Keegan didn't know where her crazy idea had come but suddenly it all seemed to click into place, hadn't she read mysteries reverently since she had learned to read? The police didn't have the personal interest in the case, not like she could because now suddenly this was everything to her. She didn't register the fact that Noah was shaking his head until her own excitement began to die down. Noah looked visibly paler at the suggestion and he wouldn't look at her.

A wave of guilt hit Keegan as she realised that this wasn't her choice to make, she didn't get to swoop in and play the hero. 

"Sorry, forget that idea," she said in a rush.

He looked away into the distance as if he didn't quite know what to say, and now she didn't know either, the flow of conversation hadn't exactly been easy before but now it was almost painful.

"It wasn't exactly a bad idea..." he said slowly, and she couldn't look him in the eye. 

"It's just the after that I'm scared of what's going to happen next, right now it all seems fine and I can fool myself into thinking someone like you can save someone like me with a few words and my story shared but in reality, this all ends one day. One day it won't be something exciting to have to save someone, it will become tiresome like all things."

Keegan had no idea what she was meant to reply to that, something deep and meaningful would have been good, but the only thing she could think to do was deny it all. Seeing it from his point of view it did look like that, she had openly admitted to him that this was the craziest thing she had ever done. Most people would have probably answered someone's plea on a napkin and out of fake kindness pretended to take an interest in their story. 

But she wasn't most people. 

"Noah..." she said slowly forcing herself to look up into possibly the saddest eyes she had ever seen in the world, what a coward she was, he hadn't been the one to look away from her when he had the most reason to. 

"I know what this must look like to you and truthfully, I completely understand but what you don't know about me is when I give my all to something be it me persuading my family that going to Disneyland for a week or persuading you right now that I am not someone who's going to walk away from this. You need a tether, someone to keep you here and for now, that's me."

She never got this passionate about anything, but she was breathing heavily and tears were threatening to spill. A life was something unimaginable to hold in your hands, not that she would ever be as arrogant as to believe Noah's was held solely in hers. But just having the ability to influence a decision as massive as this made her realise how little she really knew. She might know his story but she didn't know anything about the wider issue of how you saved a life.

"You said you've been staying around here, on the streets. And that's commendable by the way because I doubt I'd last a minute here. But maybe one of the things making you feel like everything is lost is the fact that from here you don't know where you're going next. So I'm going to forget any notion of coming up with a grand plan of making everything better and we're going to actually work through this all logically. You're going to come home with me now and I'll come up with some kind of excuse for why you're there. You need someone to be there for you."

Noah could have been a small child, he looked utterly hopeless.

"I don't want to inconvenience you any more than I already have Keegan."

She scoffed.

"You've inconvenienced nothing at all Noah, in fact, you've made me see things that I never thought before. Be grateful for things I was once bored of, this one day has been one of the most fulfilling in my life and if you think for a second I'm about to walk away you're wrong."

"Listen to me!" Noah had a kind of seriousness that scared her for someone so young.

"I know how people work, I'm probably one of the best at seeing through lies, and the sad thing is your sincere, I hope the world doesn't rob you of your sincerity because you need to cling onto it."

You could tell a lot about people from faces, Keegan realised, when she'd first seen Noah she had equated attractiveness to a good life. Everyone presented this idea, the better looking you were in the world they lived in, the more people liked you it was shown on magazine covers and social media. But now looking at Noah and realising that he really had been given the roughest deal in life, that his face which many people would have seen as an accolade, something good had ended up being his worst nightmare because of the source of his looks. It was so terrible and it caused Keegan's already broken heart to splinter just that bit more.

A sad and lonely child that was what she saw as she looked over to Noah on the bench, he looked like he wanted to fold into himself and just become one with his surroundings so he wouldn't have to think anymore. Her parents, she wanted her parents at this moment, something normal like a Sunday Dinner with everyone around the table and normal talk about school that would take her away from this world that had suddenly opened to her that she was slightly afraid of. She wanted to believe that she could take Noah to them and they could reassuringly take him into their home.

But this was real life, if she brought Noah to her parents they would most likely call the police as any logical parents would do.

Right now though, she needed Noah off the streets, Keegan didn't have many friends but she knew one person who owed her big time, who had a house that she could use.

It was time to call Curtis.