingly more mature than he had expected. The giggly girlishness is replaced by a sharpness that stunned him.
She is always busy, always with meetings to go to, clients to see, fabrics to buy. She is always on the move, with new stories to tell every time they got together. She is always dressed professionally, has her own business card and is never later, no matter what the occasion. She's incredibly ambitious and has somehow, despite their age, has harnessed a kind of elegance that he'd only seen in the quiet way his mom had worked and managed her café.
He could see why Peyton loved being with Brooke. She knows what she wants and exactly how she was going to get it. She was so sure of herself that she had taken a leap of faith and decided that she will not work for anyone but instead, she will start her own company. She had set up her own website and sold dresses, all designed and sewn by her.
Lucas was in awe.
But Brooke merely shook her head and laughed, "I underestimated myself and had to shut down that site because I didn't have enough dressed and there were so many orders. I had to hide out in my apartment and unplug everything. That's your first lesson, Lucas Scott: never under any circumstance, undervalue yourself."
She'd become tenacious but not at all jaded. Hope still shone in her eyes and in the way she smiled at him. It stripped him off of his usual defenses and one day, while waiting for Peyton to show up, he sheepishly admitted that he had hopelessly stalked her for almost four years and he apologized for being a total creep about it. Everything he had planned on telling her came back to him and he was beyond embarrassed but he told himself that being able to say them now, out loud, in front of her, was proof of how much he had grown up. Enough to have an honest, soul baring conversation with someone he had thought would only remain a lingering ghost in his life.
But she was here now and when he was done, when he had squinted up at her, trying his best to sit still and not fidget, to not duck his head in shame as the confession rings inside his head, like a badly written poem that was dripping with longing and excruciating desperation of unrequited love…
Sheesh.
But Brooke had stared at him long and hard, as though she had not heard – or if she had, did not understand – anything that he had just said. Like she was trying to decipher a language she had never heard before. Her jaws had slackened, her lips parting slowly, gently.
Oh, just – forget it.
But he could not take it all back now. Not with the way she was looking at him now.
Trainwreck.
The word flashes inside Lucas's mind, like a warning of some sort, but it disappears as soon as she breaks their eye contact, wincing, her dimples deepening in a way that was totally different when she smiled.
"You weren't." Her raspy voice feels like hot fingers grazing his spine and Lucas could not help but sit up straighter, leaning forwards – towards her, trying to catch her words so that he could lay claim to it and hide and keep it locked away, forever, never to be thought of or remember ever again.
He'd always known that she would have to gently let him down and tell him that they would be better off as friends and if she had told this during their years in Stanford, he would not have been able to get over it at all, but now – now it's different and he could awkwardly agree with her, yes, yes, you're right. I know and maybe he could even add a quick friendly pat across her knuckles.
"I didn't – I had hoped but –"
That but and the words that were left unsaid as Peyton arrived, leaning forward to drop a quick kiss on his cheeks, it opened up a hole, and down Lucas went, into the same kind of spiraling madness that had taken Alice to a different world.
A world where they weren't waiting for Petyton, where it was just the two of them and they were discovering things about each other that they already knew and guessed years and years ago when they were young and stupid and insecure.
And Lucas knew exactly where this was going to lead them.
Torn but determined to be loyal, he immediately jumped back, avoiding the train that would have crushed him – them – all of three of them – into nothing but a tangled mess of hurt feelings and everything that he wanted to avoid in life.
"I'm going back home to Oak Lake."
Peyton stares up at him, "Like for how long?"
"Mom's about to finish her studies in Italy. She's coming back home in a few months and I want to be there when she does and I think it's," he sighs, runs his hands through his hair, pulls it up and pats it down, "I'm done with LA. This," he takes a sweeping gesture at that city that was surrounding them, "wasn't meant to be permanent."
They had talked about this, of course. Peyton knew that this isn't where he wanted to build his life. That his future would always have been going back to Oak Lake, but this was different with him just springing it up on her from out of fucking nowhere. Lucas knows this, but he needs to get out of here.
His reason is only a half-truth but maybe that's why it's believable enough and maybe, Peyton also felt the same way because she didn't ask him why and how, she just wanted to know one thing, "Do you want me to come with you?"
Lucas feels his heart stopping for a few second, aching in a way that was new and old at the same time, he kneels down in front of her, takes her hands in his, squeezes it, links their fingers together and stares up at her, "You think I'm leaving LA without you?!"
Peyton gives him a smile that will put the sun to shame.
And that is how they ended up back in Oak Lake. He had uprooted them and he felt relieved and horrible at the same time. Like had had made Peyton choose between him and her dreams but Peyton tells him that her dreams have changed. Now she just wanted to be with him and it didn't matter where they were and what she was doing, she'd find something she could love in Oak Lake, aside from him that is.
Lucas senses her own quiet desperation – like a part of her already knows, is already blaming herself for pushing him…. but they both knew that they had to do this or else everything will be ruined and Lucas wasn't – he didn't want to be that kind of man: the kind that could love two women at the same time. It was an impossibility. It would never be the same equal kind of love – but it would always, constantly shift and there is no way to live a life.
It would be like living the way Dan had lived his life and Lucas would never, ever let that happen.
But he couldn't just let Brooke go. Maybe that was his mistake. That one weakness that he had not been able to fight off. But he felt that it wasn't just about him anymore and it he owed it to her too. Especially when he was the one putting a stop to their what could have been; when he was the one ripping off the first page of their story. It will have to be left untold.
It was just meant to be a goodbye. Quick and friendly, like the dry gentle brush of his lips against her cheeks.
Except he sighed. Or she did. Maybe they both did.
The moment shifts and the kiss becomes nowhere near quick and friendly. Brooke is clinging to him, opening her mouth, sucking on his tongue and he is pulling her up to him, his arms squeezing her, hands gripping her waist and God – what were they doing? What is he doing? Why does this feel so wonderful and awful all the same.
It's a stupid question. He knows why. And even as his minds screams at him, even with his heart painfully pounding against his chest, Lucas thinks, this is what he had always wanted, this is what had been missing in his life: this burning intensity that he craved and could not let go.
This is a story within a story and it is filled with the usual twist and turns. All affairs start the same way, goes through the same motions. An affair in itself is a cliché.
The denial, the weeks of silence, the moments of weakness, the rushed phone calls, the secret messages, that one week when Lucas had gone back to LA to get all of their stuff from the rental storage, packed and towed at the back of the pickup truck that Keith had lent him. The broken promises, the thousand goodbyes and the thousand more I need to hear your voice. All of those, a bouquet of cliché.
Details are not needed. Details needed to be blurred, pushed back into a darkened corner of the mind. What you need to know is that the happy couple settles at Oak Lake and things quickly become less of an adventure and more of the mundane.
In Oak Lake, everything is slower and there were suddenly so many empty hours to fill in. Maybe this is why the double, secret life is a lot easier to maintain. No one seems to suspect anything. Not Peyton, not Haley, his lifelong bestfriend. Maybe if his mom had been home, she would have known, would have seen in the way his eyes would shift or glaze over when he's trying to untangle the mess he had created. He would have gone to his father's grave to ask him how he made the choice, except he knows Dan wouldn't have any answers for him, so why bother.
This goes on for a while, but as all stories go, there comes the moment when realizations are made, when the only certain thing is, it has to end and choices will have to be made.
His mom calls him, she'll be home tomorrow. She gives him the time and Lucas is glad that he'll have the first few hours with his mom before Keith and Haley comes swopping her in their arm. Before he has to introduce her to Peyton.
He's about to check Keith's old pick up (which is actually his now, but it will always be Keith's in his mind) when Haley comes knocking on his door. She's learned to know because she doesn't want to walk in on him and Peyton and be scared for life. It's not like it's likely to happen. He and Peyton – there's a distance between them now and no one wants to talk about it.
"You busy?" Is a question she has never asked him before, but there's a strange look in her eyes, a tentative, unsure curl of her lips.
"Was gonna check the truck." He answers truthfully. He wants to make sure that it won't be breaking down on him, like it had during his cross-country trip – why he'd gotten delayed over a few days is believable because it's exactly what had happened. No one asked who he spent those days with. A relief because he was sick of lying. Or maybe, it was the lying that was making him sick.
Haley steps away, lets him go out and silently, nervously follows him to the garage. He glances at her, sees her wringing her hands and he feels suddenly caught. Of course, she'd know. She'd always know. And if she knows, so did Peyton. He's an idiot for even thinking that he could go on living like this.
"I wasn't snooping, I swear."
Lucas feels relieved. He can finally unburden this secret, this guilt and all the confusion and anger and misery and joy that he had gotten from having an affair with Brooke Davis. It feels like a reversal. Like the affair he's having is with Peyton but that does not make sense and Haley – like always, will make it make sense for him.
He opens his mouth but stops when she fishes out the magazine, it's front cover as familiar to him as his own face. It's the one that has his name written at the upper right corner and beneath it, italicized were "The Unkindness of Ravens"
"You don't have to explain. I think I know why you didn't want me to read it."
Lucas swallows hard. "I'm not – it's just a story, Hales. I'm not, I don't actually pretend to be someone else." Another half-truth. He pretends to be someone else, just not in the same way as in his story.
Haley makes a face and shakes her head. "You were scared I'd think you're crazy just because the character in your story is crazy?"
Lucas winces as soon as he hears this. Because, yeah. That sounds crazy. "It's just – it isn't me. Dark and sick and twisted and I don't know. I guess I was more afraid that it is me. Like some part of me blacks out and wakes up as someone else, you know?"
Haley takes a step closer towards him, her eyes wide and searching. "What is going on with you lately? Are you okay?"
He shoves his hand into his hair, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "Yes. No. I – I have to tell you something but, when mom's back okay? I kind of want to tell her first. Because she'll know how to fix it because I can't."
Something like fear flickers in Haley's eyes and he sees the sleeves of her baby doll shirt fluttering. He wraps her inside his arm, lets her head settle on his chest. He drops his chin on top of her head and suddenly feels like everything was going to be ok. He assures her this. He repeats it, like a mantra. "It's all going to be ok, Hales. I promise. You and mom and I will have dinner tomorrow."
Haley sniffles and hugs him tighter. "It's good." She tells him after a while, pulling away from his hug. "Your story, it's good. I –" she gives his arms a squeeze, "I thought it was brave of you to put it out there."
Lucas kicks himself for ever doubting Haley. He drops a kiss on her forehead. "Thank you."
"But seriously, just because you wrote something intense and crazy doesn't mean I'd think you are."
Lucas chuckles. "You sure about that?"
"Oh. Is this something about this big reveal of yours?"
Lucas nods. "You and mom, you'll understand and maybe you'll both scream at me and be disappointed but, you'll understand, whatever it is, right?"
Haley stands on her toes to kiss him on the cheeks. "Of course."
It was raining that day but the drive to the airport is short. He's way too early, but it's fine. He can just wait at the parking lot. He has enough thoughts swimming inside his head to keep him busy for a whole day.
He's made a mess of his life, but who hasn't? The important thing, he tells himself is that he will get it fixed. He has to.
He turns a corner and slows down at a red light.
He remembers Peyton's art.
Everyone leaves -
The impact leaves him breathless and it is a whole second of silence before he hears the sound of shattering glasses and metal crunching and the endless beep of a car horn. His. That was his car horn. Everything was chaos for one moment and then it wasn't. It was like someone had suddenly pulled a plug and it's suddenly quiet and calm and Lucas, he does not feel any sort of pain. He opens his eyes and thinks he sees the stars from his broken windshield.
His closes his eyes and thinks, in another life, my father will come and I will open my eyes and Mom will be there. And Haley. And Brooke too. Even Nathan. And somewhere, waiting for him, will be Peyton.
And everything will be okay.
- tbc -
OKAY. Lucas's short story will be explained later. I promise. The Unkindness of Ravens can't be autobiographical in this story so I changed it. Like super drastically and because it's actually a fic idea that I didn't know how to write so I made it into some vague, dark thriller that Lucas would end up writing. I just don't see Lucas writing YA novels, sorry. At least not this Lucas. Gosh. Am I even making any sense? Anyway, thanks again for your time reading this update. Means a lot to me :)