A Season In Purgatory
Chapter 49

Karen crept around the kitchen, avoiding the squeaky floorboards of her worn hardwood floors as she grabbed her purse and moved quietly toward the door. It was just past 5:00 in the morning, nearly an hour before she normally left for work. A noise down the hall stopped her in her tracks.

Standing in his door way, Lucas glared at her, suspiciously looking like he'd been awake for hours, she thought.

Only two weeks had passed since Brooke's attack and Lucas found it hard to let her walk out his door at dawn. They'd agreed that she had to find some place else to sleep a majority of the time, especially when her parents were actually in town, but they had to be careful to avoid detection. Brooke slipped into his room after midnight and was out the door by 5 am. Lucas was shocked that his mother was already leaving for work or where ever she was going, he cynically thought.

The situation with Brooke was killing him. He hated leaving her near those people. She'd been turned into a gypsy, floating from his house, to Nate's to Haley's in a single week. Worse, she'd grown fearful of the smallest noises, fearing things hidden in shadows that she'd previously not even considered. He looked at his mother and wished he could talk to her about Brooke. His mother used to have such good advice and Lucas could really use that right now.

But that mother was gone. The one left in her place hated his girlfriend. Lucas couldn't risk telling her anything now. "Leaving for work so early?" he taunted, nearly accusing her of sneaking out of the house.

A hesitant smile touched the corners of her mouth, an attempt to recapture the easy companionship they'd shared over the years. "I left a note and some breakfast for you," she explained, knowing that there was more than a glimmer of suspicion in his blue eyes. "I've got a lot of things to do before the morning rush." She flushed a bit under her son's steady gaze, knowing that there was more to the story than she was saying.

He shifted uneasily, leaning against the worn wall of their worn house. He wasn't sure when he started doubting every word that came out of his mother's mouth. Certainly the hidden relics from her past contained in photo albums that appeared and disappeared had been the start. The lies about the night of the accident had been another. He wasn't aware when he began doubting little things like her explanation for why she wasn't home the morning after Brooke's attack. Or why she was suddenly leaving early for work all the time.

Things had not been going well in the Scott-Roe household since Lucas joined the team. While he seemed to be getting along better with Nathan both on and off the court, relations with Dan were as tense as ever. Worse, that tension had crept into Karen's relationship with her silent and sullen son. He'd barely said anything to her since he'd nearly hit Dan at the Cafe two weeks ago.

"Do you want to talk about something?" She hesitantly asked, the words faltering even as she resolved to project strength. "Is everything okay with Brooke?" She mentally winced at the forced tone of her voice. But she was trying to relate to her son's girlfriend. Or at least she thought Brooke was his girlfriend. Once Lucas had sensed Karen's dislike of the girl, he rarely mentioned her name. Karen hated that her son was compartmentalizing his life. Dan had always done that and the results were never good.

Lucas coolly appraised his mother for a moment. More than anything he wanted to sit down with her and talk about all the things going wrong in his life. About the constant churning feeling in his stomach and the fear he had that his girlfriend was in grave
danger. Instead, he stared at the wall above her head and shrugged. "See you later."

She watched as he turned and went back to his bedroom, the question about why he was up so early dead on her lips. She wasn't oblivious to what was going on. Her son was reserved but lately he seemed....different. Distant and lonely. Abandoning most of his friends to spend time with Brooke. Late at night, she could hear him move restlessly around the house when he should have been deep asleep. But for the life of her, Karen couldn't seem to reach him anymore. No one could. He'd even isolated Haley, though she at least was making tentative steps back into her best friend's life. Karen couldn't seem to bridge the divide that defined their current relationship.

Sighing, she grabbed her keys and headed out the door. Some things just took time and Lucas evidently needed time and space.

Whitey blew his whistle, stopping the play in mid run. "Hit the showers!" he barked, having seen enough of his team to know when they were physically incapable of giving more. "Lucas Scott! In my office now," he ordered, motioning the lanky boy toward the small room in the back of the gym. He was growing concerned about his new found star player. While not completely winded, the boy's conditioning wasn't as strong as when he joined the team. And he seemed distracted during practices, which was now carrying over into games. About the only aspect of Luke's game that didn't concern Whitey was his teamwork with his brother. Something good was brewing there, Whitey concluded. And that gave him hope that maybe this year wouldn't end with one of them being arrested for assaulting the other.

Lucas followed his coach, concerned that something bad was going down. Those concerns grew when he saw Mrs. Huffman, his calc teacher, sitting in the office. She smiled at him, hoping to disarm the growing anxiety she'd sensed in him the past month.

Whitey nodded at the teacher, before taking his worn out seat behind the desk. "Lucas, your teachers have voiced concerns that something might be wrong with you," he began, watching the boy shift uneasily under his steady gaze. "Apparently, your homework and test scores aren't up to snuff."

The silence in the room grew, prompting Mrs. Huffman to speak.
"You've been in my class for two years, Lucas. And I've never seen you be.. .so distracted in class. Your homework, when you bother to turn it in, is a disaster." Her words were those of confusion, not anger. Lucas had always been a teacher's dream, until he'd joined the basketball team.

Lucas finally looked up at the adults. "I just...um, you know, am
trying to get..." The stuttered excuses were cut off by a wave of Whitey's hand. "The only new development your teachers can find is basketball."

He successfully bit back a retort about his new found father, choosing instead to remain silent and speed this lecture along. He knew his grades were in freefall. He'd managed to hide this little fact from his mother, who was sure that all his visits to the library were spent in academic pursuits, rather than comforting his girlfriend.

Whitey's voice interrupted Luke's contemplations. "We can't have extracurricular activities affecting your school work," he said, toting the school line.

"It's not basketball," Lucas emphatically swore, making sure that he used his most earnest teacher's pet voice. "It's not a time management issue. I've just had trouble focusing lately." Which was pretty much the truth. The minute Dan Scott waltzed back into his life, nothing had been the same.

Whitey looked at his co-worker, who looked at Lucas expectantly, wanting more information that the sparse comments he'd muttered in the past five minutes. Sighing, Lucas continued. "There have been some changes in my life and I'm not doing so great with all of them."

Whitey nodded at his words, having already talked with Keith about the changes he'd seen in the boy the past six weeks. "Is this about your mom breaking up with Keith? Or is it the Dan and Nathan issue?" Lucas had been particularly scatterbrained during practices lately, messing up plays that he'd known by heart and generally not being focused on the hardwood.

Fighting the urge to gag, Lucas shifted his gaze back to the floor. He hated discussing his family in front of people. He was tired of the town discussing his family and didn't want to personally contribute to the gossip by telling his business to Whitey and his teacher.

Mrs. Huffman seized on his silence, wanting to get the boy to open up. "Is it a girlfriend?" his teacher helpfully prodded. She'd noted that Lucas had been spending a lot of time with Brooke Davis, who inevitably distracted half of the student body just by showing up to school.

Frowning at his math teacher, Lucas tersely reassured her. "Not everything I do wrong is related to Brooke." He'd had enough of that accusation from his mother.

"No one is blaming Ms. Davis," Whitey interjected, noting how quickly the boy's anger was sparked these days. "We're just being pre-emptive and warning you to get a tutor now before your grades get any lower." The adults knew from experience that academic trouble was usually rooted in personal problems at home. Especially when a student had such high grades like Lucas.

Sighing, Lucas knew that he needed a decent family, not a tutor. He understood what was being taught in his classes, he just didn't care anymore. Homework seemed insignificant next to his girlfriend being assaulted and his father walking back into his life. "I'll work on it," he promised, as he got up from his chair and moved out the door. It was definitely not something that he was going to put on his to do list any time soon. Not when he had so many things to take care of.

Nathan and Haley sat at the kitchen table, working on his history paper. He flipped through the biography of Harry Truman, looking for a quote that would lengthen his paper. "I'll never get 8 pages of stuff," he lamented, earning a quick laugh from his tutor/girlfriend.

"You'll get 8 pages, but you need to learn to develop your topic so you don't have to find so much filler," she gently admonished, following it up with a quick kiss. Nathan smiled at her before pulling her head down to his lips for a longer kiss.

"Do you kiss all the guys you tutor?" he mischievously asked. Flirting during tutoring was one of his favorite hobbies.

She laughed at the near jealousy she heard in his voice. "Only the really cute ones," she joked. She leaned in and kissed him again, letting her hand rove over the typical NBA shirt he wore. History forgotten, Nathan pulled the chair she was sitting on closer to his, hoping she'd make more of her body available to him. The back door opened and Dan walked in, jumping slightly at the make out session in front of him. Haley jumped back, a look of guilt crossing her face as Nathan pulled his shirt down over his stomach. Smiling, Dan noted how Haley grabbed their books and attempted to look vaguely interested in tutoring. "Sorry to interrupt kids."

Nathan studied his father for a moment, noticing the spring in his step. If he were crazy, he'd think his dad was actually happy for once. There had been a lightness in his father lately that Nathan couldn't explain, given the tension that Lucas was generating for his father at every opportunity. "Uh, we were just studying, Dad."

Smirking, Dan gave his son a knowing look. "Yeah, I can tell just how intently focused you were, son." It was hard for Dan to be upset about it. Heck, he'd done much worse in his teen years. "Just make sure you stay eligible. And try to remember that Duke does have standards for the ball team." He knew Nathan wasn't going to be a brilliant scholar, but he also didn't want his son to be a proposition 48, partially qualifying scholarship student. If Nathan couldn't get better grades, he'd only get a conditional scholarship into college.

Haley turned bright red, embarrassed that Mr. Scott had walked in on them. She was there to tutor Nathan and she wanted to make sure that didn't get lost in their sessions. But it was so hard when he had such nice, tight abs.

"I'm going to my office to finish up some work," he said, grabbing a bottle of water off the counter as he moved toward the door. He stopped and turned back toward his son and his girlfriend. "I think I'm going to have to miss your game tomorrow at Taylor City," he said, watching to see if Nathan was upset. Dan had gone to nearly every home and away game for the past few years. It was important for him to see how Nate played away from his own court.

Nathan's eyebrows rose slightly, shocked that his dad had something else to do other than follow a high school basketball team around the state. "That's fine, Dad. You should actually hang out more with your friends and stop spending all your time on me," he said. Part of Nathan worried that Dan would be lost when his son went away to school and he didn't have anyone to micromanage. Since his mother's death, Dan seemed to socialize less and less each year. But that seemed to be changing lately, with the reemergence of Karen in his father's life.

Dan nodded at him and walked to his office. He needed to call Karen and tell her he was free for tomorrow night.

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