Chapter Thirty-Five

Even though he heard the knock on the door, Jake took his time answering it. It was Friday night and the only person who could be coming to see him was Nathan to discuss the seemingly never-ending case. Their plan the day before had failed due to something unforeseen; Damien hadn't gone to basketball practice.

Jake had noticed he was missing at the beginning of practice when he was writing down the names for the coach. He had then asked him, just casually, if he knew anything about it and coach had informed him that Damien had fallen ill at lunch time and gone home, but had popped in to tell the coach before he left. Unfortunately, between classes and running around trying to get Peyton to acknowledge his presence, let alone talk to him, Jake had forgotten to take his phone with him to the gym and since leaving during practice was severely frowned upon, he'd had no way of telling Nathan it would be a waste of time to try opening the locker.

Damien had then been absent again, this time for the entire school day, which meant that Nathan and Jake were going to have to wait three more days at least to see if they could find anything on him, since they didn't have enough evidence to try searching his home yet. Jake had been further upset by the fact that this morning Peyton had been absent too, and as he hadn't been able to catch Haley alone to ask her about it, he had started to think that she had cut to avoid him and wondered whether she would continue to do so until he left.

He was jerked out of his thoughts when he opened the door and stared wide-eyed at his visitor. He blinked twice before opening his mouth. "Peyton?"

She smiled at him, but just barely. "Hi."

"H-hey." He stared at her in surprise, expecting her to start talking but she didn't say anything, so he asked, "Do you want to come in?"

She nodded. "Okay."

Jake stepped back and allowed her to enter his tiny apartment before closing the door. He turned to her and stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets for want of something to do. "Do you want to sit down?" he gestured to the chair, but she shook her head.

"Standing's fine."

"Okay then. Er…what are you doing here, Peyton?"

"I…I went to see my father this morning."

"Oh. Right; he was coming today, wasn't he?" Jake remembered, and felt some sort of relief at the fact that she hadn't cut school to avoid him.

"Well, he came into Tree Hill yesterday, but I didn't go see him then…even though I was supposed to," she added.

"Is something wrong?"

"I…I met this woman."

"O-kay…" Jake said, wondering where this was going.

"She told me she was my mother."

"What?" he exclaimed.

"My reaction exactly; only she knew all this stuff about me and then I went to see my Dad this morning and…he said it was true."

"B-but…how?"

"Apparently, I'm adopted. He said I was supposed to find out when I was 18, but after my Mom died, he decided not to tell me. Which is stupid really, because it turns out she's not even my Mom – and he's not my Dad – and I don't know why this should matter since I'm 24 years old you know; why should I care who my parents are, I don't even see them – him - much…"

"Peyton…" Jake didn't wait for her to reply before he closed the distance between them and hugged her.

She sighed as she rested her head against his chest. "I wasn't planning on coming…I just sort of ended up here," she murmured. "I mean, Ellie knows where I live and I didn't really want to see her tonight. Sorry."

"It's okay. I don't mind," he whispered soothingly.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Thanks."

...

Haley took the money out of her purse before her cab pulled up in front of her apartment building because she wanted to get home in a hurry. It had only been drizzling when she left her family's old house, currently occupied by her sisters, but now the rain was pouring down and she had to run through it to get home.

Shutting the cab door closed behind her, she clutched her handbag tight as she ran blindly through the rain and all the way up to the top step, which was thankfully sheltered by the overhang. It was only as she fumbled about her purse looking for her key that she realized there was someone sitting on the step next to her.

Haley nearly screamed and fell back against the door. "What are you doing here?"

Nathan stood up and faced her. "I wanted to talk to you."

"But how do you know where I live. What, are you stalking me?"

"No! I brought you home one day."

"Oh. Right," Haley said, remembering. "But, still, that doesn't give you the right to just show up here."

"Look, I'm sorry about what happened yesterday. I said and did some things that I shouldn't have and I wanted to apologize."

"Well…thank you," Haley said, and then turned to her left to face the door once more.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like? I'm going home!" She stuck the key into the lock but before she could turn it Nathan stopped her.

"Will you at least hear me out first?"

"I thought you just came here to apologize. I accepted your apology so I don't see why there's anything more left to say."

"You know that's not true."

"Look, Nathan, it's raining; we should both just go home!"

"Haley, I'm sorry if I made you feel like I had used you or something with all those extra lessons, but the only reason I took you up on your offer was because I wanted to spend time with you. At first I thought I'd just go for that one, but then we talked, you know, not just about school stuff and I liked that so I kept on going. I swear I never meant to hurt you."

Haley paused, staring at the door. Then she said softly, "You just called me Haley."

"Yeah, I did. I was going to tell you about the case once it was over…and then I was going to ask you out."

"You were?" she said, this time a little louder.

"Yeah, I was. So…do you think if…maybe I still do…would you say yes?"

"Oh…" Haley glanced up at Nathan and then back at the door again. "I don't think so, Nathan."

"Wh…well, why not?"

"Well…because!"

"Because what?" Nathan demanded.

"Everyone thinks you're a student –"

"I mean after the case is over and everyone knows the truth!"

"But, I'm not supposed to have known the truth before the case is over."

"So?"

"So if we go out then everyone will think we were doing something even when I was supposed to have thought you were my student!"

"I don't care what other people think!"

"Well, I do. I don't want to jeopardize my job, my reputation."

"So that's your excuse?"

"It's not an excuse, Nathan, it's the truth."

"Well, I don't believe you. That can't be the reason."

"What other reason do you need?"

"How about the real one?"

"Okay, then, how about the fact that you dated my sister!" Haley shouted.

"I didn't date her."

"Don't even try to lie about it! Taylor already told me you two were together."

"Well, then she didn't explain."

"You know, I don't really want to hear about the details of my sister's relationships so I didn't ask for much more."

"Well, you should have! Look, Taylor was the first girl I had sex with, but –"

"Oh, god! I really wanted to know that," Haley said sarcastically.

"But, we weren't really together!" Nathan finished. "It was just that one night and it was a really long time ago. We met each other recently, but we weren't together then."

"And this is supposed to make me feel better? Make me want to date you? The fact that the first girl you had sex with was my sister? – My older sister! God, how old are you?"

"I'm 25."

"B-but Taylor's nearly 30." It was clear that Haley was mentally trying to do the math so Nathan just admitted it to her.

"I was 14."

"I think I'm going to be sick."