-She'll Never Understand-

Again, waiting patiently until the blonde woke up, Brooke took this time to take in the slew of new information she had just been exposed to. Peyton seemed to be either extremely intoxicated or a little crazy, maybe both. But more so, she was broken. And maybe that attributed to her slightly off mental state, but either way, Brooke wasn't just going to leave. She was going to stick around and face this. She wasn't running away anymore, and she wasn't going to let Peyton do the same, no matter what the actual truth happened to be.

After wondering around the house for a bit, getting something to eat, and again sitting and waiting as Peyton slept, Brooke was thankfully pulled out of her bored reverie to a groaning blonde slowing waking up. Suddenly she wanted Peyton to go back to sleep, fear started to set in as she realized that now she actually had to talk to the girl. This upcoming conversation was by far not going to be easy and she just wanted to avoid it. But that's exactly what she had been doing for the better part of a year, and she vowed she wouldn't do it any longer. That still didn't make it any easier though.

"Ugh, not you again, why don't you go haunt someone else? I've got things to do, people to avoid, stuff to pack. Go on, shoo fake Brooke, evaporate or whatever."

"Peyton, I'm real. It's really me, Brooke. And I'm not going anywhere."

"If you're so real than prove it, I may be sick and loaded but I'm pretty sure I can tell real from imaginary."

Brooke walked the few steps over to the sitting up blonde, gave her a smirk, and pinched her arm, hard.

"OW!"

"Believe me now?"

"Damn it, fine. Shit, if you're really here… oh god, I think I need to puke."

With that last statement she ran off to bathroom and did indeed puke. After about fifteen minutes of being holed up in the bathroom she was further kicked in the ass when she understood what all this meant.

"Oh shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. This is not good; I was supposed to be gone by the time she finally came back. Damn this stupid cold. I cannot catch a break to save my life. Fuck, what am I going to do, I can't deal with this, this is so what I was trying to avoid. What do I do, what do I do?"

She was pulled out of her internal panic attack by a knock on the door followed by the voice of the person she had hurt, driven away, and so did not want to face, Brooke. Of course, this was some karmic way at getting back at her for all the hurt she had caused, for all of her mistakes, for everything she had done. She's about to leave town after she sends the letter, so it's only natural that it wouldn't work the way she wanted it to. She got sick, and had to post pone her departure, and who thought Brooke would actually show up so soon, she only sent the letter a little over a week ago. Who reacts that fast, even with all the issues between them? This was so not what she had in mind. But she did have to get out of the bathroom, so she would have to face the brunette; she was already here and had seen her, so there was really no avoiding it now. She would have to face the music.

Slowly opening the door, after a few more agonizing moments, the blonde stepped out of the bathroom, looking around to check and see if it really was Brooke who was in her room. And much to her complete lack of preparedness, there she sat, patiently waiting. This was going to be so much fun.

"So Brooke, how have you been?"

"Nice attempt at polite conversation. You know why I'm here. We need to talk. I think I might actually understand a little of what happened. As warped as it is, I think I know what went wrong. We need to face this Peyton, we can't run away anymore."

"I don't know if I can do this, Brooke."

"We have to Peyton. We've been avoiding this for too long. We can't keep living like this, look at you, you're a mess."

"Yeah, well, nice to see you too."

"I mean it Peyton, we can't keep avoiding this. We are going to talk, why don't you get cleaned up, I'll go make you some soup or something, I'll be right back."

"You don't have to do that."

"It's okay, I want to, clean up, but don't take anymore medicine, okay?"

"Sure."

Despite saying she wouldn't take anymore, Peyton was severely tempted to chug what was left of the cough medicine on her nightstand. But something stopped her. Of all the pain that her life had been this last year, maybe this really was a chance to start to heal. Maybe Brooke was right. She couldn't run forever, sure she could try, but her demons would only catch up with her. Settling on not inebriating her self anymore, she decided to clean up, and attempt to prepare herself for something she had been trying to avoid and forget for the better part of a year – the truth.

Brooke silently watched as Peyton ate a few spoonfuls of soup. They were both tired, already a long day and only early afternoon. But they both knew they needed to face this thing between them. After Peyton decided she could eat no more, still sick, she settled herself back on the bed and turned to look at the brunette who had again taken up residence in her desk chair. How does one go about starting a conversation of life changing proportion and riddled with pain and heartache?

"So…How's New York? I, uh, yeah."

"It's fine, it's not home, but it's been okay for the time being."

"Good, good."

"There's no good way to jump into this so I'm just going to be blunt, why did you write me that letter Peyton, why did we get so screwed up?"

"Well that has got to be the most heavily loaded question ever. Okay, first off, tell me what the important points that you got from whatever Lucas told you, I think it might make this a bit easier to know a little of how much you know, I think."

"Fine, let's see, you were addicted to cocaine for about six months, and then somehow miraculously stopped. You've been a mess, obviously, to varying degrees which I'm not sure of. You're gay, and he also said that you have been like shutting everyone out, shutting down almost completely. I think that's the basics of it."

"Okay. Yeah, I got in pretty deep with the drugs. And yes I haven't been letting anyone in, it's too hard to. But I'm actually kind of surprised that you aren't more like taken aback or whatever by that fact that I'm gay. You're reaction is like you don't even care. Of course I could just be still loaded on cold medicine and not be taking everything in right."

"I admit, when he first said you were gay, I was shocked, but it's not a big deal to me. It actually makes things seem to make a little more sense when I think about it. If I am interpreting that oh so vague letter correctly and then when I think about how I felt and how you reacted and everything, it definitely helps fill in some holes."

"Right, so back to the original question, why did I write that letter? Well…"

"Take all the time you need, I suspect this is going to be very hard for the both of us. So just go at your own pace, I'm not pushing."

"I feel so guilty for causing you to leave. After that day, it was like my world ended, I didn't know why or how I did that, but I knew it was my fault. And like I said, this town really has nothing left for me, so I thought maybe if I could give you your home back, maybe you could start to heal. I don't really know, it's all this big mess, but I wanted you to have your home back, you belong here."

"So you said in the letter, alright, I think maybe we need to start form the very beginning, we need to talk about the fight."

"Well then we better go make some coffee, this is probably going to take a while, and I need caffeine."

Both girls made their way to the kitchen, a safe distance between them, temporarily avoiding the impending conversation. Yes, coffee was a good distraction, but the sugar and caffeine probably would do them some good for what was to come. Plus, then you have something to occupy your hands when your nervous, see bonus usage for such a simple drink.

Several minutes, a few sips of the dark liquid each, and some heavily awkward silence later, Brooke decided to speak again.

"Peyton, it's time, we need to resolve this."

"I never loved Lucas. I know I said I still had feelings for him, and how I could say that still baffles me, but that was never what I meant to say. I had been trying to figure out how to tell you for so long, and then when I was going to, all that shit came out, and I have no idea how or why."

"Then tell me what you really meant to say. Don't think about hurting me anymore, or hurting yourself, I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you, until we talk this out. So start with what you wanted to say Peyton, trust me enough to know that I never wanted to hurt you either."

"You. I was trying to tell you, that I, that I…"

"I know. You were trying to tell me you love me."

"Yeah, wait, how did you know?"

"I kind of figured it all out when I was walking over here. After what little Lucas told me, and then with what you said in both the letters, it kind of made sense. I mean, I wasn't totally sure that was it, but that was one of the conclusions I came to."

"Oh. So yeah, I was trying to tell you I was in love with you, but as you know it didn't exactly come out that way. How could I have fucked everything up so badly?"

"Listen to me Peyton, when I was having my little epiphany or whatever on my way over here, I also realized that part of this mess is my fault. It's not all on you; you need to quit punishing yourself."

"How is it your fault, I'm the one that said I had feelings for your boyfriend, you had every right to react like that."

"No. The reason I reacted so badly was because I thought I was going to lose you. I never was really in love with Lucas. We had just gotten our friendship back on track, and then I thought he was going to take me away from you. I was jealous. I reacted the way I did, Peyton, because I now realize I feel the same way you do. I have for a long time; I just never really let myself admit it. So you see, it's just as much my fault. We both screwed this up and we both just let it get worse. The after stuff was probably more my fault. But I guess this whole thing was a monumental disaster. Who knew we both felt the same."

"This is a lot to take in. So we've established that I was in love with you, you with me, and the fight was a huge misunderstanding and chaos that just couldn't work itself out. And it took us this long to figure it out? Damn we are stupid."

"Yeah, well blame denial or whatever. Now, I think we should keep talking Peyton, about the aftermath with you. And what we feel for each other now. We need to air everything out."

"It's all so hard to understand Brooke; I don't get most of it. I don't know how you do. It's getting late, and I'm exhausted, can we continue this tomorrow?"

"Fine, but I'm staying here tonight, I'm not risking you taking off while I'm gone. Promise me Peyton; promise me you won't run anymore."

"I promise."