A/N: Hey guys and gals! So Stephen King can come up with the most scariest stuff ever! Watching the movie "It" freaked the heck out of me I don't even think I'd be able to read the book lol...cause y'know how the book is just so much more descripted and longer and probably even more scarier haha. oh and I forgot to answer your last question Tweetiebird86; Bascially yeah Peyton kind of took Lucas' place for the Rivercourt guys seeing as he hardly has time for them now. So out with the old in with the new. But the real question is will he be able to redeem himself and call him a Rivercourt man himself, again?? Guess you'll have to see :D
So OTH on Monday, huh? Of course I enjoyed it, but I was truly dissappointed with the lack of LP/P scenes. If the rumors cirrculating are true than I hope that the next 6 episodes will be LP/P centric! Like i know theres other characters on the show, but still give me some more LP :D...idk it's probably just me...
Chapter Four: That's Where It Is
Peyton's POV:
Of course he would be here. Why did I think that he wouldn't attend his nephew's fifth birthday party? Maybe it was just my subdued buoyancy contradicting me with hopes that this would be a Lucas-free event that out won the derisive heckling of my inner devil who accurately knew the truth.
"Aunt Peyt, you can do two things at once, right?"
I was glad for the interruption my eyes quickly leaving those of the man who I swore would never again enter my life. But here he is and here I am our lives much separated and yet so intertwined.
"Hm." I pretend to think index finger tapping on my chin a couple of times while staring at the ceiling before glancing at the boy with the innocent eyes. "Well if one thing that being on the road has taught me it was multi tasking."
"Great, than you can watch me open my presents while you eat your slice."
"And who says you can't have your cake and eat it too?"
"I don't know." Jamie shrugs his shoulders not getting my small joke. "Why would somebody have some cake and not eat it? I'd eat it without thinking twice."
His philosophy made Nathan and Lucas laugh along with me as I scooped Jamie into my arms. He was getting bigger I could tell you that much as I put him back on the ground after a minute or two.
"Come on lets go open your gifts birthday boy."
Patting him on the back he takes off towards the living room where everyone has already gathered around waiting to see what new toys he had received. A bicycle from Nathan and Haley along with other things, a couple dinosaur toys from Junk and Fergie, a small book collection from Lucas and Lindsay, a jersey from an undisclosed person, Legos from Mouth and Millie, various toys from his friends from school, clothes from 'Nanny' Deb which he wasn't too enthusiastic about, a generous sum of money from aunt Brooke, and lastly the last couple of bags and boxes that were currently being torn through were from me.
"It's Mario Racing!" He dug through the large bag. "And another video game. Cool two nunchuks." He kept pulling out an assortment of things from controllers, to those racing wheels, Dance Dance Revolution which kept me occupied while on the tour bus, those packages that had the golf club and tennis rackets, and I even put in those light sabers just in case Mouth wanted to play Star Wars; another game that I had put in the bag as a gift. "But these are all for the Wii."
I watched as the smile on his face dissolved.
"I don't have a Wii. I only have an Xbox."
"Really?" He nodded sadly. "I guess I'm going to have to take all these presents back to the toy store than."
I start putting the things back into the bag and it's so hard not to yell 'Gotcha' when Jamie gives you the look as if somebody just told him Santa Clause wasn't real. Glancing towards Skillz it's my way of telling him that it's time to set this plan in motion.
"Hold on there, P. Sawyer." He's by my side in a second putting his hands on top of mine stopping me from putting one of the racing wheels back into the bag. "Jim jam has yet to open the present you helped me fine."
I watch as Skillz hands the bag over to Jamie who was less than enthralled. We catch each other's eye trying to hide the simper with pierced lips and biting of the lower lip. Watching and waiting as he takes the tissue out and looks into the bag his eyes widening, jaw dropping, and sudden gasping.
Haley's motherly instincts kick in quickly making her way towards her son asking if everything's okay, but he doesn't say a word just points his finger to the bag and she takes a peak in.
"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"
Jamie engulfs both me and Skillz into a tight hug before letting go gathering the blue bag along with the larger red one dumping in one of the original controllers before dragging them towards where the television sat ignored no longer. Quiet whispers suddenly start all wondering what had made the boy go from dejected to ecstatic so quickly.
"What did you guys get him?"
Nathan asked the two of us but before either one of us could answer the loud shrill of the honored young boy that had brought this group of people together answered.
"They got me a Wii!"
The next couple of days I wore a necklace of a four-leafed clover charmed with a horseshoe in hopes that it was lucky enough to keep those fortuitous encounters with either of the Mr. or Mrs. Lucas Scott at bay. Okay I'm no believer in luck because, well, heck let's face it I've never really been propitious in my life. Of course I've had wonderful things happen to me, but those things always ended in a tragic way. For one I had two wonderful mothers that are now both dead, a best friend that I've lost twice in my life, a man that I love prove to me time and time again that he'll never choose me, and a lot of other things that involve psycho stalkers that I just don't want to get into right now. So, no, I've never believed that being lucky could ever be affiliated with Peyton Sawyer.
But thinking about it now, while I finished drinking a cup of coffee from the diner across from my work space I can't help to let myself become content, that maybe just maybe the ball would actually be in my court because even though my walls are higher than ever I've been granted the wish I've been wishing for months now. No Lucas Scott, no Lindsay Scott, no drama.
"Hi."
Oh, right, it's just my damned luck. I must have been wearing the horseshoe upside down the entire time the four leafed clover balancing out the unluckiness for as long as it could because the said Mr. Lucas Scott is sitting across from me a beam of a smile adhesive on his face.
"Bye."
I spit out getting up from my seat and discarding the empty Styrofoam cup into the garbage bin. I hope he's catches onto my brusque manner that, hell, let me just bluntly say it: I don't want to ever have to see his face again. But woe is me, yes I've been reading some Edgar Allen Poe, as he follows his strides in sync with mine about two feet behind. Now we're inside of Tric and I've been ignoring him busying myself by unfastening the lock that keeps this no longer magical necklace around my collar and abandoning it in the trash.
Lucas' POV
"Lucky my ass."
I hear Peyton drone watching as the silver necklace that was previously settled upon her chest lulling from her fingers the tiny charms dangling back and forth before she lets it slip into the trash can.
Looking up from the silver jewelry that lay perfectly on top of a pile of papers she has already started moving again and before I join her in the office that is currently the location of her label company Red Bedroom Records I grab the piece of white gold and gently put it in the pocket of my shirt.
When I enter the larger office that now has a recording studio next to it she's engaged with the demos on the disc throwing some into the recycle bin, putting others into a stack that I assume is the 'yes' pile, and opening up manila envelopes that contain the aspiration of young hopefuls.
"Hi."
I want to say so much more to her than just that. I want to ask how come she didn't attend the wedding, why is she so distant; I want to tell her that I still want to be friends. That I still care about her enough to show her that I'll always be there when she needs me.
"You already said that." He voice is apathetic as she continues. "And I said bye. Or do you need another hint because that one seemed to be pretty obvious." I don't say anything trying to wonder how this woman can be the same person who I used to know. "Fine, you should be able to understand this. Get the hell out."
"Peyt-"
She cuts me off.
"Still not getting it, I see. Here, let me put this in the one word that'll leave you making a quick exit" Arching my eyebrow mischievously I scan her entire being for any kind of emotion; there isn't any. "Someday."
She point towards the door that leads outside of her office and back into the night club and gets back to the CD's that acquire her attention, but her someday literally caused me to freeze the cold sensations that ran up and down my spine are the worst kind that leads to shivering.
"What happened to you? You never use to be this way."
"Three years ago happened to me and the more recent events of four months ago happened, Lucas. Maybe you should stroll down memory lane, by yourself, and remember all the things that made me become better."
"So this is the new you then?" Now I'm starting to sound bitter. "It's far from better. It's insensitive, cold, ruthless, and dare I say that you've seem to become a heartless person."
She snickers at my comment and that just adds fuel to the fire that's burning through my veins right about now.
"What you don't like the new and improved me? The person you created."
The only thing separating us right now is the desk but that's not obstructing her from leaning against it her hands griping on the ends to hold her up as her torso moves closer to me.
"I? I created this?"
Why does a conversation between us always have to end in a brawl? I might have asked her that question if I wasn't so enraged by her and her new personality. This Peyton is nothing like the Peyton who I wrote a whole book about; her feistiness if off the meter and not in a good way.
"It sure as hell isn't the work of Pablo Picasso." She whispers out glaring at me before she stands in the upright position and goes back to looking at the demos. "We're finished here. You can go now."
She talks to me as if I'm beneath her and all of her superiority. I'm frustrated and angry this is not how it was suppose to turn out when I saw her sitting at the café enjoying a cup of coffee. Slamming the bottom of my fist on her desk she doesn't even flinch; she probably was expecting something like that out of me.
Standing behind the chassis of the door I look at her sitting behind her desk writing some name of a band that she might be calling with anticipating news about a record deal they might have. Was I really the reason she was this way? Of course she was strong, loving, and so many other things but among those things was bitterness the sardonic that she swore I put in her.
Walking into my childhood home I ignore the woman standing by the stove and walk into the room falling onto my bed. I don't know if I'm sulking. Should I really have the right to brood about the person she's become? Has she really become that different? Because at the party I seen the same Peyton that I knew before. She was just atypical when it came to me.
A/N: So, did you like? Well you can tell me in a review ;)
I don't know about you guys but I've always loved a mean and bi*chy Peyton. Like I love her even when she mopes around, but it would have been a whole lot more fun if Mark would have wrote her with a backbone at least sometimes (Like when they get stuck in the Library? Who couldn't fall in love with that Peyton?? I know I did :D I was like go Peyton and yeah you tell her! haha)
Eulogy for Time to Pretend will be up later tonight for those of you who read it :D