Stereos

For some reason, Peyton didn’t like peaches. When her mother had brought in a peach cobbler after dinner, Peyton felt an immediate sense of pending doom and pushed away her plate. This immediately caused her mother to feel her head worriedly and ask her if she was feeling alright. Although her mother was just being cautious, it had been about two weeks since she had come out of the coma, and everyone was acting like it had just happened recently. People tread lightly, as if on eggshells when they were around her. But Peyton didn’t need half the truth – she needed all of it.

So after politely excusing herself, she made her way up to her room. Her compact cell phone was itching to be used, she realized as she toyed with the plastic.

She hit three buttons and pressed the phone to her ear expectantly. When a Saskatchewan accent answered the phone, she smiled sweetly at the wall opposite her. “What do you think it means if I can’t eat peaches?”

Luke went silent. “I think it means you don’t like peaches.”

Peyton sighed. That wasn’t what she meant. How was she going to describe the actual fear and foreboding feeling that settled in her gut when she smelled those peaches? She thought it was just best if she didn’t get too deep.

She searched through her brain of something to say, and the only thing he could come up with was, “how was practice?”

“Good.” There was a brief pause as he took a breath, and added, “Want me to come get you?”

It was amazing that he knew what she was thinking, before she thought it, and she found herself answering immediately. “Yes please.”
---
It had seemed like a good idea at the time. There was a huge oak out by the side of the roof overhang, and all she had to do was get from her window ledge to the roof, which was just out of her reach.

“Peyton!” Luke whispered fiercely, “just go out through the door!”

Peyton stretched her foot out, even though there was no chance of her reaching. “No! You said I’ve done this before!”

“Once!” Luke stressed, “and you broke your collarbone!”

When she sent him a look, his mouth clamped shut firmly. All he wanted was her safety, but she was really pushing the envelope. She’d only snuck out one other time, and even though she broke her collarbone doing it, there was just something so distracting about the look she’d given him. A little squeal from her brought him from his thoughts. Immediately his heart pounded, fearing the worst, but all he saw was Peyton pumping her fists in the air. “Who couldn’t do it, Lucas?”

A pained expression crossed his face, which caused Peyton to stop celebrating. “Luke?”

“What did you call me?”

“Lucas?” She guessed. “Haven’t I always called you that?”

He held her waist and helped her down from the tree. When her feet were planted firmly on the ground, she just stared at him. When he looked at her, he didn’t know what to do. The moonlight danced off her eyes, making them appear darker, as her nose scrunched up in confusion. She had no idea why he was giving her that look… his eyes looking at her sadly, but a faint smile upturning both corners of his mouth.

A helpless look settled on her face, and he knew it to be because she needed an answer. His hands had been itching to hug her since she’d woken up from the coma half a month ago, but he didn’t know how she’d react to the physical contact. But at that exact moment, he became selfish as his needs took over his rational side and he gripped her in a hug.

Peyton stood motionless. She had seen him coming at her, so as she took a step back, she put her hands in the air. However, the feeling of having him bent over her, his arms around her waist and his head just over her shoulder, a wave of emotion made her snake her arms around his shoulders and hug him back.

It felt right to be standing there with him; pulling him to her chest and burying her face in his shoulder as her eyes welled up with tears.
---
He felt his right shoulder getting wet before he felt her small shoulders start to shake. On instinct he brought her closer, thinking the connection between them would make her feel better. All he succeeded in doing, however, was creating more of an emotional release for her. She was bunching the material of his sweatshirt in her hands, and her face had moved closer to her neck.

“It’ll be okay,” he told her awkwardly. He had never been good at consoling females – he never knew what would only make it worse.

She sniffed as her shoulders stopped shaking, and she was finally able to pull away from him. Tears still glistened on her cheeks and in her eyes, and Luke suddenly felt guilty for being the person to make that happen to her. “I don’t think it will be,” she murmured, “because if you’re so important to me, why don’t I remember?”

It wasn’t logical for his heart to slow down to an unsteady rhythm like it had, but as he straightened himself out to regard her carefully, he couldn’t help but feel hurt. “Because you have no control over the function of your brain,” he told her softly, swallowing the lump in his throat.

Her eyes reflected what he felt inside, and she still held on to the front of his hoodie. “But Luke,” she tried weakly, “I know you’re someone worth remembering.”

He smiled sweetly at her, but it didn’t help her current level of stress. He didn’t know what to tell her. She, on the other hand, needed to know if she cared about him this much before the accident or if this was recent. But the did I like you? question seemed to be a bit juvenile, and the logical half of her couldn’t help but reason that if he had been her boyfriend, he would have been introduced as such as the hospital. “What were we?” she asked, stepping back.

Luke felt different when she pulled away, as if somehow barren. Giving her a crooked smile, he stepped back. “You’re Peyton and I’m Luke. Together we’re Peyton and Luke.”

He watched as her brows furrowed contemplatively. That was about as clear as mud, he knew, but it’s all he could bring himself to say.
---
Clear as mud.

It’s obvious that together they’d be Peyton and Luke; that way was just more effective. No periods and pauses – just hook the two sentences into one. But part of her knew that it had a deeper meaning to it.

What, she didn’t know.

All she knew was that she was definitely in the deep end and she didn’t even know how to swim.
---
Alexandra was prone to eating everything she could get her hands on. “Oh my god, Pey, you have got to try this peach cobbler.”

Peyton scrunched her nose and pushed the plate away. “No, Alex, that smells rancid – you can have it.”

Alexandra sniffed the food, shrugged, and shoveled a forkful into her mouth. It didn’t take Alexandra long to finish off the desert, for which Peyton was grateful. “Come on, AJ should be here in a couple of minutes.”

Speak of the devil, someone knocked at the door. Even though it wasn’t her house, Peyton bounded up to get the door. The sooner they left, the sooner she’d get to him.

Driving down the street, AJ and Peyton in the front seat and Alexandra in the back seat, Alexandra let out a loud belch that ricocheted off the windows. “Alex!” Peyton sighed, turning in her seat, “it smells like peaches now!”

Alex looked at her, completely nonplussed. “And if I had farted, it would have smelled like gas. Which one would you prefer?”

“Peaches,” AJ interjected quickly, looking at Alex through the mirror, “always peaches.”

Alex sighed desolately as Peyton turned back around in her seat. “Hey Pey,” she asked conversationally, “what’re you going to say to him?”

A warm, tingling feeling settled in her gut as she thought about him. “I’m not sure,” she smiled at the scenery whizzing by.

Alex clicked something, but neither girl in the front seat paid any attention to her. “On this day, the first of August,” Alex started with a hum to her voice, “marks the dawn of a new day.”

Peyton sighed and turned around again, only to have a sleek little video camera shoved in her face. “What are you doing, Alex?”

“Taping shit!” Alex responded, zooming in on Peyton’s face. “I got this from my Uncle last week and I’m going to record all special events. I think this classifies as a special event.”

A hint of pink tinted Peyton’s cheeks as she found herself unable to say anything. AJ caught Peyton’s uncomfortable aura, after casting a quick sidelong glance at her. “Give me the camera, Alex,” she hissed authoritatively, reaching back.

Alex pulled away. “No, you overzealous killjoy.”

AJ turned to glare briefly at Alex, and then snapped her hand back like a cobra to grab the camera. “Fuck off AJ,” Alex pouted.

Peyton answered her phone as it began to ring. “Hello?”

AJ turned back to the road to check oncoming traffic, and then swiveled again to face Alex. “You’re a pain in the ass, and filming Peyton talking on the phone is weird.”

“You’re weird,” Alex quipped.

Peyton’s giggle rang through the car, followed tightly by a blood curtling scream. Along with the scream, the only sounds heard were the screeching of tires, the crunch of metal, the shattering glass, and the pounding of blood in their ears.

Then it went black, and it was all over.