Thanks all of those of you who reviewed this story. I am so sorry it's taken me so long to update it but things have been really hectic at work recently and I haven't had much time to do much else but work. Anyways here is chapter two, Peyton's history of the years apart ENJOY!

Disclaimer:- I don't own anything in tree hill, although it would be fun if I did. Any similarities between my story and it's characters and anyone in real life are totally coincidental.

The escape chapter 2

What is love? I don't just mean the kinda love friends have between them, the trust and companionship that real friends rely upon. I don't even mean the deeper love that family members share, the deeper more forgiving love that makes mothers, fathers and siblings forgive almost anything done given enough time. No I mean that all-encompassing love between two people that in some unknown way complete each other, the kinda love that drives you on when you are tired and collapsing, makes you feel warm when you're frozen to the core, makes you feel full when you're hungry just by thinking of the object of your affections. The kinda love between two people that bad poets write love songs about and that other people around mock whilst secretly envying and wanting it.

My name is Peyton Sawyer and once I thought I had that kinda love, only a few short years ago in fact. I'd found a guy that made me buzz to my core just by walking into the room. The kinda guy that just by being around made every worry, nightmare or pain that I might be feeling just disappear in a glow of warmth and need. The two of us couldn't seem more different to outsiders, the star basketball player and the emo-loving rock-chick-cheerleader. Yet to those who knew us, to our true friend and family we appeared so similar that I can even remember his mom once saying that it was like looking at two copies of her son when she looked at the both of us. We were two of a kind, both broody music loving slow-to-trust people and yet beyond that we just seemed to complement each other. He made all of my insecurities seem like nothing and saved me from everything including myself at times. I made him feel alive at times and kept him from giving up when he lost basketball from his life, when his mom was sick after bringing his sister into the world, when he nearly lost his brother twice and his best friend/sister-in-law to the music touring world. Simply put we loved each other and I felt like we would never be apart from each other again.

We'd met in junior year when he joined the basketball team although we had lived in the same town, gone to the same schools as we grew up and walked the same streets with our friends for our whole lives up until that point. Two of our friends, my ex and his best friend say that at that first true meeting they could see that we had connected on a level so deep that even we weren't really aware of it. After a year and a half of fighting, with each other, against the world of our friends and family, to stay together, to stay away from each other, to move on with our lives and to regain what we had lost we'd finally gotten together.

Even the night that we finally got together didn't work out like a perfect fairy tale ending, he nearly died from a heart attack caused by overdoing it to help the school win the state championship, one of our friends, Haley, nearly died after being hit by a car driven by an angry loan shark that Luke's brother Nathan had borrowed money from. Of course that elastic connection around our two hearts held us together, even after that when that crazed bastard of a stalker returned and tried to force me into going with him and it came out that my best friend who had fought with me over my cheating with her boyfriend (my Lucas) and cut me out of her life turned out to have slept with my ex, while we were still together.

A few months after we had finally gotten together I received an offer of an internship in LA with this small but powerful music company, an internship that I had applied for at a point when my life seemed to be falling apart. A few weeks before I received the offer I would have jumped at the chance to start a new life away from the hell my life had become, away from the pain and memories that Tree Hill had given me over the years. The problem was that when I received the offer of three months in LA I had finally gotten everything I ever wanted, a guy I loved who loved me, my friends back together, a brother in soul and blood to support me, everything a girl could want I got. For the first time since I had applied for the internship I wanted to turn it down and stay in Tree Hill…with Luke. Luke however told me to go for it, told me that he would be here when I got back and would love me forever as he already had. It took me a week or two to decide, to accept that he was really serious and that my leaving wouldn't end things between us. As you've probably guessed I took the internship and surprisingly Brooke chose to come with me, despite all that she had going on, despite the fact that her clothing line was taking off and she had offers from New York and other places to go and work she chose to come with me.

I remember leaving Tree Hill airport with Brooke that day, walked through security to the gate leaving Luke standing there watching me. The last time I saw him was watching him standing at the window of the terminal waving at me as I walked out to the plane. Looking back now I know what he was about to do but then I put his quiet mood down to him being him and his sadness at me leaving (not big-headed at all was I?). I remember sitting through the whole flight with half of my mind listening to Brooke babbling on about all the fun we were going to have in LA, when I wasn't working that is, and the other half still basking in my love for Lucas.

I called him two minutes after arriving at the small apartment that was all Brooke and I could afford to rent and even then though he sounded different my own excitement about what I was doing made me miss the small cues that anyone who knew Luke knew meant he was about to do something really stupid ('course he'd call it noble or some other bullshit phrase). It wasn't until I got the phone call from Jake, of all people that I realised that all the little warning flags that I'd ignored over the last few weeks weren't about Luke missing me but were about Luke leaving. He'd been trying to hide something from me and I'd missed it. For a girl like me who, lets face it, doesn't have much self-esteem at times losing Luke was like being hit by an 18-wheeller that then reverses over you to get another shot at hitting you. Simply put it crushed me…totally. I tried to carry on with the internship but it became obvious after just a couple of days that my heart wasn't in it. To be honest without Luke I don't think my heart was in anything at all except maybe some needle filled box that kept closing tighter day-by-day.

After a week of struggling through each day at work and crawling into bed every night to cry myself to sleep I gave up on LA and decided to move back to Tree Hill. The thing was when I told Brooke this she seemed almost glad. Turned out she had decided to take up that job offer in New York after all and had been trying to figure a way to tell me she was leaving without making me feel any worse. I stood at LAX and watched my best friend take off to New York before I got onto the plane back to Tree Hill. Karen met me at the airport surprisingly, turned out that Brooke had called her before she left and told her what time I was landing. Thing was just seeing the woman who'd become almost like a surrogate mother to me over the last few months just made me feel worse and me being me I clammed up. I know now that she came to get me in the hopes that I would help me and her to find a way to deal with his leaving and a way to cope until he returned. Didn't do that though. I remember sitting in her car all the way back to Tree Hill barely responding to anything she sad until she just gave up trying and drove in silence.

For the rest of that summer I barely left my house. My dad was still away on some job and I hadn't told him I'd returned early let alone about Luke. Haley and Nate tried popping by every so often but I barely responded to them and after a few weeks of this even they stopped coming by. Honestly I don't think I stepped out of that house more than once or twice a week until I received a letter in mid September.

At first I thought that it was from Brooke as it was stamped from New York. I almost threw it down and went back to bed but for some reason I opened it. It was from Luke! He'd finally gotten in touch with me! I began to read through it, frantically looking for his address so I could join him, I mean why else would he be writing to me after so long away. As I read it though I realised that it wasn't about that at all. He was trying to explain why he'd left and why he ….wasn't coming back ever?! Surely I had read that bit wrong? No I hadn't read it wrong he really wasn't coming back to Tree Hill.

He wasn't coming back because some crazy girl from High school had said that Dan had killed Keith. I mean that was impossible even for Dan, the man who'd once tried to choke Luke to death because he thought Luke had tried to burn him to death, and worse Luke had believed this girl so much that he'd tried to tell Karen what he saw as the truth. I know now that everything he wrote was true but then all that letter did was get me angry. He'd left town, abandoning me and everyone else in his life who cared about him, who loved him all because of some crazy-ass story! I scrunched up that letter and threw it across the room, storming out of the house to head to Haley's to get his address.

Halfway there I had a change of heart though and slowed down as sense gradually took over from the anger. He'd asked me not to contact him unless I was ready to forgive him for running out on me and I wasn't ready for that. More importantly though I'd never known Luke to do anything impulsive, except get tattooed whilst drunk with Brooke, and if he'd done this then he must've really felt that it was the best thing for him. I changed direction and walked over towards Karen's house. As I walked up the pathway the door opened and she came out with little Lily in her stroller. Seeing me she slowed down and started to open her mouth, I guess to ask me how I was or something. I didn't give her a chance to speak and started before she could.

Is it true? Did Luke leave because of some dumbass idea that Keith wasn't shot by Jimmy Edwards but by Dan? I almost shouted at her, startling Lily so much that she began to cry. Karen bent down over her and picking her up began to shush her. After a moment or two she looked back at me and I knew the answer before she even opened her mouth. Turning away from her in disgust I broke into a run and almost sprinted away. Karen tried to call me back, to explain I guess, but I ignored her. I couldn't believe that Luke had told the truth about that part of his reason at least. I t made me wonder if some of the other stuff he'd said could be true as well.

Karen tried to come round that night, to speak to me. She'd figured out that I must have heard from Luke to know what had happened between her and him. I threw her out. I wasn't ready to confront my own feelings about him let alone face her issues as well. I sat alone at home for almost a week, thinking about everything he had written in his letter and about his mom's reaction when I'd confronted her. After spending that week going round in circles over the same old ground I decided to do what I'd originally set out to do that night a week ago. I went to see Haley. She was his best friend. If she was willing to hold onto his address for him, and maybe me, then surely she must have some idea if what he said was true.

I knocked on Haley and Nate's door half hoping she was in and half scared she was out somewhere. Nate opened the door a moment after I knocked and looked at me briefly before enfolding me in his arms with a smile. I knew you couldn't stay away from here too long Sawyer he said I knew that letter would bring you here sooner or later. Come in Hales is out at the moment but she should be back in half an hour or so. I walked into the apartment without a second thought, I trusted Nate. Now that's a relationship that always seemed strange to most of our friends. I mean they all knew that as a couple me and Nate were a train wreck. The strange thing was since he and Hales had gotten together he'd changed, for the better I might add, and we'd become close, probably closer than me and Brooke were now. He treated me like a little sister and saw him as my older brother, which did put a weird spin on mine and Luke's relationship at times (I mean me being in love with my brother's brother? Freaky huh?)

I looked over at Nate as he fixed us both a drink and wondered how the two Scott brothers had become such a big part of my life. My train of thought was interrupted when Haley flew in to the apartment with a crash and threw herself at me. PEYTON she screamed GOD it's sooo good to see you out of that house. I was beginning to worry you were gonna turn into some kind of crazy cat lady living alone in the house and scaring the neighbourhood kids when they went by. Dare I hope its cause you wanted to see me and Nate or maybe James? No even I know that's stupid. It's the letter isn't it? Luke's letter. What do you wanna know Peyt? Where he is, why he left, how he is or a bit of all three? Strange thing was I don't think she even took a breath as she blurted out that speech. Something on Haley could do I guess, when that girl gets on a roll she can say more words without breathing than anyone I know.

I looked at the two of them together and I couldn't help thinking that they had what me and Luke should have had if things had worked out the way they were supposed to. It was that thought that breached the flood gates inside me and I broke down. I came back to myself a while later to find Haley sitting opposite me with a sleeping James in her arms and Nate enfolding me in one of his hugs again. I pushed myself upright giving the two of them a smile meant to convey that I was ok now. Yeah they didn't fall for it, not that I really thought they would. Before I could say anything though Haley started telling me everything about Luke, where he was, how he looked, and what made him left.

After a while when I asked them if they believed his reasons for leaving they froze and looked at each other before Nate answered Peyton I believe him. I can't say I forgive him for disappearing without giving us a chance to help him but I believe Luke when he says this. You know Dan as well as I do. He could do this, I mean look at what he did to Keith and Jules. If he really got angry enough he could kill someone I know it. All we can do now is wait for either Luke to come to his senses or for Dan to make a mistake. For Nate that was actually a ringing endorsement of his brother and somehow it made me feel better. I don't think I was actually ready to believe what I no know for truth just yet but I was ready to give it time. I mean as Brooke once said those who are meant to be together always find their way back to each other in the end.

So I waited for almost four and a half years for something to change. I didn't hide in the house anymore though. I went out and worked. Found myself a job working for THUD magazine as a kinda roving music/art critic/reporter. I watched James grow up over those years, listened to Haley talk about Luke after every time she went up to see him and waited. I had no contact with Luke directly over those years but when Hales took or sent Christmas presents or birthday presents up to him I usually picked out at least one for her to give to him pretending it was from her. See the three of us had decided that it would be better for Luke to believe that me and Hales didn't see too much of each other. It meant that when, note not if but when, things changed enough that he could possibly come home then we could surprise him better.

Did I stop loving him any over those years apart? No if anything I loved him more. I knew how hard I was finding it being apart and from what Hales said he wasn't having it much easier. In a way I came to love him more because he was putting himself through so much pain to keep us all safe. I mean as one of the few of those damn dead authors he was always reading or quoting once said, 'Love is not love which alters when it alterations finds, it is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempts and is never shaken. Love alters not with time's brief hours and weeks, but bears it out.

After four and a half years of waiting for something to change it finally did. Abby returned to Tree Hill and told the truth about that day in the school. When the three of us heard what she had said and that the cops had arrested Dan for Keith's murder we decided it might be time to bring Luke home. When it came out that Dan had broken down under questioning and actually admitted what he had done we knew that it definitely WAS time to get Luke home.

But how? You'll love the plan we cooked up between the three of us and a couple of people Hales knew up in New York.

So that's chapter two. I've nearly finished the following chapter telling of how they managed to get Luke to come home so I should have that one up by new years. As always please send me a review if you like how things are going or even if you don't. Anyways see you soon.