Soon Enough
A/N: Finally I have an update. I've been trying to decide between a few different directions to take this story for a while now. My path now feels pretty clear, but bear with me. I know this chapter doesn't have much BL, or Lucas, but hopefully it will establish the darker turn that the fic is taking. I definitely see this chapter as a turning point, and I hope you guys stick it out, because we still have a long road ahead of us. Thank you's are at the end. Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 15
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
"What the fuck, Lydia?" Brooke drops the itinerary to the desk and stares up at her mother with a tired expression. "I didn't approve any of this."
Lydia, who's been standing at the window for a while now, turns, and crosses the room. "Don't be so petulant, Brooke. When you appointed me to be the CEO of your company, you essentially gave me the rights to make informed and smart decisions."
"Oh, so you call," Brooke picks up the itinerary again "Six European countries in five days, with red eye flights between all of them, and RSVP's to fashion shows every night, a smart decision?"
Lydia just looks smug. "You know, most girls your age would be thrilled to visit just one of those countries."
"Most girls my age, if visiting these countries, would have the opportunity to actually see them. The last time we were in Milan, I don't think I was outside for more than an hour in total over that whole week."
"It's called a career."
Brooke groans and rubs her temple. Her headache from this morning is back – but then again, most physical pain she feels lately only intensifies when her mother steps into the room. She shoots Lydia a dirty look. "I can't go any way. I have to be in town for the Victoria's Secret fashion show."
"I can be there for that."
"Over my dead body," Brooke mutters, already returning her attention to the computer screen. "You're wasting my time."
"Oh, get off your high horse and stop being such a baby!" shrieks Lydia, frustrated. "If you're still trying to punish me for bringing Miles to the party I threw for you down in that god-forsaken town, give it a rest."
Brooke's hand tightens on her computer mouse, but she keeps her eyes glued to the screen. "I'm giving you ten seconds to get out of my office."
"Oh, for heavens sake…"
"Ten…"
Lydia throws her hands up in defeat and, snatching the itinerary off of Brooke's desk, flounces over to the door of her office, flinging it open. She nearly runs into poor Millicent, who quickly jumps to the side to avoid spilling coffee on the irritated CEO.
"What was that about?" Millicent asks timidly, handing Brooke the Starbucks espresso, once Lydia has left.
"What are my conversations with my mother ever about? Her trying to dictate how I run my company."
"Oh…" Millicent falls silent.
"Thanks for the coffee," says Brooke with a smile, taking a long sip. The caffeine runs down her throat, and she sighs out in relief. She needs the energy boost – judging by the fact that it's only 2pm and she'll be at the office for over eight more hours.
"Sure…Look, Brooke, I know you have a lot on your plate right now, but this Peyton keeps calling." Millicent hands Brooke a notepad with a number of messages scribbled on it. "I know you said you'd call her back, but she called back again today saying that you hadn't."
Brooke sighs and looks down at the notepad, which feels exceptionally heavy in her hands. "Sorry Millie, I haven't gotten a chance to get to this yet. I'll do it now."
Millicent nods and returns to her desk directly outside of Brooke's office. Brooke looks down at the notepad, comes to a decision, and then reaches to her iphone, which sits just inches away from her on the desk.
Peyton's speed dial number is still one, despite the fact that Brooke hasn't called her best friend in ages. She presses call, and then stands from her desk chair, moving to the window where her mother had been standing just minutes ago.
Enterprises takes up the highest four floors of 145 39th street, which sits between 8th and 9th in the center of the fashion district of New York City. Brooke's office is on the top floor – nestled into the southwest corner of the building, where she has floor to ceiling paneled windows that give her a panoramic view of the Hudson River, and all of downtown Manhattan. The company had started off by just purchasing the 43rd floor, and then, year by year, bought out the remaining floor above. Now, on the 48th floor, both Brooke and Victoria have their offices, as well as the editor-in-chief of magazine and other important officials of the company.
The phone rings once, twice, three times, before finally going to voicemail. Brooke is slightly taken aback – subconsciously she had assumed that, because she had been avoiding Peyton's calls for so long, the blonde would just be waiting by the phone every minute of the day.
"Hey, it's Peyton. Leave a message."
"Hey Peyton, it's Brooke. Look, I know I haven't called you back. Work's just been really hectic, and I have a ton of deadlines on my plate. I'd love to talk to you, though, so just call me when you get a chance. Okay…bye."
She hangs up. She had wanted to say something else – perhaps ask why Peyton had just picked up and left after the revelation of Brooke's miscarriage. Or maybe explain that she's simply been avoiding her friend's calls because she really doesn't know what to say to her. She doesn't though, because that all seems too heavy for a voicemail – too heavy for a phone call itself possibly, Brooke has to admit. But when you're best friend is living on the other side of the country, what other choice do you have?
---
On the way home from work that night, it happens again.
She decides to walk for the third time this week – all the way from midtown to Park Ave. and 72nd. It's barely the beginning of October, but the evening is nippy, and her cheeks redden against the cold air. Her boots, knee-high and barely broken in, slap against the cold concrete as she maneuvers her way through the busy city streets.
The last time she had an anxiety attack like this was on Wednesday, when she had to excuse herself in the middle of a meeting, and lock herself in a bathroom stall. She stayed there for a good ten minutes, until she could calm down enough to gain an adequate amount of composure to return to the conference room.
Tonight though, it's different. It's more intense. It begins as she turns the corner onto Park and 39th, and hazy dark night sky begins to press down on her. All of a sudden, it seems as though every person on the sidewalk is slowing down, but she's moving at a lightning pace. Her chest tightens and her eyes blur with tears of confusion. It's frustrating, at the very least, for everything to feel so normal one minute, and so distorted the next.
She picks up her pace, as if she can somehow run away from the nauseating feeling residing in the pit of her stomach. The whole world is closing in on her, and she fumbles inside the pockets of her jacket for her phone.
At the crosswalk, she dials Lucas. She freezes momentarily, terrified that he won't pick up. Nevertheless, he does, sounding thoroughly groggy with his "hello?"
Brooke sobs out in relief, as the sound of his voice calms her. The hand gripping at her lungs loosens, and she breathes out as though she's been deprived of air for years.
"Brooke? Is that you? What's wrong?" He sounds worried, all tiredness from his voice gone.
She doesn't respond. Despite the fact that most of her anxiety vanished the minute she heard him speak, a feeling of self-loathing has settled in the pit of her stomach. In a moment of weakness, after so long of trying to distance herself from him, she had given up.
Brooke is still crying. Now, though, she's less terrified, and more depressed. She quickly presses end on her iphone. The call disconnects, and she crosses the street. Her disorientation increases as she blindly makes her way up Park Avenue, weaving her way through friends and couples and businessmen on the way home to their families.
Lucas calls her back almost immediately, and she freaks out and powers down her phone. It's selfish, and despicable and weak, but Brooke is too exhausted, too emotionally drained, and too petrified, to have a real conversation with him.
Somehow, she finds her way to her building. She doesn't even thank the night guard, Tony, who she's come to know very well ever since she started to come home from work late, for opening the door for her, as she normally does. The elevator ride to the penthouse feels as though it takes hours. She keeps her eyes closed the whole time as to not be reminded that she's in an enclosed area.
When the elevator doors finally open, and she steps into her dimly lit apartment, she can finally breathe. It's not a very satisfying breath – shaky and unsteady – but it's a breath nevertheless.
She moves through the living room, treading lightly, feet feeling heavy in her stiff boots. As she passes the couch, she catches a movement out of the corner of her eye, and a form sits up quickly.
"Brooke? Is that you?"
Brooke sighs. She meets Rachel's eyes to find that the redhead is carrying a groggy expression. "Yeah, I just got home. Go back to sleep."
She turns away from her friend – the friend who, tonight, like every other night this month, has fallen asleep on the couch waiting for the brunette to come home. The hallway to her bedroom extends out in front of her, but somehow she makes it to the master bathroom, where the harsh lighting is welcoming after the unforgiving darkness of the night.
"Brooke…" Rachel has followed her into the bathroom. "Are you okay?" she asks, somewhat apprehensively.
Brooke leans forward, shuts her eyes, and clutches the cool marble of the bathroom sink. She can barely nod –the migraine that normally succeeds these panic attacks of hers, is rearing its ugly head. "I'm fine…It's just…it's been a long day. I just need to sleep," she mumbles, in a highly discombobulated voice, as she reaches into the medicine cabinet and feels around.
When she pulls out the bottle of Advil, and tips four of the tiny capsules into her shaking hand, she can hear Rachel sigh.
"Did you have another anxiety attack?" The redheads voice is soothing – a trait she seems to have developed recently when dealing with Brooke.
Brooke closes her hand around the pills and looks up into the mirror. Her eyes are red – her cheeks splotchy and flushed. Dark bags sit under her eyes – a constant reminder of the extreme lack of sleep she's gotten lately. Her hair – normally lush and shiny – seems dull and lifeless under the bright bathroom lighting.
Rachel, who has come up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder, just looks worried. All smugness that she used to carry around, and all of her cold reserve, disappears in moments like this.
"I called Lucas," Brooke mutters to her friend in the mirror.
Rachel looks taken aback, but then her face softens. "Did it help? Did it make the pain go away?"
The brunette squeezes her eyes shut, wondering briefly how she got to be like this.
"It's a different kind of pain."
---
When Brooke has finally slipped into a restless sleep, Rachel returns to the living room. It's after midnight, and Rachel has to be up early for a photo shoot, but she knows that she herself won't be able to sleep without doing this one last thing.
She's dialed this number what seems like a thousand times recently, and she knows that despite the fact that it's late, when he sees the caller ID, he'll pick up.
He does. "Rachel? Is that you?"
"Hi Nathan." She can hear the rustling of sheets as she pictures him getting out of bed, and moving into the dark hallway as to not disturb his sleeping wife.
"It's 12:30."
"I know, I know, I'm sorry," she says, apologizing quickly. "It's just, I needed to talk to you. It's important."
"Is it Brooke? Did something happen?" His voice darkens, in the same way it does every time she calls him about their common friend.
"She's fine. She's asleep now. But she had another panic attack tonight."
Rachel can hear Nathan sigh on the other end, and imagines that he's sliding to the floor and cradling the phone against his shoulder.
"When did it happen?"
"She was on her way home from work. She's been insisting on walking lately, even though I've been begging for her to take a cab. I don't think it's good for her to be out that late at night alone, especially with where her head is these days."
"Well how late is she coming home?"
Rachel pauses and cringes. "Like after ten."
"Rach!" Nathan exclaims. "You can't let her work herself to death. We've talked about this."
"I've tried to reason with her, Nathan." Her voice turns stiff. "Don't try and judge me when I'm the only one around to keep her from disappearing off of the face of the earth." There's a silence and Nathan doesn't respond. Rachel sighs. "I'm doing everything I can. She's overworking herself."
"I think that's pretty obvious." He still sounds pissed off but less judgmental. "I knew going back to New York was a bad idea."
"Nate, she was scared. She was running from everything she wanted, but thought she didn't deserve."
"By everything, you mean Lucas."
"In essence, yes." She pauses. "Which brings me to something else I need to talk to you about. Apparently she called him tonight."
"Tonight?" he sounds surprised. "Do you know what they talked about?"
Rachel shakes her head, although he can't see her. "No, but I'm pretty sure it was during her panic attack, considering she called it a 'moment of weakness.'"
"That's bad," Nathan mutters. "The last thing we need is Lucas coming up to New York to act the hero."
"As if it would fuck up all the progress she's made? Face it, Nate, the girl is broken."
They go back and forth like this perhaps four times a week. When Brooke had returned to New York, two days had barely passed before Nathan had called Rachel. It was strange, and out of the blue, but then he mentioned Miles, and Rachel understood.
Rachel hadn't moved into the apartment in New York with Brooke until about a year ago. Before that, however, she had still maintained a close relationship with the brunette. She had been there to deal with Brooke after that night with Lucas, and bit her tongue when the brunette had reunited with Chase the following day. When the ex-clean teen dumped her for good a month later, it wasn't exactly hard to figure out that the broody blonde had something to do with it.
That's when it got bad. Brooke started mixing drinking with taking anti-depressants that definitely hadn't been prescribed to her. Miles, a brainless idiot who modeled some clothes for the company, somehow wormed his way into Brooke's life via Lydia, despite Rachel's desperate attempts to keep him away.
In the end, after Miles had gotten sick of emotionally and physically abusing Brooke, and also fed up with her unwillingness to sleep with him, Rachel had been left to pick up the pieces. Brooke claimed she was fine, busying herself with her work, patching her life back together, piece by piece, but if anyone could see past all of it, it was Rachel. Brooke's claims were bullshit.
Rachel had thought that Brooke's decision to return to Tree Hill would be smart. Clearly she was wrong. Brooke had come back to New York, briefly, after some sort of falling out with Lucas, and then gone back to the small town and apparently made up with him.
But now she's back. And from the way she's acting, from the way she's running around making plans and scheduling events, from the way she's definitely settled herself into a somewhat discombobulated routine, Rachel is pretty sure Brooke's back for good.
"I thought things were getting better…I thought they had gotten over all their shit." Nathan sighs, and Rachel knows it must be difficult for him to deal with all of this, and to not be able to go to Haley, but both he and Rachel agreed that there was no reason to involve any third parties. They were handling it as best they could.
"What happened, Nathan? And I mean back then. What happened to the two of them back then?"
"She had a miscarriage." He says it abruptly, as if maybe it had just slipped out, and then there's this long, awful silence. Rachel can't exactly say that she's angry Brooke didn't tell her – the brunette has never been one for sharing the details of her long lost relationship with Lucas Scott. However, this revelation is surprising. Shocking, rather. And, to be frank, makes this a lot clearly.
"For fucks sake, Nate, why didn't you tell me this earlier?" She supposes it's a bit strange that she's angrier at him for keeping this from her, than angry at Brooke, but she shrugs it off.
"It's pretty heavy…I didn't want to betray Brooke's trust."
Rachel, ignores his comment. "This explains so much," she mutters, placing a palm against her forehead, and leaning against the counter. "Is that why she broke up with him?"
She can almost hear the younger Scott shrugging. "I really don't know the details. All I know is that Lucas found out while she was in Tree Hill. But I honestly thought they had solved things. I mean, they went on a freaking date. And she went home with him after he punched out Miles at the party. She was gone the next day."
"Do you think they slept together?" Rachel's cringes at the possibility.
"I don't know." He sounds tired – as if this whole conversation is wearing him out. The two of them, a very odd team considering Rachel's embarrassing attempt to get him to sleep with her while Haley was carrying his child, are doing the best they can.
"Something has to change. We need to fix this."
"I know…I know."
When they finally hang up, nothing is resolved. The matter of fixing Brooke, and getting her life back on track, still hangs in the air. They hadn't even discussed Lucas who, while more coherent then Brooke, has become another issue to deal with.
Rachel switches off the last remaining light in the living room. She moves down the hallways, passing Brooke's room. It's silent now, and the redhead exhales, relieved. She hopes that the brunette is getting some sleep. She'll be up early anyway, sneaking out of the house and heading to the gym before work to overexert herself physically.
Rachel sighs. All Brooke had said when she returned from Tree Hill was that she was coming back to "heal." End of story. Well, it's been three months, and Rachel doesn't see Brooke healing at all.
---
Thank you…
BL-CS, princetongirl, Brucasfan23, Chey, nate23, Princesakarlita, Demi Vastille, brookeheartslucas, Mckenna, brucas333, Toddian, TeamSophia, BRUCAS EQUALS LOVE, awhero, Yana, Mosie1213, Writer Writes Words, Leah, othfan326, Dayzsollers, Kristin, flipflopgal