Yeah, the last chapter may have been confusing, and you might have been mad to hear that brooke was such a bad friend, but I promise it will be explained. And if you still don't get it, pm me and il explain this fully.
This is for Sophiavalentine, thanks for all your responses and I hope you like…!
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Chapter 15 - Always and forever.
Her heart was pounding; only the soothing sound of his voice in her ear could calm her, though she was so worked up that even that didn't really work.
"Baby. You need to look at me. I am going to say some things now that you will probably not like hearing. But I need to say them to you. I also want to let you know that I love you so much, and I am going to be standing by you forever, no matter what you do, I'm never going to leave or hurt you ever again." Haley looked at the tall man standing in front of her. He really was beautiful. And he'd told her that he loved her; even after she'd run away, he still loved her. That had to mean something. Even though he was going to say something bad, she was sure she could cope with it; they loved each other.
"Hales, I know you are so angry at Brooke right now, and I can totally understand that. But you need to think about it. What was Brooke like when she was younger? It seems like she wasn't the nicest person. But if Brooke is telling the truth, and I think she is judging by how she is acting, she didn't even know you when she slept with Jonathan. And I know how much it hurts to find out he cheated on you, but you already knew that, and if Brooke didn't know you then, well you can't blame her too much. Blame the person that she was, but after this road trip I can say quite easily that Brooke is an amazing person with an amazing heart, and though we love to fight, she is a very special person. I know she is not the person that she was back then, and you're lucky to only know this Brooke. Please do not take it out on the Brooke who we all know and love." Haley looked at him for a second. She couldn't believe that he was saying it. He was supposed to be here for her, yet with just two days of properly knowing Brooke he was taking her side?
Haley couldn't take this anymore. It was like everybody was against her. She turned around to walk away. However this time she felt a strong grip on her arm.
"Oh no you don't, you are not getting away that easily again Haley. You keep running away Haley, and you just can't do that, it simply makes things worse. I know you have been hurt badly over the past few weeks but you can't keep playing the victim by running away, it's hurting the people you're leaving behind more than you will ever know.
Haley looked up into his sharp blue eyes. They were a mixture of emotions.
There was anger, because of the way she had tried to run away from him yet again. The memory of their time in the park still haunted his dreams.
There was sadness. He could see the pain she was feeling, but she didn't realise that he was feeling just as terrible.
There was hope. The hope that he and her could move on from this and stay together.
And most of all there was love. The love that kept her heart beating during the day, and her dreams flowing at night. She knew that everything he had just said came from the heart and maybe he was right. No, of course he was right. She had been running from everything in the past few days; Brooke, her heart, him.
And it wasn't fair on the people she left behind. They were the ones left to pick up the pieces.
And she knew that Brooke hadn't meant to hurt her at all - she wouldn't even have known Haley existed when it had all blown up - but it was just the fact that the old mean Brooke had affected her life without knowing it. And really, it hurt her to know that there was a Brooke before Haley had met her.
"I know Nathan, I get what you say completely. But I just can't go back to her right now. I've gotta think what I'm going to say. I'm still hurting. And I'm never going to run again, that's not who I wanna be. But will you stay with me tonight Nathan? Please? I really don't think that I can be alone."
Nathan smiled at the beautiful face of the girl in front of him. She really was beautiful. And that's the reason why he had told her how he really felt. HE couldn't bear to see her get hurt any more than she already had. And running away and keeping this grudge against Brooke was not going to help at all. He saw how much Brooke had been affected when Haley left the first time, it was as if half of her was missing; though she tried to hide it. And he guessed that this was the way that Haley would feel without Brooke in her life too.
"Of course I will. But where are you staying? Not with him are you?" Haley smiled her most genuine smile of the day.
"Of course not silly, I'm at my house. And don't look so shocked, my parents and endless brothers and sisters are out in the RV somewhere. We just keep this house as a base." Haley's eyes turned sad, Nathan could tell that she missed her parents and family. That was who Haley was, the most caring person he had ever met.
They turned into the darkness, however neither of them noticed it. Because for them, they were simply heading for the light.
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Lucas enveloped Brooke into his arms, her pain penetrating through his body. He could feel everything she felt; every tear burnt him like acid, every heart-wrenched sob cut through him like a knife.
And for once in his life, Lucas Scott did not know what to do. He had no idea how he could make her feel better. She was in so much pain, he had never experienced it before. He had felt it when Cesca left him of course, with his son, however he was more in shock, and he was never exactly sure if Billy was his. Though it killed him to say it, he wasn't even sure if his son was his.
But this, this was on a whole other level. The pain he was feeling for another human being - it was something he had never felt. And he was glad, because this was tearing him up inside.
Brooke looked up at Lucas, shocked that he was still with her. She was the most horrible person in the world. She had broken her friend's heart yet again, and had kept one of the biggest secrets from her. She had lied to her best friend for years. And Brooke didn't know if Haley would be able to forgive her.
"Brooke baby, I need you to look into my eyes. Come on pretty girl, look at me." Brooke slowly lifted her head but avoided looking right into his eyes. She did not know what she would see if she looked at them. Anger, hate? Lucas realised what she was doing and forcefully yet gently pulled her face to look at his.
"Brooke I love you. It hurts me to know that you used to be so torn and messed up when you were younger, but only because I know that it's hurt you. I love you. You're my cheery. You're the reason I get up in the morning. I need you to be ok for me too. I don't know if I'd ever be able to live without you. So baby, please tell me what really happened, and then we can sort out what we're going to do. Because I'm going to be here every step of the way. I am not going anywhere."
Brooke looked into his eyes. Really looked. So hard that it seemed she could see into all his thoughts and swim in the blueness that enveloped her. She didn't know if she'd be able to find the words to say what she really felt. However she suddenly started explaining the story that she had kept to herself for 5 years.
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"I'd had a terrible day. It was my birthday. I woke in the morning and was hoping my parents might be there, you know, to say happy birthday to their 16 year old daughter. I got downstairs and the answer phone was flashing. I was so happy. I really thought that this was going to be a message from them, either saying Happy Birthday or telling me that they'd be back later. I was wrong. So so wrong. It was them, but they had called to remind the maid that she needed to iron their best clothes for when they got back. They'd forgotten. They didn't even realise it was my birthday. I had breakfast with the maids and stuff, who were basically my parents but it wasn't the same. I went to school and Peyton and Jake had a cake and stuff for me. That was the best part of the day. The day that I felt like everything was okay. I had a crush on Jake. Yeah I know, the bad girl going for the good guy. It was completely perfect. Everything was perfect. I was going to tell him whilst we were eating the cake. I was going to reform from the bad girl that I was, all for him. It didn't matter what other people would think about us being together. All I could think about was him. Him and me. Brooke Jagielski. Brooke Penelope Jagielski. Okay so that wasn't perfect but he could always be Jake Davis. It didn't matter though. We were going to be together, everything was going to be perfect.
I had just finished one piece of cake when Peyton declared that they needed to tell me something. She started talking about how we had always been a three and that she never wanted that to change, but that something had happened. She was glowing, positively glowing. I could tell that this was something to do with a guy. Who was it? The bad boy from our math class? The hot football guy from biology? But in the end it turned out it was neither.
The guy she had chosen was Jake. Jake. My Jake. The guy that I had wanted for so long, yet couldn't find the words to say anything. The great Brooke Davis had not only fallen for a boy, and a good one at that, but she had been beaten to his love by her best friend. I couldn't speak. My eyes filled with tears, although Peyton took these as happy tears. Jake hugged me too, his eyes happy with the laughter that he was going to experience in the next moments with his Peyton. It was true. Peyton and Jake were together. And I wanted so bad to be happy for them. But I just couldn't. How did Peyton not realise that I had feelings for Jake? How did I not realise that she did? That night they invited me out for a birthday meal. The three of us. But all I could think of was how it would be them two and then me by herself.
So I did the only thing that I knew how to do. I went out and partied. The Brooke that I so desperately wanted to be said goodbye and hid away again, waiting for another day that she could try and burst out again.
I partied so hard that night. I grinded against countless guys, all of them amazed at how they were managing to get so close to me, all of them trying to find a way to get me into the bedrooms upstairs. But I needed something real, to try and drag myself out of the situation I was in.
And then a boy came over to me. He said his name was Jonathan. He was different. He knew that I was upset. He got me a glass of coke and told me to talk to him. I was wasted enough then that I didn't realise the strong taste of vodka which was coming from the glass that he had just given me. Needless to say, by the end of that drink I couldn't even stand up.
But Jonathan was still a gentleman. He carried me upstairs, laid me down on the bed.
That's when it all started to go wrong. He started to take my clothes off. My top first. I registered that this was happening. And tried to squirm out of his grip. But he told me he was just helping me to get undressed so that I could fall asleep. I didn't realise what he was going to do to me until he started to take my panties off. I tried to scream but he just put his hand over my mouth. He had sex with me whilst I was almost unconscious. He was so brutal with me. I don't know whether he realised that I was a virgin or not. In any case as soon as he'd finished with me he left me on the bed. I must have fallen asleep or something. In any case Peyton and Jake came and found me the next morning lying on a bed wearing only a bra, my face stained with tears and the sheet with blood. They never asked what happened that night and so I never told them.
I went to go see Jonathan the next day to demand an explanation. He told me that I had said yes and was the one who instigated it. I didn't know what to believe. I knew I had been drunk but … well I just didn't know. He then revealed that he had a girlfriend, a sweet girl called Haley James. I couldn't understand what I'd done and how terrible I had been.
He then spread it around the school about how Brooke Davis had sex with everyone, and the even badder Brooke began to form, sleeping with the faceless jocks, and wishing… wishing … just wishing that someone would notice me and my pain and take it all away."
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Lucas looked at the girl who was breaking apart in front of him. She was so vulnerable and she even shuddered when he reached out to touch her. She had been broken apart by this guy who had also broken apart Haley. Lucas needed to reach out to Brooke, to try to get her to communicate with him. Whilst going through that story it was like she wasn't even with him in the car park - she was living every single second again. Lucas sat down on the floor next to the broken girl, took her fully in his arms and let her cry. A movement from behind him made him turn around.
It was the two friends that Brooke had jumped out of the car to see that very afternoon. The two friends who Brooke had been talking about just then with so much feeling and hurt.
"Brooke." The curly haired blonde spoke, her eyes clouded with tears, streaks running down her face wear her makeup had come off.
Brooke recognised the voice straight away and she dreaded turning around, however she did it anyway. One look into her best friends eyes and she knew that she had heard everything. The secrets Brooke Davis had been keeping for so long were finally out in the open and there was nothing she could now do about it. She had been stripped bare, and now everybody could see the girl who was underneath, hiding away.
"Brooke. I am so sorry. I never knew you liked Jake. If I did I would never have told him how I felt. I am so so sorry B." Brooke looked up at her and chuckled despite the situation.
"You and Jake were meant to be Pey. There was nothing that I could have ever done about it. In any case, Jake would never have gone for the bad girl in a million years. You were his from the very beginning." Suddenly a broken voice emerged from next to Peyton.
"Brooke. I feel terrible. I am the reason you got all messed up. Believe me, I love Peyton more than I could ever love anything in this world right now, but when I was 16, the person I wanted to be with was you Brooke. The good guy really did fall for the wrong girl, or at least that's what I thought. I was thinking about you just before Peyton came to my house. I was thinking about how I was never going to get you and how I could never be happy. And then Peyton came along. I had never even noticed her in that way however I realised that for once something good could happen to me." Peyton obviously knew this story, as it didn't shock her, however the sobs now shook her body as Jake went to keep her standing up.
"He raped you Brooke. That bastard raped you and left you. And I thought it was you just wanting to go have sex with anyone. I thought that you wanted to get it over with on your 16th, straight away. But you didn't did you? You were just a baby, and I should have protected you, before you got so far away I could no longer reach you."
Brooke's tears carried on flowing but she managed to talk, Lucas' presence beside her keeping her from falling apart completely.
"Peyton don't. Please. You couldn't have done anything about it. I had to deal with it myself. I could have come and talked to you whenever I wanted but I didn't. And you two are the best couple I have ever met, it would have been disastrous if I had ever got in between you two." At this point Peyton flew to Brooke's side and covered her with a mixture of tears, kisses and love. After her, it was Jake's turn. He could finally forget the way he had lusted after one girl for so many years, yet it came to nothing. It was fate that he had ended up with Peyton, and he would never have it any other way.
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Haley and Nathan made it to her house, joined together all the way, their love for each other binding them together, a bond never to be broken.
The house was simple, nothing like his own, yet it felt like home so much more than his ever had. The blue and cream walls invited him in without any grudges, unlike the house he was forced to call 'home'.
Haley led him to her bedroom, which looked like it had not been change since she had been about 16 years old. He didn't mind though. He got to look into what her life had been like before he had entered it.
There were pictures everywhere on one of the walls. From Haley as a baby with a very large family surrounding her to pictures of Peyton, Haley, Brooke and Jake.
In every one, Haley was smiling. She looked as if she had enjoyed her life to the fullest, giving back to other people as much as they had given her, if not more.
She was so full of love, he just had to get it all out of her. Gain her trust and keep it. Forever.
Always and Forever.
Haley's voice interrupted his thoughts.
"Nathan, you want a drink? Oh yeah and do you want something to like sleep in, 'cos you know it can get cold here at night, unless you're like cuddling up next to me, though you might not want to of course, and um a toothbrush might be nice and um you might need uh um…" Nathan went and pressed his finger against her lips.
"Ssh Hales, you're rambling." She smiled shyly.
"Yeah I know, it's just I haven't really had a guy stay over at my house before, this one in any case, and it's quite weird, you being here." Nathan smiled.
"Well you have nothing to worry about. And by the way, yes I would like a drink and I'm not bothered about the something to sleep in, I have my boxers. And as for the toothbrush, I'll have yours." Haley scrunched up her face in disgust,
"Ewwww! Nathan! It'll have all that yucky stuff that you have in your mouth!" Nathan pretended to look hurt,
"Haley! If you kiss me then you'll get all that "yucky stuff" in your mouth." Haley pondered for a second.
"Well in that case I am never going to kiss you ever again!" Haley flounced out leaving a perplexed Nathan wondering how he was ever going to convince her that that was not a wise move. He needed to feel his lips against hers, he'd never be able to live without it.
Whilst Haley was making their drinks, her mind kept switching between the happiness that she was feeling with Nathan and the problems with her, Brooke and Jonathan. She was still thinking about it when she walked back into her room and stood in shock in thee doorway. The old whiteboard she had kept on her wall was decorated. Nathan wasn't much of an artist but the three words that he had scrawled on the board meant more to her than if he had drawn a Van Gogh painting on it.
Always and Forever.
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Brooke had taken Lucas back to her house. Or rather he had taken her after precise instructions from Peyton and Jake. Brooke was still so distraught that she could not stand properly.
Lucas placed her on her bed and then looked around the room. He had not been in there earlier that day, but the room seemed to be completely Brooke. It was so different from the rest of the house, which was kept immaculately clean, like in a magazine. It looked as though Brooke still made sure the maids left her room alone even when she was in New York.
It was cluttered with all her things but in a nice way. The bed was huge, and Lucas wondered how many times she had been taken advantage of in it. There was also a large dressing table with a mirror and Luke wondered how many times she had cried into it, desperately wishing for someone to save her.
His eye was drawn to one wall with pictures covering it. He soon realised when it was that her parents started to leave her - after the pictures from when she was around 5, there were no pictures of her parents in them.
There were smiling pictures of all her friends, however the smile on Brooke's face always seemed to be fake. Until she left high school and Brooke's smile was genuine. The most recent ones were the ones of the road trip.
Luke chuckled at all the pictures of Nathan looking annoyed in the back seat; the two of them trying to pull the car out of a huge pile of sand; a self portrait of Brooke in her Daisy Duke outfit; old George, of course; and finally pictures of Nathan and Luke with paint all over their faces.
Luke smiled. The road trip was fun. It would have been ever better if Haley was there but she was the reason they had set out on the adventure.
It was just terrible how things had turned out since then.
Lucas looked at Brooke, sobbing silently into his shoulder. She was still so beautiful, inside and out. She could never be anything else to him. She was his forever.
Brooke could feel the warmth of Luke's shoulder through his shirt. He was the one who had kept her alive throughout all of this. Without him she had no idea what she would have done. She wouldn't be at her house in any case.
Suddenly Lucas' phone started to ring and broke the two from the trance they were in.
"Hello? What? When? Yes, I will be right there." Brooke noticed the sense of urgency in Luke's voice and definitely did not miss him edging away from her and out of her grasp.
"Luke? What's wrong? What's happened?" It looked as though he didn't really want to talk to her, but Brooke was now getting worried. Was something wrong with Nathan or Haley? Or both. She would never ever forgive herself if it had.
"It's Cesca and Billy. There's been an accident. I'm going to the hospital." Brooke stood up, shocked shaking through her whole body.
"Well I'm coming too." Lucas looked at her properly for the first time since he had received the phone call.
"No Brooke, you shouldn't, this day has been hard enough for you already." Brooke stood up, ready for an argument if it needed it.
"No Luke. You have been here for me in the time when I needed you most. You kept me standing when all I wanted to do was fall. I am coming with you. I am going to be that person for you."
Lucas didn't say anything, he just let Brooke follow him out of the door. Brooke tried to hold his hand, to show that she was going to be there for him but he pulled away.
Brooke knew that he couldn't reach out to her right then. He needed her, she needed him, he needed her to pick up the pieces like he had done to her.
Brooke just hoped that Lucas would realised that and would not pull himself away from her forever.
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End of the chapter…. What's happened to cesca?
I hope you liked it and that things are a little less confused. Pm me if you still are.
Review if you liked or even if you didn't!
Hannie
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