There's No Place Like Home

Getting off of that stuffy airplane was like a breath of fresh air for Katherine Walter. She was just getting back from her study abroad in France, just in time for the holidays. Katherine went to Paris to live with the Blanc family for a semester so she could further her understanding of French. Ever since she started the language in high school, it was her favorite, and she was set on becoming a French teacher.

Luckily for Katherine, her plane landed safely without any issues. The only problem now was getting her incredibly flaky best friend Collette to pick her up from the airport.

“So this is home,” Katherine sarcastically said. She wished that she was still in Capucine’s room, sitting on her bed, talking about anything and everything in French. She already missed her and it had only been twelve hours since she got on that plane.

Walking to baggage claim 8, she saw a certain group of boys that she had been avoiding for quite some time now.

“Katherine! Is that you?” She heard someone yell across the airport.

He made his way over to her with the biggest smile on his face. It had been months since he had seen his best friend that wasn’t in the band.

“Oh, hey John… Long time no see.” She replied, not necessarily feeling comfortable.

“How have you been? I don’t think we’ve talked since Kennedy—”

“Well, I’ve been busy so that could be why we haven’t talked. As for Kennedy, that happened so long ago, it doesn’t even matter!” she said, brushing it off as if it were truly nothing.

“So that means you wouldn’t mind seeing all the guys, right? Come on!” With those words, John started dragging Katherine across baggage claim, despite her protests.

She honestly thought that she would never have to see or deal with her old life again. She was one of those people who believed that things in the past are meant to stay there. Katherine hated digging up old memories.

“Guess who I found!” John shouted at his friends, while Katherine tried to hide behind his rather skinny body.

The four boys looked up to see someone that they thought they’d never see again.

“Hey guys…” Katherine said, tucking some hair behind her ear, as if she was never best friends with these boys.

Jared was the first to embrace her in a huge bear hug. Out of all the guys she had missed him the most, especially his hugs. He was her first best friend in the group and he would always be her best friend.

“Katie, I’ve missed you! How have you been? I’m guessing you did end up going to Paris. Was it fun? Was the family you stayed with nice?” Jared was still so friendly even though she left without a word.

“I’ve been great, really great. I loved Paris, possibly more than I love good old Arizona.” She chuckled. “And yes, the family I stayed with was more than nice. They parents were a little hard on me at first, never letting me speak English, but it was for my own good. And their daughter Capucine is pretty much my best friend. Sorry man, you’ve been kicked off of your pedestal by a 9 year old girl.”

“Dammit! I was hoping this day would never come!” Jared said, going along with her joke.

They laughed together until she noticed an unhappy Garrett standing next to Jared.

“Why didn’t you tell us that you were leaving? Why you were leaving? Why couldn’t you have just said that you didn’t like us anymore?” Garrett asked. He was the most hurt by her leaving without a word and had grown a dislike for her over the past six months.

“Garrett, I just had to get out of here. You know that I didn’t want to stay here for any longer so I left. It may not be one of my most wise decisions, but for once, I made a decision for myself.”

And even though Garrett was a still a little bit mad, he couldn’t help but understand her reasoning. She would always consider what was better for others first, even if that meant putter herself second.

He embraced her in a hug. “You’re forgiven for now, but only because I need my musical soul mate back. Just don’t ever leave us like that again. Pinky promise?”

“Pinky promise.”

They stuck out their pinkies, locking them together in the way that they’ve always made promises.

When she turned to look for Pat, she saw him running off in the other direction with his hair tucked behind his ears screaming and immediately knew that Rat Boy came back from the dead. She laughed, remembering all the times Rat Boy had attacked complete strangers when they were out in public.

Shaking her head with a smile, she turned back around and accidentally met eyes with the only boy she had been trying to avoid, smile dropping right off her face.

“Hey Katie…” Kennedy said nervously as he scratched the back of his neck. “Can we talk in private?”

“Yeah, sure,” Katherine replied, knowing the one thing Kennedy wanted to talk about. She could see it in his eyes; the nervousness and the love.

Kennedy looked surprised when Katherine agreed without refusing first. And he thought he knew her too well. He used to be able to read her so well by just the look in her eyes. Right now they were just cold, but she still seemed friendly as ever, which really threw him off. They walked to a more secluded area, well, as secluded as you could get in an airport.

Katherine started off the conversation when she saw that Kennedy had yet to say anything and looked deep in thought. “So how has tour been? Great, I presume.”

“…Oh right! Tour! Yeah, it’s been awesome. The crowds have definitely been much bigger than our first shows. You remember those. You were basically our only fan.” Kennedy said with a smile on his face

“I was not! You definitely had other fans!” She retorted.

“Name three.”

“Well there was Pat’s mom! And…” Katherine paused, for she had trouble thinking of two more people. “I guess you’re right. But only this time! All times but this, I am still right!” She joked.

Kennedy laughed. “You were never really the kind of person to admit that they were wrong. I remember all of the debates you would get into with teachers and when they would tell you to join debate team, you said you wouldn’t unless they admitted that you were right.”

“Ah, yes Kenny. But that was only because I was right, like I always am.”

They laughed together, without any tension to Kennedy’s surprise. He knew she wasn’t really one to pick a fight, but he thought she would actually ignore him after what he did to her.

He missed this, her. He missed the glint in her eyes when they talked, the way that she always had to be right, the way her nose would scrunch up when she laughed, and most of all, the smile that made him fall in love.

“I can think of one time that you were wrong,” Kennedy said, finally getting the courage to bring up what he really wanted to talk about.

“Tell me and I’ll prove you wrong,” Katherine challenged with a playful smile, thinking that she would be right again.

“When we broke up six months ago… You said that it everything was your fault. None of it was your fault. It wasn’t fair for you to take all the blame when you didn’t do anything wrong.”

The smile immediately dropped off her face. Katherine should’ve seen this coming. She knew that this whole “friends” thing was too good to be true. She and Kennedy were two people who could only be in an exclusive relationship or nothing at all.

She broke their eye contact just to look down at her shoes. Eye contact was something she usually liked to avoid, especially when she was uncomfortable. Right now, looking into Kennedy’s eyes was unbearable.

“Look, Kenny. I know it was you who cheated with your ex for 3 months, and you who lied about where you were and what you were doing, but it was me that made you cheat. I wasn’t enough for you, I wasn’t there for you and—”

“Goodness, Katie! Listen to yourself! You’re taking the blame for something I did!” Kennedy interrupted, with such fire in his eyes. He took a calming breath and continued. “Katie, do you know how hard it was for me to see you cry and blame yourself? For me to be the cause of your tears? I wanted to marry you then, and I want to marry you now! I just made a mistake! I still love you, can’t you see that?”

“Kenny, I still love you too, but that doesn’t mean that it’s meant to be. Us breaking up happened for a reason so it is what it is.” She shrugged her shoulders and just hoped that something would stop this conversation from going any further. Katherine truly thought that she wouldn’t have to deal with Kennedy for this long when they already talked most of it out when she caught him.

Kennedy was now running his hands through his hair from frustration. “You still don’t get it! I still want to spend my life with you!” He pulled out her diamond ring from his pocket. “I carry this around with me everyday just hoping that someday we’ll be together again, that we’ll finally get married like we planned. Please, let’s get back together. At least take your ring back,” he pleaded, even trying to slide it back onto her finger.

Surprisingly, Katherine let him. She looked at the ring on her finger. It looked perfect, but she never wanted to see it again. She felt that it represented something that was never real, so why keep it around?

“No, I don’t think you get it. I gave you that ring so you could give it to your ex, the girl who it really belonged—” Katherine was cut off by the sound of her phone ringing. Desperate to end this conversation, she answered it quickly, and much to her liking, it was Collette calling to say that she was there.

Kennedy immediately knew who called when he saw the look of relief in Katherine’s eyes. He also knew that this was probably his last chance to win her over.

“Don’t you dare leave this airport without even considering us. You know you want this just as bad as I do. Just follow your heart and come back home. Come back home to me.”

“Ken—”

“No, you left me; the least you can do is hear me out.”

“I left for your own good! You obviously didn’t want me any—”

“For my own good?! Of course I still wanted you! You were, are the love of my life! I want you to move back in with me, for us to get married, to get a dog named Winston that we’ll call Winnie, to have two boys and a girl! We’ll have a house with a white picket fence like we always planned! We’ll even have a small wedding like you wanted, in your parents’ backyard. All of this can still happen, just come home to me,” he begged.

As touching as Kennedy’s little speech was, Katherine was fed up with him interrupting her and hearing his damn excuses. She was still madly in love with Kennedy Brock but she was done with him.

“Are you finished talking?” she asked as calmly as she possibly could.

“No, I—” he started, but she was the one to do the interrupting this time.

“Well if you don’t mind, I would like to get to Collette so I can go to my real home, wherever the hell that is.”

And with that, she walked out of the airport to greet Collette with a smile and a hug, as if her heart wasn’t aching for Kennedy.

Katherine now sat in the car with Collette, silently looking out the window as Collette was bombarding her with questions about Paris. Her eyes slowly drifted off to her ring finger and saw the one thing that brought her back to a place she never wanted to be.

“There’s no place like home, my ass.”