The Ghost of A Good Thing

Author's Note: This piece is a little darker than the rest of my stuff. I've got most of it all mapped out, it won't be very long, around six chapters. I hope you guys like it.

Chapter 1

Tree Hill was a small town, the kind of small town where everyone knows everyone else's business no matter how private or scandalous it may be. Gossip could spread from one side of town to the other in a matter of hours. So when Peyton Sawyer had found herself sitting nervously in the free clinic at the edge of town, waiting for her name to be called and a pregnancy test to be administered, she prayed that no one would recognize her. She hadn't needed any skewed information getting back to her boyfriend, at least not before she could figure out a way to tell him the news herself.

Luckily for her no one had noticed that usually infamous head of blonde curls sitting in the dinghy waiting room chairs of the Tree Hill Family Clinic. She'd only been four days late but for a girl whose cycle had usually been so regular, four days was enough to raise a red flag for her.

Two days after her clinic visit her fears had been confirmed. A misplaced pack of birth control pills and teenage hormones had inadvertently led to Peyton's placement among the ranks of every other teenage pregnancy statistic.

She had been four months away from graduating high school. Art school was supposed to follow, she'd scrimped and saved every penny she'd made with her work in Thud Magazine and behind the counter at Karen's Café. There had been enough money in her savings account for at least two years of tuition and board. College had always been her plan, and the realization that it might no longer happen had been harder to handle than her being pregnant at seventeen.

She'd known what Lucas' reaction would be when she told him. He'd always been practical, almost t a fault. She wasn't surprised when he'd suggested they get married. When both of their parents had been clued into the situation, and after the yelling had subsided, Larry and Karen had agreed with the idea of marriage.

They married in a very low-key ceremony at the local courthouse on a Friday afternoon after school had let out. They spent the weekend moving their things into a small apartment and by Monday they were back at school as if nothing had different. Peyton had known the kids at school would find out, she knew there would be stares and whispers in the hall, but she hadn't planned on the people she thought were her friends turning their backs on her. There was a certain stigma that came with being friends with a knocked-up married teenager, and her friends couldn't deal. It would have been a lie if Peyton had said the sudden desertion hadn't bothered them, but she never acted like it hurt her. She'd acquired a protective layer of thick skin in order to make it through the last months of school.

Peyton had reluctantly given up her dream of art school and her hard-earned tuition money went towards rent and doctor's appointments. Lucas had taken a job working construction after school. By the time he would come home most nights he was too exhausted to do anything other than collapse onto their bed and sleep.

Their marriage had been strained from the beginning. It had never been about them not loving each other, it had been about two kids suddenly thrust into the real world and having to deal with the choices they had made. But they had slowly adjusted to their new life and had attempted to make the best of it.

Peyton had always imagined her graduation from high school as a time for a new beginning, a summer filled with endless beach parties before the time would come to leave for college. For Lucas and Peyton graduating meant he started working construction full-time while she picked up extra shifts at the café. Peyton had tried not to dwell on the loss of art school. But she knew that it would always be in the back of her mind.

Her disappointment was soon forgotten during a restless night of sleep a few weeks of graduation. She'd gone to bed early with stomach cramps and woke several hours later with a sharp pain to her abdomen and the feeling of a sticky, warm liquid between her legs. Throwing back the blankets revealed a large bloodstain on the bed, the last thing she remembered was her screaming for Lucas and the sound of a glass shattering on the kitchen floor.

The days following the miscarriage and her hospital stay had left Peyton feeling empty. She'd refused to see anyone who stopped by the apartment and the phone was turned off. She had thought while she was pregnant that she'd never really wanted the burden of having a baby, and now that it was gone she'd wished she could take back every one of those thoughts.

Their young marriage had slowly begun to unravel. They hadn't shared a bed since she had come home from the hospital, and Peyton had forgotten the last time they'd had a conversation that didn't involve him poking his head in their bedroom door and asking if she needed anything. At the time she hadn't been concerned with any of those things, she spent two weeks after losing the baby laid up in her bed. She was broken and he hadn't known how to fix her.

He'd eventually convinced her to start getting out of bed and then out of the apartment. She would take walks around the neighborhood, come home and go back to bed. Nothing seemed to make her better and Lucas knew she wasn't going to get any better.

She'd come home from a walk one day and found Lucas waiting for her on the couch, a suitcase by his feet. She'd been confused, wanting to know what was going on and he'd told her that he was letting her go. The suitcase was full of her things and he was giving her a chance to get her life in order. She could move back in with her dad and do what she needed and take as much time as she needed. She didn't understand, and she'd felt tears start to fall. He'd come off the couch then and told her not to cry and wiped away her tears. He loved her too much to see her hurting. He'd just wanted her to be happy and he knew he couldn't do that anymore. She'd tried to protest, to tell him he was wrong. But eventually she'd left her apartment and her husband behind and moved back in with her dad.

When Lucas had let her go he'd imagined that she'd take a few months to grieve and be alone before she'd come back and they would work on their marriage together. But a month after she'd moved back into her dad's house Lucas got a note in the mail. He'd recognized her handwriting on the envelope, all the note had said was that she was getting out of town and didn't know if she was ever coming back. She'd needed a change and to get away from Tree Hill, and she'd ended the note by saying that she'd always love him. He'd crumpled the note into a ball and thrown it into the garbage before sweeping his arm across the counter and knocking all of its contents to the floor, and then he'd dug the note out of the trash and read it again.

It would be over five years before Lucas would see her again, and a lot would change in that amount of time.