Unreturned Love

Chapter 19 - Final

Finn hammered at the door, his voice going hoarse from all the hollering. He had been at this for the past three hours, and still there was no response from inside. He knew she was home, his guy feeling told him that. So why in the name of all gods did she not want to answer the door?

"Kayline, please, I really need to talk to you" he pleaded at the door, knowing there was no way she could hear him if she was locked up in her room, but he felt the need to get it out. "Please, Kayline?".

No answer.

 Finn heaved out a long sigh, and slid down with his back against the door. Why, oh why did this have to happen, just as things were  getting to be so well between them? He had been drawing her out of her shell, he knew. Slowly, but surely, she would have come to love him as he did her. But fate, that cruel manipulator of men, had chosen to toy with him, before sending him crashing to the ground. Kayline... He couldn't even begin to think what she was going through right now. He had promised to love her, to show her the meaning of love, to shatter her disillusions about love not being possible. And where had it led her? Possible expulsion. Oh god, he thought grimly, ramming his head backwards repeatedly onto the door. I am an idiot, and worse he screamed.

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Yet another day, Kayline thought dully. It's just another day that I have to get through. Just another normal day. It had been yet another sleepless night, tossing and turning all night. For some reason, she had been unable to get Finn's image out of her mind. Not Finn! She corrected herself. Mr Gerald to me now. She could not understand why this brought a pang of emotion through her. If she had not been fatigued by the lack of a night's sleep, she would have recognized it as sadness. Hurriedly, she brushed all emotions aside and picked up her bag, still in the same place as she had flung it yesterday. Kayline made her way over to the door and tugged it open, and gaped when a figure half-fell into the doorway, obviously having slept against her door through the night.

"Wha-Kayline!" Finn, jerked abruptly from an uneasy sleep, snapped awake by the sight of the girl haunting his dreams. "Kayline, please listen to me, we have to talk-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence as Kayline brushed past him without a word. Or tried to at any rate.

Desperate, Finn grabbed her arm and pulled her back. "Kayline!"

"Let go of me, Mr Gerald", her frigid tone that would've caused many to step back, disturbed him not at all.

"Not going to, unless you listen to me", Finn pleaded, trying to catch her eye. But Kayline stubbornly refused to look at him.

"I have nothing more to say to you, Mr Gerald. If you don't let me go, I'll be late for school".

"School!?" Finn exploded. "Is that all you can think of now, when we have this mess to deal with? SCHOOL!?" 

Frigid blue eyes met pleading brown ones. "I think you might want to know, Mr Gerald, that I have taken up the school on their offer". Involuntarily, Finn let his hand fall back to his side, stunned. Kayline spared him a glance, and continued walking briskly on, leaving him standing mutely on her sidewalk.

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"Kay! Why didn't you pick up my calls?" Leeane asked worriedly as she fell into step beside Kayline.

"Had a lot to think about..." Came the half-hearted reply.

"Kay", for the second time in the same day, Kayline was grabbed and spun around. Resigned, she met Leeane's steely green gaze. "Are you okay?"

"Yes". The one word reply did far from reassuring her best friend, instead bringing on a fresh deluge of questions.

"What'd Quinney say? Are the school going to take any action against you? Kay, stop ignoring me!" Leeane cried out, frustrated when Kayline didn't answer.

"Look, Lee. This isn't a very good time right now. I got to go for AP Biology... Talk to you later, okay? Bye!" With that, Kayline lengthened her strides and left a spluttering Leeane behind.

The truth was that Kayline didn't feel like talking to anyone at the moment. Not Finn, not Leeane. Not any living human on this planet. So, she screwed up a relationship. Hey, what's new? This complicated thing called love never failed to screw people up. Look where it almost brought her. Expulsion just wasn't worth it.

She wondered how Finn was taking it.

There he was again, she swore. She'd been trying to keep him out of her mind the whole day, and had failed miserably. Sighing, she turned into the classroom, slightly late due to both Leeane and Finn holding her up. She knocked on the door. "Sorry I'm late" she apologized and hurried to her seat.

"Hey, that's the girl".

Snorts of laughter. "Wonder if she's sleeping around with him? He sure is hot..."

"Hah, sluts, both of them. Sure don't look like it, but their actions speak for them-"

"Quiet, class" Derek raked the class with a stern glance, and was rewarded by a slight decrease in volume. Still audible, though.

Kayline slumped in her seat and tried to be invisible. It was going to be a long day. She felt a sense of emptiness inside her, had she made the wrong decision? Maybe she was too late, the damage had already been done she thought.