AN: Sorry for taking long to update. Felt depressed. Felt better. Lost chapter. Found chapter. Got busy. Still am busy, but am pretending I’m not. And here it is. I think it’s corny. Sorry.

Chapter Twenty-five

Even though Rafe said he’d see me at school…he doesn’t, or at least I don’t see him. I pace outside on the front steps of school, watching everyone flood to the buses and the parking lot, while I wait for Rafe to pass. After fifteen minutes go by without him walking by, I admit defeat and start walking home.

I’m sort of surprised that what I did made him mad. Or maybe I’m surprised that anything can make him mad. I thought he was so laid back, but it looks like there are still things I need to learn about him…if he’s not mad enough to keep avoiding me…or whatever he’s doing.

After taking my time sulking and walking, I’m not surprised to see that dad and Julie are already home when I get there. I kick one of the tires on my dad’s car and stomp up the front steps and into the house.

Dad’s at the dining room table, watching Julie as she takes out her schoolbooks. I throw my backpack into the living room and sit down at the table across from my dad, sprawling out across the table.

“Dad’s helping me with homework, Keegan,” Julie announces. “If you’re going to distract us, I’ll have to kindly ask for you to leave.”

“Oh, gee. Now what’ll I do? I came over here for the sole purpose of getting on your nerves. How’d you know?” I lift my head enough to glare at her and she rolls her eyes back.

“You don’t have to be so immature.”

I just got called immature by an eleven year old… Before I can retaliate, my dad steps in and speaks up.

“I’m guessing that someone’s been having a bad day?” He looks over to me and I just shrug and hide my face against the cool surface of the table again. “I’ve been putting up with your tantrums ever since you were born, Keegan. I know when you’re not in a good mood…”

I groan and flail my legs under the table. “I’m not throwing a tantrum.” I still my feet and tilt my head up to glare at my dad. “Have you ever just wanted to do something nice but then it backfires because the person thinks that what you did wasn’t nice but actually just made them feel worse and you obviously didn’t know it was going to make them worse, or you wouldn’t have done it?”

“Who’d you make angry?” Julie asks. “And what’d you do? It’s hard to help when you’re being all hypothetical…”

I sigh. “Rafe.”

Dad’s face momentarily goes red before he clears his throat. “Well, what happened, then?”

“I don’t know… I don’t really want to get into all the details.” His face goes red again, an even deeper shade than before, so I quickly continue. “Not that it’s anything bad! I mean… I just invited an old friend of his to sit at lunch with us and he was kind of upset about it…but I just did it because the reason why they stopped being friends wasn’t very…you know…good and I thought maybe he’d be happy to be friends with her again or something.”

He sighs and stares at Julie’s math book that she’s placed in front of him before looking back up to me. “Do you remember when you had that friend in grade school? I think his name was Sean?” I nod. “And do you remember when you and Sean got into a fight because he broke your…your…”

“Super Nintendo?” I supply and he quickly nods.

“Yeah, your Super Nintendo. So Sean’s mom and your mom got together and decided that they’d make a play date for you so you two could start getting along again… Do you remember what happened?”

I snort as it comes back to me. We ended up having to be pulled apart by our moms after we wrestled each other into a headlock, hell-bent on hurting each other. And through a nice dose of reminiscing, I get my dad’s point. You can’t force people to get along because it’ll most likely backfire…

“Thanks, dad,” I sigh, getting up from the table. “I’m going to go do my homework, I guess.” I retrieve my backpack from the living room and trudge into my room, sprawling across my bed and deciding that slogging my way through a few chapters of The Scarlet Letter doesn’t sound like much fun right now.

I sigh and press my face into my pillow because I don’t want to look over to my dresser, because I know that’s where my eyes will wander. I know I should get over it. I know that I mean nothing to Brady…but it’s hard. Those pictures were always there for me as a source of comfort…and now that they’re gone because they only reminded me of how caged I was because of Brady, I have nowhere to look to feel better…especially since Rafe’s apparently mad at me.

Groaning, I slide my head beneath my pillow. I open my eyes against my bedspread, seeing only blackness and only hearing my own breathing. After awhile the air I breathe in grows hot, making me feel claustrophobic and think of the opposite of drowning. Suffocating on hot air.

I briefly wonder if I really can suffocate if I stay under it long enough, but decide not to find out today. I pull away and quickly sit up, breathing in a deep breath of air and smoothing down my static-charged hair.

I’m about to wander into the dining room to bug dad to make some dinner, but before I can manage to pull myself up off my bed, there comes a quiet tink somewhere in my room, but I can’t place where it came from. When I hear it again I cock my head to the side and walk across my room to my window, shoving aside the curtains and staring out. Rafe’s face and a handful of pebbles are pressed against the glass.

For a moment I just stare out at him, not sure if I should be greatly surprised or if I should laugh to see his nose shoved up by the glass. As I’m trying to decide, he plinks another one of his pebbles at the window and I grin, shoving it open, though fear stirs in me because I’m not sure if the reason that he’s here is good or bad.

“You know…I think pebbles are only used when there’s a two story house…” I greet, smirking at him as he drops the rest of the little stones that are in his hand. “Or you could’ve come to the door…”

He shrugs with one shoulder and leans forward, resting his elbows on my windowsill and staring in at me. “I thought this might be a little romantic, you know? Romeo and Juliet, how do I love thee, and all that other bullshit everyone likes to fantasize about, yeah?”

As ridiculous as that sounds, I can’t help grinning. At least he made an effort to do something sweet in his own different way…and I appreciate it.

“Well… Thanks.” I shrug once and then twice and just stand there, smiling stupidly at him for a long moment until he leans his head in farther and looks around my room.

“So… Do you think I can come inside or something? I kind of want to talk.”

“Yeah, I’ll go get the door for you.” I start to turn around, but before I can make it to the door, Rafe’s already scrabbling up over my window ledge and toppling into my room.

“Keegan? Are you okay in there?” my dad calls from the other room and I can hear his footsteps approaching. If he comes in here and sees that Rafe’s snuck in, it won’t be good…

“Yeah!” I yell quickly and hurry to the door, opening it just a crack to peer out at my dad who’s reaching for my doorknob and looking at me with concern. “I was just changing into a pair of pajamas and I got my leg caught. I sort of tripped and fell…”

He laughs and shakes his head, turning to walk back to the dining room. “Be more careful, okay? I don’t want to have to rush you to the ER.” I wait for him to say again and for the moment to turn awkward, but neither happens and I breathe out deeply, stepping back into my room and locking the door. Rafe’s made himself comfortable in the center of my bed by now, his head on my pillow and his eyes watching me as I walk back to the window to slam it shut.

“Once again… You could’ve gone to the front door,” I point out as I turn on my CD player, take out my Mozart CD, and put in my Muzio Clementi CD instead, although the music’s a lot more foreboding than I wish it was at the moment. But it’s sort of ironic that Mozart harbored some dislike for Clementi…

“Yeah, but I’m a bad example remember?” He raises his eyebrows, giving his words a meaning he probably didn’t intend. I think back to the night in his car, but remind myself that it was me who was doing the urging. Maybe I’m a bad example too… “But… Can we talk now? Be serious and all that fantastic stuff?”

I sit on the edge of my bed and shrug. I don’t really want to, because I’m fearing the worst, but I can only sit and wait for him to continue.

“About earlier today… I didn’t mean to just brush you off like that. Okay?” he says slowly. I just shrug again until he sits back up and puts a light hand on my thigh. “Okay, Keegan?”

I nod quickly, shivering and heating up at his touch all at once. “Yeah, okay.”

He leans back again with a sigh. “It’s just… I told you about how Christa just kind of…shunned me because of the whole self harm stunt. She didn’t know what to think or do about it and then we just drifted away and it’s all because of Brady. And it always is, isn’t? So I just… Could you turn off that music? God, I’m just waiting for someone to burst in here to knife me.”

“The other songs don’t sound that way…” I quietly defend and he sighs.

“Okay. Sorry. But do you understand what I’m trying to say? About Christa?” He touches my thigh again. “Yeah?”

I smooth out a wrinkle in my bedspread beside Rafe’s foot and nod idly. “Yeah, I get it. I just wish that you would’ve told me that instead of storming off. I thought that I’d made you really mad… Really mad. And if I did, I’m sorry, because I do get it now… But I just wanted to help. I wanted to make things better for you…”

He laughs and nudges me with his foot. “You already have.”

I stare at him dubiously. “No, I haven’t.” I stand up and pace across the room.

“Yeah, you have. Believe me.” He reaches out when I walk by, grabbing a hold of my hand and yanking me to his side. “Now sit down. You’re making me nervous with your pacing and this freaking scary-ass music.” He 

gives me one more tug and I fall beside him on my bed, staring at him, his face so close to mine that I can feel the heat radiating from his skin. “You have no idea how much you have, Keegan.”

Laughing lightly, I turn away from him, wanting to tell him that I feel the same way. I want to tell him that he saved my life. He made me feel like I was worth something despite how everyone else in the school made me feel and even how I made myself feel. But I can’t make myself say it because I don’t want this to be ruined by my bumbling words. I don’t want it to be ruined by anything.

“Keegan?” he whispers and I barely hear him over the music. His hand comes up, cupping the back of my head as he turns me to face him. “Sorry about earlier.” His shadow eyes stare straight into mine, deep and cavernous…so much so that I momentarily fear getting lost.

“I said it’s fine… But I’m sorry too…again.” I manage to squeak and he smiles, leaning forward to rest his forehead on mine.

“I think you should…prove it.” He tilts his head as he speaks, his lips just barely touching mine as he talks, his breath becoming mine, his eyes meeting my own beneath the canopy of our eyelashes as I blink rapidly…not for butterfly kisses but because the depth of his eyes are too terrifying right now…terrifying and beautiful.

I lean forward to breathe I love you into his lips, but before I can, there’s a knock on my door, so abrupt and loud that I jump, bumping heads with Rafe, who swears under his breath and falls backward across my bed, rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand.

“What?” I snap toward my door, rubbing my own head.

“Dad wants to know what you want for dinner. Can I come in?” Julie rattles my doorknob. “I have a good idea…if you want my help…with Rafe, I mean. You can use my markers and stuff to make him an apology card or something.” She rattles the doorknob again as I feel my face heating up.

“That’s fine… And tell dad whatever he wants is fine…”

“If you change your mind, just tell me!” I hear her feet bounding away and slowly look to Rafe, who’s staring at me with a crooked smile on his lips.

“Go ahead and make fun of me,” I graciously allow, “because, yes, I came home and whined to my dad and my little sister.”

“I’ll pass for now.”

“Well, how about staying for dinner? You’d have to unsneak in and come in through the front door if you decide you want to, though.”

Instead of answering, like I’m waiting for him to do, he leans forward, resting his chin on my shoulder and grinning at me, so close that I have to cross my eyes in an attempt to focus on him. “Hey, Keegan?”

“Hmm?”

“I really think that I love you…”

A sharp screeching in my ear starts up as the world comes to an abrupt halt. My breath is caught in my throat, but it doesn’t feel like drowning. It feels like I don’t have to breathe, and so I don’t. I hold my breath and stare into Rafe’s midnight eyes, this time seriously hoping that I might be able to crawl inside.

For a moment fear flashes through me, telling me that he’s lying. No one can love me. Damaged goods. He can’t love me because we’ve both been broken, but I shake my head slowly and smile at him.

“I love you too…”

End chapter.

I know it’s kind of abrupt, but next chapter will probably be the last chapter, because there’s not really anywhere else for this to go except for…The End, which I’ve had planned for awhile now… And I’m not sure when it’ll be out ‘cause I graduate next weekend and I’m just going to be vaguely busy for the next week or so…

If you have time and like classical piano, go check out Muzio Clementi’s wiki page and listen to the three samples that are there. Whooo I love it. Makes my chest feel nice and funny. Hehe.

And thanks – as always – for the reviews. You guys are fantabulous and I mean that ferseriously. Oh, and if the person who gets the 600th review wants it, I'll gladly write a thank-you one-shot featuring whatever they'd like. :)