1. Some random boy
The first time she feels it, she doesn’t know how to name it. She’s fourteen. She’s never felt it before. It’s unpleasant and achy and it makes her chest hot and something inside her brain screams mine!
Brooke is kissing some boy as they play truth or dare.
She knows this is what they have spent all summer training for. It’s stupid of her to feel weird about it. She shouldn’t mind. In fact - she convinces herself she doesn’t.
She walks outside, to the house’s backyard, and she finds some senior there, a pack of cigarettes in his hands. He offers her one. She takes it.
The effect is immediate.
It relaxes her.
She lets the smoke out through her mouth - the senior laughs.
Brooke approaches her in a rush, disapproval all over her face when she sees what she’s been doing. She takes her by the hand and makes Peyton promise she won’t smoke again.
She does smoke again, though. Because she’s a loner and her best friend wants to kiss boys at party games and she doesn’t know how to explain it but it makes her feel weird and anxious. As if she shouldn’t be kissing those boys. As if– Well. That’s not how the world works. Girls kiss boys. Girls only kiss each other as training. Brooke had told her that. She can’t keep feeling like that.
She lights up another cig and decides not to think about it again.
2. Lucas
If she’s being really honest, she knows what she’s doing. She knows because she has done it before, when Nathan had first tried to fool around with Brooke and she pretended she was into him. She knew Brooke was not into him, but Brooke had always wanted everyone’s approval so badly. And, well, boys are dumb. Nathan had never really cared about her, and her needs, or anything else. He, too, had always wanted everyone’s approval so badly.
When she first met Lucas, she thought he was stupid. A pretentious prick. A jerk. A bastard who dreamed of living Nathan’s life (that wasn’t even that good, to begin with…).
But Brooke had been telling her about wanting a boyfriend lately. And then she saw it in her eyes - the desire, the interest, the projection. She’d said something about rectangles at that game. She’d said something about liking Lucas.
Peyton knew Lucas wanted her, not Brooke. She knew he wanted her because he saw her as some sort of manic pixie dream girl, but whatever, boys are dumb. What was the best next thing a boy could think of her? At least he thought she gave his life some meaning.
Perhaps she could like him back. She could make herself like him back.
This way, she wouldn’t have to– Well. It’d be better not to think of it. It’d be better to bury it deep inside her mind.
3. Haley
They were on their way to New York City - Brooke, Haley, and herself. It’d be a quick stop before they went on to the cheer championship the next day.
They’d share a bed away from Larry for the first time since they told each other they were the girl the other loved. Since they told each other they were in love.
It had been said, finally, and Brooke had rested her forehead on hers after she told her, and she had offered her a ride up, and they’d laughed. And now they’d been touching a lot again.
They hadn’t done anything else.
Brooke was still dating Lucas.
She knew she had to be a bit clearer. Perhaps she’d be able to do it tonight, in NYC, if she could only find a way to dodge Haley.
She’d probably be able to figure something out later. Right now, Brooke’s babbling about the fashion show, and she’s just so beautiful–
Peyton can’t help but smile as she hears Brooke talking. God, she loves Brooke’s voice. She loves Brooke’s face. Her heart skips a beat, and she knows she’s gotta contain the huge grin or it will be suspicious.
“So, H. James Scott…”
The nickname brings her back to Earth. Her ears get warm. She replies to whatever nonsense Haley had said about sleeping with Nate with you’re so Brooke’s roommate.
But, truth is, she wanted to sleep alone with her too. And even though she’d be the one to make them be friends, she feels a bit like an outsider. Like they’re closer to each other than they’re close to her, now.
Like Haley took her place.
But you don’t want that place. What you feel is not platonic. You want to hold Brooke’s hand. Well. You already hold Brooke’s hand. You already share a bed. I wanna kiss her whenever we feel like it. I wanna be her girlfriend.You gotta do something about it.
So, later that night, when they find out they’ll have to leave Brooke alone in the city, she finds a way to kiss her - it’s only a peck on the lips, and it could have been an accident, and Brooke brushes it off nonchalantly.
(Peyton notices her hands are shaking, though, and for now it’s enough).
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” She whispers, her nose nuzzling into Brooke’s cheek. “Call me before the show, okay?”
Brooke nods. Peyton can feel her fingers trembling.
“I love you, B. Davis, you rockstar.”
“I love you, too.”
And Peyton knows how she means it. And, right then, she’s confident they’ll find a way to each other.
4. Rachel
When Rachel is living with them at the beach house, she needs to be taken care of. She knows that’s why Brooke is spending all her free time with her. She knows that’s why Brooke has been holding her hand all the damn time.
She has offered to help, too. Sometimes she’s been spending entire days with Rachel.
But she can’t really pretend she’s enjoying it. Because she’s definitely not. Rachel is a snob. She also acts like she owns every band Peyton has ever liked.
And the way she looks at Brooke, it pisses her off so much. It always has. But now that they’re not fighting, it’s worse, because she’s witnessing it from too close. Rachel practically drools all over her. It’s obvious she has a crush.
It’s obvious she relapsed because Brooke fired her.
She knows Rachel because she functions the same way.
It’s getting more and more difficult to deny it - to deny how she’s felt about Brooke her whole life. It’s not fair that, right when she’d decided to finally tell her the whole truth, Rachel had come back into their lives.
Not that Brooke loves Rachel like that. She knows she doesn’t - right?
It’s in Peyton’s bed that she has been sleeping for the past year. It’s onto Peyton that she snuggles during cold Sunday mornings.
It had been with her that– They don’t mention that trip. But they should.
Because Peyton sees the way Brooke looks at her when she thinks she’s not looking. She can hear her sighs before she opens her eyes early, Brooke’s hand on her mess of a hair, touching fondly.
But she can’t tell Brooke anything now, with Rachel there. So she keeps on being moody. Brooke doesn’t understand it, of course. She’s at a loss.
She’d been sleeping in her own room, with Rachel by her side, lately - to prevent her from relapsing, and it makes Peyton’s blood boil.
On a Thursday night, she decides it’s too much to witness Rachel’s attempts at cuddling Brooke on the couch, clears her throat and mouths a very pissed g’night. Brooke seems startled at that. She disentangles herself from Rachel and walks after her.
“Peyton?” She calls her, her voice thick, her eyes confused “What the hell–?”
“I’m fucking tired of this, that’s all,” Peyton says, rolling her eyes, changing into an oversized shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Brooke raises her brows.
“Whoa,” She says, clenching her jaw. “That was kinda rude.” Peyton scoffs, getting closer.
“As if I give a fuck.” Peyton snarls. “I don’t trust her. She doesn’t love you right.” She adds, her nostrils flared. Brooke’s breath hitches briefly - she masks it with a humorless laugh.
“And who loves me right, Peyton?” Brooke asks in a low voice, her chin up close to Peyton’s face as she takes a step closer. “Tell me one person who has ever loved me right.”
“I do. I have.” Peyton blurts out before she’s able to stop herself, her hands touching Brooke’s waist, bringing her closer. “I mean it.”
As she says that, Brooke’s hands find her neck, pulling on her hair, bringing her face closer. “Then be brave.”
And that’s all it takes for all the built up tension to break. Peyton’s lips find Brooke’s in a rush, avid, hungry, desperate. Her hands bring her impossibly closer, roaming up and down her back. Brooke sighs into her mouth, her tongue touching hers and dancing with it.
“You’re sleeping with me from now on.” Peyton mumbles against her lips, kissing her again, and Brooke nods, smiling into the kiss.
When they wake up the next day, Rachel is gone.
And so is the money Peyton had paid Brooke back for the RBR loan.
It did break Brooke’s heart, in a way. But at the end of the day, she was not alone anymore. She actually realized she’d never been.
5. The twins
The two pairs of small hands grasped thin air, cute sounds coming out of little mouths as each of them held one of the twins close to their chests. Both of the babies’ green-hazel eyes, little dimples on their cheeks, light brown curls starting to grow on their heads. Dylan burped onto Peyton’s chest, which made her laugh in surprise, Brooke giggling as her eyes traveled from their son to their daughter, trying to capture everything. And then she looked at Peyton with that same avid, loving expression. Anna rehearsed crying, which made Brooke pout slightly and rock her delicately. Her little fingers wrap around Brooke’s index.
Peyton feels like exploding. This is it. This is the life she’s always wanted. This is the family she’s always planned on having. This is what belonging feels like.
And now she has no fear for the future.
Belonging is this: no fear, no difficulty talking about what she feels.
It’s her wife and their babies and their beach house and a mountain cabin somewhere, and eventual trips to New York to take the kids to the MoMA. It’s overachieving on their Halloween decor because Brooke knows how much she loves it so she always makes them family costumes. It’s spending Christmas dinner with their loved ones, but cozying up in their pajamas before that, hot cocoa and sugar cookies as they bundle up on the couch and watch the twins opening their gifts. It’s being nervous for Valentine's Day even eight years into their marriage. It's Pizza Thursdays.
It’s Brooke’s hand on hers.