Chapter 3(Sawyer)
Tonight I'm so alone
This sorrow takes ahold
Don't leave me here so cold
Never
want to be so cold
Your touch used to be so kind
Your
touch used to give me life
I've waited all this time, I've wasted
so much time
Don't leave me alone
Cause I barely see at
all
Don't leave me alone, I'm
[Chorus:]
falling
in the black
Slipping through the cracks
Falling to the
depths can I ever go back
Dreaming of the way it used to be
Can you hear me
falling in the black
Slipping through the
cracks
Falling to the depths can I ever go back
Falling
inside the black
Falling inside falling inside the black
You
were my source of strength
I've traded everything
That I love
for this one thing
Stranded in the offering
Don't leave me
here like this
Can't hear me scream from the abyss
And now I
wish for you my desire
Don't leave me alone cause I barely see at all
Skillet pounded through my headphones, helping to drown out some of the voices in my head. I hadn't seen Brooke since I'd bumped into her and that was a week ago. The lyrics from the song flooded into my ears and reminded me of how much I missed her and how lost I was without her.
Haley had told me Brooke had a new "friend". That had hurt to hear that. Not because I resented her having a boy but because I knew Brooke. When she was really hurting the first thing she reached for was a guy and the second was a bottle of vodka. Who could tell how many nights I'd helped her get home after she'd had too much of both. Now I wasn't there to help her. I didn't deserve to be.
I fiddled with my bedspread as tears filled my eyes. Looking around at my walls, I nodded in approval at the new paint job. Black. Who knows what my dad would think when he got home and saw that my red bedroom was now a black one. I didn't care. Black was how I felt. Drawings covered most of it anyways. Two were hanging right above my bed, they were the most important. One was all three of us, Lucas, Brooke, and me aiming guns at a flaming number three inside a heart. Three was Lucas' jersey number but also ironically the number of people that were involved and hurt in our little love fiasco. The next one was a drawing of Brooke, eyes filled with tears, and she was saying, "He said he wants to be friends."
I closed my eyes, trying to let the music wash over me as it had before but it wouldn't wash away Brooke's face from my eyelids. I just kept seeing her cry, over and over.
I was startled out of my revere, feeling someone staring at me. I opened my eyes. Jesus! I nearly leapt off the bed. Lucas was standing right there, just staring down at me. I ripped my headphones out of my ears.
"What're you trying to do? Give me a heart attack!?"
He put up both hands, "Hey, it's just me. Sorry I scared you. I knocked but of course you didn't hear it." He glanced meaningfully down at my I-Pod.
He was right I had been tuning out the world and that included his knocks. I sat up, crossing my legs and brushed my hair behind one of my ears. Looking up at him I asked, "Why did you come here anyway?"
He sat down at the end of my bed and looked at me with his concerned eyes. Those damn concerned eyes are what got me in this mess in the first place.
"Peyton, I just wanted to make sure you were ok."
I rolled my eyes, "Well let's see. Last time I was really ok….well that'd be back when I was about 8. Yeah that was the year before my mom died. Since then I've been anything but 'ok'. You know what though, Brooke was always there to make me feel better until…guess what? Now she's not." I leapt off the bed and startled fiddling with my records so he wouldn't see the tears springing up in my eyes.
I felt him shift on the bed behind me. Then I felt him stand up. Then I felt his hand on my shoulder. Even through my grief, it helped. He was always so warm and comforting. That's what I loved most about him…damn it! I couldn't be thinking like that anymore! I brushed his hand off my shoulder.
Now I walked over to my closet, anywhere to get away from him and how he made me feel. What a horrible person I am. Lucas the one person that ripped me and my best friend apart and I can't stop thinking about how he makes me "feel".
I heard his voice behind me, it was full of hurt, "Peyton…Look I'm just trying to help ok? I want to be your friend."
I almost scoffed. Really? Lucas and I be friends? When and where would that ever be possible?
He continued though, "I know that you're going through a tough time. And trust me; I know it's my fault…" His voice broke there and I turned around to face him despite myself.
He had tears in his eyes. I was shocked. He grabbed my hand and held onto it. For a second, I looked down at it, shocked. He shouldn't be touching me. There were reasons…I knew there were. Just right now I couldn't think of any.
His voice was really shaky when he started speaking again, "Look. I don't know if you know how hard this has been on me. I was dating Brooke and she was great…she was better than great but Peyton…You are You. You're Peyton Sawyer. You're beautiful, kind, funny, and even when we're fighting I feel more alive than ever. So do you know how hard it was? Not only did I hurt Brooke, who could be one of the best friends I've ever had but I also drove you away, and put a wedge between you and Brooke. So now I don't have you. I don't have Brooke. And you two don't even have each other. It hurts Peyton. It really does. To know that I've been causing such anguish, such heartache. To know that I've hurt so many people. I try to be a good guy but now I can't help but feel this black pit of guilt somewhere inside of me that just won't go away. I'm afraid I'm going to fall into the black and never come back out."
I jerked my head up at that last sentence. I felt the same way right now. The same lyrics that song had been singing to me. Guilt. It had broiled inside of me for weeks now and I never even thought of how Lucas would be feeling. I'd taken it for granted that he was just a "guy" and had gone off to better and less complicated things.
I let him keep hold of my hand and for the first time in weeks I looked at him. I mean really looked at him. He was a little skinner than last time we'd been together. His cheeks were sunken in and there were dark circles under his eyes that told me of lost sleep and maybe tears. This looked like a ghost version of Lucas. I looked over at our reflections in the mirror beside my bed. Him on one side, a ghost. Our linked hands in the middle. Me, on the other side, a monster. We were both cursed.
I gently pulled my hand out of his and for an instant I saw hurt shine anew in his eyes. I went and sat down on the bed again. What was I supposed to do about this? We were both hurt so incredibly bad. How could it ever heal again? Sure I could throw myself at him and give in to the ache that had been building ever since he told me that he wanted everything with me. But I knew the guilt of what we'd done to Brooke would be a shadow seeping into the middle of any relationship that we started. It would destroy us. Somehow I knew that. Both of us were empty people right now and being empty together wouldn't make us whole.
He sat down next to me. "I'm not asking for anything, Peyton. I'm not asking for you to be my girlfriend or anything. I know that would be too hard. I just…let me help you. I know that you need someone…someone to pull you out of yourself. Brooke's not here. I know that sounds harsh but you have to come to grips with that. If you sit here, festering in your wounds, it'll kill you Peyton. Not physically but…I'm afraid you'll never be yourself again."
Something inside me responded to his words. Living this way. It was killing me. Being a shadow of myself, blaming myself, hating myself. It was all piling up until I knew; very soon, it would get to be too much. Would I give in to it all? Would I just let myself wash away with the wounds that I helped create? Or should I wake up? Should I leave this room right now and start living again?
Lucas got up. He held out his hand. "Jack's Mannequin is playing at Tric tonight. Come on, Peyton. Let me take you out of here."
With doubts raging and my heart still breaking, I took his hand.
*The lyrics at the beginning of this chapter are Falling Inside the Black by Skillet. I don't own them but I would encourage you to give it a listen…It's a great song.*