Soon Enough
A/N: And Emma's back with another UD. I'm loving all your reviews – they make me really happy.
Muchas gracias to Chey who read the first half of this and attempted to convince me that it didn't suck, and to Lynn who gave me motivation to actually finish this chapter.
The next chapter wont be too far away because I actually had most of it finished before I even decided to put this chapter in.
This chapter is a little different. You'll see what I mean. Just make sure you read the date. :)
Chapter 7
Snapshots of a Broken Girl
2007
"Fuck," Brooke mutters as she finishes heaving into the toilet. Extending a hand outward, she reaches blindly for the handle, hearing a loud wooshing as the toilet flushes. She crouches there on the bathroom floor for another minute. Then, bracing herself against the sink, she stands, and begins to wash out her mouth with the cold water from the tap.
She looks up into the mirror, which has one crack running along the top of it from when she chucked a hairdryer at Haley "accidentally" when they were fighting about something trivial. Her hair is tied up haphazardly – her eyes have dark circles under them from the lack of sleep.
She should have gotten her period 4 days ago. She's been throwing up at least once a day for a week. And for some reason she has an extra birth control pill, meaning she was a dumbass and missed a day.
These all add up to one thing.
Fuck.
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She feels like one of those celebrities hiding from the paparazzi because she's leaving the house in an oversized sweatshirt, aviator sunglass, and a baseball hat.
She drives to the pharmacy that's at the very edge of town and practically cleans out the shelves of pregnancy tests. Just to be sure. She doesn't want another incident like junior year.
As she stands in line at the register, behind an 80-year-old woman who is trying to pay exact change for cough medicine costing $5.99, she contemplates the absurdity of this situation. That she needs to go to such extents to stop the rumors of Brooke Davis, captain of the cheerleaders, being pregnant with captain of the Ravens, Lucas Scott's baby.
But the one thing everyone loves in Tree Hill is gossip.
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She gets home and locks herself in the bathroom, dumping the tests out on the floor. She fumbles nervously as she opens the first one, and confuses herself with the directions, wondering how stupid she has to be to not be able to figure out how to pee on a stick. For a minute, crouched there on the bathroom floor, she wishes for Lucas. Wishes that she wasn't going through this alone.
But Lucas is on the other side of the state somewhere, planning his future without her, forgetting to call her. Brooke wonders if she's being completely needy by wishing he would just check in on her once or twice.
She considers calling him now – pressing 2 on her speed dial, listening to his soft voice comfort her across the connection. She considers calling him and telling him everything. Brooke imagines him rushing home, holding her hand, telling her that everything would be okay.
But it's been less than a month since Keith died and she doesn't want to burden him anymore – at least not until completely necessary. So she's doing this alone.
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12 of 13 of the tests read positive. She wants to believe the one that reads negative, but even Brooke isn't that optimistic.
She's starting to feel nauseous again so gathers the used tests in a plastic bag and shoves them to the bottom of the wastebasket so Peyton doesn't see them. Then she retreats to the bedroom, closes the blinds, climbs into bed, pulls the covers over her head and attempts to sleep.
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Brooke is standing backstage at Tric, attempting to rehearse her lines. She's getting those butterflies in her stomach that always accompany stage fright, only right now she figures that they're more due to the impending arrival of Lucas – and what she has to tell him.
She feels like when he comes, that she'll know what to do. That when he holds her, everything will be all right again.
"Hi, pretty girl." She feels hands around her waist, and jumps, turning around to face her boyfriend.
As she gives a squeal of delight, hugs him, stares into his soft blue eyes, she realizes something.
Everything doesn't feel all right.
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"So I know you collapsed tonight on the court, Nathan, but I was hoping you might wanna' spend the night and get a little freaky." The words roll off her tongue in the most seductive voice she can muster under the circumstances, as she plays with the ties of her bathrobe.
"How's this?" She feels only slightly embarrassed as she pulls off the robe, leaving her in the sluttiest lingerie she could find. And, standing there under the bright lights of the stage, watching him completelydevour her with his eyes, she smiles.
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They're making out behind some curtain backstage, and she's giggling because he's tickling her sides with his hands. But then his hand pushes up her shirt ever so lightly and comes to rest on her stomach, and all of a sudden she remembers and ever so slightly pulls away.
He reads something in her face, and touches her cheek with his hand. "You okay?"
She nods, swallowing. "Yeah, but intermissions almost over and I gotta' go check on the next scene. But, uh," she gives him one last kiss, "I'm really glad your home."
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She's getting nervous again – and she knows it's not her stage fright. As she stands under the faded blue light of the stage, rambling on to Lucas as Nathan about his "porn addiction," she wonders how she's actually going to get through this. Because it hasn't really set in that she's pregnant yet. She's pregnant.
She wants to know that it's going to be okay. That something in her life is going to stay the same. Something is going to be stable.
And then she looks to Lucas. And her fear immediately disintegrates.
"I'm gonna' marry you some day, Haley James. Someday." As he puts her hands slightly on her shoulders, and sets his blue eyes deeply on hers, she knows he's saying Brooke Davis inside.
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Her heart is beating wildly inside her chest as she screeches into the parking lot of the hospital. And as she runs through the sliding doors of the emergency room, she's shut out everything except this. And now.
She's still in her dress from the party, and she must look pretty ridiculous amongst the bleeding and hurt, slumped into folding chairs, attempting to fill out forms. But she's crying, mascara running down her face, and she's screaming at the receptionist that it's an emergency, that she needs to see an OB-GYN now, and somehow the woman takes pity on her.
And now she's walking quickly through the walls of the hospital, escorted by a soft spoken doctor with dimples that kind-of reminds Brooke of herself. Right now Peyton's confession seems so trivial to her. Because, yes, in the heat of the moment she had been so confused, sohurt, but then the bleeding came, and Brooke couldn't think about Peyton anymore. Or Lucas. Or Peyton and Lucas.
The doctor's name is Dr. Reynolds, and she leaves Brooke in a stark white room that makes the brunette nauseous. When the doctor finally returns, with a bunch of a equipment that makes Brooke suddenly ache for Lucas to be here holding her hand, Brooke closes her eyes and prays to god thateverything is all right.
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It's not all right. It's never all right. Dr. Reynolds has to tell an 18 year old girl, who has yet to even mention to her boyfriend that she is pregnant, and whom just found out that her best friend was still in love with her boyfriend and the father of her baby, that she has miscarried.
It's nearly midnight by the time they discharge her, and Brooke wants nothing more than her best friend right now. But she can't look at Peyton right now. A part of her wants to believe that she imagined the curly blonde's confession, just so she could have her best friend back.
But things aren't so easy.
She can't go to see Lucas. She can't look him in the soft eyes and tell him the truth: that she had his child growing inside of her for three weeks, but not anymore. That she hadn't been able to go to him and tell him everything. That she had to go through this alone.
So she drives for awhile. Remembering that she has to wake up tomorrow and put on a fake smile, and go to the wedding, and act like everything is okay. When clearly, nothing is okay. Her whole life is crumbling before her, and somehow she has no one to turn to.
She has driven to her old street without realizing it. She stops in front of the big white house with the little red door – and somehow she feels safer.
Crawling into the backseat and shutting her eyes tightly, Brooke tries to sleep.
No such luck.
It was short, but the next UD will be longer. I promise.