Gone are the days you're used to

Say goodby to the man who used you

I'd treat you the best, I assure you

No, anything less just won't do


Dark liquid sloshed around the cup as Brooke navigated her way down the front steps, minuscule droplets spilling over the rim and dribbling down onto painted black nails. Bevin was near comatose at her side, leaning heavily against the brunette as she attempted to edge her way toward her car, and Brooke swore to note down that her embarrassingly drunk friend owed her one. Big time.

"Nathan looked good tonight," Bevin murmured, hazy gaze sweeping over the dunes to the right of the cobbled driveway. "He always looks good."

Brooke only grunted in response, unwilling to over-exert herself by throwing in an eye roll. It was already enough to drag the blonde's scrawny backside from Dan Scott's prized liquor cabinet, let alone get her to and in the car. Engaging in her drunken babble any further than need be was not something the shorter girl fancied doing.

"You know who else looked good?"

Brooke didn't have to wait long for the answer, her legs almost locking up beneath her when she heard his name. It wasn't as if she'd expected to be the only girl to notice the spunk that Lucas was, but she sure as heck hadn't considered someone as oblivious to the world as Bevin was to catch on too. The thought of a nobody fanning herself over the older Scott brother was enough to make Brooke's stomach churn with some strange emotion, let alone a girl of her social standing. And it only intensified when she came to the realisation that Lucas, the boy with a face after her own heart, was deeper than who was on the cheerleading team and who drove their mom's Honda to school and back.

That was Tracey Aldrick, by the way.

Brooke downed what was left in her cup, the sudden tang of rum in her mouth quashing the fear that bubbled up in the pit of her belly, and then tossed her cup to the side in favour of further steadying the drunk cheerleader hanging off of her.

Again, Bevin so owed her. Big time.

The final few steps to her car were torturous, quiet curses leaving her pink lips and floating through the warm air. Looking back, that might've been what had attracted him- or maybe it had been her friend's loud retches as the two slumped against the car. Either way, there he was there again, his hands tucked away in the pockets of his denim jeans as he peered at her from the end of the drive.

"Don't tell me you're planning on driving her home."

Deeming Bevin stable enough propped up by the baby blue Volkswagen, Brooke took the time to draw in a slow breath before turning to face the boy that she'd crossed paths with earlier in the night.

"As opposed to what, walking her home?"

Her retort was met with a grin, a rare sight on any Scott, let alone the one that wore a pensive pout on a day to day basis. Not that she'd noticed, or anything.

"Is that what you plan to tell the cops when you're slapped with a DUI charge?"

He was closer now, but not close enough; the space between her folded arms and his chest seemingly a mile long.

"I'm not in the mood for a lecture."

He edged closer again, butterflies erupting in Brooke's stomach as he drew near. She had to fight to keep her eyes looked on his; his probing gaze enough to make her cheeks flush in discomfort and her eyes strain to glance at the safety of her shoes.

"Good thing I didn't come here to lecture you, then."

"Then what did you come for, Lucas?"

The question floated from her lips, sugary sweet tone implicating more than she was sure he'd even understand, but he didn't bat an eyelid as he answered, the hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips the only confirmation that he'd even registered the suggestion in her voice.

"I came to help. Let me take you home."


Large hands engulfed her small waist, slender fingers curling around the hem of her tank top as a nose nudged it's way along her neck. Peyton didn't need to turn around to identify the owner- no, the scent of his cologne was all too familiar as it permeated the air in the dimly lit room.

"You shouldn't be up here."

Her fingers walked their way down to his as she spoke, and she took a moment to revel in the way the skin on his forearm pricked beneath her touch. "Nathan will be up soon. You should go."

She didn't want him to go. In a way, she wished Nathan would come. She wished that he'd stumble across the both of them- she wished that anyone would stumble across the both of them, because then all the lying and the deceiving and the longing could stop.

"I saw your fight with Brooke," was his response, concern ringing loud and clear in his voice. "Want to tell me what's on your mind?"

It was the same question he'd been asking for the past week, and Peyton was running out of ways to deflect it. Not even the tiniest furrow of her brow went unnoticed by him, and he had a good way of cornering her the second her shoulders started to sag or her smile began to droop. It was a stark change to what she'd grown accustomed to since being with Nathan- a boy who cared.

She turned to face him, her curls brushing against his leather jacket as she shrugged her shoulders in faux nonchalance.

"Nothing's on my mind."

His sigh was interrupted by a loud cheer from outside, a chorus of giggles floating through the open second-story window a second later. It was a while before he spoke again, a different kind of concern present in the words that left his mouth.

"Is this about telling Nathan?"

She could've told the truth then; could have come clean about at least one of the things that had been playing on her mind in the past few weeks. It was him, and he would take whatever she needed to dump on him with open, unrelenting arms.

But the words wouldn't come out.

So she lied, and later that night as she watched him stride down her front path from the safety of her bedroom window, she wiped a lone tear from her warm cheek, her lips trembling with the effort to keep a terrified sob in.

She was pregnant.

With Jake Jagielski's baby.


Songs used:

Hundred Miles by Yall ft. Gabriela Richardson for Desigual

Say My Name by ODESZA

Gone Are The Days by Honne

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