Dedication to an amazing person. MadAsahi thank you for being so sweet!

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05

A melancholic voice echoed through her earbuds. Bay bit her bottom lip, carefully studying the boy sitting beside her, wondering if the guy with those faded, dusky eyes would like her song recommendation.

Cleopatra was repaired in two days and Mr Pine had proudly announced that he had used his own money. Bay winced when the old man admitted that he had used his own money. This was a small town. Most of them were humble people with humble purses. But old Mr Pine had laughed loudly, his dentures threatening to fall out of his mouth.

'Anything for Cleopatra!' Mr Pine had pledged loudly. There was left-over bacon from his breakfast sticking on the corner of his teeth. But he had looked so blissfully happy that Bay couldn't help but smile back at him. Looking as sunny as her awkward face could.

Bay found it both straining and creepy to peek at Keaton Ocean from the corner of her eyes but she did. The singer sang the last bridge. It was her favourite part of the song and she feebly gripped the phone in her hand.

On the other hand, Keaton Ocean's eyes glazed.

There was one time in Grade 8 when they had both been sent to detention. But for totally different reasons. It was Bay's first and probably her last detention. Her family had went out of town the evening before and naturally reached home late. The whole family slept late, woke up late and without much surprise, Bay ended up reaching school late. Mr Levi, a plump man with red, bursting cheeks and supposedly her dad's high school senior had been in a bad mood so he quickly wrote her a detention slip.

Bay remembered how she had gripped her backpack and strode ever so slowly to their physics lab. It served as detention in the evenings. Expecting to be alone, she had run into young Keaton in there.

His cheek had a huge plaster, that could easily fit two Keatons while his fists looked scrapped. When Bay entered the room, Keaton had looked up with eyes of chocolate, face expressionless. There was a band-aid on the other cheek, quite pathetically failing to hide the freckles peppering everything underneath. His short hair was sticking out in every direction like an act of rebellion.

He had looked like the sun personified.

His eyes were glazed then too. Just like now.

"How do you find songs like this? All I hear in the radio are pop trash."

His voice sounded hoarse and a little nasal. Nervousness crept the corners of Bay's heart. Was he going to cry?

Bay found it hard to talk. Pressing her foot against the rusty floor, she took a shaky breath and spoke. "I just do." Her voice was both mellow and soft, like a winter bunny in a valley.

Keaton glanced at her, eyes holding no special meaning. But there was a hint of laughter there and just like that, the glazy fog was clear. Bay mildly sighed in relief.

"Fiona and me? We never went past the Billboard 100."

Bay couldn't help but smile in dejection. People in their town lust after the city while living in a quiet fairytale town. Likewise, people listening to music sometimes are content with just taking a dip in a half corrupt swimming pool in the name of the chart rankings rather than ride the waves of the underrated gems. Not that her music taste was exceptional or unique. She was just willing to spend an extra minute to search for good songs.

Bay quietly hummed in response.

The blue bus shuddered as it crawled, struggling to make a smooth turn in the junction. Just by peering out, Birtwistle was there. Another desolate town like theirs. Even though both towns were near each other, Bay had never set foot on it. In fact, thinking now, Bay found it astounding that apart from Leeve and her aunt's town three hundred miles away, she had never been out much.

She leant back in the realisation of how small her world was. Almost like a dollhouse. But she liked it.

"What are you thinking?"

Keaton's voice was close, almost breathing the words into her pale ear. Bay's toes curled and she hoped he wouldn't hear the way her heartbeat picked up. She was a simple teenager. Not an abstinent nun.

Bay shook her head.

Maybe by now Keaton was used to her lack of speech, or he simply didn't care. He didn't pester much. The same scenery flew past her eyes, gold and bland. And before she knew, her time was up.

Cleopatra halted where she started her cycle and the four people inside exited. Bay shot a smile at Mr Pine before hopping off. Keaton followed behind her and amusement trickled into him as the girl's long skirt fluttered with the hop, hitting against him a little.

Keaton noticed how Bay's hair was a soft kind of curly. Wavy and rebellious. The kind people wanted to run a hand through. He smiled as he stretched, long fingers caressing the tips of her hair.

Bay's reaction was relatively slow as she turned around, doe eyes startled to the brim. Keaton couldn't help but laugh.

"See you tomorrow," he stated.

Usually he always ended it with a question mark. An obvious question. A proposal that could either be accepted or denied. But Keaton liked this. The meaningless bus rides with a familiar stranger. And though he sounded like a self centred jerk, being with Bay put his mind off of Fiona and Peter. He needed that.

A smile slowly started on Bay's face, eyes picking up and gaze softening. She seemed to notice the change.

"See you tomorrow," she repeated and poof— just like that, she was gone.

Keaton chuckled, patting Cleopatra and then nodded at Mr Pine who was bent behind the wheel, tinkering something. Still as if he had eyes on the side, the older man shot a thumbs up at Keaton.

On his way back to his house, Keaton's eyes were soft as he reminisced how nervous Bay had looked while suggesting the song to him. He couldn't understand why she always tried to blend with the shadows. Or why she always unconsciously behaved like everyone would find her and her words a burden. When they were younger, though they weren't friends, they had the same set of friends and Keaton remembered how she was just like any other kid out there. Talk, invite someone to play, share lemonade and even go to the large picnics hosted by Mrs Bolt from The Tea.

The first time he noticed that Bay had changed was in fifth grade when the kids slowly started to form cliques. On the first day she was there with Betty and Jack, and Molly, and Bobby J, and the next day she was all alone, eating her father's trademark ham sandwiches on the swing by herself. Keaton wasn't a friend so he cared less.

In no time, they grew up and Keaton Ocean completely forgot all about Bay Baxter.

Until they met again in their town's empty blue bus.

Keaton took his phone out and looked up the song Bay suggested before adding it to his playlist. His eyes ran over the name of the playlist-- one time, two times, three times and his smile couldn't help but grow bigger.

But as if Reality wanted to keep him in check, a very familiar sound infiltrated into Keaton Ocean's ears and he froze. He had heard this high, unrestrained sound many times before. In fact, in the past, he was the reason for creating this sound half of the times. But the last time he heard this was almost an year back and he missed it. Unbearably missed it.

A dull pang engulfed Keaton's heart as he looked up, hoping against hope that his ears had made a mistake but no, there she was.

Fiona.

His eyes slowly moved down, taking in Fiona and Peter's entangled hands. Behind them, the bell above Leeve's only bookstore rang, signalling that they had just exited the store. Blueside was a rickety secondhand book store run by the Miltons, with an occasional dash of new books that people personally ordered to get their hands on it. But Keaton knew both Peter and Fiona well. Both of them weren't anywhere close to being bibliophiles.

Keaton couldn't hear what they were talking but even from behind, he could see that they were happy. And he wasn't a saint. He couldn't bear to watch that.

Silently turning around, he ran away as fast as his atheltic legs could carry him. He didn't wait to see if Fiona and Peter heard him. Or worse, wait to see how they were too lost in each other's eyes that they had no time to see him running away like a madman.

Keaton ran, and ran. Blindly. Impulsively.  It was like his whole mind was a black fog and he couldn't see anything. He loved Peter. He loved Fiona. And this was all too much for a seventeen years old boy who was just in love.

A constrained tear trickled down his face and he madly wiped it away, only for more tears to replace it. He cursed internally. It was afternoon and Leeve's summer afternoons were always empty but right now, Keaton could care less if anyone accidentally saw him running away while crying and report it back to his parents.

He just wanted to get away.

But what he did not expect was to run into someone right in the middle of the road. Thick tears pooled in his eyes and he couldn't see properly as he stumbled away. The person gripped his wrists, small fingers struggling to do so.

"I'm sorry," he still apologised. "I'm really sorry."

Face down, he wiped the tears, planning to pull his hand away only for the grip to tighten.

"Keaton . . ."

"I'm sorry," he repeated politely and this time his voice broke.

"Keaton, it is me," the other person whispered softly. It was familiarly nervous. A second later, they wiped his eyes with the sleeve of their shirt.

"It's me," Bay whispered again.

Either Keaton was too broke to pretend or too tired to play nice but as soon as he saw Bay and her eyes, and the way her grocery bag was lying on the road completely forgotten, he let loose. Right in the middle of the road. Like an embarrassing baby.

Her soft hair fanned all around as he buried his face in the crook of her neck.

"It's okay," she murmured soothingly. "I'm here. It's okay."

And for the first time ever since his breakup, Keaton Ocean cried.

.

a/n., song attached: Be Kind by Marshmello and Halsey.