For the next few months, Haley struggled more and more trying to manage her schoolwork, tutoring, working at the café, and not to mention college applications. With whatever free time she did have available, her best friend was too busy with his girlfriend. Like any normal human being, she was jealous. It had even come down to him ignoring her phone calls, only to get a call back the next day apologizing that he had been occupied with Brooke. Everyday she felt tension mounting up slowly within her. She was always in control of her life and for the first time, she felt that it was controlling her.

Jimmy and Lydia James were the estranged parents of Haley. They neglected their daughter unintentionally because in actuality they loved her dearly. But having raised five children before her, they had grown restless of each other. The love that had once brought them together had vanished. Haley was given the news that her parents would be divorcing come the end of the month, over the phone. On top of their continuous absence in her life, this devastated an already stress-ridden girl.

After the distressing phone call, Haley had locked herself in her bedroom. She hid herself in a corner on the floor, bringing her knees to her chest. She wrapped her arms around them tightly, resting her head against her forearms. Everything felt so surreal. It was a life that she never expected and had never wanted. But tears did not fall.

She hesitantly approached her desk, opening the top drawer with a quivering hand. She reached in and pulled out a mini box cutter, adorned with sparkly stickers, which she usually used for art projects. She slid the blade out and each click resonated in the silence of the dark room before it was the perfect length. Gripping the tool tightly in her right hand, she turned attention to her left inner wrist.

Tears still refused to fall.

She glided the blade slowly across as drops of blood followed her trace. She shut her eyes to take notice of the pain that stung her left wrist… and soon forgot of the pain she felt from everything else.

--

Nathan strolled into his fifth period class right as the second bell rang, signaling that all students should be in class by now. He looked to his right to find the familiar group of desks taken by the one named Haley James. It was funny how this was the one class that he refused to skip, even if it was everyday. The two had become permanent desk partners. Their flirtatious banter never ceased and it greatly amused him to get her riled up because it just seemed to affect him even more; in a good way.

When Haley looked up from her desk, Nathan tried his best to hide the huge grin on his face by smirking. God, she was good at that—making him smile.

"What's good?"

"Huh?"

She blinked twice, awakening from her daze. She had been enamored by the lazy but cute smirk on his face.

"Just saying 'hi',"

"Hey," she replied.

"Excited to see me?" Nathan commented sarcastically.

Haley rolled her eyes with a smile and turned to the front to give attention to the teacher.

The class was instructed to create an in-class assignment with a partner, utilizing magazine clippings on poster board to define vocabulary words. The buzz of the students was quiet but present as they got to work on their projects. Nathan flipped through a catalogue mindlessly as Haley began to roll up her sleeves to begin working. He looked over at her to see what she was working on when several faded scars on her left wrist caught his eye. His eyes widened in utter shock.

Haley was focused on the poster board that sat in front of her when suddenly Nathan's masculine hand had a hold of her left wrist tightly. What she felt when he touched her was indescribable as she felt a tingling sensation run through her fingers and back out to her entire body. Nervously look at him, she saw his eyes a mixture of confusion and anger. Then, it clicked.

"Wh… what… what… why?" he stammered.

Haley's eyes left his as she stared past the engravings of 'school sux' on her desk. Suddenly, he realized that he might possibly be hurting her where she had already hurt herself. His grasp around her wrist loosened instantaneously.

"It's okay… it doesn't hurt, Nathan," she answered quietly, feeling the relaxation of his grip.

She briefly looked up to ensure him. For that second, his deep sapphire eyes searched her very own for an answer or even a hint to his question. He could only see a dark brown void.

"It's… it's not okay! What are you doing?" he snapped, loud enough for only her to hear.

She continued to avoid eye contact and took in a sharp breath. She apprehensively looked around, making sure that no one could overhear their conversation. Then she felt Nathan's hand slowly slide away from her rest and clasp her hand comfortingly. That same sensation filled her veins, giving her a slight head rush.

"I'm not doing it anymore. And that's all you need to know," she tried to say as coldly and convincingly as possible.

She dared to look up again and instead of seeing judgment in his gaze like she'd expected, she saw worry. And it was genuine worry.

'Is the Nathan Scott actually caring about me, Haley James?' she thought confusedly.

"You're right, if that's all you want me to know… I won't ask anymore questions,"

It was clear that it was embarrassing for her to discuss, much less with him. He removed his hand from her gently as she concealed her disappointment.

'What the fuck! If Lucas is such a damn good friend, why they hell would he let something like this happen to her?'

A mental explosion of emotion only translated physically as a twitch on his upper lip.

"Just throwing my two cents here but, you're too good for that, James," he added with a wink after his momentary anger had subsided.

Haley smiled politely at his kind words, feeling her cheeks warm in response.

--

Busy with the projects, the students were thrown off guard when the bell rang. They rushed tossing magazines onto the nearby shelf and dumping out their trash to head to wherever they had to be next. Haley stood up, slowly shoving her items into her backpack, hoping that Nathan would hurry out with the others. But he followed suit, getting up gradually. Even though Nathan didn't want to push his luck, he placed his hand lightly on Haley's, once more. She looked up at with an expression revealing timidity.

"Look, Haley, I know that we're not great friends or anything. I just want you to know that if you ever want to talk about it or need to talk about it, I'm always here. Because I can always be a friend."

She was speechless at his thoughtfulness, something that came as a pleasant surprise.

"Thanks," she simply answered.

Noticing the awkwardness that had developed between the two, Nathan tried to lighten the situation.

"Does somebody need a hug?" he asked with goofy smile plastered on his face.

Haley only smiled shyly, her feet planted into the carpeted floor. Nathan advanced towards her encircling her petite body with his muscular arms. He pressed her cozily to his own body as she lost herself in that fleeting moment. Without meaning to, he had shut his eyes, enjoying the feel of her locked in his embrace just as much as she did.

They parted reluctantly and saw that they had been the only two people in the classroom.

"Well, I'll see you later," Nathan said.

"Yeah, okay…" she replied.

Nathan turned around, slipping on his backpack to leave.

"Hey, Nathan!—thanks again… I mean it,"

Haley had a serious expression on her face and as she said this. Nathan tipped his head slightly in a gentlemen sort of way, leaving her with that gorgeous smile—not the cocky smirk, but the sweet, I-can-make-you-melt smile. Standing there alone in the classroom, she pulled up her left sleeve, staring at her inner wrist. Smoothing the scars out with her fingers, she kissed her own wrist once, then twice. As she rubbed it softly, she collapsed to the floor, crying. After two months of an emotionless girl just trying to handle life being thrown at her, she broke down and cried till there were no more tears left to fall and it felt good.

--

Haley loved to sing. Although she wasn't involved in her school chorus, she kept her talent hidden and chose to write poetry and prose turning them into songs. She kept a notebook as well as an anonymous online journal filled with entries. The poetry reflected her life and as of late, that caused her writing to be morose and depressing. Several pieces of her work she would publish on her online journal but kept her identity a secret. The last thing she need was anyone from her school finding it.

But that night she scrawled into her notebook journal, talking about a certain boy who had reached out. She smiled like an overly satisfied child as she filled out that day's journal entry recalling every detail on how he had approached her to how he'd smiled at her. Haley hugged her notebook to her chest, lying on her back, reminiscing about the day's events. Her problems were the last thing on her mind. What she didn't know was that she was in Nathan's mind as well.

--

Nathan had come from basketball practice tired and dreading the load of homework he had to do. Nonetheless, with the way the school year was starting, his grades needed all the points he could earn. So he sat at his computer desk trying to research information for an English paper. But he was having trouble; he couldn't focus. He sat staring at his computer and his thoughts kept relaying to what had happened in his SAT prep class.

Haley was intriguing. She didn't drive him crazy but she stood out from the girls that he had been interested in before. She was more than cute, because every time he caught the sight of her rear end, he couldn't stop looking. The funny part was that she wasn't trying and throwing herself at him like all the other girls. Sometimes it was frustrating because he always had to keep his cool or he'd get rejected with a bitterly sarcastic comment from her. Flirting was the most that they did and she never went further. He wasn't used to having to think so much but, she had this affect on him—making him want to do anything to talk to her, make her laugh, and seeing her blush. When he had seen those awful scars on her arm, he panicked. He didn't know how he was supposed to react but he couldn't control the way he had grabbed her. It had all been instinctive.

He refocused on the search engine waiting patiently in the open web browser. Instead of looking up the Shakespearian play, Macbeth, he hit the 'h' key, then 'a', 'l' and eventually Haley James was staring back at him. He hit the 'enter' key, watching as the browser quickly searched for his topic.

He saw a few of the Tree Hill High School web pages and after clicking it, found that it was all the honor roll lists that she had been on for every semester, every year. He rolled his eyes.

'Duh,' he thought.

Scrolling down the page, he saw a link to what looked a completely different website. It looked like one of those online log sites where people kept their journals.

'Interesting,' he thought with a smile.

He clicked it open and it popped into a new browser. It had led to a single web page with what looked like a letter. It read, "Life That I Did Not Live". Disregarding the strange title, he continued to read through it.

"Dear Life that I did not live,

This letter goes to my family, friends, and loved ones. If you have found this then it means that I am gone."

Nathan's jaw dropped to the floor. Shaking off what he had just read, he printed it out immediately not bothering to read the rest. Picking up his house phone, he dialed 411.

He had gotten the home phone numbers and addresses of the five James that lived within Tree Hill. Looking through the school directory he looked up Haley's house phone number to find the correct James' residence. He was done in 10 minutes and was out the door, tearing the printed letter away from the printer. His thoughts were a mile a minute as he hopped into his car to make his way to her house. Maybe he wasn't too late. But, what if he was? He regretted that he hadn't done more when he'd seen those self-mutilated marks on her arm. He felt so stupid.

'A hug? You're such a fucking idiot,'

A red light forced him to come to a stop and he slammed his hands into the sides of his steering wheel, yelling out in frustration.

--

As Nathan pulled into the driveway of Haley's home he noticed that no cars were there.

'Where the hell is everyone?'

Still gripping the paper tightly in his hands he ran out of the car and up to her front porch. Using his fist, he knocked anxiously on the painted wooden door. A few seconds passed, what seemed like an eternity to Nathan. Losing his patience his hand reached for the doorknob when suddenly, it opened. Papers of what had been Haley's quiz notes fell to the floor.

"Nathan?"