[CONTENTID1]AFTERMATH[/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2]

Kai's POV

It had only been two weeks or so since Penelope and I had spoken. Since our breakup. Only a week but it felt like a lifetime; every day was a struggle to get through because I'd see her face across the room or our eyes would meet in the cafeteria but we'd both look away in distaste. That wasn't even the worse of it - I hated the fact that I wanted to hate her but I couldn't. I hated the fact that I didn't even want to hate her but I should...yet I didn't. I hated the way her eyes darkened when she saw me or her jaw set when she heard my voice. I hated how tired she looked all the time because she was probably working herself half to death either because colleges were looking into all the seniors now or because she was trying to keep her mind off the breakup - or both. 

I wasn't much better, though. The only thing motivating me to do well in school was the memory of Penelope's incessant nagging. My father was being worked harder and harder (for some reason, this seemed to be a busy season for the trucking industry) and had little time to spend at home so I couldn't rely on him for emotional support. My mother's condition was worsening but she always kept an open ear for me - that helped. I was grateful that I could always count on her to comfort me when things went bad. What didn't help, however, was how much she was lecturing me on letting Penelope go so easily. Truth be told, I was a coward. I was afraid to try to win her back in case she rejected me. I was afraid I'd never meant anything to her and would look like a fool if I confessed that I still loved her. I was afraid she'd take me back only for her parents to tear us apart again.

"Kai. KAI!" I snapped out of my thoughts and glanced at Luhan, who had been tutoring me for my AP Chinese class. I grunted and looked back down at my notepad, scribbling down the English translation to one of the questions. "If you keep zoning out like that, you're not going to do well in the exam. We have four months till our final exams. You need to focus."

"Yeah, yeah," I mumbled, drawing a cartoon car on the corner of my page. He sighed and took a seat next to me, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder. I didn't spare him another glance. "Whatever you're gonna say, don't say it. I'm over her."

"It's been two weeks, smart . I don't think so," Luhan scoffed. "Besides even if it had been longer, I don't think you'll ever get over her. Why can't you just apologise?"

"For what? For needing her to support me?" I snapped, instantly regretting having done so. Luhan was not the enemy here, he was my friend. Although Chanyeol tried to be supportive, I found it hard to be around him when he was always with Cleo and they were always acting cutesy together. Now I knew how the other guys felt - bitter, jealous. "I have nothing to apologise for."

"It doesn't matter. My grandfather used to tell me all the time, 'Lu, if you ever upset your wife, apologise. Doesn't matter if you're right and she's wrong, apologise anyway. It'll get you further in the long run.' I think he was right." I grunted and blocked out his voice, focusing on the Chinese work before me. He sighed again but said nothing more. An hour passed with the conversation never straying from its purpose. Footsteps neared us but I didn't look up, afraid Luhan might smack me over the head with a ruler again like he had every time I got distacted. His method was much different to Penelope's. 

I cursed myself for thinking about her again. The footsteps got closer until they drew to a stop.

I froze at the sweet voice. "Hey, Lulu, mind helping me with some Chinese homework?" Looking up my eyes met with Penelope's and she seemed to be taken aback. Her grip tightened on her red folder and she clenched her jaw, glancing away from me and focusing on Luhan instead. "I see you're helping someone already. Never mind."

"No, it's okay. Our session was just ending anyway," he told her and I cast him an offended look. He shrugged at me and closed my books, slipping them into my backpack for me. I then got up and gave him a customary Korean bow. 

"Thanks, Han. See you later." He smiled and patted my back as I turned away. I couldn't help but look over my shoulder to see if Penelope was watching me leave. True enough, she was. Except there wasn't that familiarly sweet, loving expression on her face. Her eyes were cold and she looked me up and down with disdain. Turning her face away from me, she flashed Luhan the beautiful smile I knew and missed. Right then, I kind of hated Luhan.

In a way, I also hated Penelope.

***

Penelope's POV

"What are you looking at?" I asked, finally having enough of Luhan giving me a peculiar look for the last forty five minutes. The blonde widened his eyes in feigned shock and I rolled mine, flipping him off. "Whatever."

"Do you miss him?" He asked and my hand froze on my notepad mid sentence. My fingers twitched on the pen I held and I slowly put it down, my eyes levelling with his. "Stupid question, huh? Of course you do."

"I don't," I lied. He raised a brow at me but said nothing. "I don't. He's not who I thought he was." It didn't mean I didn't miss him...or at the very least miss the person I'd thought he was. But it was easier for me to lie, to pretend Kim Jongin meant nothing to me. Someone once told me something which had sort of become my motto. 

"Because if I pretend long enough, I might actually start believing it..."

"I've gotta go," I muttered as tears pricked at my eyes. Luhan's hand shot out and he grabbed my arm, holding me in my place. I refused to look at him and turned my face so he couldn't see the single tear rolling down my cheek. 

"He misses you too, y'know," he said and I gulped, my throat suddenly dry. "He still loves you. Give him another chance...let him give you another chance. You both need each other."

"I don't need anyone," I replied, tearing myself away from him. "I'm fine." With that, I grabbed my things and left the library, my feet carrying me as fast as they could as I ran to my car. I drove quickly though I did not know where to exactly. My thoughts were conflicted and tears blurred my vision but I pushed on, zooming down the empty streets of Dallas. It was raining hard (a storm was on its way) and most people had locked themselves in their homes. Making a quick decision, I swerved around a corner and drove to the hospital. 

The wind bashed against me as I entered the hospital and greeted the receptionist who, by now, was already used to seeing me. Her name was Naomi and she was in her last year of college, she worked part time to cover her tuition. She'd been my shoulder to cry on over the past two weeks. Although I hated myself for it, I'd shut my friends and family out when they tried to speak to me. Cleo was always around Chanyeol who only reminded me of Kai, Henrietta and Arthur showed too much pity and I hated it. Victoria was too busy for me to have told her and anyone else didn't deserve to know. The only people I spoke to were completely detached from my life at Wilson High; Junhong, Youngjae, Daehyun, Jongup and Naomi; except for Sehun, of course, but that was because he couldn't respond. Then there was Suyun, whom I was beginning to trust more but not enough to let her completely in. I found it easier to talk to people who knew little about my life except for what I wanted them to. I'd also been in touch with Taehyung, from the soup kitchen, more and he'd introduced me to his best friends Jungkook (who was the same age as Junhong), Jimin, Namjoon, Seokjin, Yoongi and Hoseok. 

"How was school today?" Naomi asked as she typed rapidly on her keyboard, her eyes never leaving the screen. Her glasses began sliding down her nose and she smoothly pushed them back up. I scoffed and leaned on the counter.

"I still hate it," I replied and my words caused me to frown a little. I used to love school, it was a place where I could control how people perceived me. To the world outside of school, I was Penelope Park, the heiress of PetroPark Oil & Gas Co. To my peers, I was Penelope Park, the brainy beauty that possessed more humanity than stupid Stacey Harlow.

Or something like that, I don't know. 

"College is where it gets better, don't worry," she chuckled, her dough eyes scanning the computer screen. Naomi was pretty in that conventional way; she didn't have dazzling beauty but she had charm and wit. She was beautiful in her own right. "Guess what happened last night?"

"What?" I grinned, leaning forward. I looked down at her slender fingers and realisation hit me. The ring on her left hand was hard to miss.

"Yongguk proposed!" she exclaimed, drawing her fingers away from the keyboard and peering up at me through her glasses. A smirk spread across her heart-shaped face and we grasped each other's hands, squealing like little girls. "I'm so happy, Pen. He's so sweet and bashful...I really love him." Instead of being filled with jealousy as I usually was around other couples, I only felt happiness for Naomi. Her and Bang Yongguk, Middleton High's football coach, had been going out for almost four years (since she'd finished high school - I'd been filled in on all of this) and had met