The night was cold. Sunset Bird was a beautiful town to live in during the warmer months, being a quiet, tourist-type beach town. In the winters, however, when it would never get frigid enough to snow but was always too chilly to be comfortable, it was a little less idyllic. Mark loved storms, but when the wind screamed violently across his window, he couldn't help but toss and turn. This was reminding him of that time, when he was eight and it was still his first summer with Cove, and crazy noises urged the two to sneak out and investigate. He'd lied to his parents to get away with it, and he still felt slightly bad about it even as a thirteen-year-old, but that had been a fun night. Now that he was older, he knew, realistically, that it was only the wind back then like it was this night, but he still liked to come up with alternative explanations

He swaddled himself in blankets and grunted bitterly. He'd stayed up writing for quite a while in the hopes that the weather would die down a bit, but at a certain point, he was too exhausted to make anything comprehensible. After getting swept up in a tornado of restlessness and weariness, eventually his sleepiness won out and he at last fell into a slumber.

A little blue backpack, stuffed to the brim with snacks and water. It sat on a bench, which was on the other side of the road. Markie looked both ways and started to run over, but the road stretched on for far longer than it should. It felt limitless, and Markie was tired. He never was good at running for a long, long time. He panted and clenched his fists shut tight but he never got any closer. Then the boy in the neon pink cast suddenly appeared on the other side. He grabbed the backpack. "Cove! Cove!" Cove ignored him as if he were a ghost. He started walking away. "Wait! Please, stay!"

He turned and, though he was still so far, scowled. He marched off with even more ferocity. Markie watched his figure get smaller and smaller, and then tore back in the other direction toward his own house. He threw the door open, and nobody was home. He looked in the garden for his mommy, and she wasn't there, either. He sprinted to the park and rambled incoherently to Lizzie, begging, pleading for someone to help, because Cove was going toward the main road and he was alone and he was running away and trying to leave Sunset Bird. "I'll go get Mr. Holden!" she responded eagerly. After a long time of waiting, however, Markie suddenly found his sister at an older age, chatting and laughing with her friends and completely ignoring the problem at hand. "Mark, make sure you turn in your art assignment. Mom told me you'd missed the last four."

"What?! I never miss assignments! Oh gosh, oh gosh, I'm gonna get an F in the class! Wait– what?! This isn't about school, it's about Cove! And you promised me you'd go get Mr. Holden! Gosh, I'll do it myself!" He rushed off yet again, to the house he was so familiar with, but it was just gone. In its place was a pond, full of sparkling fish and crystals. Derek was there, too, and Shiloh, gathering a bunch of them in a cloth sack. Mark was, at this point, slightly aware that he was dreaming, and that the dream was trying to coerce him into a very different course, but he refused. It felt just real enough that he did not want his best friend running away with nobody around to help.

"Cove! COVE!" he screamed, and suddenly a fire roared, consuming the streets bit by bit from the direction his friend had just gone off in.

A rap on his window made him burst into consciousness. It was louder than usual, possibly so that it could be heard over the wind. "Tonight?! Are you crazy?! This is so dangerous!" he hissed slightly as he let Cove in. From his ever-so-precarious position, he hopped inside the second story bedroom.

"I can't sleep. And staying in my room alone is boring." He shivered violently.

"You have to be careful! And of course, since you hate layers, you didn't even bother with a jacket," Mark scolded lightly, taking Cove by surprise. Sure, he was known to take it safe most of the time, but he was rarely so angry about it. Like, those times when Cove had hung upside down on the monkey bars? A warning, but not a lecture. He then noticed the way that Mark's face was flushed, like he'd seen a ghost, and how he repeatedly scrunched up handfuls of his blanket. He also picked up on the way that Mark refused to make eye contact.

"What's wrong?" His immediate question made Mark flinch a little bit, and Cove sighed both out of worry and relief. Relief because he'd caught it quick– Mark being very bad at hiding his emotions was a far more helpful trait than he knew– and worry because now he was sure. Something was bothering him.

"I'm okay."

"You can tell me. You know I'll always want you to be honest with me, so we can try and fix things together."

"It's... really dumb. I shouldn't even be fussing over it."

"Nightmare?"

He said nothing in return but nodded after several moments, wincing. The way that the moon illuminated his features softly, his cheekbones prominent, his expression melancholic... it made him look so pretty. Cove swallowed down a lump in his throat and then sidled closer, coming to rest a hand on Mark's. At the touch, he stopped moving so much, letting his fingers relax. "Do you remember... that time we were eight, when you tried to run away?"

Cove immediately went rigid. "Oh my God," he squeaked out involuntarily, having all but forced the memory out of his mind.

"I remembered it this summer, when your mom took us on that drive, allllll the way to the sign. Y'know, the 'Now Leaving Sunset Bird' sign? I just... back then, you were trying to get to her. All the way from Cali to Nevada! And I put the thoughts aside, cause it was such an awesome night otherwise... but it just kept popping back up. That day, I told Ma the instant I knew what you were doing. But what if she wasn't home? And what if Mom didn't come home with the car a little later? I didn't know how to get to your dad's scuba shop, and I didn't know his number, either. I– I was so scared when you did that! And you promised me that you'd never do it again, but... please! Please never go somewhere I can't follow!"

Suddenly, Mark threw himself at Cove in a desperate embrace. Cove's whole body was tense, both at the story and the hug, but he eventually loosened up enough to hug back. He held Mark with so much force that he briefly worried about breaking something important– Mark was frail enough that his spine could be felt with relative ease– but Mark's grip was nearly as strong. "I won't go. I swear I won't ever do something that stupid ever again."

Mark could feel a few stray tears slip down his cheeks. There were no sobs, which was good; the last thing he wanted right now was for the two of them to get busted for Cove sneaking in. "It was still bad of you to do this when there's practically gale force winds, but I'm... really glad you're here."

"Back then," Cove interjected, "this place didn't feel like home. I didn't think it ever would. Mom was far away and I was living in a new house that was so different from everything I'd ever known. Now, though, I have nowhere to run to. Aside from Mom herself, everything I know and care about is here." There was a pause, and Mark considered whether he should fill the void, but this felt like the silence that occurred whenever Cove was trying to psych himself up for something. "You're here. And this is home, just like you told me it would be. I'm not going anywhere."

"Good. Because you're the best friend I've ever had." And more, he thought, but I'm not ready to say that yet.

"I-I feel the exact same way. I can't imagine what life would be without you, and frankly, I don't want to imagine that." He tried to get a read through Mark's eyes, seeking a hint of reciprocity for those other feelings, but, to his fury, that was the one thing Mark was surprisingly good at hiding. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just too scary to let himself believe that they were on the same page.

"Hey, uh, I wrote more poetry and kids' books. Could I read them to you? Feedback could be nice, or maybe it'll just get you feeling sleepy enough to be able to go home and conk out."

Cove chuckled nervously. "Well, um, you're way better at this than me, so I might have a hard time coming up with an accurate review. But go ahead! I always like hearing it."

And so the two quelled a fear and eased their minds, reading until they were both finally ready for peaceful dreams.