A/N: The feedback from the first chapter was awesome! So glad you guys are pumped for this story. As promised, here's chapter two beta'ed by the fabulous Ellie. I promise the chapters will be longer than the first one was, but they won't be as long as my chapters for Life Happens or The Art of Selflessness either. Anyways! Enjoy and leave a review if you feel up to it :)

Next chapter will be out Friday at the latest.

Disclaimer: I don't own it.

Chapter Two: Lines

As a society, we are very comfortable with the idea of lines. We welcome them, in fact. Lines separate the good from bad. Right from wrong. Something less from something more. Lines are often crossed, but incapable of being straddled.

They are arbitrary and often are moved by consensus as society shifts towards one end. Sometimes, lines can make giant leaps towards one way and leave us wondering why bother with keeping the line? But it's simple. We need boundaries.

Otherwise, there'd be nothing stopping us from getting what we wanted.

And that's more dangerous than any line could be.

She hadn't slept in days, a fact that Brooke kept reminding her of every time she caught her in the kitchen up before dawn. Peyton would just shrug and pour herself another cup of coffee, something stronger than that cheap espresso that Brooke guzzled. Occasionally, she would sneak a shot of Jack or Baileys when Brooke wasn't looking, anything to get her through the day.

She tried to remember if she had had this much trouble sleeping when she lived in Los Angeles, but she soon realized that her days on the West Coast were nothing but a giant blur.

She shook her head. She knew the reason she wasn't sleeping was because of Lucas. It didn't take a rocket scientist to realize she came back for him. Everyone in Tree Hill, Lucas included, knew that. And now, he was with Lindsey.

Peyton felt like a fool. A fool who was slowly but surely realizing that she had lost the love of her life without so much as a postcard telling her why. She never expected that he'd welcome her with open arms, but she never believed he'd be in love with someone else.

If it weren't for the record company, Peyton would have taken the first flight back to Los Angeles and gone back to pretending that Lucas would come back to her. It would have been much easier to live in her fantasy world than to have its giant trump card being stamped out in front of her.

It was these thoughts she was musing on when the doorbell rang. Brooke shot her a cheery smile and dashed off to the door. Peyton wanted to roll her eyes, but she found she couldn't. Brooke had and still was giving her everything, and the last thing Peyton would ever be was ungrateful. Brooke's good mood might have rubbed her the wrong way sometimes, but it would always be more of a blessing than anything.

"Hey."

The unwelcome voice from behind her made her clutch her mug closer to her chest. She didn't respond, and her new guest took it as an opportunity to walk around the counter so he was facing her.

"Brooke let me in."

"I see that," Peyton said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

Try as she might, Peyton would never escape the defense mechanism that was her sarcasm. Luckily by now, Lucas was used to it.

"See you haven't changed much," he smiled.

"Neither have you," Peyton chuckled, almost bitterly. Lucas either didn't pick up on the bitterness or chose to ignore it.

"How's the business going?"

"You came here to ask me that?" Peyton asked, raising her eyebrows. Lucas scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah, I did," he said, his eyes darting around the room, refusing to settle on hers. She rolled her eyes, picking up on the telltale sign that he was hiding something. She wasn't going to play this game with Lucas.

"Well it's doing fine, thank you. You can go now that you checked up on me." She pointed to the door, before standing up and placing her mug in the sink.

"Why are you so hostile?" Lucas finally blurted out. Peyton turned sharply on her heel, her arms bracing herself up against the sink.

"Lucas, I'm going to give you some advice. Don't ask questions that you don't want to know the answers to."

"I want to know," Lucas said slowly, in an almost patronizing matter, "Otherwise I wouldn't have asked you."

"Fine! Than don't ask questions that you already know the answers to."

That effective shut him up.

"But you need it spelled out for you, don't you, Lucas? You always have," Peyton sighed, "Well, okay then…I've been back for three weeks, Lucas, and you and I both know that I don't want to see you, okay? It's weird and incredibly awkward. I spend most of time when we're in the same room thinking about how I can get out of the room and the rest of the time thinking about why I came back here in the first place. But I'm here now, and I need to make the best of it and that's what I'm trying to do, Luke. That's why I need you to stop checking up on me. I need you to stop looking at me like you do and I need you to stop caring because if you don't stop doing that, I'm going to blow a gasket and either A) kiss you or B) knock you into next week and going by my lack of sleep, I might just do both."

When she finished her rant, she finally realized she had been staring at him this whole time, and yet she had no idea what his reaction had been. She quickly looked away, glancing towards her bedroom.

"I'm going to my room. Let yourself out, please," she whispered, her voice going from frustrated to timid in a matter of moments. She brushed past him, making sure to bump him hard with her shoulder just to emphasize her point, but all it served to do was remind her of how solid his body was. She closed her eyes, willing herself not to think of that.

"Peyton." She made it all of four steps before he called her name. Unlike the last time he did it at Rivercourt, she looked back this time.

"What?"

"We were friends once. Why can't we just work on being friends again?"

Peyton nearly flinched, but she was strong enough to hide her disappointment; strong enough to not say 'because after that fucking speech I just gave you, you should realize I'm still head over heels in love with you.'

"We were never friends Lucas," Peyton whispered, "We always crossed that line. We couldn't help it."

"It's different this time."

"Exactly," she nodded, "It's not high school anymore. If we crossed that line, it would be so much worse. I can't let that happen."

"I wouldn't let it happen. I've changed since then. I won't make the same mistakes that I did last time. I won't screw up our relationship."

From a distance, they were all the right words, and yet they left a bitter taste in Peyton's mouth.

"As much as I love hearing you call me a mistake time and time again, I was thinking more that I can't trust myself not to cross that line-"

"You know I didn't mean it like that," Lucas sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"I'm honestly not sure about that anymore," Peyton said, giving him a weak smile, "And you know what come to think of it, I think what you just said proved to me that I don't need to worry about crossing the line. You definitely wouldn't be worth it."

"Peyton," Lucas whispered, "I don't think you were a mistake."

"Sure," she nodded softly, "I'll see you later, friend."

She tiptoed to her bedroom and as soon as she heard the front door shut, she allowed herself to cry. The tears were enough to soothe her to sleep