Chapter Two: Too Far Gone To Come Back
Only ten miles to go
Before I cross the state line
I can feel my hands shakin'
Cause I usually turn the wheel around about this time
"I wanna be with you, not Peyton."
The rain that beats down on Brooke's windshield makes it nearly impossible to navigate the nearly empty interstate that she'd been driving on for countless hours. She'd lost track of the various cities hours ago between having to strain to see and trying to stop reliving every conversation she'd ever had with him. Like how she can't help, but note the irony that it had been raining when he'd said the very words that are echoing in her head now. Or how many times he'd been forced to say them or a variation of them, just so that he could lay her fear of losing him to Peyton to rest. She'd always held onto the illusion that they were meant to be together.
"People who are meant to be together always find their way in the end."
It had been three years since she'd said those words to him only a few short days before having her heart crushed by him for the first time. She'd been so young, so in love for the first time, that she'd believed them. But she hadn't lost that naivety even after he'd cheated on her with her best friend. She'd still clung to the belief that you could find the person you were meant to spend the rest of your life with in high school. She still believed the words, still believed that there was one person out there for everyone and that their paths would cross over and over again until they got it right. She'd clung to the hope that that person would be him, that she wasn't stupid for putting her heart out there on the line time after time. But it had been increasingly apparent that he wasn't supposed to be that person for her. That they'd both wanted it, that they had both fought too hard for something that ultimately wasn't meant to be.
"You were supposed to fight for me. You were supposed to tell me that you wanted to be with me more then anyone else in the world."
Three years. They'd been fighting for and with each other for three years. She'd wanted him from the moment she'd seen him. He was supposed to be different then the other guys, kinder, gentler. He was supposed to be her knight in shining armor or something. She'd cast him into a role that he didn't fit into and damn if she wasn't tired of playing the damsel in distress. They'd broken up and they'd gotten back together so many times it was almost a joke. Hell it probably would have been funny if they hadn't shattered each other's hearts in the process. She'd shed so many tears over him in three years that it was almost a natural reaction. Fight, cry, get back together, cry. It was the natural order of things. And that had to be why this felt so unnatural to be navigating the roads during the mid-May storm somewhere between Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Florida feeling completely and utterly numb. There are no tears, there's not even a fight to keep the tears at bay.
"I know before, we said we were done. But we're not done, I can't be done. I can't get you out of my head. Peyton and I, it just was never right. I want to be with you."
She could remember the words. The last time they had gotten back together. She could remember the way he stood in front of her. She'd stood with her back pressed firmly against the wall of his bedroom just days before graduation. He'd stood so close to her that she could hardly breathe, much less think clearly. She'd gone to his house to tell him that she'd been accepted to a school in Paris. Istituto Marangoni accepted 2,000 students from around the world into their fashion and design program in Paris and she'd been accepted. But there, with him professing his love for her and how they would go away to college in a few short months and they'd get a new start, she couldn't deny him. Couldn't deny them a chance they had never had before. One where Peyton wouldn't factor in, where they would only know each other, they could build a new life together. Peyton was sticking around Tree Hill; she'd missed too much school. Haley and Nathan were going to Duke so they'd be close. But in Chapel Hill it would just be them. It would be a fresh start.
"I can't keep having this same damn fight with you Luke!" Not only was Brooke sure she couldn't keep fighting with Luke like this, she was pretty sure that her suite mates were tired of them having this fight. After six months who could blame any of them for being tired of hearing the same words?
"Brooke..."
She doesn't look at him. Instead she looks everywhere, but at him. Her eyes were trained on the linoleum floor, the wood paneling that looked like it had come straight off of the set of That 70's Show. Eventually her gaze travels to her bed, decorated with the beautiful red comforter she'd bought in her vast attempt to make the room a little nicer and a little less smothering. Her gaze can't help, but stop on her roommate's bed though. Her roommate hated her. Hell she was pretty sure her suite mates hated her too. She'd spent the first two months so wrapped up in being back together with Lucas that she'd missed that important bonding time and the three of them had eventually just stopped asking her to go out with them. It hadn't bothered her then, she had Lucas and they met up with Nathan and Haley all the time. Then the fighting had started. The fighting between her and Lucas locked in her bedroom, screaming at the top of their lungs. It was then that she had realized all the mistakes she had made when she came to UNC like not bonding with her roommates. Because Haley was too tired from many nights filled with a screaming baby and all bridges with Peyton were long past burned.
"Brooke," he says her name again and this time he crossed the space between them, gently cupping her face. "I know you've been really stressed about finals, but they're done. Freshman year is officially over. Why don't we just drop this? We're going to meet Jared, Laura and everyone at Spanky's. We can walk to Franklin Street, we can talk. Okay?" Jared. Laura. Everyone. His friends. Aspiring writers who would rather sit around talking about literature and debating politics then do anything remotely fun.
"No, Luke. It's not okay. We can't just drop it. We've been dropping it for months now. Here's the thing Luke, we made a mistake. Back in June, we made a mistake. I should have gone to Paris and..."
"Don't you dare blame that on me." Lucas drops his hand so that that they hang limply at his side. Now it's his turn to avoid her gaze. The words should have anger behind them, but it's obvious that he's feeling as emotionally drained from this fight as Brooke is.
"I'm not blaming it on you, I'm blaming it on me." Brooke's eyes finally settle on Lucas face, she's memorized every feature there. From the way his lips curved slightly up, even when he was serious and how his eyes were a dead give away to every emotion he was currently experiencing. "I shouldn't have come with you. I so desperately wanted to be in love with you that I actually thought I was." Brooke silently adds that she didn't let herself consider what she had let herself give up for one last chance with him - a spot at her dream school, maybe even a chance at being something amazing in the fashion design world. She can't tell him this because she doesn't blame him; she blames herself for being the one to give up all of that. This was her fault not his.
"Jesus, Brooke. I'm not having this fight with you again. I'm going to go and let you cool down. We'll talk tomorrow." That's the way it would go, he would deem the conversation over. Walk away. Then call her an hour, sometimes as much as a day later and apologize. And she would forgive him. She'd forgive him because not forgiving him and breaking it all off would mean she really had given up all of her dreams for nothing. But with a startling revelation when he walked out the door she realized that she couldn't spend the rest of her life trying to prove herself wrong.
She didn't cry as she packed all of her clothes into a couple of boxes and settled them in her car. She didn't cry as she packed an entire year's worth of school stuff, classes that she loved, into another box nestled between her clothes. She thought she would cry when she packed the things he had inadvertently left into a small box and asked her roommate to make sure that he got it when he stopped by to see her next. Her roommate hadn't really said anything aside from promising her that she would, but it was the look in her eyes that told Brooke that maybe, for the first time all year, she had gained her roommate's respect. She'd thought she would cry as she drove off or at least have some sort of numbness press down on her chest to make it hard to breathe. But the feeling never set in and hour later nothing else had changed.
God help her, she actually felt free. From Lucas. Even now as she pressed on through the rain, she felt free. He'd left countless messages. The first couple were apologetic. He was sorry they were fighting again and if she would answer her phone they could meet to talk about their problems. Then once he obviously figured out that she was gone they'd become pleading. But the pleas to come back quickly gave way to accusations. She'd been tempted to answer the phone when he was begging her to come home, but when she was accused of running away she knew she couldn't call him.
How could she make him understand that for the first time in her life she wasn't running away from anything? She was running toward something. She could just feel it—something was about to change. She didn't know what and she didn't know where she was going. All she knew was that she was going toward something and she'd know where she was supposed to be when she got there. Maybe that was crazy, who knows. Maybe Brooke Davis really had lost her marbles. Maybe time would come to show that, but right now Brooke felt calm, like she was finally making the right decision and she had to run with that for now.
This whole running to something would be made much easier if Brooke could actually see where she was going. For the last two hours she'd hardly been able to see two car lengths in front of her, but steadily the rain had come down harder and she had very few options beyond taking the next towns exit to find a place to stay the night. The exit thankfully, came more quickly then Brooke had expected and within minutes she had pulled off of the interstate and into a town that is obviously brightly lit even through all the rain, but that wouldn't make the search to find a place to stay for the night any easier.
While she sat at a red light Brooke took a couple deep breaths, she had to take everything in small steps. Right now she had to figure out where she was going to stay and later when she was safely inside her hotel room she would figure out the next step. She didn't have to come up with a permanent plan, but she needed to figure out where she would stay even if it was just for a couple of days. She had so few options, she had a very small circle of friends and her parents had all, but disowned her when she'd told them she would be going to UNC and not the fashion school in Paris so California was out. She couldn't show up on their doorstep to prove them right.
She had to turn the air in the car up as it was suddenly stifling and Brooke could attribute that to nothing, but the panic finally settling in. What had she been thinking? Where was she supposed to go? Her parents had taken away all, but one emergency credit card, they weren't paying for school and they weren't giving her a cent. She had very little money, enough for a couple days in a cheap motel, but then what? The light overhead changed and Brooke hit the gas so quickly that the car lurched forward, sliding slightly on the water slick roads. The adrenaline that courses through her veins at the near loss of control brings her attention back to the road slowly she would think about what came next, she would figure it out. She was Brooke-fricken-Davis; it would all be all right.
It was at that moment, just as she'd gotten herself calmed down enough to focus on the road that the brake lights of the car in front of her were slammed on. Brooke immediately slammed on her brakes, but between the timing and the weather there was no stopping her sliding into the car in front of her. There was no stopping the sickening crunch of metal or the excruciating pain before the blackness set it.
If I'm not over you by Georgia
Then I'll Be Alabama bound
There was a time where I'd do aything for you
But this time baby, I won't turn around
Carolyn Dawn Johnson "Georgia"