Truth Is Still Absolute

Tree Hill is just a place somewhere in the world. Maybe it's a lot like your world. Maybe it's nothing like it. But if you look closer, you might see someone like you. Lucas visits his editor/ex-fiancé in New York, Peyton destroys her record label,

 

Chapter Two

Truth Is Still Absolute

            “You really want the truth, Lucas?” Lindsay asked, flipping through the pages of Lucas’s manuscript, still mesmerized by the beauty of his elegant and creative writing style. Even after months of evasion due to her hypercritical thinking during their wedding, Lucas Scott still had that charm, that flair, that grace he carried with him like everything would be O.K.

 

            Lucas gave her a small smile. “You’re my editor,” he said. “aren’t you supposed to be honest with me?”

 

            “Touché,” she replied. “The last chapter…needs work,” Lindsay informed him reluctantly. The reluctance was meant to not offend him, but also from preventing the book to get published any time soon. Unfortunately for Lindsay, the last chapter of Lucas’s third novel was about her.

 

            At this, Lucas frowned. “Needs work? What’s wrong with it?”

 

            “Luke, we both know why you wrote that chapter,” Lindsay said, choosing her words carefully, “and not only does it effect you and I, but think about what’ll happen if Peyton reads it. Or Brooke even.”

 

            “The last chapter of the book has nothing to do with how I feel about you,” he told her scathingly.

           

            “Oh, it doesn’t? Let’s see, An Unkindness of Ravens was pretty much a huge love letter to Peyton; Your second book another love letter to Peyton, and third book goes to me? Where’s Brooke’s piece of the pie, Lucas?” she shouted.

 

            “Lindsay, they’re just books!” Lucas yelled.

 

            “No, Luke! They’re your life. Revolving around three women who don’t deserve your incompetence! This is the last book I will ever edit for you. From here on out, find yourself another damn editor. Better yet, find yourself a better publisher.”

 

            “You can’t do that,” he objected.

 

            “I’m the rightful owner of this company, Luke. I can do whatever the hell I want. Get out of my office.”

 

            “Lindsay—”

 

            “Get out or I’ll call security, who’ll be happy to ‘escort’ you from the building,” she warned.

 

            Lucas stood. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t even bother to take the manuscript when she slid it over the desk toward him. Lucas went to the door, looked over his shoulder, and muttered, “Keep it. It revolves around you, remember?”

 

***

            Peyton went to the one place where she had always known to come and love. Her record label. It was here where Mia’s stardom had began as a musician, and at the moment, where Haley was climbing the ranks of stardom herself. This was the record label where she had let a******s like the rest of Mia’s band members treat her like dirt. The same record label where Victoria Davis—Brooke’s mother—had trash talked Mia’s playing skills. Without realizing it, Peyton grabbed a copy of Lucas’s book from her purse and flipped open to a page. The page read:

 

            “There is a time when the son receives what father’s call ‘the torch.’ The torch, often resembles hope, trust, loyalty, ‘the man of the house.’ Sometimes the torch represents evil and the darkness in mankind’s hearts. Can you feel it? Can you see it? It is there. It is waiting to be unleashed.”

 

            “It is waiting to be unleashed,” repeated Peyton in a melodramatic voice. She reached into her purse once more and pulled out a lighter. She looked around at the record label, admiring the grand piano, the picture of Mia at the Starburst Tour, and the photo that Haley kept of Nathan Scott and their son, Jamie. Right now, none of that mattered. The only thing that did matter were the troublesome memories sifting through her head at that moment in time. At that moment in time, she dropped the lighter.

 

            At that moment in time, Peyton Sawyer’s record label began to burn.

 

***

            Dan Scott had been many things in his lifetime, ranging from the mayor of Tree Hill to an ex convict at the county jail. He had been a younger brother to the mechanic of Tree Hill, Keith Scott; he had been the father of both Nathan and Lucas Scott; the ex-husband of Deb Scott; and the ex-boyfriend of Lucas’s mother. Dan Scott had been quite the renaissance man of Tree Hill. Now he was lying in a hospital bed, scarcely a memory to any of the lives he’d ruined over the past five years. Not that anyone would want to remember the man that had murdered his own brother.

 

            A nurse stared at the dark-haired woman that kept insisting she see Dan Scott.

 

            “What’s your name again?” the nurse asked politely.

 

            “Karen,” she told her. “Karen Roe.”

 

            The nurse led Karen into Dan’s room and offered her a chair and coffee. Karen nodded her head to the coffee, elated to at least have found some competent assistance inside the hospital, as the nurse left the room.

 

            “Are you related to this man?” the nurse asked, returning with a steaming cup of coffee. “I put sugar and cream in your coffee,” she added.

 

            “Thanks,” Karen said, smiling faintly. “He fathered my child, then abandoned us for another woman and had another son, Nathan.”

 

            “Nathan Scott?” the nurse asked.

 

            “Yes, why?”

 

            “I just remember him playing shooting guard for the Tree Hill High basketball team. Quite a shooting guard that one.”

 

            “Yes,” Karen agreed. “yes he was. He’s a good brother as well.”

 

            “Lucas, right?” the nurse asked.

 

            Karen nodded surreptitiously, wondering why this nurse was so knowledgeable about her family. A disturbing thought popped into her head, but she did her best to keep the warming smile on her face.

 

            “Do you remember what happened?” she asked, changing the subject as she stared at Dan’s motionless body.

 

            “Hit and run,” the nurse replied heavily. “The old couple outside said he was a nice man, didn’t deserve to get hit by that car.”

 

            “If only that old couple knew Dan Scott like I do,” she murmured under her breath. Karen glanced at the room door to see if the nurse was still there, but she had disappeared from the room. She took a sip of coffee as she watched Dan’s chest rise and fall like the tides of the ocean. That’s when all hell broke loose, as if Lucifer himself rose from the fiery abyss and sent Dan a free ticket to hell.

 

            The steady beep that measured her ex-boyfriend’s heartbeat turned into a long, monotonous tone and dragged on for an eternity.

 

            Karen was too stunned to even utter a cry for assistance. The nurse that had offered her the coffee barged into the room, taking in the scene, then doing a double take before ushering her out of the room.

 

            Doctors surged past her, bringing in the electric shock paddles that were used to jumpstart a person’s heart. She didn’t know why, but as she heard the words, “1, 2, 3, clear!” she prayed to God that Dan Scott—the man that had made every life in Tree Hill a mockery—lived.

 

            The nurse came out a second later, placing a comforting hand on Karen Roe’s shoulder. “Those are the best doctors in Tree Hill. The best money could buy. I’m sure you’re ex-boyfriend will be fine.” Those few words held no comfort in their tone.

 

Karen kept on praying.

 

Five minutes past, ten minutes, thirty, finally an hour went by when the doctors recurred from Dan Scott’s room with a grave look on his face. Karen burst into the room, dropping her coffee on the floor.

 

Karen Roe would never forget the sight she saw in that hospital room.

 

            One of the doctors was tossing a white sheet over Dan’s body. He checked his watch, looked at Karen, and said the words she didn’t wan to hear, “Time of death, 8:45 p.m.”

 

            Dan Scott, the renaissance man of Tree Hill, was dead.

 

            Karen retrieved her phone from a purse and dialed a number. Hundreds of miles away, her son, Lucas Scott answered.

 

            “Hello?” he said sleepily.

 

            “Lucas, it’s your mother,” Karen said, attempting to keep the misery from her voice.

 

            “Hey, mom. I just boarded the plane. I’m on way back to Tree Hill,” he told her.

 

            Through the tears, Karen smiled. “That’s good, Luke,” her son remained quiet on the other line. “You were right about something in your book, Lucas.”

 

            “Right about what?” Luke asked, puzzled.

 

            “Truth is still absolute.” She hung up.

 

Author's Note

A friend of mine wanted me to broaden my horizons a bit. So, I figured I'd write a fan-fiction about one of my favorite television shows: One Tree Hill.
Be rough with it guys, this is the first time I've ever stepped away from the fantasy genre, and I want to see which one works out better.