CHAPTER 3 – How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

Brooke walks out into the pool-area. They cool breeze should probably make her cold in her mini-skirt but as Nathan so nicely had tried to point out without saying it to her face; she is drunk and she knows this.

People out here are having fun and she sees Rachel and Theresa over at the sunbeds, laughing and playing a drinking game with some guys from the team. She's decides to go over there. Go over there and to smile her sexy confident smile, play a little game and maybe even tease Gabe by seating herself on his lap.

She just has to wait for the pain in her heart to subside a bit.

She knows she has deliberately turned of her feelings to make the break-up between herself and Lucas less painful. And for weeks it's worked. Her heart no longer races when she sees him in the corridors at school. Seeing him make that broody face that he believes is so sexy no longer makes her break out into a huge grin. And she, who used to stare at him for minutes at the time when he wasn't looking her way wondering how she'd could have been so lucky, has of lately been able to look at him all indifferently.
Not feeling has been good.

The alcohol that she's been drinking all night is changing that though. Suddenly all these bottled up emotions comes bubbling up to the surface wanting out, and it's taking her all of her energy not to let them. Seeing Lucas and Peyton laughing out on the balcony had been so hard. Especially after the talk she had with him less then an hour ago. The talk where she had forced her self not to spill her heart to him.

She takes a deep breath, pushing the thought of how she had actually wanted to believe him to the back of her head. Then she puts on a fully dimpled smile and walks over to the others.

"Brookie! Where have you been?" Theresa says happily and downs a shot of something that looks like tequila. "We're playing this great game here, you wanna join?"

Brooke plops her self down on Gabe's knee. "Naw… I'll just win and you guys would all be sorry…"

But Rachel just laughs at her fake-innocent face. "Well then, game on Brooke Davis.

Some guy named Mark, or at least something in that direction, is starting to fill two rows of shot-glasses with liquor. She smiles inwardly. If the game consists solely of downing the most shots these guys will be knocked down before they even know what hit them.

The Mark-guy lifts the first glass and says; "So beautiful, first to back down or fall of the chair?"

She gets up and seats herself cross the table from him, nodding cheerily.

"Sure thing, loverboy!"

"I say the loser is thrown in the pool… Do you want to add any rules or do you want like… a girl-handicap?"

He smiles a cocky smile, probably thinking that he has this night's drunken hook-up already in the bag. But she just shakes her head looking all innocent.

"No, it's okay. Everything is fair in love and drinking, right?"

In the corner of her eye she can see Rachel laughing and she winks at her cheekily.
This was going to be easy.

It's cold outside now and Nathan listens to Brooke while trying to get her to go inside. He's been trying for over twenty minutes but she isn't budging, stubborn as she usually is. Her clothes are soaking wet and her skin on her arms and in her cleavage is prickled with goosebumps, but instead of admitting that she's cold, she is busy trying to defend herself to him.
And it's not that he doesn't want the explanation, he's curious to know why Brooke would jump in the pool with her clothes on this late in the fall and why she is so unbelievingly drunk. It's just that it would probably be much easier to make any sense of what she's saying tomorrow when she was sober.

He had found her out here half an hour ago making out with some guy and he had cut in and stopped her. He's still not sure why but it'd just seemed as though she didn't want to be in the situation she was being. She had just seemed really detached and very drunk. Kind of like if she wasn't aware of what she was doing.

"I'm just tired of feeling bad, okay?" she slurs. "I'd rather feel nothing, it's easier… I'm not an evil slut, you know that Nathan, but I have to protect my heart… and this… is the only way I know how…"

She rambles and her voice cracks a little in the end of each sentence like she's about to cry. Tears are welling up in her eyes and he knows how she feels alone and heartbroken. He had been in the same dark place that she's in now when Haley left him for Chris and the tour.

"I understand… You act the way you do because you have to Brooke. Trust me, if there's anyone who knows that, it's me. You can't seem weak because then maybe someone might take advantage of that weakness. Jealous people are always looking for a way to bring you down in order to take your spot. And it makes it harder to put your heart out there, even without having it crushed like you've had…"

He puts his arm around her shoulders, his voice much softer now.

"…But you can't keep hiding the real you. I know Lucas hurt you when you let your guard down for him, but at least he got you to come out of your bitchy shell and become the loving Brooke that you used to be before all this popularity-crap… Right?"

"I love him so much…" she whispers suddenly very tired. And knowing that its Lucas she's talking about, he answers;

"I know you do B."

She is very quiet and she just looks at him with big childlike eyes full of tears. Like he has just torn open a big, badly healed wound and now it's bleeding profoundly without her being able to stop it. And then the tears well over and starts pouring down her cheeks. Silently.
Nathan looks at her and sighs. "Brooke baby…" His voice low as he pulls her into a hug, holding her tight. "Don't cry. You never cry…"This is usually the truth. He has always known Brooke as strong, happy, carefree and independent, but it's clear that she's not that Brooke tonight, sobbing into his chest. He can feel her shoulders shaking and he rubs her back feeling a little awkward, but he just wants to comfort her. Make her feel better. This is the emotional crash-landing that he and Haley had been foreseeing, it just comes later then predicted.

"I know I shouldn't be saying this about my own brother but why can't you just forget the punk? He doesn't deserve you, you know that. He hurts you every time…"The more he thinks about it he just wants to protect her from Lucas' fuck-ups and after more then ten minutes, when Brooke finally seem to be able to stop crying he lifts her chin up, forcing her to look at him. "Do you want me to get you out of here? Up to your room?"

This time he gets some sort of reaction and she nods. So, still with his arms around her shoulders, he walks her through the crowd hanging by the pool and into the big house. People look at them walking into the hallway but he sends angry glances at them telling them to mind their own business and brings her up the stairs towards her bedroom. He realizes how it looks though, him being all drunk last time they saw him and now he's dragging a limp-looking Brooke up to the second floor. He must have done this a hundred times before he met Haley and they've all seen him do it, but with other girls, and for a totally different reason.
People are probably going to talk about this tomorrow but he doesn't give a shit if they think he slept with Brooke. Half the school already thinks they did that years ago. It had been foreseen as early as in junior High, them already being the head cheerleader and the captain of the basketball team. The eventual perfect couple that never happened, and when they didn't get together, the rest of the school just took for granted that at least they'd had sex.

But again, he doesn't care much what people thinks. The only one whose opinion he cares about is his wife's and she would understand. Hell, she would probably kill him if she found out that he hadn't helped Brooke tonight.

He pushes open her bedroom door and with his hand on the small of her back he gently guides her into the room.
"Let's get you to bed" he says touching her cheek lightly, "You're a mess girl…"

Normally the drunken Brooke he knows would give him some snide remark about the 'getting to bed'-part, but not tonight. And that makes him even more worried about her. Even when she's sad she always resorts to sex-jokes but now Brooke is not only drunk and depressed, she's behaving like she's sleepwalking. Not responding when he talks to her and not really looking at him either. She's just standing there in the middle of the room.
Last time he had done this was just in the beginning of all of this. At the end of that basketball-banquet when Lucas first had hooked up with Peyton and Brooke had tried to break them apart. That time Brooke had been almost as drunk, but not nearly as broken.

At first he doesn't know what to do next, but looking at her he realizes that he can't let her go to bed like this. Her clothes are still more than damp from the earlier dip in the pool. A stupid idea of course, but then he had just been glad she and Theresa hadn't decided on skinny-dipping with all the drunk and horny guys around. Brooke is his friend and he wouldn't have wanted to see his teammates drool over her more than they already did. Especially now when she's single.
He gets her to sit on the bed and then he looks through her drawers until he finds a big t-shirt. It's probably one of Lucas's but it can't be helped.

"Put this on…" he says handing it to her but she doesn't take it and he sighs. "Okay Brookie, you've got to help me here. Raise your arms…"

He grabs the hem of her shirt and pulls it up over her head before replacing it with the clean t-shirt. Seeing her half naked upper body doesn't really bother him. He has seen her in her underwear so many times before that he can't even count them. On game-trips sharing locker-rooms, on drunken parties playing strip-poker and most of all, at the beach.
But when unbuttoning her skirt and pulling it off her he looks away, suddenly feeling that seeing her half naked in this vulnerable state is different.

She lays down, curled up into a ball, and he pulls the covers over her and places a soft kiss on her head. "Seriously Brooke, what has Lucas done to you? I've never seen you like this…"

She's already closing her eyes and He gently strokes away a few strands of hair from her face before walking towards the door. "I'll be right back. I'm just going downstairs for a minute."

He's not going to leave Brooke alone, at least not before the party is over and Rachel decides to go to bed, but he needs to call Haley and tell her where he is and his cell phone is downstairs in his jack pocket. He closes the bedroom door tightly behind him, wishing that he could lock it. It would be a nightmare if some drunken guy walked in there while he was gone. In the state she is in it would be so easy to take advantage of her.

It's after 2 am but the party is still in full effect. The living room is full of people drinking, dancing and making out and the music from the speakers out by the pool is loud even in here. He finds his jacket and grabs it to go back when Lucas puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey little brother, have you seen Brooke?"

Lucas looks tired and guilty, kind of sad actually, but Nathan doesn't feel at all sorry for him.

"Don't touch me!" he hisses pulling away from Lucas, "And stay the fuck away from Brooke, you hear me? Haven't you done enough to her?!"

Lucas looks confused, doing that squinty look with his eyes, but Nathan's not buying his act. And he doesn't really have the time to stand there and explain either. He has to get back to Brooke and take care of the mess Lucas has created.

"Nate, what's going on?"

"Just don't talk to me, okay? I'm really not in the mood for your bullshit… I don't want to fight with you since you're my brother, but you've got to let me go now."

He's starting to walk back towards the stairs, already with the phone in his hand, but Lucas' just wont give up. "Nathan! What?!"

Turning around to face Lucas again he feels his pulse rise with anger. "Look! She's crushed, alright? Completely broken! You did enough, now go on! Leave!"

Lucas' jaw drops and he looks like he's just been slapped. "Who… Brooke?"

Nathan watches him with mixed emotions trying to decide if he's wants to punch him in the face or feel sorry for him.

"Nathan, you got to let me talk to her… Where is she? Is she okay?"

"No Luke. As I said she's not okay. And you are not going to talk to her. Not tonight and not in the near future. I'll be seeing to it that you don't…"

He doesn't yell at his brother, he just says it in a low cold voice and maybe that's what makes Lucas understand that he's being serious. Lucas then shakes his head and sighs, finally turning and walking the other way.

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Nathan closes the door behind him and walks up to the sleeping form on the bed. After seeing to it that she's okay he dials his own home-number and waits as the call connects. He feels bad for waking his wife up at 2.30 in the morning, her being pregnant and all, but he knows that she'll be worried if she wakes up later and sees that he's not there. After just a little while she answers with a sleepy voice.

"Hallo?"

"Hey baby…"

"Nathan? Where are you?"

"I'm still at the party at Rachel's house. Sorry for waking you up…"

"It's okay. It's nice to hear your voice."

He can hear her yawning and smiles while picturing her all snuggled up back home in their bed.

"I just wanted to call and tell you that I'm probably going to be here for a while, maybe until tomorrow morning. I didn't want you to worry if you woke up."

"That's sweet of you Nathan, but what's up? You sound strange. Is Rachel there with you? You know that I don't like…"

He cuts her off, his voice still low not to wake up Brooke; "No Haley I'm not with Rachel, I'm with Brooke, and she's not feeling too good… I just have to stay and watch over her a bit."

"What's wrong with Brooke? Should I come over?" Haley is fully awake now and she sounds worried. Fuck, this was just what he didn't want.

"No, she just very drunk, she'll be alright. Just go back to sleep Hales. I've got her, I promise."

She breathes out. "Okay. But you'll call me if she needs me, wont you?"

"I will. I love you."

He hangs up the phone and sits down in the plush armchair next to Brooke's bed. "I'm going to watch over her just as I promised", he thinks. But the part where he had told Haley that Brooke would be alright was another story. Brooke was going to wake up tomorrow with a huge hang-over, but that could be helped with a couple of asperin and some pizza.
The hang-over from the alcohol that is, because the emotional hang-over, from finally breaking down and feeling something wasn't going to be fixed quite that easy.
He knows this from experience.

Plz Review! Chapter 4 should be up really soon.