14 years old:

It feels like just yesterday that Nathan and Haley were sleeping besides each other in the same bed and taking baths together. Now, they were about to enter their first year of high school, and their friendship still as strong as the day they were born. But things were a little different now…

"Natey!" Haley exclaimed as she answered her door. "Hurry up slowpoke, we gotta get going to school or we'll be late for our first day." Nathan retorted, yet still with a smile. "Yeah, yeah!" she said as she closed the door behind her and locked it. She got into the back seat of Deb's blue minivan. "How are things with you and your new boyfriend?" Nathan said teasingly to Haley as his mom started the car. "He's not my boyfriend!" "The last time I checked, Lucas Roe asked Haley James here to be his girlfriend!" "You're lying!" Deb said as she joined in with the teens. Everyone in the car was laughing now but Haley was now blushing with embarrassment. "Seriously Nate, he's not my boyfriend…" "I didn't know Haley Bob James was such a heartbreaker" he said with a smirk. "I'm not… I'm just, it's complicated ok Natey?" "Sure it is Hales, sureeeee." He said not being convinced of Haley's confused tone. "Well Hales honey, do you like Luke or not?" Deb asked with genuine concern. "No auntie Deb, I really don't… he's just a good friend of mine, well Nate and I." "If you don't like him just tell him honestly, you don't want to end up leading him on." "I say give him a chance!" Nathan interrupted his mom.

Haley just sat in the back seat thinking to herself. Should she be giving Lucas a chance? I mean, she's known him for 10 years now. It's not like they've never talked or didn't have good times together. But this was all just a shock to her. She always thought Lucas was interested in other girls their age, never herself. So when he asked Haley to be his girlfriend during the summer she didn't know how to handle herself in that situation.

"Bye mom!" "Bye auntie Deb, thanks for the ride!" "Bye sweeties!" And she drove away. "Hales… are you really not going to give Luke a chance?" he said as he walked through the doors of Tree Hill High. "Do you think I should…?" Haley asked already knowing the answer Nathan would give her. "Yes! You should Hales! I know, and you know how great of a guy Luke is. Give him a chance, we've been friends with him forever. He's perfect for you." "Ha, perfect? You should just get Haley + Lucas tatted to your back or something." Haley said as she rolled her eyes. "Very funny James." Nathan said as he put his arm around her back. "Natey, what would I do without you?" she smiled. Then he smiled back at her as they went to their first period class.

"Look Luke, I feel terrible, and I really do love you as a close friend. But I don't have feelings for you like that…" Haley had to do this arduous task of hurting one of her closest friends' feelings. She hated hurting people, anyone who knew her knew she'd go against all odds to make her friends happy. To her surprise Lucas just smiled at her. In that moment she realized how beautiful of a person Lucas was… is! Inside and out. Any girl would be lucky to have Luke as a boyfriend. He was caring, laidback, fun, adventurous, he was almost perfect, but what was holding her back from saying yes to his request? "Nathan." Lucas said as he smiled. "what?" she questioned as she shook out of her thoughts. "Haley-Waley and Nate the Great, Best friends forever" he said in a little kid's voice. She couldn't help but smile a toothy smile when she heard him say that. "It's been ages since you've said that Luke!" she said in pure excitement. Lucas let out a little chuckle. "Hales, you're probably thinking "Why can't I accept Luke's offer?", huh?" "Yeah… how'd you know?" "Well Hales, because you like Nathan. Not the way you like me, but something more." He said with his eyebrow cocked. "NO I DO NOT!" Lucas was just laughing at his frantic crush. "Hales, you may not know it now but you will soon enough. Everyone knows you love Nate more than a friend. Even his parents know." "WHAT?! Why is all of this such a surprise to me?" Haley said so confused with what Lucas was saying. Just a few minutes ago he was professing his love for her and now he's telling her that she loves Nathan? "Look, I know all of this sounds crazy to you. And you're gonna deny it time and time again, but when you do realize expect a big fat "I told you so!"" How could he be saying all of this? ""Luke, so you're not mad at me?" "How could I ever be mad at the lovely Haley Bob James?" he said as he patted her on the head. She smiled and hugged the growing blonde. "I really do love you Luke, promise we'll stay friends?" "I promise, best friends! And I swear I won't tell Nathan that you replaced him." She just laughed at this boy's comments, she knew that this was a new chapter in her and Luke's friendship.

Later that night while getting dinner ready for her family she suddenly got a phone call from Nathan. "Hey Hales, how'd talking to Luke go?" then she freaked out at the thought as she stirred the tomato sauce for the spaghetti. "well… he surprisingly took it well." And suddenly she felt a tap on her shoulder. As she turned around she saw the pretty boy behind her. "Nate!" she said as she hung up the phone and set it down on the counter. He simply smiled at her. "What are you doing here?" "Well you know, I got bored in such an empty house." "oh…" she said as she saw him shrug at her. She was used to this. Deb and Dan were so busy with work and it seemed like most of the time they were home they shoved him over to her family so Deb and Dan could have their alone time. "Yup, well is there enough food for one more?" He said as he smiled at her. "Of course Nate!"

And that was how their first day of high school went. Not the best and not the worst. But at the end of the day Nathan and Haley were still there for each other.

16 years old:

"Luke has been hanging out with us less and less since he's started dating Brooke…" Haley complained to Nathan. "Well what do you expect? If I had a girlfriend I'd spend more time with her and less time with you too." He blurted out quickly. As the words left his mouth he wanted to take them back as soon as they were said. "Hales…" he said as he saw the hurt in Haley's expression. To Nathan's shock she quickly forced a smile upon her face and changed the subject. "Haley, uhm, a few minutes ago I-" "Well I got to get to Calculus ok Natey? I'll talk to you in English," she said as she fled as quickly as possible. "ok…" he knew how much of a mistake he made after she left.

When Haley got to Calculus she wanted to cry so badly. But she also knew that crying wouldn't benefit her at all. She had to stay strong. What did she expect from Nathan? I mean after years of knowing him she knew he made remarks like this all the time, but why did this one her so much? "…less time with you…" she repeated that sentence in her head over and over again. It came out of Nathan's mouth so smoothly.

She was dreading going to English. When she entered the classroom she read the agenda and was so happy that it was partner work that day. That meant avoiding Nathan and quality time with Lucas. She remembered the day they chose seating arrangements in that class. Mr. Hanes was telling them they could choose whomever they wanted as a partner as long as it was someone of the opposite sex. Luckily her two best friends were in that class. She was considering choosing Nathan but she knew he had a crush on Peyton Sawyer so she found this as an opportunity to get closer to Lucas and give Nate the chance at possibly starting something with Peyton. Today she thanked God for having thinking this partner thing out so well.

"Are you and Nate fighting Hales?" Lucas asked concerned as Haley wrote down the questions for the work. "No… why do you ask?" she said focusing on the questions. "Well in history class he told me that you weren't talking to him." "That's not true." She said bluntly. "Are you sure?" "Yes I'm sure, now can we get to these Othello questions?" she asked frustrated. "Fine." By the end of class they were finished with the questions and Mr. Hanes announced that they had a project that involved creating a movie poster that had to do with Othello. "So what do you think we should do Hales?" "strawberries." She answered. "what?" "Something that has to do with strawberries! Can we take a picture of me holding strawberries in my hands?" "That's a great idea Hales!" And Lucas and her got excited at the amazing thought. Little did they know that they were attracting attention to themselves. "What are you guys so excited about?" Nathan asked the excited pair. "Haley just came up with the best idea for our project!" "Really? I'd love to hear what it is Hales." And her excitement quickly turned into despair. "Well it's stupid actually…" "I bet it's not." Nathan smiled. And she turned back to facing the front of the room. Lucas and Nathan looked at each other confused and Lucas was at a loss of words. Fortunately for Haley the bell rang.

Nathan tried to follow Haley out of the class but suddenly Peyton stopped him in his tracks. "Hey Nate, do you think maybe this Saturday we can you know… "work" on our project?" Peyton asked seductively. "Uhh… yeah sure." Nathan answered as his eyes wandered for Haley. "Great! I'll text you later, bye" "Mhm. Bye." By the time that conversation ended Haley was nowhere to be found.

"Lucas, please please please pleaseeeeee let me have lunch off campus with you and Brooke today?" Haley begged Luke. "Hales… what are you avoiding, Nathan?" "No it's just that, I want to get to know Brooke!" "Uh-huh, sure you do." Lucas smiled. "Pweety pwease?" Haley asked with her famous puppy dog eyes. "Fineee." He finally caved in. "Haley! Nice seeing you here?" Brooke said with confusion as she saw Haley in the back seat of Lucas' car. "She's just avoiding Nathan." "I am not!" Brooke laughed at the two's interaction with each other. "Ok Hales, where do you wanna eat?" "Anywhere not here!" And they drove off. Little did the trio know that Nathan saw them drive away.

The school day was finally over and she was at her locker getting her books. She hated the days where all of her classes had homework so she had to bring all her textbooks home and she had no ride home. She struggled to hold all 5 textbooks in her arms. 'God… was this going to be a long walk home.' Haley thought to herself. "Hales wait up!" She heard Nathan pace behind her. "Here, let me get some of these for you." He offered as he took all of the books. "I can take like my physics book or something." She said shyly as she saw him carrying all of them. "It's no problem, these are like nothing compared to the weights. She laughed at the cocky joke Nathan made. "There's the famous Haley James laugh I haven't heard all day." She suddenly became aware of all of her actions and the walk back to her house was getting weird. She didn't say a word after his joke and he noticed the tension between them. "Hales, why did you and Lucas ditch me during lunch?" her heart raced at the accusatory question. "What? We didn't ditch you." She said trying to buy her time to think of an excuse. "Well you definitely didn't wait for me either…" "I saw you talking to Peyton after English so I assumed you were having lunch with her." Which wasn't that bad of a lie considering he knew she knew his feelings towards Peyton. "Oh, but you or Luke still could've called me, I haven't not had lunch with you since like kindergarten because I got time out for pushing someone, Hales" She remained quiet. "well…?" Nathan questioned. "Well, I thought you were getting sick of me. So I decided to give you some space." It was half of the truth. The other half was that she was confused with her feelings for him. "Haley. I can't believe you think so lowly of me, getting sick of my best friend? That could and would NEVER happen Hales, I thought you from all people would know that." A tear was about to escape her eyes but she stopped it right before Nathan looked her way. "I'm sorry" she said in an almost murmur.

They got to her house and saw a note on the door. It read: "Haley Bob, there's money for Chinese food on the kitchen counter. Order some for you and Nate, we'll be having dinner with his parents. Love you, Mom and Dad" The two looked at each other and had faint smiles. "I guess this gives us a reason to talk." Haley said to Nathan. And he nodded in agreement.

A/N: Hope you liked this chapter! The rest of the story will be set in their Junior year of high school and will occasionally have flashbacks from the years past. So if that confused you, to make it clear, they are all currently 16 and are Juniors in high school! Please review~~~