Finn spent the rest of the day in a blur. He just didn't get it. Him and Rae were getting on, he was hoping to tell her how he felt but he never had the balls to go through with it. Then she just cut off all ties with the gang. None of them saw her at her mum's wedding reception and never saw her after that. Last time any of them saw or heard from her was that awkward Chippy meet up after the rave. What did she mean about dating Chloe? Or that Chloe had told her not to talk to the gang. The gang hadn't spoken to Rae and Chloe told them that she hadn't spoken to her either. So why exactly did Rae think that him and Chloe dated?

It didn't take him long to realize that she must've seen the kiss at the rave. Only took him four minutes into his next class to clue onto that one. What was still rattling him was that Chloe and Rae obviously talked and neither one of them was telling the gang what was going on. Fuck, Chloe hadn't even talked to the gang since before college started. They were falling apart.

As Finn got onto his scooter after college he let his curiosity get the best of him and decided to go to Chloe's. Really, he wanted to go to Rae's, but he wasn't going into another conversation with her blind. Something was going on and he needed to know what. He's probably well above the speed limit because he gets to Chloe's in less than half the time that it should have taken. Turning off his scooter and taking off his helmet is a blur because one second he's pulling to a stop in her driveway and the next he's banging on Chloe's front door far too loudly.

"Finn? Wha' you doin' here?" Chloe asks as she answers the door. Her eyes are red and tired and she's in a dress like she's about to go out but her hair says she went out and has since slept.

"Came to talk about Rae." Finn says as he walks around Chloe and through the doorway.

"Haven't talked to her in ages, you know that." Chloe says closing the door behind her.

Finn can tell she's lying. The way she leans against the door, eyes looking down, not exactly at the ground but just down, the way she shrugs one shoulder. Her face is all 'I didn't break your favorite vase mum, I swear.'

"Bollocks. She told me you told her not to talk to the gang."

Chloe's eyes jerk up to Finn's, she's been caught.

"What she didn't tell me is why you'd say somethin' like that to ya best mate."

"You wouldn't get it." Chloe shakes her head and makes her way to the kitchen.

Finn keeps close behind her, not willing to drop the topic. The gang needs Rae. Needs her more than they need Chloe or Archie or anyone else. They don't add up without her. He doesn't add up to anything without her.

He watches Chloe grab a water bottle from the fridge and start sipping at it like he's not freaking out in front of her and she's not sitting on the only thing that will make everything okay again.

"Seriously Chloe, just fuckin' tell me."

"I'm a person ya know. I have feelings. I'm a good person but no one ever bloody sees that. All they see is Rae, all they care about is Rae. Why do you think I stopped hangin with you lot? Where's Rae? Have you heard from Rae? We miss Rae. I was sitting right there but yous couldn't stop moaning about your precious Rae." Chloe huffs, arms thrown in the air.

"Cause you was there!" Finn shouts. "We wasn't moanin' bout ya cause you was there. You was Rae's best mate and we just wanted to know where she was, why she just up and left."

Chloe starts shifting on her feet, looking down again and it's making Finn even more angry.

"Chime in any time Chloe." His arms fall to his sides.

"Well, I told her..."

"Told her we was your friends first, got it. Why?"

Chloe walks over to one of the stools at her kitchen counter, creating space between herself and Finn. She takes another sip of her bottled water and starts to play with the label. Finn has to remind himself not to say anything else. This is how conversations work, responses are not instantaneous and people need to think about their words. Finn should know that better than anyone else. He's always thinking, afraid of saying the wrong thing.

"I…I found this, thing." Chloe starts. "Rae said that I didn't deserve ya. It was the day after the rave and I thought you and me was deffo gonna be goin' out. I told Rae to stay away from me and to stay away from you. I didn't mean it, I was just so mad that she could say that. Then, at the wedding reception…"

"Rae wasn't there." Finn blurts.

"She was." Chloe looks up at Finn for the first time since she started her little confession and after a moment of holding his gaze she goes back to playing with the bottle label. "I went up to her and told her I was only there for her mum and to stay away from the gang."

Why would Rae say that? Finn knows that him and Chloe would never work but that's different than not deserving. Then again, what kind of girl throws away a friendship over a guy. Technically both Rae and Chloe did but Chloe is the one that pushed Rae away. Not just from herself but the whole gang. From Finn.

He stands there for a minute, the fact he was at the center of this evading him, just going through everything he's just heard. Rae was at the reception and didn't go to talk to them. Couldn't. After what Chloe told her she probably up and left. Her own mother's reception. Chloe made her feel like none of the gang cared about her, then got mad when they were worried about Rae so she up and left the gang too.

"Wait," Finn realizes something. "We talked before the reception and before we left the Chippy. What you found was in Rae's bag right?" he waits for Chloe to look at him before continuing. "You got the bag when we was leaving the Chippy. After I told you we wasn't gonna work. After I told you I shouldn't've kissed ya. Bu-but you still let Rae think we was together? You kicked her out of the gang for…for nothing."

Looking at Chloe was making him sick so Finn left without another word and found himself in Rae's driveway not fully sure how he even got there. He doesn't know what he's thinking when he starts knocking on the door bouncing on his feet. There are voices and shuffling behind the door before Rae opens it. She looks happy for the briefest of moments, as if seeing Finn is a good thing. But that disappears just as quickly as it appeared and she looks less than thrilled to have found him on her doorstep.

"Look Finn-"

"Chloe lied." he interrupts her, unwilling to let this conversation end like their last. So he forces the words out of his mouth as quickly as he can. "I told her at the Chippy, ya know when ya lot left the rave debrief, told her we wasn't gonna be more than friends, that kissin her was a mistake. We never dated."

"Okay…" Rae says as if what Finn has just said means nothing.

"She told me bout what she found. I mean, she just told me, I was just at hers. I don't get why she'd say what she did to ya over something so stupid but the gang didn't know she did that. She don't even talk to us no more, said she didn't like how we was always moanin' about missin ya." he's rambling he knows it but he's clutching at water right now. Trying his best to grab on to it and make it solid. Make them solid again.

Rae's eyes are bugging out in that way they do sometimes, like they could fall out if they weren't so magnetic. Like they should follow the laws of gravity and be rolling on the ground but instead they just suck Finn in and make ever muscle in his body work to keep from falling into the oak and moss of her eyes.

"You mean she didn't tell you…" Rae trails off.

Her eyebrows are scrunching together and Finn can't help but feel lost all over again. This is why he didn't talk, why he didn't get involved in things like conversations and new people. As soon as he thought he had something figured out it all got fucked again. He feels it in his breathing and joints of his fingers, something else made Rae stay away. Beyond Chloe's demand, there's something he's not seeing. Something she thought he already saw.

"Didn't tell me what?"