A Season in Purgatory
Chapter 54

The early morning light bounced off the shiny floor of the Scott's breakfast room. Silence pervaded the room as Dan and Nathan forced their way through breakfast. Dan had carefully managed to avoid his son all weekend, finding it too awkward to discuss that he and Karen were together in that way. But it was the start to a new week and Dan always tried to have breakfast with his son on school days. Just because his sons knew about his relationship with Karen was no reason to hide, he thought. Sighing, Dan realized he was tired of hiding, tired of covering up his true feelings.

Nathan shoved the rubbery eggs around his plate, forcing himself to remain silent. There was nothing more horrifying that realizing that your parents were sexual beings. Unless it was the girl you were trying to impress seeing your father nearly naked on the floor of your house.

"You need to eat something or you'll be dead by practice time," Dan lectured his son, going on the defensive. Dan could tell that Nathan was upset about Friday night. Nathan had left shortly after Lucas, claiming that Haley had a curfew to get home for. Dan knew it was just an excuse to get out of the beach house, but now he was practically spoiling for a confrontation. After all, it was the Dan Scott way to confront rather than ignore. While it was impossible for him to have an open conversation with Lucas, Nathan was firmly within his grasp.

Dropping his fork, Nathan pushed his plate away in frustration. "I'm surprised you aren't Luke's house making him sucky eggs for breakfast." There was a surprising amount of hostility in his younger son's voice.

Dan set his juice glass down, happy to drop the pretense. "Okay, I know you probably have some questions."

"Questions?" Nathan repeated, incredulous at his dad's denseness. "Okay, here's a question. Why Karen? Of all the desperate middle age women in this town, you had to go fuck my half brother's mother."

Dan recoiled at the profanity lobed at him. Nathan had a wild streak in him but he rarely resorted to coarse language. "I am only 35, which is not middle aged," Dan argued, before softening at the disappointment he heard in his son's voice. "It's not unusual that I'd want to start dating again." This was a conversation Dan had expected to have at some point after Deb's death. He just didn't expect it to occur so many years after he lost his wife.

"Dating is not the issue," Nathan said, leaning back in his chair. "Dating the girl you knocked up and abandoned 17 years ago is the issue." He couldn't understand why his dad didn't see the danger signs hanging all around this issue.

Dan flinched at his son's harsh words, but part of him understood Nate's anger. He'd never seen his dad with another woman and it had to be confusing. The parental side of Dan still chaffed at being challenged by his offspring.

"Karen and I have a complicated past, Nathan." He hesitated for a moment, not knowing how far down this road he wanted to travel. "We were deeply in love and part of that affection never went away."

A realization washed over Nathan. "Are you saying that you loved Karen when you married my mother?" It was one thing for his dad to be playing house with Luke's mother, but it was another thing to denigrate the memory of his mother.

Dan struggled to find the right answers, the answers his son obviously needed. He had loved Deb in his own way but his feelings for Karen had always been intense and all encompassing. "You don't stop those feelings just by going away. You of all people should understand that," Dan said, knowing that Nate's love for his mother was just as constant.

Pushing away from the table, Nathan grabbed his backpack and headed for the door, disgusted by his father's explanations. "You are insulting my mother and creating a giant mess."

Dan fought the urge to hit something, realizing that this conversation was rapidly falling apart. "Nathan, it's really none of your business who I date," he gently reprimanded his son, knowing that his mother's memory was always something he needed to preserve.

"It is my business when your relationship upsets Lucas. It screws up my team and my life when I have to deal with a half brother that is pissed off." Nathan could barely tolerate Lucas on a good day. A pissed off Lucas was just setting the brothers up for disaster. Shaking his head, Nathan stalked outside and drove off, intent on finding Haley. She always managed to calm him down. Dan and Karen were apparently going to do what they wanted to do, regardless of who they hurt in the process. That was apparent by the fact that they felt the need to hide their relationship.

Dan watched from the bay window in the kitchen as his son sped off in his SUV. As bad as things were with Nathan, they were bound to be much worse with Lucas. His oldest son had disappeared for an entire weekend because of his actions. He knew he had to address the situation soon. Lucas was the one thing that could derail what he and Karen were trying to build, which was ironic since he was the reason they started hanging out again.

His frustration with his oldest son was growing, even though Dan could understand his anger. He'd created this situation by abandoning the boy. He just had to give him time, to let the boy see he wasn't going anywhere.

In the mean time, he needed some advice on how to handle the boy and there was only one place he could get that. He grabbed his keys and headed out to his car, hoping that he could start fixing the sins of his past.

Brooke grabbed her Steve Madden bag and quietly made her way down the massive main staircase She sighed in relief as her small hand turned the polished brass door know, happy to be escaping unseen from the house of horrors. She and Lucas had crawled back to town Monday morning, barely sober and very odorous. They'd already started to refer to it as their lost weekend. Now it was time to pay the price and whatever school threw at them for being late to class.

"Brooke," Trey called out, his voice drifting out of his office and down the marble entryway. Tensing up, Brooke abandoned her escape and walked toward her stepfather's office. It was highly unlikely that he had anything good to say to her and it was too early in the day for him to hit on her.

She needed to get back to Lucas, so they'd both get to History class on time. They had a midterm at the end of the week and things were looking bad for both of them academically. Somehow, none of it seemed important to Brooke anymore.

She stepped inside the cherry paneled office, fighting the memories of happier times when this was her daddy's domain. She took in the man behind the desk with more scorn than interest. "What?" She tersely asked. It wasn't like they ever had a normal conversation.

He dropped the file he was perusing, noting the way her jeans skimmed her figure. "Would you like to explain your little disappearing act this weekend?" he demanded, walking around the desk so he was closer to her.

Brooke unconsciously took a step backward, attempting to create space. "I'm shocked anyone noticed that I was missing," she admitted, knowing that it wasn't like her mother or Trey ever spent any time with her.

A smirk crossed his face at her words. "Oh, it's easy to miss you when your boyfriend's parents come pounding on your door at midnight," he explained, realizing she had no idea that at least Luke's parents missed him. "Your mother does not need this stress in her life, so next time you decide to run off with your little friend, try to take her feelings into consideration."

Brooke stared at him in shock. "Stress? What stress does this woman have in her life? She has no job, shops all day and basically lives off the family trust fund. Why shouldn't I add some stress to her life," Brooke yelled, losing her control. "It's called parenting and maybe she should realize it involves more than just giving me an allowance."

He moved closer to her, so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek. "Be a good girl and don't make me spank you," he leered, his words dripping with innuendo. Brooke's heart lurched, knowing that he had some seriously sick tendencies. "You are a skeevy pervert, Trey. Stay away from me or I'll call my daddy and tell him what's going on." She felt braver than she had since that night…

"Go ahead and call him," Trey replied, not missing a beat at her threat. He picked up a check from his desk and threw it at her, watching as it floated to the floor and came to rest at her BCBG shoes. "By the way, daddy took off for an extended vacation in Europe with his new wife, so I don't think he's got the time to listen to a whiny girl complain about her stepfather's discipline after she ran away for the weekend."

Brooke looked down and realized it was her monthly "fun" check from her father. Hating herself, she actually leaned over and picked it up, giving Trey a nice look at her ass. Something was telling her that for the first time in her life, she actually needed to start paying attention to things like money and finances. It might be more relevant than new shoes in the future. She gave him a nasty look before turning and running out of the house.

Lucas meandered down the hallway, lost in thought after the confrontation with his mother that morning. She'd been too busy defending her lover to ground him, but he could only expect that to happen later. His mother was not one to take her son disappearing for an entire weekend without some kind of reaction. Sighing, he realized that he didn't care anymore. He couldn't please his mother and he wasn't about to condone her sleeping with his ass of a father. He heard some nervous, muffled laughter and realized that two band geeks were staring at his disheveled appearance. He'd totally forgotten that he'd only gone home that morning in order to shower. Shrugging, he realized that it wouldn't be the first time people laughed at his appearance. In elementary school it had been his cheap flannel shirts and generic tennis shoes. In middle school it had been jokes about the trailer he and his mother had briefly lived in after his mom quit her factory job in order to open her Café. Their house had been a recent occurrence, giving him a bit of stability that his early life had totally missed.

His mother had worked so hard to make a decent living and now she was willing to throw that way in order to sleep with the man who put her in that very situation. Lucas was totally lost in thought and nearly collided with Haley, who was at her locker between classes.

"Hey stranger," she called out, pulling him over to where she stood. Ignoring his rumpled look and the circles under his eyes, she decided to go with normalcy. "It's about time you made it to school. We missed you in English class," she said, smiling at him as she slid a book in her backpack. His lack of reaction scared her. She reached out and grabbed his hand, fighting to save the tendrils of their relationship. "Lucas, I love you like a brother, you know that. I'm worried about you. The leaving home for days at a time and the drinking… I just want you to know that you can come to me and tell me what's going on in that mind of yours," she offered, hoping that he'd take her up on it. He needed someone to share his pain with. Someone other than the lovely Brooke Davis, who seemed to need her own support team these days.

He leaned back against the lockers and looked over at her. "Do you remember when we read that story in middle school about the crazy governess and the kids?" Haley frowned a moment, before remembering the title. Turn of the Screw by Henry James. What's that got to do with you?"

"If I can recall, the book describes this nanny whose two charges are evil and constantly doing things to drive her crazy," Luke explained, watching as Haley eyes widened at the same thought. "But at the end of the book you realize that the governess was just crazy and the two kids were kind of nice."

Haley realized that he was talking about more than the plot of a book. He leaned over and said "I feel like I'm trapped in a Turn of the Screw moment….where I know what reality is but everyone else around me is crazy. They don't want to hear my reasons or thoughts."

She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer to her. "We all have weeks where we feel like we're trapped in a parallel universe." He followed her lead and start walking toward class. Maybe everyone else had a screwed up life, too. But part of Luke's mind screamed out that this wasn't right. Things weren't normal. And that things were going to get much worse before they got better. He loitered outside his class, praying that Brooke would walk by. He didn't know why…but he knew she'd make him feel better.

Just a note about future chapters. I'm going to be traveling a lot for work this summer and later on I'll be studying for a very important certification. I can't promise that chapters will be posted once a week, especially when I'm traveling. I will do my best to keep posting and writing (I do some of my best writing when I travel). As always, thanks for reading and replying. The comments will keep me motivated to write when I'm trapped in a hotel with my coworkers.