Chapter 31 - Poor apology

Poor apology



The sound of footsteps woke Kaede from her sleep. She lifted her head and saw Sakura, Yuula and Tea walking towards her. They sat down next to her, Sakura on her right, Tea on her left, and Yuula kneeling in front of her. Sakura and Tea put their arms around Kaede and hugged her.

With Sakura's help she explained to Yuula and Tea what Joey had told her.

When she had finished, Yuula punched her open palm with her fist. `I'll kill him,' she muttered. `I'll kill him.'

She stood up and made to go back to the school, but Sakura grabbed her by the legs and she landed flat of her front, sprawled over the grass.

`Killing Joey won't help, no one was killed or got any permanent damage, so just forget about it,' Sakura said calmly, still holding Yuula so she couldn't jump up and kill Joey.

Yuula muttered something, but resigned her struggle and lay on her back in the grass.

`Hey, aren't we meant to be in lessons?' Tea asked, looking worried.

`Naw,' Sakura waved her hand as though waving away a fly. `Our teacher said we could go and find Kaede, and then go back to lessons when she's alright again.'

`But she's alright now, isn't she?' Tea asked over Kaede to Sakura.

`Who's she, the cat's mother?' Kaede said irritably. She scowled slightly as she said this, it was something her father and her grandparents always said to her whenever she called someone she, and she had never really thought it was rude to say she, but talking over people was just plain rude.

`Well, you are, aren't you?' Tea asked, sitting up.

`No, I am thoroughly traumatized about what I just found out,' she said trying as best as she could to keep a smile off her face. `And I think it is best that we don't return to lessons for a while.'

They all laughed, and leant against the tree, playing several word and paper games with paper Kaede ripped out of her books. They were having a great time, laughing and joking in the sunshine, but all too soon the bell for lunch sounded, and they decided maybe they should go back to their classroom after all, and glumly they set off back to the building.

As they turned a corner of the corridor along which their classroom was situated, Kaede suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. Joey was waiting for them outside their classroom, staring straight at Kaede.

Sakura and Tea looked quickly at Kaede, who was looking at Joey with a look which was a mixture of disgust and hatred. Yuula however, was blaring her teeth and her hands had been balled into fists. Sakura and Tea nodded at Kaede, knowing Joey would want to talk to her alone, and pushed Yuula straight past Joey and into their classroom.

Joey and Kaede stood staring at each other for a while, before Kaede walked past him into one of the empty classrooms along that corridor.

Joey followed her, and closed the door behind him as she set her bag down on a desk and sat next to it, waiting expectantly. She knew she would have to listen to this sooner or later, and so she studied her nails and said impatiently, `Just hurry up, will you?'

Joey swallowed and stood in front of her, fidgeting with his hands, unsure what to say.

`Look, I am so sorry about what I did,' he said after a while. `I know that it was horrible, and Yuula could have died-'

`Shouldn't you be telling her all this?' Kaede looked up at him, staring him straight in the eye.

Joey fidgeted again, and looked down at his hands. Kaede waited for him to answer, picking at a hole in her skirt.

`I, I saw a little girl,' Joey said shakily. `In the restaurant, I saw you with her and her mother; was she hurt in the crash?'

`Her legs were crushed by the car,' Kaede said bluntly. `What do you think? But, yeah, she was okay when they got her into hospital.'

Joey sighed, relieved.

`That doesn't make what you did okay! It doesn't mean you deserve any less punishment than you are going to get,' Kaede almost yelled at him. `Joey, two people almost died, one of them was Yuula. Seven people went to hospital, the youngest was seven years old. How would you feel if someone had died? How would you be able to live, if either Yuula or Mokuba Kaiba had died?'

Joey hung his head guiltily, but opened his mouth to speak. Kaede guessed what he was about to say and interrupted him.

`Whatever made you do it isn't worth what happened,' she said coldly. `And hurting all those people for such a stupid reason is pathetic! Just get over it Joey! I am not going to go out with you again, I am engaged! If you hadn't two timed me with Mai then maybe things would be different, but what has happened has happened, so get over it!'

But when Joey looked back at her so pathetically and miserably, Kaede's face softened. She stood up and put her hand on Joey's shoulder, half smiling at him.

`Just tell Yuula what you told me,' she smiled, and turned around to pick her bag off the desk. But when she turned back to Joey, she found him standing dangerously close to her. She tried to lean backwards, but he held her there with an arm on her shoulder.

`I really do, you know,' he said quietly. `I really do love you.'

Before Kaede could even open her mouth, he was kissing her, his arms around her waist, holding her to him. Kaede couldn't think, she didn't know what she did until she saw him lying on the floor in front of her. His cheek was cut and bleeding, and she looked down at her left hand, where the ring on her fourth finger had been twisted inwards, and the diamond had cut him as she had slapped him across the face. He lay on the floor where she had pushed him, looking stunned.

`BASTARD!' she yelled at him. `DID YOU THINK I WOULD GO OUT WITH YOU AGAIN IF YOU APOLOGISED FOR WHAT YOU DID? I DON'T WANT TO BE SEEN WITH YOU AFTER WHAT YOU DID TO THOSE PEOPLE! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!'

She ran past him to the door which she flung open. A crowd of people had gathered, hearing her shouting, and were looking in at Joey lying on the floor with keen interest.

`WHAT DO YOU WANT?!' she shouted at them, and they scattered as she pushed through them to get to her classroom. She threw her bag on a desk and slumped in a chair.

Everyone had been staring at her since she came in, and she just scowled at them. `Don't talk to me,' she said, and pulled her MP3 player out of her bag. Shoving the earphones into her ears, Kaede turned the music up loud enough to block out all sound and pressed play. The music nearly deafened her, but it also had that strange calming effect that only rock music does. She relaxed in her chair, and closed her eyes, ignoring everything else, Ryou looking at her oddly, Yuula poking her in the side and saying something that sounded to Kaede (hearing it in the space between one song and another) like, `I think she's dead', even ignoring Joey entering the room with his hand trying to still the blood streaming from his cut cheek. Kaede just sat, listening to the music, and felt calmer than she had done for a long time.

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