Chapter Ten

As Kate made her way from her English lesson to the lunch table she was bumped into by about thirty people. She had to stay a few minutes extra to discuss something with the teacher, and as she made her way through the corridors she saw that everyone else was already eating their lunch. Most people were crowded into the corridors because it had started raining now as Margo had predicted.

When she had moved away from her locker, she walked straight into Michael.

"Hey, Kate!" He said brightly, and hugged her quickly having not seen her since the end of last term.

"Hi, Michael. Good summer?" She asked him.

"Yeah...heard about your Mom. I'm sorry." He said, but she smiled.

"It's okay."

"Uh, I thought I'd let you know that Tom's looking for you." He told her. "He asked me if I'd seen you a few minutes ago."

Kate bit her lip. "Uh oh."

"Is that bad?" Michael asked her.

"Uh...kinda." She said awkwardly. "We're not together anymore."

Michael looked embarrased at having said the wrong thing again. "Oh, sorry!" He said.

"No, it's fine." Kate assured him. "Listen, thanks for the heads up." She smiled gently.

"No problem, mate. I'll see you in math."

"See you later."

Groaning inwardly, she went into the canteen and sat down with the others, squeezing in between Shannon and Jack.

"Hey, have you been in English all this time?" Jack asked her, handing her the lunch she had asked him to pick up for her. Baked beans on a jacket potato...not the best cafeteria lunch, but one of the better menus of the school.

"No, I saw Michael in the corridor." She explained. "He said that-"

"Kate!" Tom's voice called over.

Kate groaned, and finished her sentence "-Tom's looking for me."

"Kate!" He called again, having gotten no reaction from her.

"This isn't gonna be good." Kate said shaking her head.

"Hey, chin up, I'm right behind you." Jack reminded her, nudging her under the chin to prove his point.

"Kate." Tom said, softer now because he was standing right behind her. Kate looked over her shoulder at him.

"Hi Tom." She said quietly.

"I need to talk to you." He said, getting straight to the point.

"And I need to eat, because I'm hungry." She argued, starting to eat her baked potato.

"Kate, for the love of God..." He started and Kate stood up angrily.

"Fine!" She argued. "But not here."

They walked over to the edge of the canteen, where they were away from the others. Jack scooted along the bench to where Kate had just been sitting so that he could watch them.

"This is not going to be good." He said, repeating what Kate had said to Shannon.

"Jack, don't." Shannon said shaking her head. "Don't step in on this one."

"She's my best friend, Shan, if something goes wrong I can't just-"

"Yes, you can." She told him. "She's got to do this herself."

"What happened last night, Katie?" Tom asked as soon as they were out of earshot of the other students.

"We broke up, Tom, that's what happened." She said simply.

He sighed a little. "So you're sticking to it then?" He checked.

She nodded firmly. "Yeah, I am."

"I thought that you might have reconsidered after you'd calmed down-"

"Calmed down?" Kate asked, cutting him off, but he continued anyway.

"-'Cause it's not good to make big decisions when you're upset. Just 'cause your Mom died it doesn't mean that you have to push me away the first chance you get."

Kate looked at him with a mixture of hurt and disgust on her face. "You make me sick." She told him bitterly. "You think that I broke up with you because Mom died?"

"I understand that it's a hard time-" He started but she shook her head, cutting him off as tears started to form in her eyes, but she was determined not to cry. No, she wasn't going to cry again.

"No, you don't!" She protested. "You don't understand what I'm going through at all."

"And Jack does?" He challenged.

"Don't bring him into this, Tom." She said shaking her head.

"So you're saying that he understansd and I don't." He deducted.

Slowly, she shook her head. "No, he doesn't. Neither of you understand because when you go home after school, or this weekend, you'll be able to see your Moms, because they're still here and mine isn't."

"Then why go to him?" Tom asked, jealousy overtaking him.

"Because he was there." She explained. "I needed you both. I needed my best friend and my boyfriend, but you weren't there, Tom. Jack was. You know why?"

"Why, Kate?" He asked her irritably, knowing that she was going to tell him whether he asked or not.

"Because he's always there. Whenever I need him, he's always there, and you're not. You're never there." She said, shaking her head over and over again.

He looked at her angrily, and for some reason, she took a step backwards from him. "Don't you dare say that!" He told her quietly, but with so much anger in it that it scared her. "I've always been here for you."

"When Dad hit me, where were you?" She challenged him. He didn't answer. "When I found out that my Mom was dying, where were you? When I had to watch her dying, where were you? When I had to spend a day in a graveyard, buring her, where were you? Where were you, Tom?" She asked him again, unshed tears breaking her voice. "Where were you? Because you weren't where I needed you to be."

"Kate-" He said, his voice softening as he went to explain but Kate cut him off.

"And then you accuse me of cheating on you." She finished.

"I was upset, Kate, I didn't know what to think." He reasoned. "I get home from Africa and you've been sleeping at Jack's. What the hell was I supposed to think?"

"I would have hoped that you would have trusted me enough not to think of anything." She said, folding her arms over her chest so that he wouldn't see them shaking with frustration.

"It's hard not to think of something like that when you're closer to him than you are to me." He said, and she frowned at him. "It's always been about him, Kate, never me. I offer for you to come and stay with me, but you'd rather stay with him. Why?"

"You wouldn't understand." She said, and went to walk away, but he grabbed her arm and made her stay.

"Try me." He said.

So she did.

"Because you make me dwell on it." She explained. "You don't mean to, but you treat me like I'm made of glass and that I'm going to shatter with anything that touches me. Jack distracts me from that. He doesn't try to make me forget it, he just helps me to move on."

Kate and Tom looked at each other for a long time before he looked away, laughing to himself and then looked back at her, and she could see the hurt in his face.

"Why can't you love me as much as you love him?" He asked her quietly.

"Tom-"

"No, forget it." He said, wishing he hadn't said that last part. "See you around." And with that he walked off.

Kate returned to the table, sitting back down in the space that had reappeared between Shannon and Jack.

"What did he have to say for himself?" Shannon asked bitterly, having been filled in that morning about the details of the break up. Although secretly the others were thrilled at both break ups because it now meant that they could set Jack and Kate up after all these years.

"Nothing, it's fine." Kate said, going silently back to her baked potato, yet playing with it, not eating it.

"Well, nothing's got you rather teary." Sawyer pointed out from across the table.

"It's nothing." Kate insisted, and the others kept their questions to themselves whilst Jack, saying nothing, put his hand on her back and rubbed it for a moment.

Sitting in maths, they were told to do work quietly, and seeing as Tom was sitting in the row in front of them, Jack and Kate carried out their conversation through notes.

So, are you going to tell me what happened, or am I going to have to guess?
Jack xxx

He doesn't trust me at all.
Kate xxx

He's a loser, Kate, you don't need him. xxx

Don't get ahead of yourself, he doesn't trust you either, Wonderboy. xxx

He's never trusted me. Besides, I don't care what he thinks. xxx

So you don't care that he thinks we're doing more than we really are at night? xxx

What do you mean? xxx

He thinks that I'm sleeping in your bed at night. xxx

Well you are. xxx

Yeah...but...he thinks we're doing...something else...not sleeping. xxx

As in...something that makes you sleepy? xxx

Maybe on your part. xxx

Woah...maybe he should talk to Claire and Shannon

Jack! Not helping!

Sorry, well, it would be really bad if we were proving him right though.

Sometimes I feel like doing something like that just to spite him.

...should I be watching my back, Kate?

It's just a figure of speech, Jack.

So you're not going to jump me in the middle of the night?

No.

Good. I can sleep then.

...You weren't going to?

And sleep through THAT? Are you CRAZY?

Jack! Behave!

Relax...I'm only messing with you...besides...I know you well enough to know that you wouldn't. xxx

At least that's one person who does. xxx

Come on, we better actually pay attention before Mr Andrews catches us passing notes again and reads it out infront of the class. xxx

Good idea, especially with you-know-who sitting infront of us. Oh, Jack?

Yeah?

What's the answer to question 6?

I was just gonna ask you that.