RECAPITULATE: In kindergarten, no one ever remembers what you say or didn't say. But now I'm older. I have to remember every lie I've told. The first day as a senior is always a thrilling one especially when you're going to a new school in a remote town.

CHAPTER 2

NATHAN'S POV

They say senior year is the best time of your life. I guess they've never had Dan Scott as a father.

"Nathan, get your ass out of bed right now! We should have started our 10 mile run already. It's your senior year. Scouts are going to be watching. You can't slack off now."

I looked at the clock. Eugh, it's only 5 in the morning. Let the hell begin.

I have decided to do better this year. By better I mean attending all of my practices and doing my assignments early. I know what you're thinking, me doing homework at all, let alone completing them early. Mind you, this isn't one of them "it's-senior-year-therefore-I-should-mature-and-buckle-down-into-my-studies-in-preparation-for-college". It's more along the lines of, "I-don't-want-a-repeat-of-what-happened-last-year"

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* FLASHBACK *

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"Ok everybody, I want a 1500 word essay about the evident in the catcher in the rye. This will count for 25% of your class mark for this semester"Mr. McNikol is actually a pretty laid back teacher. He is one of my favorites from the English faculty, maybe even in the whole school. "You have until next Monday" That gives me a whole week to do this. I'll work on it later.

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So it's Sunday and I just remembered Mr. McNikol's essay that I have to hand in tomorrow. So I get that the carousel represents life with it continuously going round and round and up and down. Now all I have to do is to extend that into 1000 words. It should be easy enough.

So it's been an hour and I've only got 734 words. It's almost 1 'o' clock. I'll just have some lunch and then get back to work.

Mom made me some grilled sandwiches. "Thanks mom" She's the best mom in the whole world. I don't know how she puts up with me.

The whole time I was eating them I kept trying to find something else to write. I have already looked at cliff's notes. I also did the whole "use-thesaurus-to-find-bigger-words-to-make-your-essay-look-longer" trick. "Thanks for lunch mom. It was delicious" I should probably get back at it.

"Nathan, where are you?" I wonder what Dan wants now?

"I'm in the kitchen." Damn it. I shouldn't have answered. We'll I can't do anything about it now. Hmmm. Why is Dan wearing work out clothes? Were we supposed to have training today?

"Come on, we going for a run now". We'll I guess that answers my question, but I don't rememb-

"We didn't have one scheduled today, but I thought you could use all of the extra training. Your conditioning is crap." And here we go again, the daily heartfelt father-son talk. "What were you doing on the bench at the end of the 3rd quarter?" We'll I don't know Dan, maybe having a rest. Now he's going to go off on a spiel about "back in my day". "Back in my day I stayed on the court the ENTIRE game"

And it goes on and on, the same thing over and over again. It think the eye roll is now an automated response for all things affiliated with Dan.

"I can't I have to write an essay for English"

"You are going to blow off good running weather to do your homework!" when he puts it that way…

"It's going to count for a quarter of my mark this semester." Now why did I say that? Rule number one: NEVER TALK BACK TO DAN. Why? It's because he never gives a crap, and you're just going to get into more trouble.

"Well you should have thought about that before. Besides its not like English is going to help you get into the NBA and you're going to need all the help you can get. So forget about it, put in some extra training now and get some nerd to do your homework for you. What is wrong with you, can't do anything right." I would say he started mumbling obscenities under his breath, but that would be an understatement.

So now I've got two choices. It's either I reap the punishment from Dan and maybe get a B for English, or train for the upcoming playoffs and fail English. When you are caught between a rock and a hard place, I choose to go for the lesser of two evils.

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"So before everyone starts copying off the board I want you all to put you essays on your desk so I can come round and collect them?" Well here goes nothing.

"Nathan, where is you essay?" You never know. He might go easy on me. I mean he is a pretty tolerant teacher. Maybe if I can explain the situation. He's giving me that disappointed look that whitey gets when I turn up late to practice. I can still spin this my way.

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"Nathan, where the hell have you been? We were supposed to hit the weights over an hour ago."

"I had a detention." I don't think sheepish would sufficiently describe how I'm feeling right now. Not that anyone would realize it. After years of lying to people, you learn to mask your emotions. You create the ultimate poker face.

"What the hell are you doing in DETENTION?!" Now if it were any other person the conversation would probably go along the lines of:

"well I don't know DAN, it may have to do with the whole "I don't give a crap about your homework, I want you to train because your crap, DO IT NOW!!!"

But he's not any other person. He is Dan Scott. He is a 1970 All-American[1]. He is the devil incarnate. He is Adolf Hitler on crack. And he is my father.

So I keep my poker face. I keep still and pray that the onslaught of terror may be drained of usual vigor.

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* END *

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Loathe and hate cannot sufficiently express what I feel for this man. I can't remember the last time I called this monster Dad. He was always and will furthermore be just Dan to me. The only reason I remain is for my mother. If it wasn't for her, Tree Hill would not come to know the name Nathan Scott, and I could live a life rid of pain. It is times like these that I wished I was Lucas.

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[1] I know that the McDonald's All-American High School Basketball Games only started in 1977, but now lets just pretend it started earlier.