“Oh wow, Mom's got her by the ear. Poor lady doesn't stand a chance...”

That's the last thing I hear before I'm unceremoniously shoved into the kitchen of Karen's Cafe by one pissed off Tutor Wife!

Chapter 4

Haley's point of view:

Every morning I wake up and I see the same face reflected in my bathroom mirror. I see a woman, a mother, a teacher. I see sad eyes in a hopeless face. I see Haley James Scott.

It wasn't always like that.

Once, a very long time ago, I saw a very different thing when I looked into a mirror. Once there was a girl, a simple and happy girl. The girl had secret dreams and ugly poncho's, she had text books and school. She had Lucas and Karen and a cafe where she spent most of her childhood in.

That girl was Haley James and I miss her.

Somewhere along the line I lost that girl. Between a marriage, an almost music career and a baby, I left the girl I once was behind. I lost myself in a first love. I gave up and compromised for the sake of that love. Now what do I have to show for it?

I have a husband that's nothing like the boy I fell in love with. I have a marriage that's disintegrating before my very eyes and I'm so tired of looking for ways to hold it all together. I'm tired of constant fights and I'm tired of looking into his angry, broken face.

I'm tired of hearing how he lost everything when I'm right in front of him. When his son is in a room drawing pictures of his hero, of his daddy. When he ignores the things that's really important in this world, that really is the measure of a good life.

I'm just so, so tired.

At least I have my son, he's the only good thing that's come from the last four years of my life. My Jamie, my beautiful blue eyed boy who makes all of this worth it. I don't think I've ever loved anything or anyone as much as I love my son. It's why I'm still here in Tree Hill, why I'm still married to a man I don't think I can love anymore.

Of course there's one more thing holding me in Tree Hill, but God knows I won't admit it. I won't think it and I won't ever acknowledge it. It would hurt too many people, could potentially destroy a family and a bond that was hard fought for. It could mean losing the most profound friendship of my entire life.

So I stay. I stay and I fight for, but mostly with, my husband. I teach and I play with my son and try to distract him from the fact that his father can barely bother to look in his direction. I wake up each morning and look in the mirror and see Haley James Scott and wish that I knew as a girl what I know today as a woman.

I wish I never lost Haley James. I wish I never met Nathan Scott. I wish I had listened to my best friend back then. I wish my heart had realized what it knows now. I wish...

I wish I had fallen in love with the right brother from the start.

God forgive me for thinking it, for me being weak enough to even admit something that should never have been admitted, but it's true.

I love Lucas Scott.

I always have and I always will. The only difference is today I know that I'm very much in love with him. I think I always loved him like this, that he was always meant for me, but I was young and I'd loved him for most of my childhood and never knew the difference.

When I met Nathan it was just so sudden and new and so very exciting. It wasn't anything like the steady, calm sort of love I felt for Lucas. So I took that feeling on face value, labeled Nathan my first love and gave him my all blindly. I was too young to realize that that sort of passion, that sort of fire eventually burnt out. Nathan was the flash flood and Lucas was the gentle flowing river. One came and went soon enough, the other was a constant that cut into the earth and left it's mark over time.

I finally noticed the grooves and curves that Lucas left on my earth. On my life and heart.

So you would think it strange that I'm here, in a kitchen, fighting to keep Brooke Davis from taking Peyton from him. You would think I would want her to break them up, to make Lucas available. You would think that this would be the perfect opportunity for me to act on my feelings, to finally make the right choice and be with Lucas.

Thing is he's happy with Peyton and I made my bed, so I get to sleep in it. I can't and won't help hurt Lucas to make myself happy. So here I am in a kitchen fighting with one of my best friends so that he can stay happy and I can stay miserable. So that two brothers don't end up hating each other again. I won't turn them into Keith and Dan.

“Brooke Davis, what on God's green earth do you think you're doing here?”

I twist her ear just a little, conveying my displeasure at her showing up here like this.

That and the fact that I can smell the alcohol a mile away! She should know better than to be drinking at eleven in the morning. We're all supposed to be grown ups now and that's not very...grownup of her.

“And are you drunk?!”

She squirms as I clinch her captive ear a little harder and then gives me her patented Brooke Davis 'you-can't-resist-me' smile.

“Drunk? Me? Never! Now onto the more important things, like aren't you glad to see me? I mean I'm all hurt now! We don't see each other for years, years Haley and you aren't even a little glad to see me now?”

She gives a fake hurt look, her large hazel eyes almost tearing up a bit, but I'm not falling for it. I have a four year old son that can give a puppy dog look that could break your heart, so she's going to have to try harder than that to get some sympathy out of me.

“Glad? I'm supposed to be glad that you show up here hours after I call you and tell you Peyton and Lucas are getting married? I'm not stupid, Brooke. I may be many things, but I'm not that so you can drop the innocent act with me. Spill it, Missy!”

She sighs, her shoulders slumping and I feel a little pang of guilt for being hard on her. After all, I know better than anyone else how this must hurt her. I was there when she got her heart broken, I saw the aftermath of Lucas and Peyton getting back together. A part of me wants to drag her into my arms and just hug her, promise her everything will get better, but I'm not that naïve anymore. Things don't work like that, no matter how much you wish it did.

The best thing I can do for her right now is be realistic and stop her from doing anything stupid that could get not only Lucas and Peyton hurt, but Brooke herself too in the end. She's my friend too and I'll protect her from anything, even her own impulsive nature.