Chapter Two Part Two
Haley James used to get in trouble for staying up late. She would refuse to go to sleep, being much more inclined to lie on the floor in Bethany's room, forgotten, while her older sisters passionately discussed both the pitfalls and the joys of adolescence. They had been teenagers at the time, fourteen, fifteen and twelve, completely boy-crazy and full of pre- pubescent energy. She would watch them tape pictures of Christian Slater and Jonathan Taylor Thomas up on their walls, scream as they watched The New Kids on the Block answer questions from fans on MTV, and practice learning every choreographed dance from the latest Janet Jackson music video.
But Bethany's room was now her room. It had been repainted and redecorated since her sister moved out but the carpet was the same, and sometimes as Haley was lying in bed, her eyes would travel downward and instantly she was six years old again, hearing her sisters voices giggling about boys, trading hair-crimping tips or promising each other that the time was just around the corner when the James household would become inundated with boys knocking down their door.
And did they ever. Tall boys, short boys, blonde boys, redheaded boys, boys with lisps, boys with studded earrings, lanky boys, boys with cars, boys who still rode bikes, rebellious boys, preppy boys, boys who memorized Star Wars, boys in wood shop, boys who thought they were the fourth member of the Beastie Boys, boys on Honor roll, boys with decorum, most without; she witnessed it all.
There had been boys like Nathan. Sports-playing, devastatingly handsome, nimbly fingered, smart mouthed, ill tempered. Those were the boys her sisters cried over the most. That was the boy she had cried over on the floor of Karen's Café.
He could have easily walked away after that night. He could have easily pleaded with her to remain his tutor but to leave it indefinitely at that. He would have been like all the others who never went that extra step to jump over the barbed wire fenced around her emotions. But instead, he had pursued her: tracking her down at the music store the morning after the Scott party, convincing her to give Brooke's serial date a chance, throwing rocks at her parent's bedroom so he could explain his reaction to Tim and the team crashing that date.
Nathan turned the invisible girl visible.
His power to do so rested in his arms as they completely encircled her tiny frame, in his warm breath as he sighed into her neck, in his fingertips as he kneaded the muscles down her back. His power also rested in his palms as he sweetly rubbed small circles on her back, in his wide-opened eyes as he refused to tear his gaze away from her face.
But mostly, it rested in the words he spoke; his inflection filled with comfort and understanding, total sincerity and appreciation. "You know, it's actually a relief that Whitey cancelled b-ball," he reflected on the news he had heard earlier.
Haley knew he would never enjoy the game unless he took basketball out of context and re-associated it with fun, strength and ability not competition and devaluation. "Well, you need to remember why you love the game before you can start to enjoy it again," she replied.
"I don't know. Sometimes I think I never liked it to begin with," he said sadly.
His hands drifted down towards her side and she shifted as he made contact with her ticklish parts. She let out a soft cry and quickly turned over, wiggled out of his embrace and sat up.
"Hey, never there," she raised her eyebrow at him, before continuing. "Anyway, I just don't think that's true Nathan and maybe if you spend some time playing on your own terms with no Whitey and no team, you'll change your mind. I can even come with you if you want."
His eyes lit up. "You'll play b-ball with me?" he asked to clarify, with a huge smile on his face.
"Yes," she reaffirmed. The look he gave her was one of lifted relief. If Haley had been vertical she would have been bouncing on her heels. He wanted to share basketball with her. "We can go to the park tomorrow," she tried to hide the excitement in her voice but couldn't.
He leaned in, pushed a strand of hair away from her eyes, and then kissed her. A few moments later a buzzing sound broke their concentration. "Hey, you're vibrating," he commented.
Haley laughed and pecked his lips as she reached into her pocket for the phone. Caller ID: Lucas. She let the call go to voicemail. "He can wait."
It was something she had to do. The new sensations she felt being close to Nathan were overwhelming and at the moment Haley didn't want to rehash Lucas's problems with him twice in one day, especially since she had a feeling he was going to be in the middle of this twisted triangle for a while to come. Besides Haley wasn't done cuddling and that was just as important, if not more. "Come here," she whispered to Nathan, who had moved coyly towards the edge of the bed.
Haley took a good look at him before he closed the space between them, still chuckling at her dismissal of Lucas, but stopping so he could lower his lips onto hers. "Much better," she breathed. "Much, much better."
**
Later that day, the outside world proved to be a lot more sobering than the peaceful morning Nathan and Haley shared in her house.
First, they had dealt with his mother. Deb greeted Nathan with cold apathy. He had been confused at first, since he expected his mother to make a big fuss out of his appearance, but when it dawned on him, he turned to Haley and whispered under his breath: "Oh shit, she knows."
Lucas had made an unexpected trip to the Café and was sitting there talking to Deb when Nathan and Haley arrived. He looked over to Nathan and said with a stoic face, "all I said was that I spoke to Haley this morning and you were there," holding up his hands like he was surrendering for something. "You shouldn't have lied to her man."
Nathan retreated after Deb into the kitchen where he attempted to apologize on behalf of himself and Haley for not telling Deb the truth about where he had been the night before, and for not calling at all when he first left the hospital. He was received with a cold shoulder and a sorrowful expression that only a mother could have etched into her features. "I'm really sorry Mom," Nathan tried again, but to no avail.
"I wanted one night away from you and dad. Is that really so bad, considering what happened?" he said, pausing for his mother to finally break her stoic vow, but when she made no move he stormed out for good.
He didn't hear her sigh when the door slammed, and he couldn't know what was in Deb's thoughts. [I]I am not your father, Nathan. I don't treat you like he does,[/I] she reminded him, only he was long gone.
The cause for her mind-rumblings and speculations stemmed from the fact that today Deb actually had a conversation with Lucas for the first time today. It had really been more of a two minute meet-and-greet than a conversation, before he pulled out a book and sat and read for a while, but at least it was something in comparison to the usual cold-shoulder turn around she usually received.
Deb had noticed immediately that something was bothering the boy and she called him on it, doubting that he would confide in her about anything but hoping that maybe he would give her a chance. Always polite, Lucas had thanked her for asking but said that it wasn't a problem he couldn't fix for himself or with Haley's help. Which is why he had come to the Café. He had braved a possible run-in with Dan so that he could see Haley. But Haley was with Nathan at her house. Nathan was with Haley all night. Nathan was in a lot of trouble for lying, and no matter how much Deb wanted to yell and get all her emotions out, she had kept it inside, refusing to even talk to her son.
She was tired, and fed up, and a part of her knew that Nathan's apologies were nothing more than Haley force-feeding him polite etiquette.
It was shocking to her how both boys could have been born of Dan's parentage but had been reared so differently. When she looked at Lucas, her husband's eldest child, she wondered where he got that head of dirty, sandy blonde hair that seemed to evolve separately from his DNA. No one in the Roe or Scott families had blonde hair. Keith had light hair, though. Keith had a pleasant disposition, unlike Dan.
She turned her analysis inward. She didn't always have blonde hair. It was the day after she turned thirty-five, when she looked in the mirror and saw a long silver strand corroding her chocolate brown hair, that she made an emergency trip to the hair salon, chopped her hair off at the ears and started dying it the "girls-just-wanna-have-fun" color it was now. She understood where her light hair came from. It was mixed from a bottle and applied from root to tip every month.
So it was almost like Lucas hid his paternity physically and emotionally. Not that he had a choice in either matter; that had been her husband's, and mother natures, doing. She wondered if it confused Lucas as much as it confused her.
Nathan on the other hand, was almost the spitting image of Dan. It used to make her so proud, but now it caused butterflies to flap their wings against the walls of her stomach. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark inside too.
She sighed. It was the truth, except when he was around Haley.
Deb swung open the kitchen door and stepped through into the main room of the Café. Haley was standing by the door, eyes-wide and hands fidgeting at her side, neck and head in constant motion from looking between Lucas standing next to her and Nathan, who must have just walked out the door. "Will you just go after him?" she heard Haley practically seethe at him. "I can't leave when she's already really mad. I don't want things to get even worse for him."
"What do you think went on in there?" Lucas asked back.
"I don't know Luke that's why I'm telling you to make yourself useful and go see if my boyfriend is okay!"
Deb realized immediately that Haley snapping at Lucas was more about her being worried for Nathan but not wanting to leave and possibly make things worse with his mother. The girl was too responsible sometimes. Deb would let her follow Nathan, in fact she was more than thrilled to send him the best thing that had ever happened to him. "Go," she motioned to the door. "Find him, take him home, make sure he."
But Haley didn't hear any more. She was out the door in an instant and running down the street. "Nathan," she called out to him. He stopped at the sound of her voice and turned around. He opened his arms and she ran into them. "You left?" he asked.
"I had a small conflict of interest," she said weakly, bringing a hand up to touch his face.
"You didn't leave until she let you, right?" he started to grin and didn't sound mad in the slightest that she needed his mother's permission.
"Well, yeah, but I had almost started wearing holes in the carpet waiting for her," she said, looking downward. "Like, black-hole sized ones."
Nathan was quiet for a moment but then spoke up. "I'll find a way to work it out with Mom. She's disappointed in me, and she's probably pissed at Dad, but she'll get over it and when she does things will go back to normal."
Haley nodded. She didn't want to tell him it probably wouldn't work out like that, so instead she just kissed him softly on the lips.
**
Next, they had to dodge Lucas otherwise they would spend the rest of the afternoon and evening with a third-wheel tagging along looking for relationship advice. They had walked halfway to the park when Lucas caught up with them.
"Hey," he said as Haley turned around to face him. "I said I still needed to talk to you."
"And I told you earlier what to do. I don't want to talk this into the ground. Just do what I said - go to Peyton and tell her you want her back."
Nathan shifted uncomfortably as Haley talked with Lucas, and the interesting thing was, she was shifting uncomfortably too. Her eyes kept darting back and forth between Lucas and Nathan and when she kept her glance on one too long, her hands began to sweat and she ceremoniously had to look at the other. How was this ever going to work?
"It's not that easy Haley. I - Brooke stayed over last night. If I go back to Peyton now, it'll really hurt Brooke."
Nathan, enjoying the change of subject away from his home life, decided to voice his own opinion on the matter. "I have some advice," he ventured. "Pick Brooke."
Haley nudged him, eyes widened. "Are you kidding?" she asked him.
"Look Haley, the guy obviously wants to have some fun. Let him," Nathan answered.
Lucas piped in, stepping closer to Nathan. "I don't need you to talk for me," he said angrily.
Nathan went to push him back. "Hey, back off."
Haley shook her head. "I did step into a black hole," she lamented dryly. "Put your machismo on hold, both of you. I need to think."
She turned to Luke after a moment. "I don't understand you. You're not acting like the Lucas I know and love, and because of that, I'm going to agree with Nathan, because Peyton deserves more than having you jerk her around. If you were with Brooke last night, it means you ultimately wanted to choose her, so go with it. Have fun. I hope it makes you happy." With that, Haley turned her back.
Nathan stepped in line with her. "You probably shouldn't follow us, but she'll call you later, if you still feel like being an indecisive pansy," he said to Lucas.
He took Haley's hand in his and the two started to walk away down the street.
"Is that the closest we're ever going to get to a civil conversation between the three of us: me getting emotional, Lucas being confrontational and you goading him," she asked disheartened.
"Probably," Nathan answered honestly.
The tiniest of smiles flickered across her face. "I was just checking."
**
"Say that again? You want to go home and read sonnets?" she asked Nathan incredulously.
The two were sitting on a bench at the park.
"Is that so weird?" he asked back, a smile slowly creeping up his face, contorting his features with the hidden dimples that emerged from their hidden spots.
"You just want to study in bed until you get tired and fall asleep on me," she said with a laugh.
"That sounds good to me," he admitted.
His head was angled down at hers and he still had a smile on his face. She looked up slightly into his eyes and let her smile mirror his. "You're real lucky 'Math' is good at English too, or you would be in such trouble. You'd have to find yourself another tutor."
He shook his head just slightly. He hadn't broken eye contact with her. Her cheek muscles were starting to hurt from holding up her smile but there was no other expression she could have on her face at this moment that would convey the way she felt when Nathan stared into her eyes.
"Never," he responded. "I told you once, I'll tell you again. There could never have been anyone else."
Haley James used to get in trouble for staying up late. She would refuse to go to sleep, being much more inclined to lie on the floor in Bethany's room, forgotten, while her older sisters passionately discussed both the pitfalls and the joys of adolescence. They had been teenagers at the time, fourteen, fifteen and twelve, completely boy-crazy and full of pre- pubescent energy. She would watch them tape pictures of Christian Slater and Jonathan Taylor Thomas up on their walls, scream as they watched The New Kids on the Block answer questions from fans on MTV, and practice learning every choreographed dance from the latest Janet Jackson music video.
But Bethany's room was now her room. It had been repainted and redecorated since her sister moved out but the carpet was the same, and sometimes as Haley was lying in bed, her eyes would travel downward and instantly she was six years old again, hearing her sisters voices giggling about boys, trading hair-crimping tips or promising each other that the time was just around the corner when the James household would become inundated with boys knocking down their door.
And did they ever. Tall boys, short boys, blonde boys, redheaded boys, boys with lisps, boys with studded earrings, lanky boys, boys with cars, boys who still rode bikes, rebellious boys, preppy boys, boys who memorized Star Wars, boys in wood shop, boys who thought they were the fourth member of the Beastie Boys, boys on Honor roll, boys with decorum, most without; she witnessed it all.
There had been boys like Nathan. Sports-playing, devastatingly handsome, nimbly fingered, smart mouthed, ill tempered. Those were the boys her sisters cried over the most. That was the boy she had cried over on the floor of Karen's Café.
He could have easily walked away after that night. He could have easily pleaded with her to remain his tutor but to leave it indefinitely at that. He would have been like all the others who never went that extra step to jump over the barbed wire fenced around her emotions. But instead, he had pursued her: tracking her down at the music store the morning after the Scott party, convincing her to give Brooke's serial date a chance, throwing rocks at her parent's bedroom so he could explain his reaction to Tim and the team crashing that date.
Nathan turned the invisible girl visible.
His power to do so rested in his arms as they completely encircled her tiny frame, in his warm breath as he sighed into her neck, in his fingertips as he kneaded the muscles down her back. His power also rested in his palms as he sweetly rubbed small circles on her back, in his wide-opened eyes as he refused to tear his gaze away from her face.
But mostly, it rested in the words he spoke; his inflection filled with comfort and understanding, total sincerity and appreciation. "You know, it's actually a relief that Whitey cancelled b-ball," he reflected on the news he had heard earlier.
Haley knew he would never enjoy the game unless he took basketball out of context and re-associated it with fun, strength and ability not competition and devaluation. "Well, you need to remember why you love the game before you can start to enjoy it again," she replied.
"I don't know. Sometimes I think I never liked it to begin with," he said sadly.
His hands drifted down towards her side and she shifted as he made contact with her ticklish parts. She let out a soft cry and quickly turned over, wiggled out of his embrace and sat up.
"Hey, never there," she raised her eyebrow at him, before continuing. "Anyway, I just don't think that's true Nathan and maybe if you spend some time playing on your own terms with no Whitey and no team, you'll change your mind. I can even come with you if you want."
His eyes lit up. "You'll play b-ball with me?" he asked to clarify, with a huge smile on his face.
"Yes," she reaffirmed. The look he gave her was one of lifted relief. If Haley had been vertical she would have been bouncing on her heels. He wanted to share basketball with her. "We can go to the park tomorrow," she tried to hide the excitement in her voice but couldn't.
He leaned in, pushed a strand of hair away from her eyes, and then kissed her. A few moments later a buzzing sound broke their concentration. "Hey, you're vibrating," he commented.
Haley laughed and pecked his lips as she reached into her pocket for the phone. Caller ID: Lucas. She let the call go to voicemail. "He can wait."
It was something she had to do. The new sensations she felt being close to Nathan were overwhelming and at the moment Haley didn't want to rehash Lucas's problems with him twice in one day, especially since she had a feeling he was going to be in the middle of this twisted triangle for a while to come. Besides Haley wasn't done cuddling and that was just as important, if not more. "Come here," she whispered to Nathan, who had moved coyly towards the edge of the bed.
Haley took a good look at him before he closed the space between them, still chuckling at her dismissal of Lucas, but stopping so he could lower his lips onto hers. "Much better," she breathed. "Much, much better."
**
Later that day, the outside world proved to be a lot more sobering than the peaceful morning Nathan and Haley shared in her house.
First, they had dealt with his mother. Deb greeted Nathan with cold apathy. He had been confused at first, since he expected his mother to make a big fuss out of his appearance, but when it dawned on him, he turned to Haley and whispered under his breath: "Oh shit, she knows."
Lucas had made an unexpected trip to the Café and was sitting there talking to Deb when Nathan and Haley arrived. He looked over to Nathan and said with a stoic face, "all I said was that I spoke to Haley this morning and you were there," holding up his hands like he was surrendering for something. "You shouldn't have lied to her man."
Nathan retreated after Deb into the kitchen where he attempted to apologize on behalf of himself and Haley for not telling Deb the truth about where he had been the night before, and for not calling at all when he first left the hospital. He was received with a cold shoulder and a sorrowful expression that only a mother could have etched into her features. "I'm really sorry Mom," Nathan tried again, but to no avail.
"I wanted one night away from you and dad. Is that really so bad, considering what happened?" he said, pausing for his mother to finally break her stoic vow, but when she made no move he stormed out for good.
He didn't hear her sigh when the door slammed, and he couldn't know what was in Deb's thoughts. [I]I am not your father, Nathan. I don't treat you like he does,[/I] she reminded him, only he was long gone.
The cause for her mind-rumblings and speculations stemmed from the fact that today Deb actually had a conversation with Lucas for the first time today. It had really been more of a two minute meet-and-greet than a conversation, before he pulled out a book and sat and read for a while, but at least it was something in comparison to the usual cold-shoulder turn around she usually received.
Deb had noticed immediately that something was bothering the boy and she called him on it, doubting that he would confide in her about anything but hoping that maybe he would give her a chance. Always polite, Lucas had thanked her for asking but said that it wasn't a problem he couldn't fix for himself or with Haley's help. Which is why he had come to the Café. He had braved a possible run-in with Dan so that he could see Haley. But Haley was with Nathan at her house. Nathan was with Haley all night. Nathan was in a lot of trouble for lying, and no matter how much Deb wanted to yell and get all her emotions out, she had kept it inside, refusing to even talk to her son.
She was tired, and fed up, and a part of her knew that Nathan's apologies were nothing more than Haley force-feeding him polite etiquette.
It was shocking to her how both boys could have been born of Dan's parentage but had been reared so differently. When she looked at Lucas, her husband's eldest child, she wondered where he got that head of dirty, sandy blonde hair that seemed to evolve separately from his DNA. No one in the Roe or Scott families had blonde hair. Keith had light hair, though. Keith had a pleasant disposition, unlike Dan.
She turned her analysis inward. She didn't always have blonde hair. It was the day after she turned thirty-five, when she looked in the mirror and saw a long silver strand corroding her chocolate brown hair, that she made an emergency trip to the hair salon, chopped her hair off at the ears and started dying it the "girls-just-wanna-have-fun" color it was now. She understood where her light hair came from. It was mixed from a bottle and applied from root to tip every month.
So it was almost like Lucas hid his paternity physically and emotionally. Not that he had a choice in either matter; that had been her husband's, and mother natures, doing. She wondered if it confused Lucas as much as it confused her.
Nathan on the other hand, was almost the spitting image of Dan. It used to make her so proud, but now it caused butterflies to flap their wings against the walls of her stomach. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark inside too.
She sighed. It was the truth, except when he was around Haley.
Deb swung open the kitchen door and stepped through into the main room of the Café. Haley was standing by the door, eyes-wide and hands fidgeting at her side, neck and head in constant motion from looking between Lucas standing next to her and Nathan, who must have just walked out the door. "Will you just go after him?" she heard Haley practically seethe at him. "I can't leave when she's already really mad. I don't want things to get even worse for him."
"What do you think went on in there?" Lucas asked back.
"I don't know Luke that's why I'm telling you to make yourself useful and go see if my boyfriend is okay!"
Deb realized immediately that Haley snapping at Lucas was more about her being worried for Nathan but not wanting to leave and possibly make things worse with his mother. The girl was too responsible sometimes. Deb would let her follow Nathan, in fact she was more than thrilled to send him the best thing that had ever happened to him. "Go," she motioned to the door. "Find him, take him home, make sure he."
But Haley didn't hear any more. She was out the door in an instant and running down the street. "Nathan," she called out to him. He stopped at the sound of her voice and turned around. He opened his arms and she ran into them. "You left?" he asked.
"I had a small conflict of interest," she said weakly, bringing a hand up to touch his face.
"You didn't leave until she let you, right?" he started to grin and didn't sound mad in the slightest that she needed his mother's permission.
"Well, yeah, but I had almost started wearing holes in the carpet waiting for her," she said, looking downward. "Like, black-hole sized ones."
Nathan was quiet for a moment but then spoke up. "I'll find a way to work it out with Mom. She's disappointed in me, and she's probably pissed at Dad, but she'll get over it and when she does things will go back to normal."
Haley nodded. She didn't want to tell him it probably wouldn't work out like that, so instead she just kissed him softly on the lips.
**
Next, they had to dodge Lucas otherwise they would spend the rest of the afternoon and evening with a third-wheel tagging along looking for relationship advice. They had walked halfway to the park when Lucas caught up with them.
"Hey," he said as Haley turned around to face him. "I said I still needed to talk to you."
"And I told you earlier what to do. I don't want to talk this into the ground. Just do what I said - go to Peyton and tell her you want her back."
Nathan shifted uncomfortably as Haley talked with Lucas, and the interesting thing was, she was shifting uncomfortably too. Her eyes kept darting back and forth between Lucas and Nathan and when she kept her glance on one too long, her hands began to sweat and she ceremoniously had to look at the other. How was this ever going to work?
"It's not that easy Haley. I - Brooke stayed over last night. If I go back to Peyton now, it'll really hurt Brooke."
Nathan, enjoying the change of subject away from his home life, decided to voice his own opinion on the matter. "I have some advice," he ventured. "Pick Brooke."
Haley nudged him, eyes widened. "Are you kidding?" she asked him.
"Look Haley, the guy obviously wants to have some fun. Let him," Nathan answered.
Lucas piped in, stepping closer to Nathan. "I don't need you to talk for me," he said angrily.
Nathan went to push him back. "Hey, back off."
Haley shook her head. "I did step into a black hole," she lamented dryly. "Put your machismo on hold, both of you. I need to think."
She turned to Luke after a moment. "I don't understand you. You're not acting like the Lucas I know and love, and because of that, I'm going to agree with Nathan, because Peyton deserves more than having you jerk her around. If you were with Brooke last night, it means you ultimately wanted to choose her, so go with it. Have fun. I hope it makes you happy." With that, Haley turned her back.
Nathan stepped in line with her. "You probably shouldn't follow us, but she'll call you later, if you still feel like being an indecisive pansy," he said to Lucas.
He took Haley's hand in his and the two started to walk away down the street.
"Is that the closest we're ever going to get to a civil conversation between the three of us: me getting emotional, Lucas being confrontational and you goading him," she asked disheartened.
"Probably," Nathan answered honestly.
The tiniest of smiles flickered across her face. "I was just checking."
**
"Say that again? You want to go home and read sonnets?" she asked Nathan incredulously.
The two were sitting on a bench at the park.
"Is that so weird?" he asked back, a smile slowly creeping up his face, contorting his features with the hidden dimples that emerged from their hidden spots.
"You just want to study in bed until you get tired and fall asleep on me," she said with a laugh.
"That sounds good to me," he admitted.
His head was angled down at hers and he still had a smile on his face. She looked up slightly into his eyes and let her smile mirror his. "You're real lucky 'Math' is good at English too, or you would be in such trouble. You'd have to find yourself another tutor."
He shook his head just slightly. He hadn't broken eye contact with her. Her cheek muscles were starting to hurt from holding up her smile but there was no other expression she could have on her face at this moment that would convey the way she felt when Nathan stared into her eyes.
"Never," he responded. "I told you once, I'll tell you again. There could never have been anyone else."