Author's Note:

I apologize to my readers for not posting a chapter yesterday. I try every year to volunteer my time at Christmas to an organization that provides Christmas Hampers and Toys to the needy during the Holidays. Yesterday was an incredibly busy day. Please forgive me if I miss a day here and there as I will be busy right up until the 23rd of December when we deliver the loot. LOL HOHOHO. 

Kelly woke to the shrill sound of her alarm clock and reached a tired hand over to shut it off. She opened one blurry eye to confirm, yup the sun was up, and glaring through her bedroom window. She and Donnie had stayed up late talking until the cows came home, and as a result she was plum tuckered out.

She moaned and rolled over in her bed and turned her back on the bright morning light. All she wanted or -- more accurately -- needed was a couple more hours of sleep and oh where, oh where was she going to find that? This was so unlike her she would normally 'a spring out of bed in the morning' kind of gal. Heck the snooze button on her alarm clock looked brand new on the five year old clock radio.

She usually had no trouble falling straight to sleep, but these days if it wasn't her talking it was Donnie being the culprit and keeping them awake well past the time they should be asleep. She must have heard every childhood story of his by now. He had some pretty entertaining years in the all boy's Catholic boarding school he attended in Rome, Italy. He and his friends had been real pranksters and had given the nuns and priest there a real hard time, but when she let loose with one of her colorful southern saying and accused him of being able to make the bishop mad enough to kick in some stain glass windows.

He'd laughed for ten minutes straight until she had to throw her pillows at him to get him to stop and nearly burnt the apartment down when one hit one of the elemental candles.

Then she had said angrily, "Donnie Alfero you can kiss my go to hell!" and glared at him, but when he heard that he nearly died of laughter again.

She rolled over -- turning her back on him entirely – fully intending to sulk herself to sleep, but she couldn't stop herself, she tried to hold it in, but she couldn't. His laugh was too infectious. Soon they were both laughing and exchanging Southern phrases for Italian hand signals.

He showed her half a dozen ways to cuss at someone using only her hands and she tried to explain the many expressions southerners have for Yankees or Northerners. Her favorite being: how they're just like hemorrhoids 'painful when they come down, but a relief when they go back up.' He made her explain that one several times until it wasn't funny anymore which was just too darn funny for him.

Finally she'd fallen asleep with a smile on her lips and a laugh in her throat. And as she lay in her bed with her eyes closed she couldn't help thinking she was going to miss him when they straighten everything out. He had become a true friend.

She turned when she heard the familiar rustling that indicated that Donnie Cat had morphed into Donnie boy and when she did she found him looking at her with a cat that ate the canary smile which made her think 'now what'? What was that crazy Italian boy up to?

When she voiced her thoughts and questioned the boy, saying, "What are you smirking at?"

He just laughed, but became serious all at once and said, "Mia Cara I like to ask you something, but I no want to offend you."

She looked up the word 'Cara' a few weeks back and found out it meant 'dear' and at first she was a little disconcerted by it, but then she thought: what's the harm she calls people 'sugar' all the time it's just an expression, so she refrained from correcting him.

She narrowed her eyes at him inquisitively and said, "well if you're fixin to ask something best be done with it."

He gulped nervously and leapt right in," I wanted to ask you last night but I . . . how you say . . . chicken out?"

Okay now he was making her anxious. He looked as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rockin' chairs.

Suddenly he blurted out, "Cara will you go to the Samhain Ball with me?"

Kelly did her best impression of a fish out of water as she stared at him. She hadn't expected this and even as she thought she'd better close her mouth before she started catching flies, still no words would come, but he waited patiently.

It was crazy but words like, 'not on your life sugar', or 'have you lost all the sense the good lord gave ya' floated through her head, but for some reason none of them sprung out her damn mouth.

Instead she shocked herself and said sweetly, "Sugar, I don't think that'll be a good idea."

And even though, she hadn't knowingly said anything hurtful, her words still wiped the smile right off his face, which surprising had a visceral effect on her. She felt her heart fall to her stomach, but just because she didn't want to hurt the poor boy didn't mean she had feelings for him. There she said it. Nope no feeling at all.

Suddenly she wasn't tired anymore and she sprang out of bed and said, as she shot by him on her way to the ensuite bathroom, "oh sweet baby Jesus look at the time, Tuma will have our hides if we're late! "

She practically ran for the bathroom like a darn coward and slammed the door behind her. As she leaned against it breathing heavy and feeling hotter than a jalapeño pepper, she berated herself, get a hold of your own damn self Kelly that boy is no damn good for you and you know it. And with one cleansing breath she pushed off the door and got in to the shower.

When she got out only moments later she shoved on her clothes struggling with them over her still damp limbs and quickly started to towel dry her hair and brush her teeth. It was a good half hour before she had her hair blown dry and her face on.

The entire time she was doing her morning ritual she couldn't get the picture of Donnie's dejected face out of her mind. Finally she had to stop being the coward that she was and face the music maybe she would find something better to say than I don't think it's a good idea.

Kelly muttered out loud sardonically,' I don't think it's a good idea. Gwad that's awful!' she groaned in disgust and slapped herself with her palm on her forehead.

There has got to be something better she could have said, could still say, but for the life of her she couldn't think of it.

Enough hiding she thought. She swung open the door ready to wing it, but found the circle empty. Donnie was gone. It was the first time in weeks that he'd gone to school without saying goodbye to her and for some reason it made her feel sick at her stomach.

She even slumped on the corner of her unmade bed. What was the matter with her? Why did she feel like someone had sucker punched her in the gut at training?

She stood up remotely and started to methodically make her bed as she worried over these new emotions. No damn way she was falling for the boy . . . and what if she was? It was no damn wonder he was falling for her. She hadn't laid out her boundaries.

Oh she had been so stupid and so blind to have toyed with the boy's heart like that. That was just selfish and self centered of her not to see. As she tucked in the last corner she decided she'd just have to set things to rights tonight when they had some time alone.

There was no need to hurt the boy. She'd just have to make him see sense. If he thought they would make a great couple, he sure was barking up the wrong tree.

Donnie barely said two words to her during their morning classes and soon it was even more awkward being around him then Xander. So she just stopped trying, but it was going to be even more awkward later when they were stuck in the same room together until they fell asleep.

Kelly tried to get her mind off it and focus on her classes, but it was a useless endeavor. That dog just wasn't going to hunt.

By lunch she was fit to be tied. She even grabbed a piece of chocolate cake when she went through the line. Oh she had no intention of eating it but, maybe just smelling it would release some happy endorphins?

She plunked herself down dejectedly in her usual spot to notice that their usual table was fairly deserted. Everyone was absent, aside from Brenna the Inuit shaman, even her tag along shadow Connor was nowhere to be found.

Where was everyone? Had she tuned them out a little too much and missed something important that had been said? She was just about to ask Brenna when from around one of the massive pillars in the lunch room the entire gang came marching up with a cake in their hands. Connor was actually holding a birthday cake with sparklers on it.

Oh sweet baby Jesus she hadn't even known it was Brenna's birthday. She turned five shades of red as she looked down at her cafeteria bought piece of cake and it screamed back you're so damn self-absorbed you didn't even know it was your classmate's birthday. SO quickly she grabbed the evidence of her uncouth ways and launched the offensive piece of cake into the air towards the nearest garbage can, feeling thankful once again for her propensity not to miss. It went right through the broken flap of the garbage slot several tables away from her.

She turned swiftly and began to sing along -- a little too boisterously -- with her home room classmates. Much to Kelly's relief Brenna was too distracted by her wonderful surprise to notice her unsociable behavior.

As it turned out Brenna was the last of them to turn sixteen another thing she didn't know about the people she spent most of her time with. She was beginning to feel like a complete heel. She knew nearly nothing about most of the people at her lunch room table and it made her feel lower than low.

When Lauren dug in her bag and pulled out a present, Kelly looked down on her plate in shame and when she announced it was from all of them she felt even worse.

Brenna opened it and it was a cute collar for Wolfe. Her pet wolf was always scaring people and maybe with a light blue collar covered in colorful balloons he might just pass for anything but a man eater.

Brenna laughed when the lead made a weird little slide whistling sound as she pulled it in and out. Her eyebrows nearly touched her hairline when she heard it.

"Thanks," she said a little incredulously. You could tell she was a little bewildered about getting a dog collar for her sixteenth.

Until everyone started to laugh and Connor muttered with a rare laugh, "look under the crepe paper."

When she did she squealed, "OMG you didn't!" she exclaimed as she held of a pair of concert tickets.

Kelly could see them from her spot they were Walk off the Earth tickets. Brenna nearly jumped out of her skin when she read them, she jumped up to hug everyone and even pretended to hug Connor, and he pretended to hug her back in a rare non-awkward moment between the two. And how did Kelly know he had everything to do with the idea for the tickets and suddenly she was wishing there was someone in her life that cared enough about her to know what country musician she liked best or what bands.

Kelly my dear she thought you had best start acting like you care one damn bit about someone else other than your own damn self, or you're going to find yourself all alone.

Just then her eyes for some reason or other found their way to a laughing Donnie.

When Brenna blurted out," OMG! I almost forgot. I've got a present for you too Donnie," she dug in her pocket and pulled out yet another of her generic charms and held it up to the light cascading down to their table. And with a self-satisfied smirk she announced, "I've created an obscure-us charm finally. It wasn't easy but I finally did it."

When he didn't jump for joy she asked, "don't you know what this means? It means you're free. You can go wherever you please; you're not a prisoner anymore. Unless they stumble on you by chance they won't be able to detect where you are."

"Lauren can you cast a spell and check my work?"

While Brenna bent her dark mop of hair over Donnie's equally dark short cropped head and clasped it to his bracelet, she said, "We'll have you sleeping back in your own bed in no time."

Kelly tried not to shiver like a fool when he locked eyes with her after hearing Brenna's words.

She gave him a weak smile before looking away to bite her lip and nails.

Lauren muttered an incantation and then another and another until she had to agree that Brenna had succeeded in creating the perfect charm.

Brenna beamed and for some damn reason Connor looked as proud as bunch. All the others seemed to be celebrating too.

They were far too busy to notice that two people in the party were oddly quiet. Kelly couldn't take the furtive glances Donnie kept throwing her way; so she got up to empty her untouched lunch, and make her way to the magical wing. Her first class this afternoon was divination.

And who knew: maybe if she played her cards right she could get the insight she so desperately needed. 

I think Kelly's finally getting a real hard look at herself, and she's finally coming to terms with the fact that the way she treats people has come home to roust. 

What do you think?

Do you think she'll change her mind about going to the Samhain Ball with Donnie?

Tune in tomorrow to find out.