Chapter 4
"How are you not dying?" Ollie groaned to Ephraim slumping onto a chair at the breakfast bar and laying her head on her arms as Ephraim and Nathan both sat wide awake laughing at her. For the past day and a half, not counting the time she was at school, all she had done was practice for the Tric performance.
She flinched when she felt something hot brush against her arm.
"Drink," her dad said softly waving the hot coffee under her nose. The sweet beautiful aroma of caffeine swept into her nostrils. It smelt like heaven. Grabbing it, she sipped it cautiously, so that she didn't burn her tongue.
"You didn't stay up all night practising did you?" He asked when the coffee seemed to have woken her up a bit.
"Well the gig is tomorrow," she defended herself cradling her coffee mug.
"Yeah it is, and I sort of need you to be awake for it," Ephraim joked before abruptly silencing as she shot him a 'shut up or I'm going to throw my coffee at you' look.
"You're gonna come, right dad?" She asked completely blanking Ephraim.
"Yeah course, I still think you should tell me who this mystery performer I though." Crossing his fingers and looking upwards he quietly chanted, "Please be Eminem, please be Eminem".
She groaned and rolled her eyes at her father, "Dad, I can tell you now that it's not going to be Eminem; he retired like before I was born. I don't think he's gonna make a comeback."
"Well if it's not Eminem then who is it?"
"We can't tell you."
He smirked, "Then I guess I'm just going to have to keep thinking it's Eminem."
"As much as I hate to interrupt this incredibly intellectual conversation, we kinda need to get to school." Ephraim added in quickly before they could get started again.
Draining the last of her coffee Ollie stood and grabbed her bag. She the went over and hugged her dad goodbye, just as she was about to end the embrace she leaned over to his ear and whispered,
"Its not going to be Eminem". Before Nathan could get in a word of reply she was already out the door shouting "Bye Dad" as she went.
Ephraim glanced at Nathan and then shaking his head amusedly, followed Ollie out the door.
Ollie stood staring into her locker not really seeing anything. She'd pointed Ephraim in the direction of the principles office to have his 'welcome to the school talk' and for the last 5 minutes shed been doing exactly what she was currently up to, standing deadly at her locker.
To say that she was tired was an understatement. The last day and a half had been a musical boot camp, all she'd done was practice, eat and as much as she would have like to say slept as well, that would pretty much be lying. Its not that she wasn't excited though. She was opening for one of the worlds biggest music sensations, it was gonna be great.
"So who was that rather delicious new guy I saw you taking to the principles office?"
Ollie looked up, her eyes focussing to see her friend Jess standing next to her.
"What?" Ollie asked, confused, still kind of out of it.
"That boy you were with about 5 minutes ago" Jess prompted.
"Oh", realizing what her friend was on about she said, "Ephraim Davis, you remember him don't you? Used to live with me, you know?"
Jess' expression visibly changed from the one of curiosity just a moment ago, to one of slight disgust. Her and Ephraim hadn't exactly liked each other when they were kids "The one that never stopped banging on the drums, always stuck stuff up his nose and chased you around all the time?"
"Yep that's him" Ollie answered, chuckling a little at the memory of Ephraim as a kid.
"I thought he moved." Jess said hopefully.
"He did, he's back now though, he moved back in with us."Ollie looked at her friend and knew that Jess had a question on her mind, and that it was going to be a strange question. "What?"
Jess knew she probably shouldn't ask but, she was curious. Completely seriously, with her nose scrunched up slightly, she asked, "Do you know if he still puts everything up his nose?"
Ollie burst out laughing looking at her friend as if she'd gone nuts. "Ah, I think you'll have to ask him that yourself Jess."
"Oh, I thought you'd know." Shrugging, Jess changed the topic, not particularly wanting to talk about noses, "ready for the calc test 2nd period?"
Ollie froze, no longer laughing, "You're kidding, right?"
"No, Mr Gibbon told us last week. Remember?" seeing Ollie's panicked look Jess figured that she obviously didn't. "Well don't worry Ollie; you've like never failed a test in your life."
"Yeah" Ollie answered still freaking out trying to remember being told about the test, only being broken out of her reverie by the bell for form room.
In his office Nathan was trying to focus on game play tapes from the teams last game so that he could work out some strategies and what to work on at practice. However no matter how hard he tried to concentrate, his mind kept wandering to the next night and who it could be that was performing. He could only think of one person that might be able and be willing to tell him.
Picking up his phone he dialled waiting for it to connect.
"Hey big brother" he said into the phone when Luke picked up.
"Hey Nate" Luke answered, "Lemme guess, your ringing about the mystery performer?
Surprised Nathan asked, "Yeah, how'd you know?"
"I was just about to ring you about the same thing."
"So you don't know who it is either huh?"
"Nope, Peyt isn't telling me a thing. Have you been able to get anything out of the kids?"
"Not really, all I know is it definitely isn't Eminem." Nathan chuckled.
Luke laughed a little confused, "Right, I'm not even gonna ask."
"Good idea. I guess we have to wait until tomorrow".
"Yep, guess so, I gotta go grade some papers, I'll call you if find out anything. Bye Nate."
"See ya Luke"
Nathan closed his phone. "Dammit," he muttered. He was starting to get incredibly curious and the way it was going it didn't seem like his need to know was going to be fulfilled any time soon.
In the manager office at Tric, Peyton sat thinking about her telephone conversation with Haley, when the singer had rung to beg for a chance to perform at Tric.
Over the phone Peyton had nearly lost it, only just managing to stay professional, knowing there had been hostility in her voice though. She knew what the consequences of her allowing Haley James to play in the club would be.
Peyton loved her niece and didn't want to see her hurt in anyway and this was going to affect her pretty bad. In fact, Peyton thought it was also a pretty bad idea for Ollie to open the night of Haley's performance, but she couldn't tell her niece she couldn't perform without giving a reason. And there was no decent reason she was able to give.
When Ollie had been just young, Nathan decided to never tell her who her mother was, no matter how much she asked. While Peyton hadn't always agreed with this, she respected his decision still to this day. Sure she hated what Haley had done to her niece and brother in law, but if she'd learnt anything from her relationships with Lucas and Brooke over the years, it was that everyone deserved forgiveness and no matter how much she despised Haley at the moment, Ollie and Nathan needed the chance to forgive.
She just hoped that Haley was ready to fight to be the mother and wife that Nathan and Ollie deserved.
The night before had been hard for Haley. Emotionally as well a physically she was completely drained. The crowd had not taken her unexpected goodbye well. The crowd was angry and got rowdy, fights broke out. Paparazzi were everywhere. It was horrible, yet in a way it still felt better than the thought of not doing it. Better than not deciding to leave the music world forever.
She was now on her tour bus staring out the window. Chris, deciding to go ahead with the encore had flown out from Washington to L.A. alone after many hours of unsuccessfully trying to change her mind. Because when Haley James made up her mind, it was final.
Welcome to North Carolina!
Read a sign that the bus had just passed. The familiar scenes and landscapes of her childhood rolled out around her. Traditional Christmas pines pinpricked the mountains and the coast lingered on the horizon.
Memories of everything from here burned inside her, and for the first time in years she let them surround her. Playing at the beach with her 6 brothers and sisters, her dad zooming her around in the air like an aeroplane in the backyard of the house she grew up in when she was a kid, sitting with Jimmy and Mouth watching her friends play ball on the river court, tutoring on the wharf one of the two people who, still, thinking about hurt too much and lastly, bringing the other person that she couldn't bear to think about, into this world. Holding the past life, the best 18 years of her life in her mind, she slowly drifted off to sleep, hoping that when she woke up she would be back in the place of her fondest memories. Tree Hill.