"Ouch!" Brooke cried when she woke up with a stabbing headache. The room was spinning and she definitely had a hangover. She strained her eyes and tried to take stock of her surroundings. She was relieved, she was at home. She looked at the t-shirt she had on. That was definitely new. She did not remember changing or if someone had put her in it. She did not remember anything.
Clutching her head to stop the pain, she walked to her bathroom and washed her face. After brushing her teeth, she walked down. Lucas' boxes were still strewn all over the living room. She found her family outside. Lucas was teaching Jamie and Sam swimming in the pool. Brooke couldn't help but smile watching her son giggle as he splashed water with his father. Nobody had noticed her, so she stood and watched her family spend Sunday together.
"Brooke, hey!" Sam said queasily when she spotted her pseudo mom at the patio. She wasn't too happy seeing her. Lucas had given her freedom until Brooke was awake to lay the punishment with him. The grounding would begin soon.
"How are you feeling?" Lucas asked. He couldn't help but notice how long her legs looked under her oversized tee. They seemed to stretch for miles. His eyes wanted another view of where they met as his mind went there. He began to blink rapidly to erase that image out of his mind.
"Hi Mama! Daddy said not to wake you," Jamie asked, racing out of the pool to hug her feet, water drops spilling everywhere from his dirty blonde hair.
"Right. You ever have a hangover?" she asked her kid with a smile.
"I have a floppy-eared bunny named Chester," he replied casually.
Brooke nodded her head as if her son had made sense.
"Just how much did I drink last night?" Brooke asked, hating how her hangover felt.
"Enough to feel that and then some," Lucas joked. "Come on Sammy, time for the punishment to begin." Lucas grabbed her hand and led her out of the pool. Sam moaned but followed. It was always better to comply in these situations.
"Huh?" Brooke replied as she watched the two get out of the pool and towel dry.
"Do you remember anything from last night?" Lucas asked. He was hoping that she didn't. He did not want her to remember how tight his pants had become from seeing her in all her naked goddess glory.
Brooke's eyebrows scrunched as she thought hard. "There was a guy at the club who got a little handsy and you punched him, was that it?" she asked.
"You're partially correct. There was a guy who was bothering you and I was telling him to back off when Quentin punched him. Quentin is a basketball player on my team and he took Sam on a date to Tric. She broke curfew, she lied about where she was going and whom she was with and the best part, she didn't even know where she was going, she simply agreed to meet a boy she doesn't know at a random address that she has never been to in a new town in the middle of the night."
"Samantha!" Brooke yelled, her migraine could wait. She had to deal with this first.
Sam cowered when she heard Brooke yell her full name. Even Jamie got frightened as he ducked behind Sam's feet. Brooke noticed her son get scared and her features instantly softened. "Hey kiddo, are you even allowed to step into the backyard without informing mommy or daddy or your babysitter?"
"No," he replied innocently.
"Samantha seems to have forgotten that. Now, I want you to go up to your room and get dressed. Can you do that on your own?" she asked Jamie, bending to his eye level.
"Yeah," he replied, enjoying the independence.
"Attaboy," she replied and kissed his cheek. Jamie skipped ahead and like a bolt of lightning, was up the stairs.
"Permission to get dressed too?" Sam asked, stalling for time.
"Yes, but only because if Lorelai comes for a surprise visit now, she could flag us for child abuse. If it were to me, I'd spank that swimsuit clad ass red," she yelled, making Sam's eyes widen. Lucas was impressed at Brooke's command over a teenager. There wasn't any indication that the age gap between them was only 6 years. Sam looked like a baby as her eyes grew watery with fear and vulnerability.
"Dry, change and come down in 10 minutes," Brooke ordered. Sam didn't need to be told twice. She ran up the stairs without looking back. She wanted to avoid seeing Brooke's face at all cost.
"Anything else I should know about last night?" Brooke asked once Sam was out of sight.
Lucas felt his cock twitch as once again his mind went to the night they had had. "No," he replied casually.
"Was Sam the one who got me into this t-shirt? I also remember wearing different underwear," Brooke asked, feeling embarrassed.
Lucas instantly turned cherry red. "Sorry, that was me. You were stuck in your top because you forgot to pull the zipper and then you puked, so you took a shower, by yourself. I didn't help with the shower. But I did have to help you put on your clothes," he replied, feeling like a kid who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
"Oh God!" Brooke groaned, her cheeks turning ten shades of red with embarrassment. "I - uhh, I'm sorry you had to deal with all that."
"It's fine," Lucas said, not knowing what the right thing to say was. The situation was as awkward as it could be and Brooke did not know half of it.
"Nothing you haven't seen before, numerous times, I guess," Brooke tried to joke. "It was such a bad idea to get drunk."
"Why did you drink so much?" Lucas asked. That was something he did not understand. Brooke would strip sober because she had to return home and be the responsible parent to Jamie and Sam. "Is it because you could finally be a 21-year-old and let loose instead of being responsible for Jamie and Sam?"
"No," Brooke replied honestly. Lucas cocked his left eyebrow up, asking her to explain herself.
"Actually, yes. Yes, it was just a stupid 21-year-old thing. I'll remember to cut myself off next time. I promise," she lied, not wanting to explain herself.
"What are you thinking?" Lucas asked.
"It was nothing. I behaved stupidly and I shouldn't have. I'm sorry," she replied.
"It's okay, Brooke. I got to go get drunk at parties at college and find multiple girls waiting for me in my room, making out. I got to do crazy things and not be responsible while I was in college. You didn't get to do that. So, I totally understand that you want some nights of crazy fun. Just, tell me and I'll hold fort," Lucas tried to make her feel better. He hadn't been able to read Brooke's eyes correctly. If truth be told, he was never able to read Brooke's insecurities and vulnerabilities that well and ironically, he was the only one who had come closest to reading them. Brooke was good at putting up walls and men were interested in only her body to ever go beyond the surface. Peyton would have learnt them if she hadn't been self absorbed in her own dark shell of doom and misery. So, Brooke learnt to keep her feelings to herself.
"So, I should get drunk and have threesomes?" Brooke asked, trying to deflect the conversation from her to him. It was always easier, she had become a master of it at her previous work. Men wanted attention, they wanted to be heard and desired and they wanted to talk about themselves. Lucas was no exception.
Lucas' eyes widened, realising what he had said which had made Brooke remark that way. "No, I did not have threesomes in college. I just found girls making out with each other on my bed. College is crazy," he explained.
"Sure," Brooke said with a judgemental tone. She did not believe him, but even if he slept with every girl in college, what did she care about? It wasn't like she planned on sleeping with him, ever again.
"I'm going to go change too," Lucas said and walked up the stairs. Brooke looked down and realised that she should put some pants on too and followed suit. When Brooke and Lucas emerged downstairs again, they found Sam pacing in the living room. She could hear her foster parents' footsteps and stopped, turning around to face them. She was scared, but not too scared. She knew that she would have to face the music, but she wasn't going to get kicked out of the house.
"Sit," Brooke ordered as she and Lucas took their places on the opposite ends of the couch, facing Sam across the coffee table.
Sam quietly acquiesced to Brooke's demands.
"Tell me everything, and I mean everything. Truthfully." Brooke's voice was soft and collected, but full of authority. That low rasp scared Sam even more than her yelling, because the low voice meant that she was disappointed, not just mad.
"I met Q at the mall and he told me he would show me around town and I knew that it was a bad idea, but Liz isn't here and everyone at school knows I'm orphan Annie and people are mean and he wasn't. We were going to go the night Lorelai showed up unexpectedly, but then Lorelai showed up unexpectedly! And he thought I ghosted him and I was trying to make it up to him and I figured tonight was the night as you were all going to be out. He asked me to meet him at an address at 10 and I didn't know it was Tric, obviously. When I knew, I tried to get him and me out of there before you saw us but then that man was pushing himself on you and Q ran to help and I knew I was going to be grounded till I turned 18!"
"Try till you're 40!" Brooke yelled aloud, stilling Sam and Lucas in their seats.
"You told me you were going out with some kids named Susan and Jack and Sarah and that you would be home by 10. I trusted you! Did you drink?"
"No, I didn't. I swear!" Sam replied, her eyes misting over. She had abused alcohol and drugs and cigarettes and whatever vice there was to explore. She couldn't touch any of that stuff and she knew it.
"Lucas, did she seem drunk at all, that night? She isn't supposed to be near any of that," Brooke asked Lucas, her voice sounding like she was holding back tears of her own.
"I swear, Brooke. That night that you caught me in the junkyard, when Lucas showed up and I had those beers, that was the last I drank any alcohol. I swear. I know that alcohol can cloud my judgement and let my defences down which will make me believe that doing drugs again is a good idea," Sam parroted.
Brooke smiled, grateful that Sam was in her senses, but she still looked towards Lucas, expecting him to answer her.
"She didn't have any drink in her hand and she seemed completely sober when we drove home," he said. "But, we cannot let her see Quentin. He is a bad influence. He talks back to all the teachers. He made Haley cry and run out of her class the first week. I almost cut him off the team."
"Dad! He told me that you and Haley changed him. He started paying attention in school because of the relentless effort Haley took to get his grades up and you taught him discipline and that basketball was a team sport and not something that made him shine. He said that you taught him that you win and lose as a team and even if you performed the best, if you failed at making your whole team shine, you failed and that loss was worse than whatever the scoreboard showed!" Sam defended him. She liked Q because he also had experiences with Lucas and Haley, their family.
"You just called me Dad," Lucas stuttered. His hands and legs had grown cold. He hadn't heard anything that Sam had said in Q's defence. He and Brooke had both gawked when Sam's mouth flew without thinking her words through.
That was when Sam realised what she had let casually slip. Her eyes widened and her hands fell upon her mouth as if cupping her mouth would take the words back in.
"No, Sam. I didn't mind it. I-I loved it!" Lucas said, becoming teary eyed. "I mean it." Lucas wanted to tell her that she could call him dad all day all the time and he wouldn't mind it one bit, but he didn't want to pressure her. "You can call me whatever you want, however it comes to you, whatever you feel. It's all good, Champ."
All Lucas wanted to do was go and hug Sam, but he didn't move. He could see that Brooke and Sam were still reeling with shock.
"Uhh, so what's umm - uh, punishment, Warden?" Sam asked, looking at Brooke who was in a trance of her own.
"Uhh, right. Grounded for a month and no talking to Quentin, no going out with him," Brooke said from the top of her head. She wasn't thinking straight.
"No! You can't do that! He's a good guy! Come on, you have to tell him how much Q has progressed and changed with you and Haley!" Sam argued.
"Not enough if he thinks he can sneak my daughter into a club in the middle of the night!" Lucas said, going for the 'daughter' push to test it out.
Sam's eyes widened again. "Okay! No! We are going to cut back. This is getting a little too much, I'm sorry," she said and stood up to walk away. Brooke gave him a stern stare before following Sam who was in making her way to the yard.
"That was a mistake!" she told when she felt Brooke's presence behind her.
"Yes, sneaking out with Quentin was a mistake. You calling Lucas Dad… well, it will be tricky playing the we broke up and now I want sole custody card…. It would be easier if the adoption goes through this way, with Lucas being your dad," Brooke tried to simplify the matter, as if it was merely procedural and had no emotional repercussions.
"I should've been more aware. That was a mistake," Sam repeated. She had picked up one bad trait from Brooke while staying with her, which was to never show any vulnerability.
"Sam-" Brooke tried to explain.
"No, I'm not his daughter and this guy isn't that trustworthy, he is a cheater!" Sam said a little too harshly. She needed to hear the words that she was saying, not Brooke.
"He might've been, but one thing that he isn't is a bad dad. He had the worst father who didn't claim him, who was never there for him, who never cared. He would never do that to you. You are and will always be important to him," Brooke replied solemnly.
"The adoption could still fall apart," Sam said.
"It won't, but if it does, we're still not leaving you," she continued to answer straightly.
"So what, I'll just call him dad now, like Jamie?" she asked.
"You can call him whatever you want. That's on you and your comfort," Brooke smiled.
"No pressure?" Sam asked.
"Never."
"Can he chill with the 'daughter' declarations," Sam begged, using air quotes for the word daughter.
"Sure, tell him that. He'll respect your boundaries," Brooke vouched for him.
"Do you still hate Lucas?" Sam asked, fearing her line of questioning.
"What do you mean?" Brooke asked, not understanding her at all.
"He broke your heart, he cheated on you, he always picked Peyton over you, he was a bad boyfriend. You kept his child from him, of course, you hated him, but do you still hate him? Are you only working it out and living with him for me?" she asked.
"I never hated him. Okay, I hated him and what he did to be when we were in high school, but we moved on and became friends, sorta and yeah, I wouldn't exactly want him living with me but Jamie has never been happier. I just don't want him to hold back and be alone for the rest of his life because of us," Brooke answered. "I still don't get why you're asking me that."
"Why aren't you together again?" Sam asked, her voice cracking.
Brooke gasped. She did not expect Sam to say that. "What?" she asked, stalling for time and hoping she misunderstood, misheard, misinterpreted.
Sam didn't explain herself, she simply kept staring at Brooke. She knew that Brooke had heard her clearly the first time. She wrapped her arms around herself, as if protecting herself from a chilly breeze, although there was none.
"Sam, Lucas and I are never going to be a couple, ever," Brooke said slowly, as if she was explaining the matter to Jamie.
"But why?" Sam argued.
"Sam, you know better than anybody that I have given blowjobs to over half of Manhattan's elite and a good deal of others. Lucas knows that too," she reminded her, finding it strange that she didn't get it. She didn't like having to share sordid details with her daughter. Yes, Sam was neither innocent nor naive like Jamie. She had lived through horrible situations and had atrocious things be inflicted on her physically and emotionally, but Brooke like every other parent wanted to hide and protect her from her indiscretions and lows.
"So what?" Sam said all too quickly as if Brooke's past job was no big deal.
"Sam, it's never going to happen. Lucas would never…" she trailed.
"So, you'd be okay with it if he was okay with it?"she asked, as if she was just hoping that Brooke would answer the way she did so she could feed her this line.
"No, I wouldn't," Brooke replied hastily.
"Why? Are you afraid that he will cheat on you again?" Sam asked, expecting to catch Brooke in her facade.
"Yes."
The smirk that was forming on Sam's face quickly wiped off as she heard the soft honest answer slip from Brooke's lips.
"Okay, now if you're done interrogating me about my love life, can we interrogate you about yours? This boy, Quentin -," she began, going to the essential topic.
"We aren't dating. There is no love life. It was more a dare than anything else. Brooke, these people see me as a person who has a parent at school, a parent they thought I was having an affair with. They think I'm Orphan Girl. I need to show them that I am tough, that I have more to me than that. Even Q calls me Coach's girl! It's always Orphan Girl or Coach's Girl… never Pretty Girl," Sam replied, pulling her sleeves higher to cover the scars needle marks had left her with. Brooke's eyes widened hearing her say Pretty Girl. She too was called a whore and a slut and easy. It was Lucas who saw the beauty beyond the superficial.
"What if he was a serial killer or an asshole or like someone from your old life? Look Sam, I know that you can take care of yourself. You have for almost your whole life. I haven't even forced you to go to any NA meetings here. But, sneaking out with someone to a club is step one. Next, you will have that drink and be drunk blind and then you'll find that back alley loser to sell you the fix you don't need. For all I know, Q might just be that back alley loser!"
"He isn't!" she retaliated.
"How can you be so sure? You have barely been in town and he is already making you lie to us, break curfew and he is sneaking you into clubs!" Brooke tried to explain.
"Lucas said that you made him a fake id, snuck him to a club, got him drunk, made him get a tattoo and took his virginity," Sam said, finding no better recourse. Q might have been bad, but Brooke had been worse.
"He said what!" Brooke shrieked, her voice going to a weird pitch. Her headache which had never subsided, intensified and her hands went up to press her temples. This was not how she expected her morning to go.
"Okay, I am not going to lie to you. Yes, it's true. Learn from my mistakes. There is a reason that I ran away from Tree Hill and never told you about my past. I was not a good person. I stirred the pot, messed up other people's relationships and didn't think twice about the consequences. I was easy, loose, drunk most of the time and my only plans after school were Cheer Practice and I thought I could get away with it because I had daddy's black amex. Also, regarding Lucas, look at the relationship we had. There were 50 red flags glaring at us and we chose to ignore them and we were all hurt in the end." she said, speaking for Peyton too when she said the last part.
"Again, we aren't dating and aren't you being a bit too harsh? You are forbidden to see or talk to him! I am not a little kid. You can't pick my friends for me. Listen, I promise you, no more sneaking out, breaking curfew or going to clubs. But, please be cool," she begged.
"Fine, but if that boy tries to push you to break the rules, and we catch you breaking them, you will be forbidden to see him. We cannot jeopardise the adoption. What if Lorelai came to Tric and saw you out there?" Brooke asked.
"Well, first she would find you completely drunk," Sam replied sarcastically.
"Do you want to turn your grounding into two months?" Brooke asked. Sam was in trouble and she wasn't in the mood to tolerate her teenage attitude. What had she been thinking, drinking all those shots.
"One's fine," Sam replied quickly. "What should I tell Lucas?" Sam was still kicking herself in the head for letting the word dad slip out.
"Exactly what you feel," Brooke replied. "Sam, if you want to call him dad, you can. It's okay. You're getting adopted. You're officially becoming ours. This is not foster care. This isn't temporary. Tree Hill is going to be your home. Lucas will be your dad."
"You're okay that I didn't call you mom? Did you feel bad?" Sam asked hesitantly.
The truth was that yes, Brooke had felt hurt. She believed that Sam preferred Lucas over her. Lucas had given her the luxuries that Sam could never imagine when she could not even provide basic necessities. Lucas had provided her with stability when she could give her a castle in the air. Lucas had given Sam a permanent home while Brooke could only ever guarantee her that day.
"No," she lied. She didn't offer anything further. It would all be additional lies and Sam was great at reading body language. She would know.
Sam continued to stare at Brooke, waiting for her to say more. Brooke knew she was expecting an explanation, but she hated vulnerability. She wasn't going to be in that precarious position then.
"Go, give me your things, your phone and your new laptop and put them in my room. Then you can set the table for lunch," she instructed instead. Sam slumped her shoulders, knowing that she would not get any more truth from Brooke. She quietly turned around to go do the tasks she was instructed to do. She knew that entering the house also meant bumping into Lucas and she was not ready for that either. Inhaling and exhaling deeply, Sam walked in with trepidation.
She saw that the living room was empty so she traipsed up the stairs like a mouse. When she entered her room, she saw Jamie sitting on her swing, waiting for her with eager eyes.
"Dweeb! What are you doing here?" Sam asked. Jamie was peering at her with his clear baby blue eyes and Sam did not know what to think about that.
"Waiting for you," he replied.
Sam rolled her eyes. Kids could be really dumb, in her opinion. They always gave obvious answers instead of realising why they were being asked a particular question and getting to the point. "And why is that?" She asked while moving to her desk to collect her laptop.
"You were in trouble. I wanted to see if you had any tears that you needed me to wipe away," he answered somberly.
She was wrong. Kids did understand a lot more than she gave them credit for.
"I'm fine, little man. Look, no tears," she said and gave Jamie a fake smile.
"So, you're not in trouble?" he asked.
"No, I am," she said with a sadistic laugh. "I am grounded for a month."
"Are mom and dad angry with you?" he asked, his blue eyes looking watery with inquisitiveness.
"Yes, I broke a pretty big rule. Your mom and dad were right to berate me?" she said, ruffling his sandy blonde hair.
"What does berate mean? Also, aren't they our mommy and daddy?" he asked. His ears had perked as soon as he had heard Sam say 'your'.
"You see Jamie, you came from Brooke and Lucas helped her bring you to the world. That is why Brooke and Lucas are your parents. I did not come from them. I found them," she tried to simplify matters.
"I also found Daddy. Don't you remember? I found him at Central Park!" he reminded her. "Wait, is daddy not my daddy?" Jamie's eyes became watery. They were so bright blue that they really looked like overflowing pools of water.
"Of course he is your daddy, you goof," Sam smiled. She could not explain to Jamie how there was a stark difference in him calling Brooke and Lucas mom and dad and her calling them that.
"Mommy says that I am always supposed to share with you," Jamie continued.
A stray tear lost the fight inside Sam and slipped down her cheek.
"Do you need me to wipe away the sadness?" he asked, mixing up the words sadness and tears. Sam's heart melted further as she pulled Jamie into her arms and hugged him. "Mama told me that, sometimes people have to cry out all their tears to make room for a heart full of smiles."
"You're the best person in the world, Jamie," she whispered.
"I love you so much, Sammy. I miss sleeping with you in my room," the little boy sighed.
"Tell you what… I'm grounded, so I have no source of entertainment available anyway. How about you sleep with me tonight? We can play a game," she offered.
"Really?!" He asked, getting extremely excited.
"Yes," she confirmed.
"First, a sleepover with Lilly at Nana Karen's and now you! I love Tree Hill! Ohh! I'm going to pack my toys!" He said with an urgency as if he was taking his toys from New York to Tree Hill. Sam began to wonder just how messy her room was about to get, but Jamie's pure innocent love did more than enough to make up for it. She loved that little boy more than anyone or anything in the world, despite him getting on her very last nerve for a majority of the day.
"Hey Sam, do you want to uhh, talk?" Lucas asked, knocking her door and poking his head in.
"Yeah, just give me a moment to submit these to my warden," Sam said, nudging towards her laptop and phone. She knew that the talk with Lucas was inevitable, but she wanted some time. She figured it was the perfect time to set the table, maybe even cook, if that would get her out of talking to Lucas.
"I'll take those," he said, just like a father would. Brooke and Lucas were now a team. He still refused to take decisions without Brooke out of respect for her, but that didn't mean that he couldn't or that he didn't have the authority to.
Lacking any sort of defence, Sam nodded her head and handed her electronics. "Listen, can we pretend like that thing that I just said didn't happen, please?" she pleaded.
"If that's what you want, sure. But, I need you to know that I plan on sticking around for the rest of my life. I am there for you just like I will always be there for Jamie-"
"Yeah, I know-" Sam cut him.
"Let me finish, Champ," he said patiently, despite cutting her words too. Brooke was exactly the same - as impatient as a firecracker who did things first and dealt with the consequences of her actions later but it always worked for her because her heart was always in the right place.
"I don't even remember what you are talking about. It's gone, forgotten, whoosh," he said with a funny hand gesture that made Sam crack into a smile and chuckle. "But, if anything ever changes, I will be okay with it as long as it is on your terms. No rush, no promises, no expectations. All I want is for you to feel safe and loved and that you belong. We don't need to label that, but if you choose to put a label on it in the future, I'd be cool with that too."
Sam stared at her with amazement. Her face looked so much like Brooke's had when he had said to her, 'I'm the guy for you, Brooke Davis.' and that's how he knew that she believed him, because Brooke had believed him too. "You look so much like Brooke right now, it's uncanny."
"What? Don't tell me that Brooke struggled with labelling relationships. Wait, that would make sense given her string of one night stands," Sam misinterpreted.
"Actually, just the opposite. One of her nicknames for me was Boyfriend and she loved to say it and she was an absolute sucker for public declarations of love. She wanted the big embarrassing speeches and the love letters and small acts of love like pimping her locker or gifts and flowers and the insanely long trips to the mall as I helped her pick outfits. She struggled with trusting boys, but when she fell - oh, she was a hopeless romantic."
"Lucas, thanks, for everything," Sam said, her emotions on complete display on her face as she smiled.
"Love you, Sam," he said and picked up her electronics to leave the room. "Just please be careful of Q. I knew what he was like not too long ago."
"We are just friends!" Sam moaned and hit a pillow on her head, tired of repeating the same thing. Maybe it was better when she had no parents intruding on her private life. No, it wasn't, she was secretly enjoying the attention and concern, but she did hate being grounded.
Lucas went down and saw Brooke laying the table for lunch. She had guessed that Lucas would be talking to Sam and she didn't want to interfere. She didn't know what Sam would decide and if or when the mom bomb would drop. She would simply have to play it cool like it was no big deal.
"Sam handed over her fun," he said, placing the laptop and phone on the dining table.
"Is she alright?" Brooke asked, concerned about the teen.
"Yeah, I told her no pressure, we would pretend like it didn't happen but I was more than okay to revisit it if she changed her mind. She seemed happy with it," he said, easing Brooke's stress by a lot. She exhaled deeply, not knowing that she was even holding her breath. "Hey listen, uhh, you spoke about NA Meetings. It was stupid of me to forget about that. Does Sam need those? Should we find out about the meetings here? Did she go to them often in New York? Does she need a sponsor?" Lucas spoke really softly and slowly as he broached the subject. Sam and Brooke were still very private people and he didn't know how comfortable Sam was with him knowing about her drug related issues.
"Oh, yeah, when she was fresh out of rehab, she went to weekly meetings. We had a couple of relapses, and around that time, she went frequently. Things changed after she switched schools. Once she went to Faircroft Prep, she had no time to think about drugs as she was thinking about her future. Her friends changed and by then, she was deeply attached to Jamie and she knew that I would not allow her to be around Jamie if she abused drugs. Besides, I needed her so much back then to take care of Jamie that she never had any time to attend a meeting. When she felt pressure from school or situations and the bullying got to a point where she felt herself looking for a fix, she had tells. She would be restless, she'd start screaming at the slightest hitch, she would stop going near Jamie unless he needed to be fed or he was hurt - that was the biggest sign because she would start mentally preparing for the separation she would have to go through. I would pick up on those and I would drag her to a meeting myself. She never had a sponsor, she used to joke that Jamie did a better job at keeping her in check than a sponsor ever could. She most likely doesn't need them, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep the information handy. I hope we never get there though."
Lucas remained quiet and stoic as he processed all the information Brooke had laid down. He should have felt good to learn more, but it felt like a punch to the gut that Sam had struggled so hard. He wondered how Brooke managed all that with an infant to take care of all alone.
"I remember how ballistic you went when you found out that Peyton had been doing cocaine with Rick," Lucas said, getting nostalgic.
"Yet, it was you who called Jake and got her the help that she needed. You had the hero regimen down pat," she reminded him. It was he who had saved Peyton from drugs, not her.
"Wow, Jake! He shares custody with Nicki. Did you know that? They work it out. Jenny is happy. I remember when you and Peyton tricked Nicki into going to Seattle. You - you really did trick us all," he reminisced.
"Let's not bring up Nicki. You might've cheated on me with Peyton, but then you went ahead and broke both our hearts by sleeping with Nicki."
"Jamie is never riding a carousel," Lucas said grimly.
"He has ridden on them and he loves the horses," Brooke replied, glad that for once he was feeling embarrassed about his sexual history.
"I'm hungry. Who's hungry? Kids! Lunch!" he said, trying to desperately change the topic.
"Real mature," Brooke mocked him.
"By the way? How is your head? Are any memories of the night before coming back?" he asked, wanting to know more.
'You, Lucas Scott, make incredible babies. They're smart and kind and beautiful and those gorgeous deep blue eyes that can put you in a trance. Should we make more babies together?' Brooke suddenly remembered. Her mind went to her offering herself for Lucas in all her naked glory. Sweat formed on her eyebrows as worry turned her stomach to knots. Had Lucas and her slept together last night? He had said that he put her in her clothes, but was it after taking them off and taking advantage of her? No, he would never do that. He couldn't, he wouldn't, right?
"Earth to Brooke," Lucas called out to her after her long pause.
"No," Brooke replied to Lucas, burying the can of worms, like she was trying to do with her ugly past. "I can't recollect. It's a good lesson that when you get drunk, you have to suffer the consequences. I should've learnt that a really long time ago - after I made the sex tape with Nathan and made a baby with you. Maybe, the third time's the charm. Listen, I am feeling really queasy. I'm going to skip lunch and just be in my room, alright?" With that, she sauntered up the stairs in a daze.