Crystaltears: This chapter's a little different, flashbacks and dreams are italicized; I'm pretty sure you all can figure it out. Holy crap! Time to update, AGAIN! AHHH! I need to start writing!

NOTE: WE'VE IMPROVED OUR WEBSITE! WE'RE PLANNING ON PUTTING SOME DOWNLOADABLE GOODIES! CRYSTALTEARS' AMVs HAVE BEEN PUT INTO THE DOWNLOADS, PLEASE CHECK IT OUT! THX!

D-E-V-L-41: Hm…not much to say, but thanks everyone…sorry, not in the mood today. Lost a tennis game…how sad

Moonlit Showers aka InuKag Fan, Kimura, Kagomegrile14, Inanila Momimoya inuyasha is my hottie hero, x, unicornlover-2007, Kagomegirl14, maboroshi kaji1Inuyasha's Priestess inuz-gurl-07, Kathie, kagome112593korokochan18remix-69er, VainRhinosCarDenKagome92111HitomeshyinukuramaRminefoxyprincess, together IxK, inulova4lyfeice-apparition16

Unicorn'sWhisperNo idea

Timera: I don't think Kagome's that type of person to kill herself for love. She's a smart girl, and is not that desperate. Good idea though, if it was another story line, I think we/I would have used that.

demonspawn666 Hm…I hope we don't…

Hitomeshy That would be a great idea, but I didn't write this chapter. I don't even know what's going to happen. Just writing this, cause I got an email from crystaltears telling me to write it.

Oh yeah guys, IM crystaltears…AIM: hg777oa, msn: hahaha, if you talk to her RIGHT NOW, you might still see her user for msn as: momo, if you ever get on, please type the review responses for LBA…lol, nice…

Another thing, has anyone read the book 'sisterhood of the traveling pants'? and maybe the second one and the third one also? Omg, its such a good book…I know I know, it sounds REALLY lame and gay, that's what I said, but then I read it and its actually not even about pants…can't wait until the movie comes out.

Crystaltears: Nah……I already changed my sn. Lol

Chapter 17-Denying and Accepting

Kagome cleaned out the cuts on her palms, sniffling lightly. After her crying fit, Kagome had gotten off the ground to sweep up the glass and to clean out her cuts.

'How could Inuyasha do something like this to me? Was everything he said to me…..fake? Was everything I saw in him fake?'

Kagome yawned, she didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to think about Inuyasha. She just wanted to sleep. To sleep away everything. And maybe, when she woke up in the morning, she'd see that these past two weeks were just an awful nightmare her imagination had created.

The girl stretched her hands over her head and picked up the prom dress she had set on an empty chair. She walked slowly up the stairs, dragging her feet. The memories of her and Inuyasha together pushed against the stone barrier she had set in her mind to forget them, and to forget everything she felt for Inuyasha.

By the time Kagome got to the top of the stairs, her eyes were watering again. The girl hastily wiped the tears away with her bandaged hand. She got to her room with eyes closed. She really felt like banging her head into the wall. Maybe that'd make her forget him? Kagome smiled bitterly. She tossed her dress roughly to the back of her closet, where she probably wouldn't ever see it again, and then she fell onto her bed, not even bothering to lift the covers over her head, she drifted off to sleep.

"Inuyasha, don't go!"

"I have to go, Kagome! What'd you think I'd do after Prom? Stay with you? Hahahaha," Inuyasha laughed at Kagome.

"I thought we were friends, Inuyasha!" Kagome demanded.

"Keh! Yeah right, wench. Like I'd ever be friends with a freak like you!"

"But I thought we had something special!"

"FRREEEAAAAKKKKK!" strange voices squealed from every direction.

"What!" Inuyasha laughed, snorting in her face, "Something…special, with a nerd like you? Hahaha, I've GOT to tell that one to Miroku!"

"Inuyasha, don't leave me alone, please. Oh, please!" Kagome said desperately, holding tightly to his hand.

"Awww! What's the matter with little Kag, huh? Are you in love with me? HAHAHAHA!" Inuyasha laughed hysterically. Suddenly, everyone else appeared and pointed fingers at her, laughing with him.

"NOOOO! STOP IT! SHUT UP!"

Kagome sat up in her bed. Looking around, still hearing all the jeers of her classmates. She looked at the digital clock. 12:30 AM. Kagome got up and headed downstairs for a cup of water to quench her thirst. The keys were on the table, meaning the rest of the family had come home already.

Kagome grabbed a glass cup and filled it up with water. She took it up to her room and tried falling asleep once more. The girl fumbled with her covers, remembering her vivid dream.

"Are you in love with me?" Inuyasha's voice rang in her head.

"No…" Kagome replied weakly, knowing full well that Inuyasha's voice had only been a figment of her imagination.

But then when she thought about it again……

"Actually, I was wondering if you'd go to the prom with me."

"I'll make you deal. If I set you up with that nerd so that he'll ask you out, then you have to go to the prom with me!"

Why hadn't she paid attention to what he'd said to her? He was obviously using her. And Sango had warned. But then, she was using him too. But he knew it! She didn't know he was using her, he told HER that he was just trying to show her a "good time." The lying bastard!

"Wow, can you come over one day and tell me about it. I need a good report to get an A in AP history."

"How about today, or are you busy at home?"

"Wow, who knew these swords had such a history!"

"Yeah, pretty cool, huh?"

But the…..he'd been so sweet to her!

"Hey, what's up?"

"What, are you scared again?"

And then he'd reverted back to his plain old mean self.

"I'm not nearly as interested in it as I am in Kagome."

"We need to talk. I tried calling you, but obviously I've gotten a busy signal...so I decided to come over."

"I think about kissing you a lot..."

Kagome shivered as the words repeated through her mind. And then she glared out the window, wishing Inuyasha was here to see her. She wanted him to be sorry, sorry that he'd ever tricked her. And they'd kissed. Her first kiss, from a guy who most definitely kissed girl after girl after girl! Kagome stuck out her tongue in disgust, and suddenly, felt like rinsing her mouth with Listerine over and over again, until every single germ from his dirty tongue had been obliterated.

"Kagome, it's ok. Everything will be ok…"

"Kagome, when I saw you tonight, I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. Your beauty outshone any angel in the sky, and I realized how privileged I am to be by your side."

Kagome was furious. She had fallen for all those sweet words he'd said. She told herself not too, but her heart had taken over her sensible logic. She'd fallen off balance from her world full of grades, books, library time, and volunteering to a world filled with popular guys discarding girls like they were trash. He'd tricked her, god damnit! Her perfectly scheduled world had turned upside down, had become a world she never dreamed that she would end up in.

She'd never minded before, but now…she realized what it felt like, because this time she was the trash. Yesterday's news. Gone with the wind.

Hot tears poured down her face once more, but this time, in anger. She'd let Inuyasha use her like that. Why hadn't she suspected? She couldn't believe herself. Breaking down crying like that. She never did that. Especially not over some stupid boy! AND ESPECIALLY not over Inuyasha! Why was she crying now?

But in the corner of her mind, she heard it, "You love him, Kagome. You love him so much, but it's so painful to hold on."

The girl shook her head. No. She wasn't. She couldn't be! She hated Inuyasha's guts, she was definitely not in love with the guy. When she thought about it, memories poured over the stone walls in her mind, flooding her with every single thought and memory she could remember. And she knew, in the pit of her stomach, deep in her heart, that she was in love with Inuyasha. As careless and insensitive as he was, she had fallen for him…fallen so hard. And that's why it was so hard to accept the fact that he had betrayed her the way he did.

Kagome cried, now not knowing if she were angry or upset. She rubbed her temples, trying to make the migraine go away, but decided it was best to rest up before she had to contemplate this whole thing again.

Inuyasha lay in bed thinking. He'd gone home right after he made sure Kagome had made it home ok, and he'd gone straight to bed. Not bothering to take off his tux. Not bothering to do anything.

He'd thought about Kagome all night.

And hadn't gotten a wink of sleep.

'Why did you do this to her, you jackass!' A miniscule voice resounded in his mind like an echo.

"I don't know, why did I do it? Why didn't I think!" he whispered fiercely.

Inuyasha stared blankly at the ceiling. He pressed his hand gingerly to the wilting rose Kagome had pinned onto his tuxedo before they left her house. He removed the flower. Upon the moment she had given it to him, he hadn't noticed it much. It was the strangest rose he'd ever seen. The inside was beautiful, the rose was a deep and astonishing red, a bright shade that he could even see in the dark. What he didn't notice before was that the rose was tinged at the outer edges with the lightest tinge of pink. And the outside of the petals were pale, and looked almost white.

The boy recalled a conversation he had with Miroku just a week before.

"Inuyasha! Don't you know what the colors of roses represent?"

"Uh…………love?"

"No, that's so generic. Different colors have different meanings! Such as red, red would be a color proving your love for a girl."

"That's what I just said, you dumbass!"

"No, but, let's take another color, say……white, it represents purity, innocence. That stuff."

"oookkk…And I need to know this why!"

"Because, one day, you'll want to give the girl of your dreams the perfect rose!" Miroku exclaimed.

"Keh!"

"Well, anyways, I'm going to tell you whether you like it or not! And afterwards, you can help me pick the perfect rose for my darling Sango!"

Inuyasha snorted.

"Well, red, obviously represents love and passion. Lavender stands for enchantment. Orange means fascination. Yellow represents friendship-"

"Ha! It's obviously not yellow!"

"Eh hem! PLEASE let me continue! Pink stands for joy and happiness…White represents innocence and purity. And oooh, I remember, coral stands for desire." Miroku hummed lightly at the last one.

Inuyasha stared at the rose intently. Oddly, Kagome had given him a rose that represented everything she was.

After a long while, Inuyasha stood up from his bed and laid the flower next to a framed photograph of his mother, holding Inuyasha in her arms, and smiling.

Crystaltears: Ahh, done, woohoo. I'm happy. I'm content………….I'm sorry if the chapter's moving too fast --...but I really hate it when people pity themselves!