'Approaching Normal' - Chapter One
Prologue
Chapter One - Days of Reckoning
Leaving was hard. Going back was Hell.
“You really haven’t been back to your hometown since you were seventeen?” Chelsea gapes at me, surprise clearly written all over her pixie-ish, young face.
“Didn’t you know that? Oh, Chels, I know you know that! Anyway, why is it such a shock?” I smile, my attention more on the suitcase I’m packing than on her. “My parents don’t live there anymore, and you know Peyton is here and Luke in Austin. They are the only people from Tree Hill I even keep in contact with, so there really isn’t much there for me.”
“Yeah, but come on,” she says practically. “You must have a friend or two there still. I mean, you know that Mariah and Ali are my best friends, but next year when I’m at Stanford - “
“Thanks to me,” I interrupt gleefully, seriously proud of the work we’ve done together. She’s my greatest tutoring result ever, even better than him.
“Yeah, yeah, thanks to you,” she grins, ever indulgent of my self-praise. “But don’t interrupt, it’s rude!”
“Okay, you have my undivided attention, and I shall forsake all urges to interrupt.”
“’Bout time you shut your big mouth,” she gloats, laughing when my jaw drops open. “Sorry, I’m just kidding, Hay! Anyway, next fall, when I’m at Stanford and Mar is still here going to LBCC and Ali is in Tempe for school, I’ll still visit here. Come back and see my teachers, see you. People who matter, even if they aren’t my best friends, you know?”
I smile, trying to keep the bitter out of the bittersweet part of it, “And I’m really happy that you have those people, Chels. I didn’t, though. That’s all there is to it.”
“You’re telling me you had no one, not one single person in that town besides your parents, Lucas, and Peyton? Now, you know I like Luke and Peyt a lot, but come on, you can’t tell me Luke was the coolest guy in that town.”
The laugh I let escape cannot be helped. “You only say that because I told you about the dorky games we used to play on the roof of his mom’s café,” I argue blandly. “But no, Luke wasn’t the coolest guy ever. But he was the best friend I could ask for.”
She stares at me, and I know she doesn’t believe that is the whole story, not even for a second. She’s right, of course, there is so much more to it, but she’s eighteen, and she doesn’t need to be bogged down with the minor tragedies and disappointments and follies of my life.
“I know about all that rock star mumbo jumbo - and I still say R&B and rap are way better - but I just don’t believe that’s all there was to it. You had to have left for more than that, why else come all the way across the country for college? I’ll find out all about your sordid past someday, Haley Scott,” she warns with a twinkle in her pretty dark eyes. “Even if that someday is the day I become a premier criminologist.”
I roll my eyes at her. “And we both know that if you wanted, you could find out now. But you have too much love and respect for me.”
“What can I say?” she giggles, before sobering again. “Isn’t it going to be weird going back? I mean, if you haven’t been back there in four years, it seems like it’d be awkward. Uncomfortable.”
“Maybe,” I shrug, not sure who I’m trying to convince with my painstaking indifference. “I don’t know. I guess it will be weird to go to Karen’s Café after all these years.”
“That’s where you worked, right?”
“Yeah, all through high school,” I smile. “That place was like my second home. You’d like Karen, Luke’s mom. I wish you could meet her. Maybe one day I can talk her into coming out here to visit.”
“Yeah, but I’ll be gone,” she points out, sighing. “So it’ll have to be over a holiday or at least a three day weekend, okay?”
“Yeah,” I agree. “I can’t believe you’re going to be up in Palo Alto soon.”
She starts cracking up. “Remember when I didn’t even know where Palo Alto was? I have lived here my whole life, and I had no idea. Of course, I was so pathetic, I wouldn’t have even been able to spell it, so…”
“Okay, you were never, ever pathetic. And, well, we’ve both learned a lot in the last four years. Have I told you how much I’m going to miss you in the fall?”
“I’ll miss you, too, Haley. And you don’t have to worry about me too much. If I need to be busted out of the clink again, you’re only a bit down the highway.”
“Oh, my God, bite your tongue or I’ll call your grandmother and let her be the one to bail you out if the need arises, which I swear, missy, it better not!”
“You wouldn’t do that, and we both know it,” she smirks, and I wonder for the thousandth time if perhaps one of the reasons I’m so dearly attached to her is that she reminds me of Nathan. Not in many ways, but she has that cockiness, that attitude where she knows she’s good at things, and she’s willing to let the world know she knows. Nathan had that, too. Maybe he still does, for all I know.
But I shut those thoughts off, and I giggle at her, knowing she’s right. “Well, I’ll call her and tell her about that ‘B’ you keep getting on these practice calc tests, see what she says about that.”
“I’m soft.”
“Oh, au contraire, you’re the toughest person I’ve ever met,” I assure her, meaning it. Chelsea was born in the projects of East LA to a drug dealing sixteen year old. In what probably turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to her, her mother relinquished custody of her to her grandmother. She toiled in public schools for years, always one incident away from being kicked out until she wound up in an art class Peyton was assisting in to fulfill graduation requirements for her teaching program one summer.
Peyton recognized her near genius aptitude right away, and dragged me out to meet her about possibly becoming her tutor. Four years ago when she came into my life, she was a high school freshman while I was starting my freshman year at USC, having given up the dream of Stanford, but having still made it to Cali. To say she came into my life at the perfect time would be an understatement - I call it divine intervention; Peyton calls it a ‘Peytervention’. And demands I thank her for it regularly, which I do.
My life was an undeniable mess at the time, and I was further adrift than I’d ever thought possible. I was young, a slightly credible singer-songwriter, jaded - and recently divorced. That last one is the kicker. I married my high school sweetheart when I was sixteen, him a worldly seventeen. It seems like a lifetime ago in some ways now, but in others I don’t feel more than a day removed from all the heartbreak that entailed.
But Chelsea, although the most difficult person I’d ever met, gave me something to look forward to. A challenge, someone who needed me. Someone that I could give something to. I gave up one dream to chase after another only to have that door slammed in my face, and Chels gave me focus. And I helped her find and obtain her dream.
Now, she’s more than just a tutee, she’s a friend. She’s a little sister. And she’s an inspiration, too. Chelsea has done more in her eighteen years than most people even dare to dream about. Her accomplishments are so astounding, made only more so by where she came from, her circumstances. And to know that I played a part, no matter how small, is gratifying.
“You’ll tell me someday, about all of it. Life in Tree Hill, who you left behind,” she smiles confidently. “Okay, I have to go. Gram is having some of my aunties and uncles over for dinner tonight. She told me to remind you that she will skin you alive if you miss the graduation party.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I promise, smiling widely at her, shaking off the more morose thoughts. “Hey, you know I’m really proud of you, right?”
She leans across the suitcase to throw her arms around me. “Yeah, I know. And I’m proud of you, too. And grateful.”
“I know, kid. I’ll see you soon. If not before, definitely at the ceremony next Friday, okay?”
“Pinky swear?” she asks, holding hers out for me to hook into.
“Pinky swear,” I confirm, grinning at her. “Have a fun last week of high school. It only happens once, right?”
“And I’m not even a little sorry about that!” she laughs, giving me another hug before turning and running out of the room.
Sighing, I lean back on the bed beside the open suitcase. I hate packing - thank goodness this is going to be a very brief trip, and I don’t need very much. Well, brief in length, but I doubt there will be any brevity to the drama I’ll encounter. It’s probably a good thing that Peyton is coming, too, if only to keep me sane.
There are a million reasons I haven’t been back to Tree Hill since the day after my own high school graduation. The most prominent is probably the simple fact that I can’t face the memories. The good or the bad. I don’t want to walk past the dock where Nathan and I got to know each other or past the apartment complex where we made our home. I don’t want to go into Karen’s Café and see his mother behind the counter, gossiping with Karen over how great he’s doing. I don’t want to walk through the parking lot of the high school, and see spot 54 where I caught him in our little beater car straddled by a shirtless Brooke Davis.
There are some things a girl just doesn’t need to relive, you know?
Maybe that was the breaking point, the point where I was able to stop fighting. Stop fighting for someone who didn’t need or want me to fight for them. Maybe it was the impetus for me to begin living my own life, and figure out where I belonged on my own. It wasn’t what I wanted or needed, but it is what I got, and I managed to make it work.
So why am I so afraid to go back? It can’t just be a fear of reliving memories. I relive some of them every day here. Memories are always with you. No one ever talks about it, but I know he isn’t in Tree Hill. In fact, it has probably been even longer since he’s been back. I don’t know what it is, really. Maybe going back and facing it all will be good for me. Maybe it’ll let me learn to move on and let go completely. Do what three thousand miles and one thousand four hundred and sixty days haven’t done for me.
The phone rings, and I grab it from its perch on the bedside table, not bothering to check caller ID. “Hello, Haley James, this is your life!” Peyton’s voice booms through the receiver.
“Hey Peyt, where are you?” I ask, yawning. “You were supposed to be here a half hour ago. Chels is pissed at you for forgetting her.”
“I didn’t forget her,” she grumbles into the phone. “I was late. Held up. Department meeting. Apparently, the art department can’t have a graduation party without art being contributed by all of us graduating seniors. Stupid, crap state school.”
“You love your stupid, crap state school, despite the fact that you picked the lamest one on this coast,” I remind her, laughing. She ended up at UCLA by default, in a way, and bitches about it every chance she gets. Of course, no one who spends three years on the cheer squad really hates their school.
“Har har,” she mutters, sighing deeply. “I really don’t want to go back to Tree Hill. Can I bail on you?”
“Peyton! It’s your childhood home we’re cleaning out!” I remind her in exasperation. Like I am really chomping at the bit to get back there. If anything, I’m a thousand times less into this than she is.
“Maybe we can put it off,” she suggests hopefully. “Your graduation was just last night, and mine was only last Friday. I’m sure we could say we need to stay for celebrations or something.”
I roll my eyes, even though I know she’s only half serious. “We’re the ones we’d have to make our excuses to,” I point out. “Come on, Peyt. Let’s just get out there, get this over with, and get back here. Maybe you can use the trip to talk Luke into moving out here with you.”
She scoffs at that. “Whatever. At this point, I’m thinking he’s had like a cowboy hat welded to his head or something. Like he’s become Texas-ified to the point where he knows he’d get his ass kicked out here. He’s totally assimilated! Why else would he like it there so much?”
“Because it’s funky, fun, smart, young, and hip?” I suggest, knowing that she liked it in Austin just as much as Luke does and I do. “It’s a nice place to go to college. Not that I’m encouraging a move, but it’s probably a place that little Ms. Art Student - I mean you - would really love.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she mutters, letting loose a little scream of frustration. “Okay, sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I sigh, knowing she’s feeling the stress of going back as much as I am. “It is okay, Peyt. Don’t freak over this, you and Luke will be fine being back there.”
There’s a knock on the door, and a second later, it opens to reveal Peyton flipping her phone shut. “Oh, you are home,” she teases, flopping down in the over-stuffed arm chair in the corner, the one luxury I have in the small studio apartment. “Ugh, I’m just nervous. Luke and I do so well out of there, and I’m just afraid that if we go back, things will implode.”
“Like Tree Hill is your kryptonite,” I suggest softly, my mind half on my own troubles. Hey, it’s how the selfish live. Mind always on ourselves.
“I wouldn’t put it like that,” she shrugs, “But it works, I guess. Maybe I don’t want to chance it. I know that’s superstitious, but I just don’t want to chance things when they’re so good for us.”
“I don’t blame you,” I smile at her, and I really don’t. Maybe a part of me thinks it sucks that she and Luke managed to find their way back to each other, but only in the selfish terms in which I didn’t get that myself. So yeah, I’m just jealous.
“I’m sorry,” she sighs, sincere sympathy on her face. “For dragging you back there, for making you go through it all. I can’t tell you how much it means that you’re coming with me.”
“Funny how we share some of the same demons,” I smirk as my way of absolving her. “Maybe this time if we run into her, I’ll have the wits about me to be the one to hit her this time. That would be nice, don’t you think?”
Peyton laughs aloud, “She’d never see it coming, Hales. When I hit her at graduation, she knew it was coming. She didn’t know when or where, but she knew I’d get her at some point. But she’d never think you’d bother - you could really catch her off-guard.”
“Well, I’m sure she isn’t even in Tree Hill anymore,” I shrug, as if I’d go after her if she was - so not my style. “So it’s probably a moot point.”
“Actually,” she sighs, rubbing her temples wearily, “My dad said he saw her a couple of months ago. She cornered him in the frozen food section at the market. Had the nerve to ask how I was doing, how you were doing.”
“And you’re just telling me now?”
“No, well, yeah, but I just found out yesterday when my dad and I were talking. Told me I should check on her and see how she’s doing. Whatever that means.”
“Well, he just doesn’t know what she did to you, how she went after Luke.” What she did to me, I could add, but don’t. I don’t have to; Peyton knows.
“Yeah, well, that was the least of her sins, huh?” See? Peyton knows. “Anyway, she’s really the last person either of us wants to talk about, so can we change subject already? How excited is Chels for graduation?”
“Pretty damn excited, but not half as much as me or Grams.”
Peyton laughs. “I can’t believe she’s got you calling her Grams, too. That cracks me up every time I hear it.”
I smile. “Well, they’re like family to me now, both Chelsea and Mrs. Johnson. It’s only right I call her that, too.”
“Whatever,” she teases. “Seriously, though, you know how much they both adore you, right? Mrs. J. was complaining last week when I showed up for dinner without you. And Chels, well, I still can’t believe how much of a difference you’ve made for her. She’d be God knows where now if it wasn’t for you.”
“Let’s not think about that,” I shudder. “We’re all here, and we’re all doing okay. And Chels is better than okay.”
She nods, looking thoughtful. “So, when we come back, will you finally go out with Chad?”
Ah, Chad. The unquestionably hot and surprisingly intelligent just graduated quarterback of the UCLA Bruins football team. Peyton knows him through cheerleading, and has been trying to set me up with him since our sophomore year of college. I’ve always said no, even though there might’ve been a few seconds of temptation here and there. Okay, a few minutes - hey, he’s really hot.
“Why would you think I would? Nothing has changed, Peyt. He’s still a Bruin, and I’d still probably make him cry if I taunt him how things have gone when he’s played us the last couple of years,” I tease, prompting her to smack me.
“You wouldn’t do that,” she scowls. “Besides, you don’t even like football!”
“I like it enough to have been a cheerleader for it!” I retort haughtily. “And that’s sort of the point - if I don’t like football players enough to have dated any from my own school, why would I date one from yours?”
Yes, I cheered in college. The advisor I was assigned as an incoming freshman was a volunteer for the cheer squad. Basically, she didn’t want to let go of her youth, I’m thinking. Anyway, she spotted it on my application and bullied me into trying out. Here I am, four years later. Even made co-captain my senior year. Who knew the Tree Hill spaz could get to that point, right?
“Whatever,” she scoffs. “You barely even like cheering! And besides, Chad Hendricks is way cuter than any of the fug-squad your school fielded, thank you very much.”
I laugh at that, rolling my eyes. “You’re insane. And blind,” I tease her. “But mostly insane. We have a way hotter team than you guys do! Chad might be the hottest of the whole bunch, but still! We get the better people in general, so what can I say?”
She laughs with me, shaking her head. “Do you think anyone in Tree Hill would’ve pictured that you and I would end up here like this? In California, at rival schools, both on the cheer squads?”
“They’d have choked on their basketballs seeing you as a cheerleader again,” I giggle, ducking to avoid the pillow she wings at me. “Face it, you made a big, old deal about how much you hated cheering, and everyone knew you were only doing it for Brooke. When that ended, it stood to reason that you’d stop cheering, too.”
“And I did!”
“For a year!”
“So what? That totally counts! A year is time off, time spent quitting and not being a cheerleader! So there!”
“That doesn’t count! Just like a junkie, you started again!”
She howls with laughter at that, and I join in. When the banging from below - usually the business end of a broom handle - begins, we both start laughing louder. Mrs. Z can deal, especially since I’ll be gone for a few days.
“Okay, let’s get out of here before she figures out new ways to be irritating with that broom,” I suggest, hastily shoving the rest of my stuff into my suitcase.
“That’s all you’re bringing?” she asks in surprise. “You brought more when you went to away games!”
I shrug, not too worried about it. “I’ll borrow stuff from you,” I suggest. “You still have clothes there, right?”
“You’ll swim in them!” she laughs. “Everything will be about six inches too long for you, and when you’re tripping all over the place, you’re going to blame me!”
Rolling my eyes, I pick up the suitcase. “Let’s just go, smarty pants. I’d rather get this over with, and that means not missing the plane.”
“Hey, if you don’t want to go, you really don’t have to,” she assures me. “I can do this with just Luke.”
“No, it is fine,” I tell her. “It’s not bad, facing your demons, you know? Maybe this will be really good for me, for you, too.”
“If I can convince Luke to move out here, it will definitely be a good thing,” she notes practically, the smile easing back onto her face. “Otherwise, it might be kind of a bust.”
I roll my eyes, but nod. Their ongoing game of what basically amounts to tug-of-war can get downright tedious a lot of the time, but I do understand why each wants the other to be the one to bend. Luckily for Peyton, I think Luke is about ready to give in and offer to move out here with her. Selfishly, I hope that is the case. It would definitely work out best for me.
“Hopefully now that you’ve both graduated, you can figure things out. Maybe compromise and move to Kansas or something,” I tease her. “You’d both look so cute with overalls and braids in your hair!”
“Shut up,” she grouses good-naturedly. “If that’s the compromise, I’ll tell him that I’ll suck it up and move to Austin with him!”
I grab my bag. “Hey, Peyt?”
“Yeah?” she asks as she jumps up and heads to the door.
“How come you won’t move to Austin? I know you love it there, and they have that funky, young art scene that you’d fit right in with.”
She blinks in surprise as she grabs my purse and carry-on. “Um, I don’t know, I guess I like it here a lot. You know, the sun, my friends, the sun…”
“If you’re staying here because of me, I’ll murder you in your sleep tonight,” I threaten her. “Come on, tell me that I’m not the reason you’re staying here, that you don’t think you have to take care of me or something. I’m fine, you know I’m fine.” It’s not entirely the truth, and the selfish part of me doesn’t mean it at all, but it needs to be said.
“Well, yeah, of course you’re part of the reason, Haley! You’re my best friend, and I adore you. Of course that’s a reason I want to stay here and not move to Austin. But it isn’t because I think you couldn’t survive without me. I’m not quite that vain.”
“Okay, good,” I smile, relieved. After what happened with Nathan, and the role that Brooke played into how things finally ended, I’ve always wondered if that didn’t play into how close Peyton and I have become. Well, I suppose it would have to, at least in some sense, but it has always nagged in the back of my mind that maybe she felt responsible for Brooke, and this was her way of making it up to me. Maybe that isn’t giving myself enough credit, but times like this, I know it is more than that.
Chapter Two *** Chapter Three
Chapter One - Days of Reckoning
Leaving was hard. Going back was Hell.
“You really haven’t been back to your hometown since you were seventeen?” Chelsea gapes at me, surprise clearly written all over her pixie-ish, young face.
“Didn’t you know that? Oh, Chels, I know you know that! Anyway, why is it such a shock?” I smile, my attention more on the suitcase I’m packing than on her. “My parents don’t live there anymore, and you know Peyton is here and Luke in Austin. They are the only people from Tree Hill I even keep in contact with, so there really isn’t much there for me.”
“Yeah, but come on,” she says practically. “You must have a friend or two there still. I mean, you know that Mariah and Ali are my best friends, but next year when I’m at Stanford - “
“Thanks to me,” I interrupt gleefully, seriously proud of the work we’ve done together. She’s my greatest tutoring result ever, even better than him.
“Yeah, yeah, thanks to you,” she grins, ever indulgent of my self-praise. “But don’t interrupt, it’s rude!”
“Okay, you have my undivided attention, and I shall forsake all urges to interrupt.”
“’Bout time you shut your big mouth,” she gloats, laughing when my jaw drops open. “Sorry, I’m just kidding, Hay! Anyway, next fall, when I’m at Stanford and Mar is still here going to LBCC and Ali is in Tempe for school, I’ll still visit here. Come back and see my teachers, see you. People who matter, even if they aren’t my best friends, you know?”
I smile, trying to keep the bitter out of the bittersweet part of it, “And I’m really happy that you have those people, Chels. I didn’t, though. That’s all there is to it.”
“You’re telling me you had no one, not one single person in that town besides your parents, Lucas, and Peyton? Now, you know I like Luke and Peyt a lot, but come on, you can’t tell me Luke was the coolest guy in that town.”
The laugh I let escape cannot be helped. “You only say that because I told you about the dorky games we used to play on the roof of his mom’s café,” I argue blandly. “But no, Luke wasn’t the coolest guy ever. But he was the best friend I could ask for.”
She stares at me, and I know she doesn’t believe that is the whole story, not even for a second. She’s right, of course, there is so much more to it, but she’s eighteen, and she doesn’t need to be bogged down with the minor tragedies and disappointments and follies of my life.
“I know about all that rock star mumbo jumbo - and I still say R&B and rap are way better - but I just don’t believe that’s all there was to it. You had to have left for more than that, why else come all the way across the country for college? I’ll find out all about your sordid past someday, Haley Scott,” she warns with a twinkle in her pretty dark eyes. “Even if that someday is the day I become a premier criminologist.”
I roll my eyes at her. “And we both know that if you wanted, you could find out now. But you have too much love and respect for me.”
“What can I say?” she giggles, before sobering again. “Isn’t it going to be weird going back? I mean, if you haven’t been back there in four years, it seems like it’d be awkward. Uncomfortable.”
“Maybe,” I shrug, not sure who I’m trying to convince with my painstaking indifference. “I don’t know. I guess it will be weird to go to Karen’s Café after all these years.”
“That’s where you worked, right?”
“Yeah, all through high school,” I smile. “That place was like my second home. You’d like Karen, Luke’s mom. I wish you could meet her. Maybe one day I can talk her into coming out here to visit.”
“Yeah, but I’ll be gone,” she points out, sighing. “So it’ll have to be over a holiday or at least a three day weekend, okay?”
“Yeah,” I agree. “I can’t believe you’re going to be up in Palo Alto soon.”
She starts cracking up. “Remember when I didn’t even know where Palo Alto was? I have lived here my whole life, and I had no idea. Of course, I was so pathetic, I wouldn’t have even been able to spell it, so…”
“Okay, you were never, ever pathetic. And, well, we’ve both learned a lot in the last four years. Have I told you how much I’m going to miss you in the fall?”
“I’ll miss you, too, Haley. And you don’t have to worry about me too much. If I need to be busted out of the clink again, you’re only a bit down the highway.”
“Oh, my God, bite your tongue or I’ll call your grandmother and let her be the one to bail you out if the need arises, which I swear, missy, it better not!”
“You wouldn’t do that, and we both know it,” she smirks, and I wonder for the thousandth time if perhaps one of the reasons I’m so dearly attached to her is that she reminds me of Nathan. Not in many ways, but she has that cockiness, that attitude where she knows she’s good at things, and she’s willing to let the world know she knows. Nathan had that, too. Maybe he still does, for all I know.
But I shut those thoughts off, and I giggle at her, knowing she’s right. “Well, I’ll call her and tell her about that ‘B’ you keep getting on these practice calc tests, see what she says about that.”
“I’m soft.”
“Oh, au contraire, you’re the toughest person I’ve ever met,” I assure her, meaning it. Chelsea was born in the projects of East LA to a drug dealing sixteen year old. In what probably turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to her, her mother relinquished custody of her to her grandmother. She toiled in public schools for years, always one incident away from being kicked out until she wound up in an art class Peyton was assisting in to fulfill graduation requirements for her teaching program one summer.
Peyton recognized her near genius aptitude right away, and dragged me out to meet her about possibly becoming her tutor. Four years ago when she came into my life, she was a high school freshman while I was starting my freshman year at USC, having given up the dream of Stanford, but having still made it to Cali. To say she came into my life at the perfect time would be an understatement - I call it divine intervention; Peyton calls it a ‘Peytervention’. And demands I thank her for it regularly, which I do.
My life was an undeniable mess at the time, and I was further adrift than I’d ever thought possible. I was young, a slightly credible singer-songwriter, jaded - and recently divorced. That last one is the kicker. I married my high school sweetheart when I was sixteen, him a worldly seventeen. It seems like a lifetime ago in some ways now, but in others I don’t feel more than a day removed from all the heartbreak that entailed.
But Chelsea, although the most difficult person I’d ever met, gave me something to look forward to. A challenge, someone who needed me. Someone that I could give something to. I gave up one dream to chase after another only to have that door slammed in my face, and Chels gave me focus. And I helped her find and obtain her dream.
Now, she’s more than just a tutee, she’s a friend. She’s a little sister. And she’s an inspiration, too. Chelsea has done more in her eighteen years than most people even dare to dream about. Her accomplishments are so astounding, made only more so by where she came from, her circumstances. And to know that I played a part, no matter how small, is gratifying.
“You’ll tell me someday, about all of it. Life in Tree Hill, who you left behind,” she smiles confidently. “Okay, I have to go. Gram is having some of my aunties and uncles over for dinner tonight. She told me to remind you that she will skin you alive if you miss the graduation party.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I promise, smiling widely at her, shaking off the more morose thoughts. “Hey, you know I’m really proud of you, right?”
She leans across the suitcase to throw her arms around me. “Yeah, I know. And I’m proud of you, too. And grateful.”
“I know, kid. I’ll see you soon. If not before, definitely at the ceremony next Friday, okay?”
“Pinky swear?” she asks, holding hers out for me to hook into.
“Pinky swear,” I confirm, grinning at her. “Have a fun last week of high school. It only happens once, right?”
“And I’m not even a little sorry about that!” she laughs, giving me another hug before turning and running out of the room.
Sighing, I lean back on the bed beside the open suitcase. I hate packing - thank goodness this is going to be a very brief trip, and I don’t need very much. Well, brief in length, but I doubt there will be any brevity to the drama I’ll encounter. It’s probably a good thing that Peyton is coming, too, if only to keep me sane.
There are a million reasons I haven’t been back to Tree Hill since the day after my own high school graduation. The most prominent is probably the simple fact that I can’t face the memories. The good or the bad. I don’t want to walk past the dock where Nathan and I got to know each other or past the apartment complex where we made our home. I don’t want to go into Karen’s Café and see his mother behind the counter, gossiping with Karen over how great he’s doing. I don’t want to walk through the parking lot of the high school, and see spot 54 where I caught him in our little beater car straddled by a shirtless Brooke Davis.
There are some things a girl just doesn’t need to relive, you know?
Maybe that was the breaking point, the point where I was able to stop fighting. Stop fighting for someone who didn’t need or want me to fight for them. Maybe it was the impetus for me to begin living my own life, and figure out where I belonged on my own. It wasn’t what I wanted or needed, but it is what I got, and I managed to make it work.
So why am I so afraid to go back? It can’t just be a fear of reliving memories. I relive some of them every day here. Memories are always with you. No one ever talks about it, but I know he isn’t in Tree Hill. In fact, it has probably been even longer since he’s been back. I don’t know what it is, really. Maybe going back and facing it all will be good for me. Maybe it’ll let me learn to move on and let go completely. Do what three thousand miles and one thousand four hundred and sixty days haven’t done for me.
The phone rings, and I grab it from its perch on the bedside table, not bothering to check caller ID. “Hello, Haley James, this is your life!” Peyton’s voice booms through the receiver.
“Hey Peyt, where are you?” I ask, yawning. “You were supposed to be here a half hour ago. Chels is pissed at you for forgetting her.”
“I didn’t forget her,” she grumbles into the phone. “I was late. Held up. Department meeting. Apparently, the art department can’t have a graduation party without art being contributed by all of us graduating seniors. Stupid, crap state school.”
“You love your stupid, crap state school, despite the fact that you picked the lamest one on this coast,” I remind her, laughing. She ended up at UCLA by default, in a way, and bitches about it every chance she gets. Of course, no one who spends three years on the cheer squad really hates their school.
“Har har,” she mutters, sighing deeply. “I really don’t want to go back to Tree Hill. Can I bail on you?”
“Peyton! It’s your childhood home we’re cleaning out!” I remind her in exasperation. Like I am really chomping at the bit to get back there. If anything, I’m a thousand times less into this than she is.
“Maybe we can put it off,” she suggests hopefully. “Your graduation was just last night, and mine was only last Friday. I’m sure we could say we need to stay for celebrations or something.”
I roll my eyes, even though I know she’s only half serious. “We’re the ones we’d have to make our excuses to,” I point out. “Come on, Peyt. Let’s just get out there, get this over with, and get back here. Maybe you can use the trip to talk Luke into moving out here with you.”
She scoffs at that. “Whatever. At this point, I’m thinking he’s had like a cowboy hat welded to his head or something. Like he’s become Texas-ified to the point where he knows he’d get his ass kicked out here. He’s totally assimilated! Why else would he like it there so much?”
“Because it’s funky, fun, smart, young, and hip?” I suggest, knowing that she liked it in Austin just as much as Luke does and I do. “It’s a nice place to go to college. Not that I’m encouraging a move, but it’s probably a place that little Ms. Art Student - I mean you - would really love.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she mutters, letting loose a little scream of frustration. “Okay, sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I sigh, knowing she’s feeling the stress of going back as much as I am. “It is okay, Peyt. Don’t freak over this, you and Luke will be fine being back there.”
There’s a knock on the door, and a second later, it opens to reveal Peyton flipping her phone shut. “Oh, you are home,” she teases, flopping down in the over-stuffed arm chair in the corner, the one luxury I have in the small studio apartment. “Ugh, I’m just nervous. Luke and I do so well out of there, and I’m just afraid that if we go back, things will implode.”
“Like Tree Hill is your kryptonite,” I suggest softly, my mind half on my own troubles. Hey, it’s how the selfish live. Mind always on ourselves.
“I wouldn’t put it like that,” she shrugs, “But it works, I guess. Maybe I don’t want to chance it. I know that’s superstitious, but I just don’t want to chance things when they’re so good for us.”
“I don’t blame you,” I smile at her, and I really don’t. Maybe a part of me thinks it sucks that she and Luke managed to find their way back to each other, but only in the selfish terms in which I didn’t get that myself. So yeah, I’m just jealous.
“I’m sorry,” she sighs, sincere sympathy on her face. “For dragging you back there, for making you go through it all. I can’t tell you how much it means that you’re coming with me.”
“Funny how we share some of the same demons,” I smirk as my way of absolving her. “Maybe this time if we run into her, I’ll have the wits about me to be the one to hit her this time. That would be nice, don’t you think?”
Peyton laughs aloud, “She’d never see it coming, Hales. When I hit her at graduation, she knew it was coming. She didn’t know when or where, but she knew I’d get her at some point. But she’d never think you’d bother - you could really catch her off-guard.”
“Well, I’m sure she isn’t even in Tree Hill anymore,” I shrug, as if I’d go after her if she was - so not my style. “So it’s probably a moot point.”
“Actually,” she sighs, rubbing her temples wearily, “My dad said he saw her a couple of months ago. She cornered him in the frozen food section at the market. Had the nerve to ask how I was doing, how you were doing.”
“And you’re just telling me now?”
“No, well, yeah, but I just found out yesterday when my dad and I were talking. Told me I should check on her and see how she’s doing. Whatever that means.”
“Well, he just doesn’t know what she did to you, how she went after Luke.” What she did to me, I could add, but don’t. I don’t have to; Peyton knows.
“Yeah, well, that was the least of her sins, huh?” See? Peyton knows. “Anyway, she’s really the last person either of us wants to talk about, so can we change subject already? How excited is Chels for graduation?”
“Pretty damn excited, but not half as much as me or Grams.”
Peyton laughs. “I can’t believe she’s got you calling her Grams, too. That cracks me up every time I hear it.”
I smile. “Well, they’re like family to me now, both Chelsea and Mrs. Johnson. It’s only right I call her that, too.”
“Whatever,” she teases. “Seriously, though, you know how much they both adore you, right? Mrs. J. was complaining last week when I showed up for dinner without you. And Chels, well, I still can’t believe how much of a difference you’ve made for her. She’d be God knows where now if it wasn’t for you.”
“Let’s not think about that,” I shudder. “We’re all here, and we’re all doing okay. And Chels is better than okay.”
She nods, looking thoughtful. “So, when we come back, will you finally go out with Chad?”
Ah, Chad. The unquestionably hot and surprisingly intelligent just graduated quarterback of the UCLA Bruins football team. Peyton knows him through cheerleading, and has been trying to set me up with him since our sophomore year of college. I’ve always said no, even though there might’ve been a few seconds of temptation here and there. Okay, a few minutes - hey, he’s really hot.
“Why would you think I would? Nothing has changed, Peyt. He’s still a Bruin, and I’d still probably make him cry if I taunt him how things have gone when he’s played us the last couple of years,” I tease, prompting her to smack me.
“You wouldn’t do that,” she scowls. “Besides, you don’t even like football!”
“I like it enough to have been a cheerleader for it!” I retort haughtily. “And that’s sort of the point - if I don’t like football players enough to have dated any from my own school, why would I date one from yours?”
Yes, I cheered in college. The advisor I was assigned as an incoming freshman was a volunteer for the cheer squad. Basically, she didn’t want to let go of her youth, I’m thinking. Anyway, she spotted it on my application and bullied me into trying out. Here I am, four years later. Even made co-captain my senior year. Who knew the Tree Hill spaz could get to that point, right?
“Whatever,” she scoffs. “You barely even like cheering! And besides, Chad Hendricks is way cuter than any of the fug-squad your school fielded, thank you very much.”
I laugh at that, rolling my eyes. “You’re insane. And blind,” I tease her. “But mostly insane. We have a way hotter team than you guys do! Chad might be the hottest of the whole bunch, but still! We get the better people in general, so what can I say?”
She laughs with me, shaking her head. “Do you think anyone in Tree Hill would’ve pictured that you and I would end up here like this? In California, at rival schools, both on the cheer squads?”
“They’d have choked on their basketballs seeing you as a cheerleader again,” I giggle, ducking to avoid the pillow she wings at me. “Face it, you made a big, old deal about how much you hated cheering, and everyone knew you were only doing it for Brooke. When that ended, it stood to reason that you’d stop cheering, too.”
“And I did!”
“For a year!”
“So what? That totally counts! A year is time off, time spent quitting and not being a cheerleader! So there!”
“That doesn’t count! Just like a junkie, you started again!”
She howls with laughter at that, and I join in. When the banging from below - usually the business end of a broom handle - begins, we both start laughing louder. Mrs. Z can deal, especially since I’ll be gone for a few days.
“Okay, let’s get out of here before she figures out new ways to be irritating with that broom,” I suggest, hastily shoving the rest of my stuff into my suitcase.
“That’s all you’re bringing?” she asks in surprise. “You brought more when you went to away games!”
I shrug, not too worried about it. “I’ll borrow stuff from you,” I suggest. “You still have clothes there, right?”
“You’ll swim in them!” she laughs. “Everything will be about six inches too long for you, and when you’re tripping all over the place, you’re going to blame me!”
Rolling my eyes, I pick up the suitcase. “Let’s just go, smarty pants. I’d rather get this over with, and that means not missing the plane.”
“Hey, if you don’t want to go, you really don’t have to,” she assures me. “I can do this with just Luke.”
“No, it is fine,” I tell her. “It’s not bad, facing your demons, you know? Maybe this will be really good for me, for you, too.”
“If I can convince Luke to move out here, it will definitely be a good thing,” she notes practically, the smile easing back onto her face. “Otherwise, it might be kind of a bust.”
I roll my eyes, but nod. Their ongoing game of what basically amounts to tug-of-war can get downright tedious a lot of the time, but I do understand why each wants the other to be the one to bend. Luckily for Peyton, I think Luke is about ready to give in and offer to move out here with her. Selfishly, I hope that is the case. It would definitely work out best for me.
“Hopefully now that you’ve both graduated, you can figure things out. Maybe compromise and move to Kansas or something,” I tease her. “You’d both look so cute with overalls and braids in your hair!”
“Shut up,” she grouses good-naturedly. “If that’s the compromise, I’ll tell him that I’ll suck it up and move to Austin with him!”
I grab my bag. “Hey, Peyt?”
“Yeah?” she asks as she jumps up and heads to the door.
“How come you won’t move to Austin? I know you love it there, and they have that funky, young art scene that you’d fit right in with.”
She blinks in surprise as she grabs my purse and carry-on. “Um, I don’t know, I guess I like it here a lot. You know, the sun, my friends, the sun…”
“If you’re staying here because of me, I’ll murder you in your sleep tonight,” I threaten her. “Come on, tell me that I’m not the reason you’re staying here, that you don’t think you have to take care of me or something. I’m fine, you know I’m fine.” It’s not entirely the truth, and the selfish part of me doesn’t mean it at all, but it needs to be said.
“Well, yeah, of course you’re part of the reason, Haley! You’re my best friend, and I adore you. Of course that’s a reason I want to stay here and not move to Austin. But it isn’t because I think you couldn’t survive without me. I’m not quite that vain.”
“Okay, good,” I smile, relieved. After what happened with Nathan, and the role that Brooke played into how things finally ended, I’ve always wondered if that didn’t play into how close Peyton and I have become. Well, I suppose it would have to, at least in some sense, but it has always nagged in the back of my mind that maybe she felt responsible for Brooke, and this was her way of making it up to me. Maybe that isn’t giving myself enough credit, but times like this, I know it is more than that.
Chapter Two *** Chapter Three