A/N: So, I still haven't decided if there will be a third part, but I'm leaning towards 'yes'. I have no idea when that'll be written/posted, though. I hope you like the second part.
----
| Wait, do you see my heart on my sleeve?
It's been there for days on end and
It's been waiting for you to open up |
In the first bag she unpacks when she gets to L.A., she finds something she knows she didn't put there. He must have, when he was 'helping' her. Helping is a generous term, since he was really just distracting her from the task at hand.
But finding this item now, she realizes he helped her more than she ever thought. It's a little piece of home. It's a little piece of him.
It's that grey sweater with his last name on the back. She holds the worn grey cotton in her hands, and she smiles at how sneaky he was and how much she loves him for giving it to her. It smells like him, and if it wasn't so damn hot in her little apartment, she'd pull the fabric over her head.
But she folds it and goes to put it in a drawer, and before she can, she realizes there's something in the front pocket. She pulls out a little note with only one word written in his unique, all-caps printing.
Remember?
She remembers.
She doesn't mention it to him when they talk, but they both know she's found the sweater. They don't talk about it because they don't need to.
The first few weeks of summer are almost unbearable for him. Everything he does that he used to love, somehow reminds him of the girl who isn't there. Everything that comes with summer reminds him of her and the summer they spent just the two of them.
Silly things, too, like watching the sailboats maneuver in the marina, or checking their favourite ice cream shop on Mondays after lunch to see what new flavours have come in. Sitting on his bed while she reads Rolling Stone and he reads whatever classic he's got his hands on.
He can't even set foot on the beach until three weeks after she's left.
They still talk - or at least correspond - every day. She'll text him something goofy, or she'll send him an email if she can't call. Her emails feel like her. She writes the way she speaks, and he loves that.
Somehow, he's falling even harder now that she's not around. He realizes that he took her for granted, and he can't help but hate himself for it.
He's at the River Court one day when Nathan walks up with Jamie slumbering in his stroller, and Lucas runs his hand over the infant's soft hair as he greets his brother.
They make small talk for a bit, and Nathan pulls out a few photos from their last weeks of high school, and he notices that Lucas's shoulders drop when he comes to one of that beautiful blonde girl.
"You miss her, huh?" Nathan points out needlessly. "Me too."
"I talked to her yesterday," Lucas says, knowing he doesn't need to answer his brother's question. "She sounded so...happy."
"She was happy here, too," Nathan insists, knowing what Lucas was implying.
"Not like that, Nate," Lucas says, shaking his head as he flips to the next photo.
This one tugs at his heart a little more, because it's of him and her, and he didn't know it was taken. They're facing each other and smiling, and his arm is draped around the chair she sits on. They look like a couple, and he hates that they never really were one.
"Yeah, she was," Nathan counters. He points to the photo and smiles. "Look at that."
Lucas knows it's naive of him to think he's the only one missing her, but he knows that no one else misses her the same way he does. No one else knows he loves her, and if they do, they aren't letting on. Maybe they don't want to encourage it.
Or maybe they've just known all along.
If that's the case, a heads up would have been nice.
But he still smiles at the photo of the two of them. Maybe she really was happy. Jamie stirs and starts to whimper. Nathan grabs the photos, but leaves Lucas with the one in his hands. He says they'll talk later, and he starts walking back in the direction he came.
Lucas dials her number as he's walking home with that photo tucked in the back pocket of his jeans. Maybe it was silly to think she'd answer, but he's still a little hurt when he gets her voicemail.
"Mint chocolate chip, cherry cheesecake, chocolate truffle, french vanilla, and rum butter."
He knows she'll know what that means, and when she texts him back a couple hours later, he laughs to himself.
"Have some chocolate truffle for me! xxoo"
He goes to that little ice cream shop the next day and does that very thing, and when he replies to her email of the day, he tells her she would have loved it.
They haven't made mention of the unspoken, but completely understood, feelings between the two of them, and something in him knows that she won't bring it up.
He's not sure if he should, either.
| Just you baby, come on now
I'm trying to tell you just how
I'd like to hear the words roll out of your mouth finally |
Near the end of the summer, he tells her he can't wait for her to be back in North Carolina, even if they're still a few hours apart. He's, perhaps naively, been holding onto the hope that she'd come back, and that the look in her eyes at the airport wasn't really there. He thinks that just maybe all the underlying emotions he's put into his calls and emails is enough to make her realize that she's got something to come back to.
But she's in L.A., and she's already making a name for herself. She loves her apartment, and she loves meeting up with Brooke after a long day at work and eating sushi in hidden little restaurants. She loves shopping at obscure boutiques and finding vintage vinyl in milk crates at flea markets. L.A. looks good on her, as her best friend has told her so, and she kind of doesn't want to leave.
She wonders if she ever really believed she would.
She accepts the full time job she's offered on the spot. She doesn't take time to think. She doesn't call Lucas for advice. She doesn't ask Brooke if she thinks it's a good idea. For the first time in a long time, she's making a decision based solely on what she wants, and she's reminded of how good that feels.
Telling Lucas, however, doesn't feel good.
In fact, it feels pretty terrible.
He's telling her he misses her, and how once she's back in Tree Hill, he'll visit from school and they'll hang out on weekends like they used to.
And all she can think is that it won't be like it used to. It'll be more, or it'll be less, but it won't be like it used to. It can't be.
She knows he loves her, even though he hasn't said the words, and she's thankful that he hasn't. She can't deal with that. He had his chance; they had their chance. That chance is gone, and now she needs to take this next one and see where it leads her.
"Luke...I'm...I'm staying here," she says softly, wincing as she waits for his reaction.
She gets nothing.
"Luke?"
"I...Staying?" he asks disbelievingly.
"They offered me a job!" she says excitedly. She hopes the excitement in her tone will instill some in his. "It's entry-level, and it'll probably suck for a while, but it's a job."
"That's...That's great, Peyton," he says, trying his hardest not to sound disappointed. They both know he is, but he knows she doesn't need to hear it, so he'll try to be supportive.
"I'm...are you sure?" she asks. He sighs, and she can hear him, but when he speaks again, she knows he's really trying to be happy for her.
"If you think so, then I think so," he says.
She lets out a breath, relieved that he understands, but she doesn't expect his next words.
"I just miss you way more than...way more than I ever thought," he admits.
They've done this before. They've done I miss you's, and I wish you were here's, and You would have loved to see me on Friday night!'s. They've done Skills made me drink shots of JD with him and I thought of you, and Brooke asked if you were still brooding non-stop over losing the two hottest girls you're ever gonna get.
This is different. It's heavy and almost desperate, and it's like he's pleading with her to confirm that she misses him just as much.
It's like he's pleading with her to tell him she loves him.
She won't say it and they both know that, and he won't say it and they both know that, too.
"Well, Thanksgiving's not far off, right?" she says, faking cheeriness. "I'll probably be home then."
"Yeah," he says, forcing himself to believe her when he's not sure he should. "Yeah. Thanksgiving."
"Well listen, I've gotta go, OK?" she tells him abruptly. "A few friends are taking me out to celebrate."
"Alright. Have fun. Be careful," he insists, just like he always does. He's still protective, even from so far away. She kind of loves that.
"I will," she says softly.
"OK."
"Hey, Luke?" she says, using that tone she knows always makes him really listen.
"Yeah?"
"I miss you, too," she admits. "So much."
He's pretty sure that's as close to an I love you as they're ever going to get.
| Say that it's always been me
That's made you feel a way you've never felt before
And I'm all you need and that you never want more |
She really does come home for Thanksgiving, and he's more surprised by that than anyone else. He tries to tell himself that it's just because he knows she's so busy, but he knows the real reason is much deeper.
He knows it's easier to have low expectations and have them be exceeded, than high ones and be disappointed.
He feels a surge of adrenaline pump through his veins when she tells him her flight number and arrival time.
Nathan jokingly says he'll pick her up from the airport, and they all laugh at the angry look on Lucas' face.
And Peyton's excited. As much as she was thankful to leave that little town, she's pretty happy to be going back for a little visit, no matter how brief. She's using some overtime hours she's got saved up to take an extra day off to spend in her hometown, and she's not surprised when Lucas says he'll skip his classes to spend the day with her.
She really has no idea what this visit is going to bring, but she finds herself comfortably anxious to find out.
Truthfully, she's felt her feelings for Lucas waning a little bit, and she wants to know if that's just because she's been so far away from him, or if maybe she really is just getting over him.
She sees him at the airport, standing with his back to her, and when her heart starts beating against her rib cage, she knows she's not getting over him.
"Is it me, or are chauffeurs getting cuter and cuter?" she asks teasingly as she walks up behind him.
He turns around and pulls her into his arms before he even looks at her.
He takes her bags, and she's got her arm around his waist like she doesn't want to let him go yet, and he smiles when he breathes in the scent of her shampoo. It's still the same and he's never been more grateful that some things never change.
He drives around for a while, and they both know he's just not ready to share her with everyone else yet, and to be honest, she's not ready to be shared.
"How are you?" he asks with a smile as they drive along the back roads of their little town.
"You talked to me yesterday!" she laughs.
"Yeah, but it's not the same." He doesn't elaborate, and he doesn't have to. She just smiles and shakes her head at him.
"I'm really good," she says, shifting her body towards his just a little more. "But it's good to be back, too."
He literally has to clench his teeth to keep from telling her to just be back, then.
"It's so good to see you," he says, taking her hand in his and holding it against his thigh as he drives.
That's the moment she realizes that if she moved back, they would be together.
So why is there still something telling her not to do it?
| Then you'd say all of the right things without a clue
But you'd save the best for last
Like I'm the one for you |
She gives Nathan, Haley, Lucas and Karen handwritten letters from Brooke. They're written on Clothes Over Bros letterhead, and everyone makes a point of saying how proud they are of her. Peyton makes a mental note to tell the brunette that when she gets back to L.A.
They spend her first evening back talking and catching up, and everyone notices the way Lucas looks at Peyton, and the way she looks at him. Haley's close to just asking why the hell they aren't together, but she manages to bite her tongue. She's sure they have their reasons.
They settle into bed that night - she's sleeping in his room, of course - and neither of them is sure what to do. Should he hold her like he wants to? Should he let her decide? What if he touches her and she doesn't want him too? He's working himself into a panic, but when she runs in from the bathroom wearing her pajama pants and one of his hoodies, she snuggles into bed as quickly as she can and her hand falls to his chest.
God, he's missed this.
"It's so cold here," she says, making him laugh.
"It's not that cold," he reminds her.
"It's cold enough!" she retorts.
She moves a little closer, and her leg drapes over his a bit, and she hears him sigh in contentment right before he kisses her temple.
God, she's missed this.
They're inseparable for the next three days. Literally, they barely leave each others' sight. They playfully tease one another, and he lays a hand on her shoulder when she's holding Lily. She watches him shoot around at the River Court, and they walk hand in hand back to his house.
He knows they look like a couple, and he's glad. He wants them to be, and he doesn't care if she knows that or not.
So why can't he just say the words?
He drives her to the airport and she's in his arms at the terminal, and he knows she's crying. It feels like six months ago, all over again.
"God, why am I crying!?" she asks with a laugh as she pulls away to wipe her tears. He just smiles at her.
"Because you don't want to leave?" he ventures. She laughs again and intertwines their fingers.
"I have to, though," she reminds him. They both know it's true, he just really doesn't want it to be.
"Peyton, why's it so easy with us?" he asks after a moment of silence. His tone is soft, and she can tell he really just wants to know.
"It's not," she answers, smiling weakly as their eyes lock. "We just really wish it was."
Her flight is called, and she takes a deep breath as he sighs again.
But then she leans forward and presses her lips to the side of his mouth in a quick, chaste, seemingly platonic kiss, and winks at him as she picks up her carryon.
"I'll be seein' ya, Lucas Scott."
He's not sure she knows that she's just said the perfect things to keep him hanging on.
He watches her walk away, and she doesn't look back once.
| You should know that you're just a temporary fix
This is not rooted with you it don't mean that much to me |
She meets a boy.
It's unexpected and he catches her off guard. He's persistent - a little like Nathan was in the beginning - and he smirks at her like he knows something she doesn't. She doesn't even really know why she likes him.
She finds herself agreeing to go out with him before he's even really asked.
She didn't go to Tree Hill for Christmas, and she knows that everyone there is disappointed, but she couldn't really afford it, and she could only get two days off, and it just really didn't seem worth it.
Something about Lucas' tone of voice when she told him the news made her angry. Really good and angry. She tried not to let on, and she's not sure if he bought it, but that tone of voice made it just a little easier to not feel guilty for not going to Tree Hill.
She's at a New Year's Eve party that she's not sure is really all that fun, and she calls Lucas just after midnight, his time, just to wish him a happy new year. She couldn't not.
"Happy New Year!" she sings into the phone. OK, so she's had a couple glasses of wine, too.
"Hey! You too," he says. "I mean, three hours from now."
"Yeah," she laughs.
"Sounds loud. Where are you?" he asks curiously. There's nothing jealous or possessive in his voice, he's just asking the simple question.
"This party. It's so lame. I honestly don't even know whose apartment this is," she says, sitting herself down in a chair in a corner away from the crows.
"You know, you're really not making me feel very good right now," he teases, and she laughs. Maybe it's the wine, but he's actually making jokes, so she laughs.
"What did you do?"
"Just me, mom, Lily, Nathan, Haley and Jamie," he says. "Oh, and Deb."
"So, sparkling cider and teething infants," she points out with a laugh. "Honestly, that might be more fun than this party."
"So why are you there?" he asks. She can hear him smirking, and the thought of seeing that smirk almost has her forgiving him for the things he said about her 'abandoning' her friends for the holidays.
"Nothing else to do, I guess. If I go home, it'll just be me, and that's a little sad," she explains. "OK, I'm gonna go. I have an empty glass and I need to decide if I should stay or go."
"I say go," he says predictably. "But either way, be care..."
"Careful," she says, rolling her eyes. "Yes, Luke. I'll call you...soon, OK?"
"OK. Bye, Peyton."
"Bye, Luke."
She's still smiling when she snaps her phone shut, and she wonders if maybe she was just mad at him because she was mad at herself. She doesn't want to be the one who makes him upset. He had reason to be disappointed, and she should have been sensitive to that. He just wanted to see her, and that's just about the sweetest thing.
"So, you think my party's lame, huh?" a voice calls from behind her.
"Oh!" she cries, placing her hand over her heart. "You scared me!"
"Well, when you sneak off to corners and complain about how horrible the scene is here, I feel the need to check in and see how I can improve it," he says, flashing a grin that makes her heart race a little.
"It's not bad...per say," she tries.
"Per say?" he asks skeptically.
"Yeah. It's just...it's 9:30 and almost everyone's hammered, and in my experience, that just means the party is unbearable," she says, standing from her place and crossing her arms.
She's usually not so bold with people she doesn't know. Maybe it's the wine. Maybe it's that she's still hung up on the boy she just hung up with. Maybe it's the fact that this guy in front of her with his arms crossed over his chest actually seems like he can hold his own with her.
"So...let's leave," he says with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Leave? You want to leave your own party?" she asks incredulously.
"Sure." He grins again and she knows she's going. "My roommate can handle it."
"I don't even know your name," she points out.
But she's already following him to the door.
"It's Julian," he tells her, pulling open the door and letting her step into the hall.
She doesn't say anything back, because she wonders what the hell she's doing. She went from contemplating going home and slipping into that old grey sweater, to stepping into an elevator with a complete stranger.
"This is usually the part where you tell me your name," he says with a chuckle.
"It's Peyton," she says softly.
This guy is so not Lucas. He's rougher around the edges, and his eyes are so brown they're almost black. He's not an athlete, she can tell right away, and she notices, since he's really not trying to hide it, the way he checks her out as she pulls on her jacket. He grins a little wider when she catches him, and he doesn't blush like Lucas always did.
"Well, Peyton, how do you feel about French fries?" he asks once the elevator starts moving.
"I feel great about them," she says with a smile.
They spend a couple hours eating fries and sipping soda at a little hole in the wall that she's walked past at least 20 times before and never noticed. They talk about their work and their hometowns, and she finds herself flirting before she can stop herself. And he's flirting back. He tells her, as they pass a particular billboard for the product, that her eyes are the colour of a Mountain Dew can, and she laughs, but he places his hands on her shoulders and positions her in front of the photo to make the comparison. She raises an eyebrow and asks if he wants to know what his eyes remind her of, and he chuckles and tells her to keep that one to herself.
They've walked around parts of the city she didn't even know existed, and by the time they make it to her building, it's 4:00 in the morning.
He kisses the apple of her cheek gently and winks as he walks down the steps towards the sidewalk. She turns around when she realizes he's still standing there staring at her, and she's acutely aware that this isn't the boy she wants.
But she still agrees to go out with him again.
| You're just a filler in the space that happened to be free
How dare you think you'd get away with trying to play me |
She starts dating Julian. Really dating him. They go to dinner and watch movies on her sofa and he spends the night. He's funny and he challenges her, and he's good to her.
It's the middle of March, and the weather is just warming up, and it's her first spring in L.A. He shows her his favourite places. Flowers bloom and she's paying attention to them while he only sees her. He brings her fresh lilacs the next day just to prove that he was paying attention when she told him she always loved the smell.
All she can think of are the azaleas Lucas used to pick for her every so often a couple summers ago.
They're spending a Saturday morning in bed, talking and cuddling, after a very strange breakfast of coffee and rice cakes, and her phone rings next to her bed while she's brewing another pot to get them through the lazy day.
"Can you grab that?" she shouts from the kitchen.
"No!"
"Julian," she whines. "Please!"
"I'm not answering your phone," he says, just before he hears her running back towards the bedroom.
He's got her cell in his hands, and he's wondering who Lucas is.
"Gimme," she demands with a smile, holding out her hand. He grins and shakes his head, but he does as he's told. "Hello?"
"Hey! How are you?" Lucas asks. It's been a few days since they last spoke, and he has something he's excited to tell her.
"Good! What's up?" she inquires. Julian grabs her waist and pulls her back onto the bed, and she shoots him a look to tell him to stop.
"I have news," he states.
His news is forgotten when he hears the unmistakable sound of someone kissing her. Or her kissing someone.
She shrugs Julian off and she knows that he's just trying to somehow mark his territory.
And she doesn't like it one bit.
She's not property and he shouldn't be insecure, but she saw him glancing at the name on her phone, and she's sure he's only acting like this because she's talking to another guy.
But Lucas isn't just another guy, and in her heart of hearts, she knows that Julian has every reason to be insecure. She also knows there's a very heavy reason she's never even so much as mentioned Lucas' name to Julian.
She knows there's an even heavier reason why she's never even so much as mentioned Julian's name to Lucas.
"What's the news?" she asks, standing up again and turning her back to Julian. He groans loudly and she looks at him admonishingly.
"What's your news, Peyton?" Lucas asks quietly.
She wonders if that's the sound of someone's heart breaking.
"Lucas, I..."
It's not lost on Julian that she leaves the room as soon as she speaks the other guy's name.
"You're...you're dating someone," he states needlessly. His blood is boiling at the thought of her with another man, but he knows she'll be mad if he actually speaks those words.
"Yeah, it's kind of new-ish," she says lamely. It's not even true, and she knows that he's going to ask what he asks next.
"How new?"
"New Years?" she says it like a question because she's not sure how he's going to react.
Well, she is sure and she's bracing herself for it.
"New Years?! Peyton, it's March!" he shouts. "You've been dating someone for over two months and you're just telling me now!?"
"OK, look," she says firmly, "you don't get to judge me Lucas. You have no right."
"I'm not judging! I'm just...pissed that you didn't tell me!"
"And why should I?" she asks bitterly. "It's not like you've been all that truthful with me, either."
"What the hell does that mean?" he asks.
"Don't pretend you don't know exactly what I'm talking about, because you do, and we both know it," she says, speaking at a dangerously low level.
"OK, you're being crazy. I'm not even going to pretend I know what you're saying right now," he argues. But she's not being crazy, and he does know what she's saying.
"Luke, you won't ever just say..." she starts, before remembering the man in the other room. "I'm not having this discussion right now."
"Fine!" he shouts. "Keep your secrets, Peyton. Tell them to your boyfriend."
"Luke!"
"And by the way? Nathan and I won our game last night. We're playing for the title next weekend," he says just before he hangs up.
The line goes dead before she can ask 'what game', and it kills her that she doesn't already know the answer.
Julian comes out of the bedroom fully clothed, and he reaches for his shoes without ever looking at her.
"What are you doing?" she asks in frustration.
What the hell is with men today?
"Leaving," he says coldly.
"Why, exactly?" she asks, putting her hand on her hip.
"Because you just had a more passionate conversation with whoever the hell Lucas is than you've ever had with me," he points out. She lets out a sigh and looks away. He's right and they both know it. "Maybe I was crazy to think a girl like you didn't come with baggage."
"Baggage?" she asks indignantly.
"You're...incredible," he says as he stands. He grins at her the way he always does when he compliments her. "There's no way you haven't broken hearts."
"Julian..."
"I won't let mine be one of them," he says softly.
He kisses her forehead gently and reaches for the door handle, and he doesn't turn around when she calls his name again.
She's lost her boyfriend and the love of her life in the same day, and all she can do is ask herself why they aren't the same person.
| Why is it everytime I think I've tried my hardest
It turns out it ain't enough cause you're still not mentioning love
What am I supposed to do to make you want me properly? |
She cries for a day and a half.
She's not crying over Julian and the way he left and the things he said and the hurt look on his face.
She's crying over the very tone of voice she heard from Lucas that used to make her mad. She's heard it before, she realizes, a lot of times before. She doesn't know why it affects her so differently now.
He's hurt, and it's all her fault, and as much as she's been the one hurting because of him in the past, she can't keep herself from feeling like it really doesn't need to be that way. She doesn't need to be mad, and he doesn't need to be hurt, and if the two of them could just talk it out instead of dancing around one another, they might actually be OK.
It's late when she calls him. Well, late for him. It's almost midnight, but she needs to talk to him, and something tells her that he won't mind if she wakes him up.
"Hi," he says softly. He kind of hates himself for smiling when he sees her name on the caller ID, but he can't stand the way they left things, and all he's wanted for a day and a half is to make it right.
"Hi," she almost whispers back. They're quiet for a moment, because she really doesn't know what to say, and I'm sorry just doesn't seem like enough. "We broke up."
"Oh," he says. He props himself up on his elbow in his bed. All he wants is for her to be happy, and as painful as it's been, he's realized since finding out about her boyfriend that she deserves that no matter where she finds it.
"Don't say you're sorry," she says with a weak laugh.
Only Peyton could make jokes like that and make him laugh right now.
"I wasn't about to," he tells her.
"Yes, you were," she sighs. She knows him too well, and she knows that even if he didn't like the relationship, he'd still feel bad for her if it ended. "So listen, I was...I said things..."
"So did I," he says softly. There's a moment of silence that still sounds a lot like understanding. "Why'd you break up with him?"
It's a selfish question to ask, but he does it anyway. He wants her to tell him that it's because she can't see herself with anyone but him.
She doesn't.
"He broke up with me."
"What?" he asks in shock. "Why the hell would he do that?"
She laughs because she finds it hilarious that he doesn't know Julian. He doesn't know any of the details of their relationship or how serious it was (or wasn't), but he's still questioning the stranger's motives.
"Because I yelled at you," she explains.
"How does that...?"
"He said I have more passion for you than I ever did for him," she says before she can stop herself. But she likes being honest with Lucas. Being honest with Lucas has always been easy. Well, when she wasn't avoiding telling him she was in love with him.
His heart's beating faster and all he wants to do is tell her that he's been waiting for her to say something like that for what feels like forever. If she could see him now, she'd see the goofy smile he's wearing.
"Luke?"
"Yeah," he says quickly, making her laugh. "I...I thought maybe you argued over his taste in music or something."
"I wouldn't break up with someone because..."
"Peyton," he says admonishingly. She can practically see the smile on his face.
"OK, fine, so I would," she admits in defeat. She lays back on her bed and it hits her that she's only gone a day and a half without talking to him, but it's felt like a lifetime.
"So, I probably overreacted, then," he says shamefully. "I just...I guess I always held out hope that..."
"Me too," she whispers.
"So...what do you want to do?" he asks. It's heavy and deep, and they've never even really acknowledged their mutual feelings, and his heart is beating fast again as he waits for what she might say.
"I want to hear all about the Division II title you and Nathan are going to win this weekend," she says.
And he has to laugh.
He has to laugh so he doesn't cry.
She loves him, and he loves her, and he's really wondering how long they're going to do this little dance before they either crash and burn, or come together.
He tells her all about the game and their last win and how excited they all are, and she's excited, too, he can tell. She tells him she knows a sports bar where they'll be playing the game, and that she'll wear the Gilmore tee shirt he sent her and cheer him on.
They say goodnight after an hour-long conversation, and she hangs up thinking that maybe it really is easy, and they just make it harder than it needs to be.
| I'm taking these chances and getting away
And though I'm trying my hardest you go back to her
And I think that I know things may never change |
He heads to New York for a weekend when he's shopping his novel. He's - miraculously, he thinks - gotten competing offers, and he's meeting with a few different publishers to talk advances and resources and...whatever other bargaining chips they're trying to use to sway him. He can't say he hates the attention and validation that comes with creating this little bidding war.
Peyton cried into the phone when he told her, and he loves her for that.
No one knows he's actually written two full novels, and that this isn't the one they all think it is. The first one, he's not sure he'll ever show anyone. It's all - well, mostly - about Peyton, and he won't share that with the world just yet. It's too personal and it's too much of himself, and he can't show anyone that yet.
This novel, about a boy and a comet, is full of metaphor and meaning, and he's sure only one person will really understand it. He wouldn't have it any other way.
Peyton calls him when he's in New York, and she's surprised, though she shouldn't be, to hear her best friend in the background, giggling and calling his name.
But the brunette has always come before the blonde, and this is just another reminder of that fact.
| I'm still hoping one day I might hear you say
I make you feel a way you've never felt before
And I'm all you need and that you never want more |
She tells him she wants to take a vacation. He's off for the summer, and she has a ton of overtime hours logged that she can use for a vacation, and she really just needs to get out of L.A. for a bit. He tells her just to come home, but she needs more of a break than that. She's thinking Vegas or Austin or maybe even Seattle, but he raises the very good point that you can't get into bars and clubs if you're underage (though they both have very convincing fake IDs) and that those three places would be no fun if she couldn't experience all the music she knows is there.
He suggests Toronto since the drinking age is 19, and she's already decided that's where she's going before he even starts listing off the things that are there to see. She knows the music scene is incredible there, and she's heard from friends that it's a great city, and the summer there is warm and bright and busy.
He doesn't expect her to ask him to go with her.
Of course, he says yes.
She meets him in the lobby of the hotel, and she runs towards him and throws her arms around him before he's even really through the door.
But it's been eight months since she's seen him, and being wrapped in his arms is really all she could think about the entire flight. If she's being honest, it's all she's been able to think about since he agreed to meet her there.
"So what first?" he asks as the bellboy takes his bags. He looks between the guy in the fancy suit, and Peyton, and he raises an eyebrow. "Jeez, how much are they paying you?"
She managed to get a corporate rate at one of the nicest hotels in the city through work. Maybe she stretched the truth a little bit and said it was for the president of the company and not the assistant to the assistant to the A&R director, but she doesn't feel guilty about it at all.
"Not enough," she says with a laugh. "First? First...we nap."
"Nap? Peyton, we just got here!" he points out as they make their way to the elevator.
"I know," she says softly, shrugging her shoulders. "I just missed...being with you."
He just lets out a breath and shakes his head as he throws his arm around her shoulder.
He's missed being with her, too.
They go to a live show at a place called the Reverb that evening, before going to another place called the Horseshoe, and he's a little blown away that there are so many good music venues all within the same few blocks. They listen to singer-songwriters, and one in particular stands out to the both of them.
They've been sipping Jack Daniels on the rocks like the good southerners they are - and also because it's kind of their thing - and he's got a heady, buzzy feeling he's sure she's experiencing, too. The singer starts playing a song called Lost that hits him hard, and when she places her hand on his thigh, he knows she feels it, too.
"Let's dance," he says.
She looks at him like he's crazy, but he raises his eyebrow like a challenge, and she downs her drink while he holds his hand out to lead her to the dance floor.
They sway together to the music, and she can't ignore the way his hand feels on the small of her back, and he can't ignore the way she sighs when a particular lyric speaks to her. It's the same lyric that speaks to him, and when she pulls away to meet his eyes, he knows it's now or never.
So he pulls her a little closer and he presses his lips to hers like he now realizes he's been waiting to do, really, since the last time he kissed her.
They part, and she looks at him, and he's not really sure what to expect.
She smiles.
She smiles and closes her eyes, and he almost sighs his relief. She leans up to speak in his ear, and she says, "let's get out of here."
His heart's somehow beating faster than it ever has.
But it's never felt better.
| Then you'd say all of the right things without a clue
But you'd save the best for last
Like I'm the one for you |
They walk hand in hand in the sticky night air back to their hotel, and she slips her hand into the back pocket of his jeans when they're in the elevator with an older couple, and all he can do is smile and wrap his arm around her a little tighter.
They make it into their room, and as soon as the door's closed, his lips are on hers and she's tugging his tee shirt to bring him closer to her. His hands tangle in her hair like they always used to do when he would kiss her, and he realizes he's missed this entirely too much.
Her skin is impossibly smooth, and her lips are impossibly soft, and the way she murmurs his name in his ear when he's kissing her neck is so impossibly sexy it has him groaning against her skin. He doesn't know why they haven't been doing this since they were 16, and if he weren't preoccupied, he's sure he'd take more time to think of the reasons.
They each mumble things that sound a little bit like I want you, and I need you, and you're so sexy as they pull articles of clothing from one another, but they stay away from declarations more serious than that.
But then she's laying naked beneath him and he's looking down at her like she's the most precious and perfect thing he's ever laid eyes on. She might be. He brushes the hair back from her face as he smiles down at her and she smiles up at him.
And he says it.
"God, I love you."
He kisses her and distracts her before she can tell him that he can't, or that he doesn't, or that he only thinks he does. He kisses her before she can get scared, and they get lost in each other and they make love for the first time. He's pretty sure nothing has ever felt as perfect as she does.
She's laying in his arms beneath the sheets, drumming her fingers over his heart, and he's running his hand up and down her arm. The only sounds filling the room are the their lazy, sated breaths and sirens from the outside world, every now and again.
They're both about to drift into slumber, but she can't let him go to sleep without saying it, and she can't let herself go to sleep without saying it.
"I love you, too."
They go to a baseball game and they go to the beach. She laughs at his formerly-hidden fear of heights when they're at the top of the CN Tower. She kind of loves the worry in his eyes when she walks across the glass floor close to 1,500 feet in the air. He pulls her into his arms when she walks back to him, and he tells her not to scare him like that. She kisses him gently in the room full of strangers and all is forgiven. They shop and wander vintage clothing stores and explore the sights and eat at restaurants they're told by locals are the best.
But all that's during the day.
At night, they find themselves in each other's arms, like that's somehow exactly where they're meant to be.
Neither of them says those words again, but they don't need to. They're implied in their own ways, and that means they don't need to be spoken.
It's five days of just the two of them, and they're each wondering if maybe that's how it should have been all along.
They go their separate ways after their five short days together, and she tells him she'll talk to him soon like they haven't just changed their entire relationship by spending most of their time making love.
But his heart doesn't break this time when he watches her walk through the gate at the airport.
| You should know that you're just a temporary fix
This is not rooted with you it don't mean that much to me
You're just a filler in the space that happened to be free
How dare you think you'd get away with trying to play me |
He sleeps with a girl.
He hasn't spoken to Peyton in nearly a week because they're both so busy, and the last time they talked, they had a stupid argument and she told him that maybe she just needed a few days and she'd call him later.
A week is certainly later.
It's been a few months since their trip, and nothing has really changed from what they were like before those five days in Toronto. He can't decide whether that's good or bad. They aren't together, and they don't really talk about their relationship, though they both know that it's really dangerous not to and they're only going to hurt themselves and probably each other by not having the conversation they really need to have.
There's always, since the end of their senior year - which now feels like forever ago - been the underlying promise of someday. Someday, they'd work it out. Someday, they'd express their feelings. Someday, they'd be in the same place at the same time.
Someday, it wouldn't be so fucking hard to love her.
He's in New York and in the final stages of publishing the first edition of his novel. He's just chosen cover art and read the the jacket description and the reviews, and it's being well-received before it's even printed.
All he wants to do is share this with Peyton, but when he calls her, he gets her voicemail. When he calls again, he gets her voicemail. He doesn't leave a message either time. She calls him back and she sounds like she's at a party and she says she can't talk, but that she'll call him later.
He's really starting to hate the word later.
She hangs up before he's really gotten to say anything, and he sighs as he sits on a stool in the bar at his hotel. He's never really felt so far away from her.
So he calls the one person in the city that he really knows.
Brooke Davis.
She blows into the bar, escaping the flashbulbs outside, and she's dressed far too fashionably, he thinks. He knew her when she was denim jackets and matching jeans, and tank tops from a store in the mall. But tonight, she's in a black cocktail dress, and he feels completely inadequate to her in just his jeans and blue button down shirt. And really? That's kind of the way he's always felt around her.
They fall into easy conversation as she sips gin martinis and he sips scotch, and neither of them mentions the blonde girl on the other side of the country.
Brooke knows that she should have kept in touch more, but she's busy, and Peyton's busy, and they haven't spoken in months. Not so much as a single email or text message since April. They never talked about Lucas anyway. The boy had always torn them apart, so they didn't even really speak his name, unless it was in passing.
So it's not completely out of the question for Brooke to think that Peyton doesn't love Lucas anymore. And with him sitting there, sipping his fifth glass of scotch since she sat down, it's really easy to believe that he doesn't really care that much about Peyton either. In her heart, she probably knows both those things are untrue.
But when his hand falls to her leg and his fingertips lightly caress the inside of her thigh, all the lies get even easier to believe. She's not second best and she never has been, and she could say no if she wanted to, and neither of them will think this is a mistake in the morning.
She drops a few bills on the bar and she gives him the same look she used to give him. He musters a weak smirk, and in his foggy frame of mind this all seems like a good idea.
They get up and walk to the elevator, and they're kissing in his room in a matter of minutes.
He sleeps with a girl.
They both wake up in the morning knowing it was the worst and most self-destructive thing they could have done. Brooke, because she knows her heart will never really heal from the things he's said and done in the past. Lucas, because she's not at all the one he wants, and he hates himself for ever really thinking that she was.
They glance at each other, and they each recognize the shame in the other's eyes, and she wraps herself in the sheet before stepping into the bathroom.
She emerges moments later wearing her dress and pulling her hair up. She's on her phone, arranging for a car to pick her up at the service entrance of the hotel so no one will see her doing the walk of shame.
"Brooke," he says as she's stepping into her shoes.
"Luke, we really don't need to talk about it," she insists seriously.
"No...I mean, yeah, OK," he agrees. "But...Peyton can't find out about this."
She freezes in her place for a moment before she laughs humourlessly and shakes her head.
"Tell me - please tell me - you two aren't together," she pleads, straightening up and putting a hand on her forehead.
"No!" he answers, far too quickly, considering how much he hates that they aren't together. "No. We aren't...but we're...I dunno. We're something. Or we could be. It's...She just can't know."
"You know something, Lucas?" she asks as she violently grabs her purse off the dresser. "I won't say anything. I'm not exactly proud of this either. But...One of these days you're going to have to make a choice."
She's out the door before he can tell her that he already has.
| But, despite the truth that I know
I find it hard to let go and give up on you
Seems I love the things you do |
He didn't expect this. Not even a week after he and Brooke's...whatever it was...there are photos and rumours, and he's getting calls from his publishers. They're thrilled that he's generating some publicity before the book launches. Photos in every trashy gossip rag asking if Brooke Davis snagged herself an intellectual in the form of Lucas Scott, emerging author. She calls him to apologize, saying she had no clue that pictures of the two of them laughing and holding hands and entering a hotel elevator together were being taken.
Haley and Nathan look at him, and he knows they're disappointed. Neither says a word, but Haley shakes her head at him like he should know better. He knows he should, too.
And through it all, the only thing on his mind is Peyton.
She doesn't answer her phone the first four times he calls, and the fifth time, he's cursing himself aloud when she picks up.
"Peyton," he says desperately when he hears her answer. His voice is met with silence, and he doesn't know what that means, but it scares hell out of him. "It's..."
"So help me God, Lucas, if you tell me it's not what it looks like..."
"No," he insists. "I wasn't going to. I just..."
"This is...I don't think you know how much this hurts me, Lucas," she admits.
He knows - knows - she's about to cry, and he's never felt worse in his entire life than he does right now.
"I'm sorry," he says sincerely. "Peyton, I'm so sorry."
"You know? The thing is...I've heard it all from you before," she says, unable to hide her disappointment. "You say you're sorry, and that it was a mistake, and that you want me, but..."
"I do want you!"
"Well, forgive me for doubting it," she says bitterly. There's a moment of silence where she can practically see him trying to find the right words to use on her. She's really not sure she wants to hear them.
"I don't know what to say," he says, shrugging his shoulders.
"I guess you don't have to say anything," she admits quietly. "I'm the idiot that keeps holding onto you like...like there's something to hold onto."
He lets out a resentful laugh because he can't hold it in.
"Are you really hanging on, Peyton? Because you pretty much push me away every time we get close to anything," he points out angrily.
"I didn't sleep with Brooke!" she shouts.
She wonders if she said it just to get confirmation one way or another. There's no hard evidence that he and Brooke actually slept together. Maybe they just talked, or maybe they watched old movies on television, or maybe they...Her mind has been racing since she saw the photos.
She knows in her heart that it's crazy and stupid and naive to think that they didn't spend the night doing what she's been picturing in her mind. It's been torture.
Hearing the confirmation he speaks next doesn't feel any better.
"It just...happened! You and I aren't together, and we're...we're drifting apart," he adds. "I was hurting and you wouldn't talk to me!"
"You don't think it hurts me even more to know that you wouldn't have even told me about this if it hadn't been printed in People magazine!?"
"I wanted...I didn't want to hurt you," he says lamely.
"Funny," she scoffs. "Did you come up with that plan before, or after you fucked my best friend?"
He's never heard her sound more disappointed or disgusted or hurt or angry. He's seen those emotions from her before, but not like this. Never like this.
"God, you'd almost think I like getting my heart broken," she says, finally letting herself cry.
"Peyton, I'm..."
"The worst thing is that I still love you," she admits softly.
She hangs up before he can say another word, and he collapses onto his bed. He feels like he's just been hit by a truck.
She thinks that loving him is the worst thing.
The only thing that stops him from drinking an entire bottle of whiskey is that he promised to take care of Jamie that evening.
He's halfway through an old Dr. Seuss book with his nephew on his lap, when he realizes that he never, not once in that call, told her that he loves her.
| Like the meaner you treat me, the more eager I am
To persist with this heartbreak and running around |
She won't talk to him, and he can't say he doesn't deserve that treatment.
But it's still slowly killing him.
It's been a month since they last spoke, and even then it was because she called the house to talk to Nathan, and Lucas answered the phone. It was another three weeks before then that they actually had a conversation. Well, that one big argument that had them both feeling like they were falling apart.
He really is lost without her.
His grades have slipped a little - though it's nothing to really be alarmed about yet - and he's been late for practice a handful of times. Not good when you're the head coach. Nathan harshly told him to, "Quit being a bitch, and get your head out of your ass."
But it's just not that easy.
His book is coming out next week and at this point, he wouldn't be surprised if she didn't even read it. He can't blame her, and even if he could, it wouldn't be fair. He's sure they're both blaming him, anyway.
He gets a few advance copies for his friends and family, and he goes to the post office before giving them to anyone else. He packages hers up and sends it to her address. He doesn't include a note or a message like knows he could. The book says all he wants to, and just maybe if it shows up in her mailbox, she'll actually take the time to read his words.
He won't give up on her. He won't give up on someday.
| And I think that I know things may never change |
She hasn't spoken to Brooke. The brunette hasn't called, and Peyton can't decide whether or not she would have answered if she had. It hurt her at first, but then she realized it just figured. Any time she's lost Lucas, she's lost Brooke, too. She can't even really deny that she and Brooke's friendship had pretty much fizzled out before 'the incident' anyway.
Lucas, on the other hand, has called every day, at varying times. He's given up on leaving her voicemails, but he hasn't given up on at least trying to get in touch with her. She hasn't told him to stop calling, because she really doesn't want him to. She loves that he still cares enough to want to make things right.
She still loves him.
She tries not to. She even calls Julian one night when she's feeling miserable and his name jumps out at her from the list of contacts on her phone. They meet for coffee, but he tells her he doesn't expect anything. She sighs in relief, and they both laugh. He looks good, she can't deny, but she finally admits to herself what she hadn't been able to admit when they were actually dating.
Julian Baker is not Lucas Scott.
And Lucas Scott is the only one for her.
She's still too mad to answer his calls, and she really doesn't know when she'll be able to. She knows that someday, they're going to have to stop playing this game, it's just really clear that neither of them are ready to give up, no matter how much she might make it seem like she has.
She gets a package in the mail, and when she tears it open, she holds his first novel in her hands, and she tears up, seeing his name in block letters on the cover. There's a beautiful photograph of the River Court at night, and that familiar red Mustang parked at the edge of the asphalt.
She waits until she's inside her apartment to open the cover, and the book opens naturally to the page he's dog eared.
And the dedication reads; "I'll be seein' ya."
She can't stop the tears, and she doesn't need to read anything more than that to know that it's about her. She still stays up all night, though, reading the words and hanging onto each and every one of them.
It's beautiful, his prose. It's passionate and sweet and humble and honest. And she's pretty sure that it's sexy, too, but she might be the only one who thinks it.
She flips back to the dedication page and reads those words one last time before going to work that morning.
When her label tells her they're downsizing and she loses her job that day, she takes it as a sign.
| I'm still hoping one day I might hear you say
I make you feel a way you've never felt before
And I'm all you need and that you never want more |
She tosses her keys on her kitchen table, and drops her box of meager personal things from her office, and she does the only thing that makes any sense to do. It's the only thing she's really wanted to do since she last did it, and the only thing she's really wanted to do since yesterday.
She calls Lucas.
"Peyton," he says softly.
And the way he says her name sometimes...
"Did you mean it?" she asks after a moment.
He knows she's read the book, and he closes his eyes and he smiles for what feels like the first time in ages.
"Every word," he assures her. "All of it. Everything."
She knows he's telling the truth, and she closes her eyes and she smiles for what feels like the first time in ages.
"I don't know what to do," she admits quietly. He can hear in her voice that she's crying, and he knows, somehow, that there's more to those tears than just whatever is or isn't going on between them.
"What's wrong?" he asks worriedly.
"I don't have a job, and I..."
"What?" he asks in shock.
"I got laid off," she says before letting out a pitiful laugh. "Today, actually."
"Wow. That's..."
"You're allowed to be happy," she says, cutting him off.
"I just want you to be happy," he tells her, his voice remorseful and apologetic. "Are you OK?"
She cries a little harder, because they've hardly spoken in two months, and he's still taking care of her. She realizes that even though he hurt her, she hurt him right back with the things she said and the way she treated him on the phone when he answered at the house. That she's still worried about him and he's still worried about her, tells her all that she needs to know.
Maybe that's the moment she decides to move home.
"I think so," she says. She goes to her bedroom and reaches for the grey sweater that sits in the top drawer next to her underwear - he smirked when she told him that while they were in Toronto. "Hang on a sec?"
"Mhmm."
She pulls the fabric over her head, and she feels a million times better already. It hasn't smelled like him in far, far too long, and she wonders if that's just the saddest thing.
"I really miss you, Luke," she says after grabbing her phone again.
"I've missed you so much," he sighs.
She lays down on the bed and glances at the photo of the two of them that Haley sent her ages ago in a 'care package'. They're facing each other and smiling, and his arm is draped around the chair she sits on. They look like a couple, and she kind of hates that they never really were one.
"Can you just say it?" she requests. She knows it's vague, but they always do this. They dance around the subject and around each other, and she's tired of it. She wants to hear the words, and she knows that as soon as she does, shell be packing her things. "Can you just...can we stop pretending?"
He smiles and shakes his head. She's pleading with him to say the one phrase he's felt like yelling for the past two months; maybe the past two years.
"I love you." He says it in that tone that she once told him she loved. "I'm so insanely in love with you that I can't stand myself for ever hurting you, and I'm...I'm amazed that you're even talking to me."
She feels like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders that's been there since her junior year of high school. All the uncertainty and misunderstanding and miscommunication and mistakes. It's all gone, just because he's finally really said those words, and he means them the way she wants him to mean them.
"I love you, too," she manages, though there's a lump in her throat. "You have no idea."
"Oh, I think I do," he says, and she can hear that smirk, and even though she can't see it, it makes her stomach flutter a bit.
"I went out with Julian," she says, and before she can continue, he's interrupting her.
"Uh...you tell me you love me, then you mention a date?" he asks. It's not jealous - well, it's not entirely jealous - and she just knows he's got one eyebrow raised.
"It just hit me...I've never really wanted anyone but you."
The tears in his eyes are the kind he's only ever cried over one girl.
| And we'll say all of the right things without a clue
And you'll be the one for me and me the one for you |
"I'd say the same thing, but you wouldn't believe me," he says, almost sadly, she notes.
"Yes, I would," she insists softly. "You've just been an idiot."
"An idiot you..."
"Yes, an idiot I love," she says with a giggle. "Even though I've really tried not to, and you've given me lots of reasons not to."
"So why do you?" he asks timidly. He's momentarily afraid of her answer, but he realizes he has nothing to be afraid of. Because it doesn't matter why.
"Because...," she starts. "OK look, I'm not going to list all the reasons just to boost your ego."
They both laugh and he's thinking how much he's missed this. The banter and playfulness and just...Peyton. Everything she brings to him, and everything she makes him feel.
And he loves to hear that laugh.
He doesn't want to ever not have the chance to hear that laugh.
"So," he says after a few moments, "are you coming home?"
He thinks he already knows the answer - at least he hopes he does - but he still doesn't expect the words she says.
"I never should have left."
"God, I love you," he sighs. "I love you...so much."
She's wondering when the next flight leaves.
"I don't know...I have no clue what to do," she says with a deprecating laugh. "I have no job and no real skills."
"Shut up," he scoffs. "You're one of the smartest people I know."
"Anyway," she chuckles, "I guess I could apply to schools, or..."
"Schools? Plural?" he asks indignantly. "One school. This little college with a great basketball team. And you're lucky I happen to know someone on staff there."
"Coach Scott, are you gonna pull some strings for little old me?" she asks in a southern drawl. Even when she's teasing him, she's still sexy as hell.
"I'll do anything for you, Peyt," he promises. She lets out a little sound like she always has when he's said things like that.
"God, I have so much to do," she says, already overwhelmed. "I need to pack and everything, and find a place to live."
"You're living with me," he insists firmly.
"Luke..."
"You are."
"You want me to live in sin with you?" she asks teasingly.
And no, he realizes, he doesn't.
He's not sure if he's taking pages from his brother's book, and why he is, if he is. But all he can think is that he won't waste any more time with her. He can't. He's wasted too much already, and he won't do it any more.
"We could get married," he suggests.
She knows he's being 100 per cent serious, and it scares the hell out of her.
But only for a moment.
And then she's thinking that it's irrational, but it's all she really wants.
"Luke, we...we can't just get married," she says, just to say she had.
"Can't we?" he counters.
She's pacing her bedroom, wondering if he's actually proposing to her over the phone when they haven't even seen each other in ages.
"We've never even been a real couple before!" she reminds him. "We...Lucas..."
"You want to, don't you?" he asks confidently. She stops in her tracks. He really does know her better than she wants to admit.
"I...yes, Luke, but..."
"But what?" he asks. Hearing her say yes made him have to press his hand to his heart.
"I just...I'm trying to at least be able to say we talked about it rationally," she says, and he laughs into the phone, and she can only smile.
"Listen, I have a book signing in Vegas next week," he tells her. "Meet me there."
"You're being awfully demanding," she teases. "We..."
"Can?" he suggests. "I know. I just have to get you to stop being rational."
"If we do this..." she says softly, her voice trailing.
"If we do this, I'm going to love you forever," he says seriously, meaning every word. "And you'll be...my wife, Peyton."
She starts crying again, because no words he's ever spoken have ever sounded as good as those words.
"Our parents are going to be pissed," she says, laughing through her tears.
"Is that a yes?" he asks, almost in awe.
"Yes," she whispers.
"Yeah?" He just needs the confirmation, and he almost shouts his excitement when he gets it.
"Where do I need to meet you?"