Authors note: Sorry that it's been a while since I updated this story. This is kind of a short chapter but it's mostly just a step towards the next chapter which will be longer and more drama-filled. I hope you like it anyway. The song and chapter-title is from Sheryl Crow.

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CHAPTER 6 – Ordinary Morning

It's just an ordinary morning
It's just an ordinary day
And I'm just an ordinary woman
Slipping away

"I'm getting more and more tired of this fishbowl-existence…" Brooke thinks walking down the school-corridor on Monday morning. People are still looking at her in a somewhat strange way, even more so after the party, and it just pisses her off. Why couldn't everybody just mind their own business? But even though she still feels a little detached she does her best to behave normally. And for once school proves to be a good distraction. The first two hours pass quickly and she finds herself actually listening to what the teachers are saying, but when she's getting her books for third period she unconsciously drags her feet. Third period means English.

She opens the locker and throws in the algebra-notes before grabbing the things she needs for today's biggest ordeal. English means not only having to face Lucas, but also Nick. She hasn't seen Lucas since she found him in Nathan and Haley's living room the day before last, and she's been able to avoid Nick for almost a week. But today she can't put English off any longer (not without failing it) and since Rachel is cutting school today because of a really bad hang-over and Haley's not in her English-group, she has to do it alone.

The bell rings for the final time and she sighs and slams the locker-door shut. Then she hurriedly walks off to the classroom. They've already started in there and she mentally hits herself over the head for not being on time. Now she has to walk in there with everyone looking at her and she won't be able to choose her place to sit. Hopefully there's a free seat somewhere far away from Lucas, she thinks. But as she silently pushes the door open she can see that there is no such luck. The opposite actually. The only seat left in the entire classroom is beside him and of course it's up front, just in front of the teacher's desk. Nick looks up as she walks over to sit down and he smirks.

"Oh look, Miss Davis finally decides to grace us with her presence…"

She doesn't bother to throw him a fake smile, she doesn't even bother to look at him. Instead she just hisses; "Fuck off!" before sitting down next to her ex-boyfriend. Nick looks like he's going to make some kind of come-back but then in the last moment he probably changes his mind because he stays silent, just as he had when she slapped him last week. Nick is a coward, she thinks as she watches him return to text they're discussing. He's always been a coward.

"Well I don't know who I hate more Mr. Chavez… You for being a lying bastard, or me for believing your crap and betraying my friend…"

It's not a hard question to answer anymore. She hates herself more of course. She hates herself for being a stupid and naïve little bimbo, continuously falling for the crap that guys handed her. What had happened to the Brooke she had used to be? When had she been stupid enough to start trusting people with her feelings? Life had been so much better when the only boy she had trusted was Nathan… But then again, that had proven to be a bad choice as well. Nathan had broken her heart too, although in another way. If he hadn't, they would never have slipped as far away from each other as they had the last two years. This weekend he had almost been back to being her Nathan and it had felt good.

She flips open her book and tries to concentrate but she can feel a pair of blue eyes looking at her from her right. She looks up at Lucas, ready to meet his gaze with a cold stare, but the sight that meets her makes her mouth fall open. Lucas has a swollen black eye and a big purple bruise covers the right side of his jaw. She takes a deep breathe before looking down into her desk again. Nick asks the class something, something about Edgar Allen Poe's most resent work, but she doesn't listen. She thinks about Saturday night. About Nathan.

She's been sitting in the kitchen talking to Haley for hours. It was hard at first but now it's actually kind of nice. To share and get a little bit of the heavy load off her chest. Then the door suddenly opens and Nathan walks in. He's trying to look normal but Brooke can see that he's angry. The otherwise so blue eyes are almost black and his fists are tightly balled.

"Nathan…" Haley says with a somewhat worried voice. She probably sees the change in his eyes as well; she is his wife after all.

Brooke knows this look. It's the 'Dan-look'. He used to have these dark eyes every time he and Dan had an argument and it usually resolved itself if you only left him in peace to calm down. But things changes, she thinks as Haley gets up and hugs him. With Haley's arms around him his eyes quickly softens and he kisses his wife before turning to look at Brooke intently.

"Better Davis?" he asks and she nods, wondering what had made him so angry.

"Good." He lets go of Haley and walks over to the phone. "I'm calling for pizza. Does anybody else want some?"

Both Brooke and Haley says yes but Brooke knows that Nathan is just pretending to be calm. His hand holding the phone is a little shaky.

"Where were you?" she asks after he has hung up with the pizza-place and he shrugs in his typical Nathan-way.

"I went to talk to Lucas for a bit…"

Brooke frowns. "Did you have a fight?"

But Nathan shakes his head. "No, I just told him a thing or two that I've wanted to tell him for a while now. I think that he finally sees my point…"

Brooke steals short glances of Lucas in the corner of her eye. So this was the talk Nathan had with his brother… She should have known by the look on Nathans face when he came back.
A sting of bad conscience hits her straight in the gut when Lucas looks at her again and she has to restrain herself from touching his bruised cheek. But she stops herself in time. Instead she turns around and looks for Nathan. He's sitting in the back of the classroom, his head bent over his books. She really has to have a talk with him. As soon as possible. But not here, not in school. People are gossiping enough already.

The walls have been talking
About me again
I'm good for a joke, but when I awoke
The dream didn't end
Now every time I turn around
I'm always thinking; is anybody out there?
And the wounded birds still sing

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Lucas pretends to listen to the teacher but he isn't really. With Brooke just sitting herself down next to him he couldn't concentrate even if he tried. And the subject doesn't interest him as much as it used to anyway. The new teacher, Mr. Chavez, really sucks and there's something in the way in which he looks at Brooke that annoys Lucas.

Even so, he's a bit taken back when he hears Brooke hiss "Fuck off" and even more when there's no reprimand. Brooke usually got away with more then everybody else but this was just a bit too much to seem normal.

Then Brooke looks at him for the first time and he sees her flinch at the sight of his face. He wonders why. She must have known about his little encounter with his brother seeing that she and Nathan are so close all of a sudden. But she looks really shocked before looking away. He sees her scan the room in search for something and he whispers;

"Brooke…"

Hesitantly she meets his eyes.

"…I need to talk to you… about Saturday…"

Mr. Chavez clears his throat loudly and looks at them firmly. But his angry eyes doesn't turn to Lucas, instead the cold look is directed towards Brooke who still hasn't said a word.

"Miss Davis. You seem to have a real problem with following the class rules today. Maybe you would like to go and spend the rest of this period out in the corridor?"

"But she didn't say anything. I talked to her…"

Brooke stands up and after spending only five minutes in the classroom at most, she gathers her stuff and leaves without giving the teacher a second of her attention. If it didn't sound so strange Lucas would say that it looked like she ignored the teacher in the same way she ignored himself.

"Hey Davis…"

Nathan calls after Brooke from the back of the classroom but she just walks out and slams the door behind her. And in some weird way Lucas feels good about it. After the "talk" he and Nathan had the other day he really wants Brooke to be angry at his brother as well. If she was then his guilty conscience would feel a lot better.

"Lucas! Hey Dumbass, I'm talking to you!"

Nathan catches up with him down at the River Court and he starts screaming at him as soon as he gets out of his car. Lucas sighs. The discussion with Haley has been enough and he doesn't need this.

"What the fuck is your problem Nathan!?"

"I wanna talk to you about Brooke and I need you to listen." Nathan walks over to him, eyes dark with anger, and Lucas feels his own shoulders tense in defense.

"What about Brooke?"

"You seem to have a hard time understanding her so I've decided to explain some things to you. Brooke is not your ordinary type of girl. You can't toy with her in the same way you toy with others like say Peyton or Anna…" His arms are crossed over his chest and he stops a few feet away from Lucas. "Brooke's heart can't handle that and neither can her confidence."

Lucas laughs coldly. "Her confidence? Since when in the Hell has there ever been anything wrong with Brooke's confidence? Rather the opposite, right?"

"I'm serious Luke. You can keep being an asshole if you want, to but if you're telling the truth about caring for her then you have to know some things…"

"I've been seeing her on and off for over a year and you haven't said anything before. What can be so important, other than you wanting to shove splinters in between us?"

He's feeling angrier by the minute. Nathan has no right to act as if he knew Brooke better than himself. Brooke was his, and Nathan should just mind his own business. Wasn't it enough that he had turned Haley away from him? And mostly, he didn't deserve all this bullshit. Brooke left him, not the other way around.

"Fuck this Nathan!" he says before Nathan can answer. He's too angry to do this. "Brooke's not worth this and by the look of her behavior last night, she's moving on… She seems to be going back to being her old self. And I'm not interested in being with a slutty cheerleader with an alcohol-problem…"

The fist that hits him in the face comes out of nowhere and the punch is hard enough to send him to the ground. Lying on his back in the gravel he can see Nathans face twisted in anger. He touches his lip when he feels the metallic taste in his mouth and when looking at his fingers he sees blood. As he gets up rage is fogging his mind. He just wants to piss Nathan off even more.

"Are you screwing Brooke? Is that what this is about? Haley wasn't enough?"

The next punch hits him in the eye and this time he doesn't try to get back up. Somewhere in the back of his head he knows he's gone too far.

Nathan had just left after that and Lucas still wonders what it was that his brother wanted to tell him about Brooke. But Nathan had picked the worst time to try and talk to him. He was already so angry and confused after the encounter with him and Brooke at the apartment and then the talk with Haley. He just hadn't been able to think straight. And he had said so many things he didn't mean.

He turns and his eyes meet Nathans. For a couple of seconds they watch each other. Then Nathan sighs and gets up to follow Brooke. And Lucas instantly knows that he should have been the one to do that. But as usual he catches up with the situation to late and he leans back in the chair and watches Nathan go in frustration.

"Damn it!" he mutters. "I'm such an idiot…"

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Brooke rushes down the corridor and out on the parking lot. She doesn't even stop at her locker to get her bag. She has her car-keys in her pocket and she just needs to get out of campus quickly. The building, the people and the whole situation is smothering her.

She reaches her car and unlocks the front-door when she hears Nathan calling her name. She looks back over her shoulder and sees him coming out of the entrance so she stops and waits unwillingly.

"Brooke… Where are you going?"

She shakes her head at him tiredly. "I just need to get out of here. Go back to class… I'll be fine."

But when she gets into her car he holds on to the door, making it impossible for her to drive off.

"I should have told you that I beat up Lucas…" he says looking at her. "But it was between me and him… I didn't have anything to do with you B."

She holds his gaze and she knows that he's lying. "I'm not angry with you. I just want to go home. Let go of the door Nathan…"

Hesitantly he does as he's told and she waves at him before driving out into the street. She isn't angry with him. Or with Lucas or Peyton or Nick. She's just tired of things being so complicated. There is this big hole in her chest and it hurts more every time she has to be around any of them. Because they all remind her of the person she used to be and the person she has become. She lets the radio stay turned off and instead she picks up her cell phone and dials 5 on speed-dial. Rachel answers on the third signal.

"I'll be home in ten minutes. Start getting ready, we're going to the Blue Post…"

Rachel yawns. "Brooke, it's 11:45. The bar's not even open until twelve."

"Good, that gives us fifteen minutes to put on a sleazy out-fit. I want to get wasted."

It's just an ordinary morning
It's just an ordinary day
And I'm just an ordinary woman
Slipping away

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Please leave reviews, good or bad. It's so great to hear what you think.

/Lynn