Was it possible to live your life and not know you were living it? Could the haze, the disassociation and carelessness keep you from remembering why you were here and what you were doing?
Peyton weighed the question as she sat at a small table in a restaurant on Sunset Boulevard. Again she was waiting on Julian. He was 30 minutes late but when had he been on time in the six months they had been dating.
Six months since that fateful night in her apartment when she used him for sex, trying to squeeze Lucas Scott from her mind. She had tried to be the wanton and selfish woman people accused of her of being but she ended up again being the Peyton Sawyer she was. A girl, a woman, who when she made a connection with a man she stayed with him. It was why she was with Julian. It was why she was in the mess she was in now.
She had just ordered another glass of tea when her cell phone rang. It was Julian.
"Hello," she said in an expectant voice.
"Hey, babe," Julian said easily. "Listen, really running late here and won't be able to make it." She heard laughter in the background. "Can we try to hook up tomorrow?"
"I told you I had something I needed to talk to you about," Peyton told him.
"I know, babe, but it can't be helped," he said blowing Peyton off. "I promise I will make it up to you."
"But..," Peyton began before Julian cut her off.
"Listen, gotta go," he said and the phone went dead.
"I just want to tell you I'm pregnant," Peyton said to the phone. "Thought you would like to know."
Peyton sighed and put her cell phone back in her purse. She didn't know how long she sat at the table in the restaurant before she willed herself from the chair and forced herself to walk out of the restaurant.
She walked for what seemed like hours. L.A. was a place that never slept. There was always something going on, always something to do. She had chosen this life, wanted the excitement, wanted to spread her wings. Wanted to be where the music was.
What she found was heartache, falling into a relationship with a man she knew was not faithful. And now she found herself pregnant by that man and wishing it was another man's child she carried.
Lucas Scott. He still haunted her soul. She had lost count how many copies of his book "The Unkindness of Ravens" she had bought. When she read his words, how he had described her and how much his love for her poured from the pages, she could close her eyes and imagine his arms wrapping around her like the words in his book.
"I was now and I would always be in love with Peyton Sawyer." Lucas' words mocked her. It was a lie. Where had that promise gone and why had it doomed her?
She should have just fought harder. Peyton Sawyer had no use for Lucas Scott growing up. The boy whose eyes followed her every movement and believed she never noticed him doing so.
But fate had intervened that day when her car broke down on that dusty road. The red tow truck rambled down the road carrying with it a boy with piercing blue eyes and a gentle soul. A boy who quit the thing he loved the most, basketball, to save his mother the pain of seeing the man who had fathered him and abandoned her. The boy who had told her that story because they didn't know each other and because he wanted her to know him.
He had taken her from the darkness that surrounded her. A motherless girl who wanted to test the waters of fate, who flirted with the thoughts of death, and who longed to shed the shroud of loneliness as much as she embraced it.
Lucas Scott had shown her what living could be like, what it was like to love and what it was like to be loved. And then he had taken it away and left her the shell of the woman she was today.
A woman tied to a man she could never love carrying a baby she could never embrace. She was almost 21-years-old and Peyton Sawyer was convinced her life was over and she had no way to escape it.
Two days passed and she had not heard from Julian. The weight of the knowledge of her pregnancy pressed on her. She wanted to tell him, get the news out, so they could discuss what to do next.
She knocked on his door twice but there was no answer. Deciding she would just wait on him until he returned, Peyton used the key he gave her and let herself in.
Would life be more simple if lived in blissful ignorance? Or is the truth easier to accept when it is revealed? Peyton wasn't sure which she wanted to adopt when she opened the door to Julian's apartment and saw him in the embrace of the tall, leggy brunette. She had suspected he was never faithful to her, but to have it paraded in front of her was more then she could bare.
Peyton heard Julian say her name but it was all a blur. She turned quickly from the scene and ran out of the apartment and down the hallway. She heard his footfalls behind her. Deciding to forgo the elevator, assured he would catch up with her if she waited, she decided to take the stairs. She opened the door to the stairwell and began the long and winding journey down the 12 flights. She heard Julian behind her, matching her footsteps as he tried to catch up with her.
"Peyton," he yelled. "Please wait."
She turned at his voice and when she did, Peyton's foot missed one of the precarious steps and she felt herself loose her balance. And then she began to tumble. She felt the concrete batter her body as she fell down the steps. She could taste the blood as her mouth hit the banister and she felt her midsection slam into the wall as the momentum of her fall finally halted her two flights later.
All she could think about as she lost consciousness was that maybe just maybe this would free her from this life in more ways then one.
Careful what you wish for, it just might come true and then the guilt and regret will be all you are left with. Peyton felt that. She had gotten her wish. The fall had ended her problem, the unplanned pregnancy with the man she could never love. The guilt weighed on her, thinking she had doomed an innocent life so that she could be free.
Her hospital stay was extensive and when she was released Julian was nowhere to be found. He had learned of the baby and had left her in the hospital without a backward glance.
"It's been fun, Peyton," he had told her. "It's not fun anymore. I told you I wasn't a serious guy." He shook his head. "This just isn't fun anymore."
Peyton Sawyer had always been known as the solitary girl. The girl who was always surrounded by people but was also alone, but she never truly felt alone until today. The day she was released from the hospital and no one was there to take her home.
After that day she immersed herself in her work. She vowed never to open herself to anyone again. Success, for her, would be found in her work. And she would find fulfillment there. After everything that happened she didn't deserve happiness, she had lost that right and could never earn it again.