Our Lawyer Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued
Still amazed, Lucas stood in the middle of his room, with Peyton still standing in the doorway. She looked like a goddess with her hair that had turned surprisingly dark because of the water and the less amount of material covering of her body.
"I am going to call my lawyer" she informed him sternly and swiftly walked through the room before slipping into the hallway and into her room on the other side of it.
Still not knowing what overcame him, he walked in the bathroom, turned the shower on that Peyton had just used moments before and let himself slip underneath the cascade of warm water pouring on his muscled body.
With circling movements he rubbed the perfumed soap into his tanned skin, letting it sooth his thoughts and still shaky body. Trying to place everything that happened when he came to when he massaged the foaming shampoo into his hair.
The question was why Elle was in his bed, stayed unanswered as Lucas tried to search for an at least proper answer, the lathering shampoo and soap mixed up while streaming off his body.
They all were 'maybe' answers … he sighed deeply before turning the water off, quivering in response when he lost the warmth of it and he stepped out of the shower to be embraced by the sudden cold, giving him goose bump instantaneously.
He quickly got dressed into the only pair of dress pants he had with him and put a blue shirt over it. He wondered slightly, why he had almost only blue shirts, remembering almost every occasion he had to wear a shirt, probably eight out of ten times, he wore a blue one.
After getting dressed and with the Elle questions still running through his mind, he entered Peyton's room, finding her into the bathroom drying her hair, already fully dressed. She looked suddenly much older and wiser in her formal outfit, a pair of very dark grey dress pants with a white shirt above it, matched with a vest in the same grey as her pants. The details of her appearance like her necklace, bracelets and boots were still in black.
As she turned the hair dryer off and checked her imagine in the mirror, Lucas sat on the edge of the bathtub.
"Do you want me to go with you?" he asked, looking at her face through the mirror. She turned around and heaved a sigh.
"Thanks for asking Lucas, but I have to do this alone. And I got to get going right now. He is already downstairs. But still, thanks Luke." She said and walked over to him, embracing him tightly as he also stood up. She inhaled his smell and hoped it would sooth her building nerves.
She backed away after a while and brushed her hand against his cheek and smiled faintly. "I'll see you later" she whispered, before placing a tender kiss on his cheek and left the room.
So did Lucas, and when he was about to enter his own room after leaving Peyton's, he stopped. From out of the corner of his eye, Lucas saw Elle appear in the hallway. This was his one chance. The opportunity was now or never.
Without even saying anything to her, he took a hold of her arm before slightly backing her into a wall. "Lucas." She reacted surprised when she felt his hand on her arm.
"Elle." He immediately reacted, his warm breath colliding on her face.
"I-I really have to go." She mumbled when she saw the intense look in his blue eyes. She tried to move away from him and walk away but he didn't let her. "Lucas" she said weakly when he didn't let go of her slender arm.
"I want an explanation Elle."
Almost immediately her eyes got a frightened expression. "Lucas" she said and shook her head.
"An explanation Elle." He persisted.
She tried to pull away more forcefully but she wasn't able to move due to Lucas' strength, his grip remained firm. "Elle, you owe me an explanation for what happened this morning." The blue water like colour of his eyes seemed to boil.
When she didn't answer, or even react to him, he sighed deeply before pushing open the first door in his reach and pulled her inside of the room, which turned out to be his own.
With a quick stab of his foot, the door slammed shut and he finally let go of her arm, leaving a big red spot there, showing the shape of his big hand.
The silence continued and the young girl looked frightened, while she rubbed her painful arm with tears balancing on the edge of her blue eyes.
"I am not going to play the nice guy with you Elle. I want an explanation for this morning." He spoke harsh, verging on the edge of yelling. But she refused to answer him, or give him any sign she had heard him.
"Don't act like you don't hear me." He continued by her reaction. "You could speak perfectly well this morning, in your beloved French and my beloved English." He poisoned the air with his toxic words. But she turned her head away and stared at ground beneath her feet.
"You were in my bed Elle! Freaking naked! Don't you think you owe me an explanation?" He yelled before storming at her, making her bump into the wall behind her, as Lucas' hands met the wall, giving her no escape.
"I … I." She stumbled, her face become red and twisted in a hurtful expression. Lucas couldn't figure out if it was a feeling of inner or outer pain, but he couldn't even care which. He wanted an explanation for what happened this morning, and he would get it.
"This morning you didn't have any difficulties being this close to me." His voice was dark and low, and brought himself even closer to her, giving her almost no space to breathe.
Lucas' breath burned her face, making her burst out into tears. She tried her best to keep breathing steadily, but sobs followed soon after each other, destroying the measured rhythm of her chest swiftly.
Finally Lucas began to realise that maybe he had lost control and had went over the edge. He swallowed, trying to slow down the speed of his blood that seemed the race through his veils. He tried to touch her arm to sooth her, but she immediately flinched at his touch.
"I am sorry. I am sorry." He whispered to her and tried again but the same reaction followed. Swiftly he released his arms from the wall and she almost sprinted away, right towards the door. But thanks to Lucas' swift reaction, he caught her right before she could reach for the doorknob.
"Hey. I am sorry Elle. But I need you to tell me what happened this morning." He said gently when he saw the teary look in her blue eyes. She sniffed, and wiped away her tears. "Come on." He softly said, offering her a hand which she took very cautiously. He led her to one of the comfortable chairs and made her sit down.
He sat down on the floor before her, looking up at her while she tried to bring a stable rhythm again to the movements of her chest.
"Lucas." She began. "This is hard for me to tell to you." She continued. "So please, let me finish what I have to tell you before you say anything." She swallowed again, searching courage because she would need it. "This is the first time I have ever told someone about this." She started. "The reason why I left my hometown in France wasn't the one that most people assume. Everyone thought I just wanted to discover my American roots I inherited from my father. A little part of me had always intended to do that, but when I was wiser and older and … just not when I was nineteen. I practically 'ran way' from my home in France."
She took a pause and Lucas let it all sink in already.
"I always lived in this apartment complex not far from the centre of my home town. Bourg-Saint-Andéol is a village that not has evaluated with his time, it's not like here in America, with all the modern things. My hometown is peaceful in the way that 'you can feel the wind blow and you can feel the sun on your face and you can see at these buildings and know generations have lived in it. And this way from the familiar closeness between the people, the familiar events on the familiar times and places'. That kind of peaceful, a wonderful place to grow up. It's an almost untouched place from all the city hurry that you learn here in Chicago."
She got a dreamily look in her blue eyes. "I always lived at the same apartment with my family, and it's the place where I met my first love, my only love, Dimitri. We were almost fifteen when we became a couple, but we had been friends and in love for so much longer. The year we turned sixteen, an old woman that lived in an apartment on the ninth floor left to go live with her grandson, so it stayed empty and it became our place to hide. It's the place we did 'it' the first time."
Lucas could feel himself slightly blush, but the innocent sparkle in her blue eyes made him forgot and wanted to hear what she had to say.
"We made plans for the future, we were so happy. Blissfully happy, and everyone knew we were a couple and we were 'Dimitri and Elle' not Dimitri or Elle. Then it was prom and we had the most perfect night of all nights. Romantic evening, steamy night and …" She trailed off, her voice got different, deeper and darker. The spark in her eyes went out.
"The next morning he wasn't there anymore … it was like." She shook her head. "Poof!" She bit on her lip. "When I didn't find him next to me in bed the next morning, I went to the apartment where he lived with his parents but nobody was there, it was empty."
And again she inhaled deeply. "From that point I lost control, they were nowhere to be found, no messages left for anyone. They were gone with the wind, just like all my future dreams." A sob broke through the end of the sentence. "My dreams to marry him one year after graduation, my dreams to give birth to his children and my dream to move to a cute old building in the centre of town, gone!" A loud sob followed.
Lucas walked over to her and embraced her, letting her head rest on his shoulder. "What's my place in all of this Elle?" He asked softly while caressing her long blond hair.
"You, you just look so much like him" she mumbled against his chest. Lucas let her words sink in, she was also silent. Both of them didn't know what to say.
"Wait." She said and untangled herself from his slight embrace. Her hand disappeared in a pocket of her work dress and took two folded white things out of it. She looked Lucas in the eye before laying it in his open hand.
Lucas unfolded the pictures. The first one was beautiful scene of a boy and girl on a sunny little square before a statue. The girl was wearing a pretty bright green summer dress and the boy was wearing a light blue jeans and a white tee. They were staring right into the camera and their eyes had something blissful in them. The second was of the same boy and girl at the same place but in different outfits. The boy was wearing a tuxedo and the girl a long violet dress that sparkled on her tanned skin and her long hair was twisted into a braid.
"That's Dimitri and me at prom night. It's the last picture taken of us." She said sadly. Lucas studied the boy with all his attention, and yes he looked a bit like Lucas. It could be said that he looked a lot like Lucas, but Dimitri had light brown eyes and his hair was a shade lighter than Lucas'.
He looked back from the photo, right into Elle's eyes. She saw the message in his intense look. "I am so sorry Lucas. Last night I couldn't sleep so I kind of killed time up in the bar and it was the first time since I came here that I got drunk and all those feelings came rushing back and … and I missed him so much and you…" Lucas looked at her and brushed over her arm.
"It's okay Elle. Now I know why, it's all okay now. But you'll need another place to hide from yourself then in my bed." He tried to joke. She smiled and came over him to press a kiss on his cheek.
"Thanks Lucas, for forgiving me for this. I am so sorry it happened."
He smiled. "It's okay."
Then there was a sudden knock on the door, Peyton walked in, the expression on her face was kind of unreadable.
"I am going to go." Elle swiftly said and made her way out. Peyton only turned around when the door fell into lock and then looked back at Lucas. The question: 'how did it go?' flashing through his blue eyes.
She walked closer to him, took his hand and led them both towards the couch in his room. When they both sat down she snuggled up against him. She sighed and Lucas stroked over her soft hair. "How do you feel?" Lucas dared to ask when she didn't say anything at all, her mood was deep and he knew that maybe he shouldn't ask about it right away.
"I don't know." She said, exhaling deeply.
"What did he say?" Lucas' question took flight after a few silent minutes. "That he'll try to make this quick, he says that in one week or maybe two he can get all the papers and everything ready for me and Pete to sign but he first needs to figure some stuff out" she answered him.
Lucas looked down at her when she looked up at him, meeting his gloomy blue eyes. "I am sorry Lucas, I know you want to go home. No that you need to go home. How selfish am I to ask you to stay!?" She got up abruptly and walked towards the door.
"Peyton wait!" He yelled and she turned around. Even from this distance he could see she was about to cry.
"Hey, hey girl", as he walked over to her and pulled her in a hug.
"I am so selfish." She mumbled against his shoulder.
"You're not. This is just a coincidence." He tried to sooth her, but he couldn't help but feel strange inside.
"I don't know what to do or feel Lucas. I thought that this would make me happy but it makes me only sadder. I want to get away from here but my lawyer said it was the best for me to stay here until this all goes away. I want you to go home to Tree Hill again, but I want you more to stay here because I'll need you the coming weeks. I am self-" Lucas laid a finger on her lips.
"I am going to call my mom. Try and figure out if she's holding on, say that I need a little more time here. But if she isn't holding on Peyton, I have to go home." He said sadly and she nodded even sadder.
"Still thanks Luke." She said. "I am going to change into something more comfortable." And she pointed at her classy outfit.
"Okay, I am going to call my mom." And after those words she disappeared though the door.
He swiftly called her, but every ring made him become more nervous. He didn't know how to explain this to her, he knew he was also being selfish from running away from his 'obligations'.
"Lucas" was the first thing he heard on the other end of the call.
"Mom" he answered. Even from Chicago he could feel how his mother wanted to spew out her feelings. "Mom, I know I am rude for doing this and my heart is breaking by the thought of you and Lily. But in two weeks Peyton will be divorced, if nothing changes and I really want to stay with her so I can persuade her to come home with me then. Please." He could hear how his mother breathing went even slower.
"Lucas" she began. "I don't know. You've been there already longer than we thought you would be. I really miss you, and Lily …"
Lucas didn't want to hear that anymore, his heart was breaking already. "I am going to send you my pyjama tee so you can put it by her all the time. So I am there one way or another mom, but I really need these two weeks. Please mom, I am begging you not to be mad."
He heard her sigh, and he could imagine her perfectly, standing against the kitchen cabinet, her eyes closed, her one hand rubbing her forehead. "Okay Lucas. You have permission from me but if this is getting worse Luke, you'll come home. I swear I'll send someone to pick you up from there if I have to."
He smiled. "Thanks mom, I swear if something else happens, I'll come home immediately. Otherwise I'll see you in two weeks, I'll keep calling you everyday. I promise."
Peyton came in while Lucas was singing for Lily as usual when he was about to end his phone call. She smiled and walked closer to him as he was singing the last words. "Be good Lily. I love you" he whispered into the phone before ending his call.
"And?" Peyton asked nervously.
"She let me, but I promised her to send Lily my pyjama tee and if something else happens I need to go back straight away."
She let out an excited yell. "God, thanks Lucas for doing that!" And she practically jumped into his arms. He was surprised by her sudden action and they both fell down on the floor.
"Peyton." He laughed.
"Sorry." She whispered smiling. She lay on top of him, her green eyes connecting with his blue eyes. Lucas had also picked up the silent electricity and where otherwise he would have broken the gaze, he kept staring this time. Allowing himself to fall into her eyes while she did the same.
Suddenly she was aware of how his heart was speeding under her fingertips and how the pace of her heart also sped up quickly.
The tide was turning, and she saw it happening in his ocean blue eyes …