This early in the summer, Ketterbridge still gets cold at night, especially in the later hours. Aiden is grateful for that. He’s trying to sober up at least a little before he makes his next move.

Getting drunk tonight was not part of the plan. Aiden wanted to do this with his head firmly on his shoulders, but one drink to smooth out his fragged nerves turned into two, then three, then more.

The booze in his flask was supposed to be backup, in case his fake ID doesn’t work where he’s going. Then Aiden realized that he could just fill the flask back up when he got to Ralph’s house, so it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to have a tiny bit more.

Now, here he is, stumbling down the steps of Ralph’s porch. Cursing himself for fucking up already. Sick of his own bullshit.

Ralph is inside, unconscious. Aiden really hadn’t meant to lay him out like that. When Ralph took a swing at him, he’d dodged it automatically, and Ralph’s fist had barely grazed his chin. But some defensive reflex kicked in, and Aiden struck back.

Unintentional though it was, the hit was precise and powerful. Ralph is gonna be recovering from that one for a while.

Aiden doesn’t feel good about it. He turned Ralph on his side, in case he throws up. Put a pillow beneath his head. Maybe he could have done more, but he has to go. He’s on a schedule.

He stops on the porch steps, remembering that Grant is asleep in one of the chairs.

Grant was the one who suggested they skip tonight’s school-sponsored graduation party, saying that they could have a much better time without chaperones and alcohol bans. Then he came here, took a Xanax, and promptly passed out.

Aiden leans back against a porch post. He clings to it for balance, his backpack slipping off his shoulder.

Should he wake Grant up, say bye to him, too?

No. Bad idea. Saying goodbye to Melanie was a disaster, and Ralph was even worse. This sentimental shit, trying to think of other people’s feelings - it sucks. It never works out for Aiden, and he doesn’t know why he even tried. Now everyone is more pissed off at him than they would have been if he’d left town without saying anything at all.

Aiden looks up overhead. It’s a cloudless and starless night, black velvet.

The Ketterbridge sky. Staggering in its enormity. Aiden feels it like a massive dome over his head, trapping him, suffocating him.

He takes long, deep breaths, willing the cold air to knock some steadiness back into him. It cools his burning face. Clears his vision, which was starting to blur.

Aiden takes a tentative step. Finding that the ground isn’t shifting quite so violently beneath him, he manages to get down onto the gravel pathway.

“See ya, Grant,” he mumbles.

Grant doesn’t wake up, and Aiden thinks to himself that at least one goodbye went okay.

He stops to check his wallet for the things he can’t leave without. He’s already checked a bunch of times, but he gets paranoid when he’s fucked up. Maybe he didn’t check a bunch of times. Maybe he’s misremembering.

He fumbles each item out from the leather fold of his wallet, one by one.

Two IDs. One that says he’s eighteen, and a much flimsier one that says he’s twenty-two.

The bus ticket.

And the poem that he stole back from Melanie.

Jamie’s poem. Not written for Aiden, but he can push through his jealousy and imagine that it is. He traces his thumb over the pages. His eyes find their focus, and he stands there in silence, reading it again.

The crunch of gravel draws Aiden’s attention. He tenses, staring through the darkness.

A figure emerges from the shadowy trees around Ralph’s house. Aiden quickly stuffs the poem into his wallet, and the wallet into his back pocket.

Noah comes walking up the path, raising his hand in a wave when he spots Aiden.

Aiden’s heart sinks. Does he really have to do another fucking goodbye?

“What’s up?” Noah says, stopping before him.

Aiden works a pack out of his pocket. A little nicotine should help even him out.

“Ditched the grad party already?” he asks.

“Grant was right, it sucked.” Noah loans him a lighter. “Did you guys start drinking without me? Messed up, man.”

“Clearly you started without us,” Aiden answers, nodding at the green glass bottle of something or other in Noah’s hand.

“It’s not open. Lifted it for Ralph.” Noah borrows Aiden’s cigarette, takes a quick pull. “He told me to get-”

“Noosh,” Aiden groans. “Stop letting him tell you what the fuck to do.”

“I’m not, it’s just one fucking thing. Relax, alright?” Noah’s eyes flit to Aiden’s backpack. “What are you doing? School’s out, bro. Forever. Don’t need to lug that around with you anymore.”

Aiden hesitates, shifting the strap higher on his shoulder. “I’m - going to the bus station.”

“Okay. Wait - did you say station, or stop?”

Aiden weighs whether or not to tell Noah the truth. That he’s getting on a bus that will take him out of state. He’ll have to say goodbye, if he does tell him.

He knows he’s let the silence go on for too long, because Noah gives up waiting.

“You want me to walk with you?” he asks.

Aiden is about to say no, but he’s swept with a sudden, overwhelming wave of loneliness. He’s leaving town with everyone either pissed off at him, or not thinking about him at all.

There’s no harm in letting Noah walk with him. No harm in a friendly face being the last one Aiden sees before he goes.

Noah reads the answer in Aiden’s silence, and sets the bottle down on the porch. Either Ralph will find it when he wakes up, or Noah will grab it when he gets back tonight. Aiden has never seen either of Ralph’s parents around the house, so there’s no concern about getting busted.

Aiden sets off down the path towards the sidewalk, and Noah falls into step by his side.

Noah is planning to get his first tattoo soon, and he's excited about it, been talking about it a lot. But he can tell that Aiden isn't in the mood. They walk in silence.

Aiden is still thinking about the poem.

Over the past few months, he’s had a recurring fantasy he can’t kick. It plays out in his mind whenever his defenses are down.

He’s on his way out of Ketterbridge, but he goes to see Jamie first. He tells him everything, and kisses him.

Jamie kisses him back, says that he understands, that it’s okay. That he’ll wait for him to come home.

Sometimes Jamie decides to come with him. That’s the version Aiden likes the best. Even the dustiest, most far-away roads he might walk down, nothing but smokestacks and crumbling ghost towns on the horizon - even those places couldn’t feel lonely if Jamie was there, too. That deep void in Aiden’s heart, the one that makes him sad and angry every time he touches it - that wouldn’t have to be there.

I’m so sorry, he tells Jamie, tracing his fingers down his face.

I forgive you, Jamie answers, leaning up to kiss him.

Every time Aiden comes out of the fantasy, he’s furious with himself for acting like a child, dreaming of something so stupidly, hopelessly out of his reach.

And yet.

He could do it. Go to the grad party, find Jamie, pull him outside. He won’t try to kiss him, obviously - that could only go badly - and he won’t tell him everything, but maybe he can at least try to apologize, not leave Jamie with quite such a horrible memory of him…

Aiden has strayed far into his thoughts, and he’s too drunk to do that and walk at the same time. He stumbles. Noah automatically grabs his arm, steadying him out. Aiden shakes him off, though his bitterness and irritation are all internal, nothing to do with Noah.

Noah is used to Aiden, so he’s not thrown by this reaction. He drops his hand, and doesn’t say anything.

But the interruption has reminded Aiden that what he’s thinking about is preposterous. He can’t go see Jamie, not now. He not only burned that bridge, he blew it up, sent the whole thing crashing down. Left it irreparable.

“Aiden,” Noah murmurs. “Did - did you say station, or stop?”

He answers without thinking. “Station.”

Noah twists to look at him, blinking rapidly. “Where are you going?”

Everywhere. Anywhere. Wherever I need to go to find what I’m looking for.

“Don’t fuckin’ worry about it.”

Noah goes quiet again, and they walk in silence until they reach the bus station. It’s on the farthest edge of town, but not too far from Ralph’s house.

It’s all dusty waiting areas and low-hanging electric cables, buzzing lights. An employee is half-dozing in the ticket window, her chin starting to slip off of her hand. Across the street is a trucker’s rest area, populated by one sixteen-wheel rig. Aiden can see the driver asleep in the cab, snatching some rest before he moves on.

Otherwise, the station and the surrounding area are deserted.

The cool air has helped, but Aiden is a long way from sober, and the stillness of the place is almost dizzying. Liminal, eerily quiet. A place for passing nomads, people forever taking leave. Aiden will become one of them, as soon as he hands over his ticket.

Once he gets on the bus, no one in the world will know where he is. The thought sends a rush of exhilaration through him, but it’s edged with sharp sadness. He tries to ignore that part, unsuccessfully. It pushes into his side like a clawed hand, cutting him.

The feeling reminds him that he forgot to fill up his flask at Ralph’s place. Fuck. Too late to go back, now.

Or - does he have time? He could run. Whatever else Aiden is, he’s fast. It’s a long bus ride.

Noah would probably get a laugh out of racing back to Ralph’s for one more splash of booze. Actually - that full bottle he brought over is just sitting there, on the porch. Aiden could skip the flask altogether, take the whole thing.

He checks his watch, and knows that there’s no way. But a glance at Noah presents another option.

In the white, fluorescent lights of the station, Aiden sees that Noah’s pupils are dilated, almost overtaking the grey in his eyes. He’s chewing slowly on nothing, his jaw working up and down.

“D’you take something at the grad party?” Aiden asks.

“Mhm. Just starting to kick in.” Noah stretches his arms over his head, rolling out his neck. “Sold a few, too. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who was bored as hell.”

“That mean you’re holding?”

“Yep.” Noah pulls a little case from his jacket pocket and rattles it. “One for the road?”

Aiden nods. Noah extracts a round, baby blue pill, then sets it on his palm. Aiden slips it into his own pocket, for later.

They stand waiting by the rusty drinking fountains, watching a moth flutter around the lights. Across the street, the sleeping trucker turns over in the cab, disappearing from view.

Aiden gets the feeling that Noah has something he wants to say before he gets too fucked up. He keeps looking at Aiden from the corners of his eyes.

“You’re not coming back, are you?”

He says it softly, but the question rings in the air between them. It takes Aiden a long moment to answer.

“I... don’t know.”

Noah swallows, and glances away. Another silent minute passes.

“You want me to come with you?”

Aiden looks over at Noah, caught off-guard. “With me where?”

“Wherever you’re going.”

“I just told you, man, I don’t even know if I’m coming back.”

Noah shrugs, his eyes darting all over the bus station, looking anywhere but at Aiden.

“What’s keeping me here?” he asks.

Aiden stares at him, startled by the offer. He planned to leave everything and everyone related to Ketterbridge in the rearview, but… it could be good to have a friend, along the way. Not Ralph, who would get him into trouble everywhere he went.

But Noah?

Aiden tries to envision it. How things would be different if he simply went over to the ticket window and bought one more.

He shakes his head, wondering what the hell he’s thinking. It’s impossible. He can’t even tell Noah what he’s looking for.

“Think you’d better stay here, Noosh.” The timbre of Aiden’s voice is unusually gentle, and he sees the instant surprise on Noah’s face. Aiden doesn’t blame him. He’s surprised at himself. “Safer that way,” he adds, more gruffly.

Noah opens his mouth to answer, then stops, looking over Aiden’s shoulder.

Aiden turns to follow his eyeline and sees twin points of yellow light: the headlights of the approaching bus.

He takes out his wallet again, finds his ticket. His fingers are clumsy in his current state, but he manages to take it out without ripping it.

The bus pulls into the parking strip with a hiss of compressed air. The driver lets the door swing open, and pops out.

“Just be five minutes,” she tells them. “You boys can get on, if you’ve got your tickets.”

She rounds the side of the bus, off to smoke a fast cigarette.

There’s another silence.

Noah is the one to break it. “Are we gonna see each other again?”

“Like I said, bro, I don’t know.”

Noah absorbs that for a moment, then nods slowly. “Well. Good luck, man.”

At least Noah won’t make Aiden say goodbye.

“Thanks,” he answers, and slaps Noah’s shoulder. “See you.”

Aiden heads for the bus, then hears footsteps coming after him. He turns, and finds Noah bending to pick something up off of the ground.

“You dropped something, dude,” he says, holding out two folded pieces of paper.

Aiden’s heart stops.

It’s Jamie’s poem. It must have fallen out of his wallet when he took out the ticket. He nearly fucking left town without it.

Without thinking, he flings his arms around Noah, pulling him into a tight, grateful hug.

“Thank you,” he whispers, hearing the tremble in his own voice. “Holy shit. Thank you.”

“S’alright,” Noah answers, understandably startled.

Aiden lets him go, that sharp loneliness clawing at him. He swipes a hand beneath his nose, looks into Noah’s grey eyes for a fraction of a second, then turns and steps into the bus.

“Aiden,” Noah says.

He pauses on the steps. Noah hesitates, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets.

“Hope - hope you do come back.”

Aiden won’t make any promises, especially ones he’s not sure he can keep.

“Take care of yourself, Noosh,” he answers.

Noah stands on the platform, watching the bus roll away. Just before it rounds the corner, Aiden sees him turn and start walking, headed back to Ralph’s house.

Again, Aiden is sucker-punched by that strange, deep, profound sense of loss.

This town has been a cushion pressed constantly over his face, suffocating him. Tethering him to so many things he never wanted. For as long as he can remember, he’s been dying to leave the pain and burden of this existence behind. Even now, the town is a chaos of mind-numbing noise in his head, smothered to a bearable level only by a whole lot of whiskey.

Still, the scenery of farewell is surprisingly hard on the eyes.

Aiden has Jamie’s poem in his hands. He unfolds it, reads it again.

When he’s finished, he looks out through the window, watching Ketterbridge grow smaller and smaller in the distance. He closes his eyes, and says one final goodbye. Unspoken, like so much else in his life.

Bye, Jamie.

One day, if you let me, I’ll explain everything. I’m hoping that I won’t have to be gone for too long. If I find what I’m looking for, I’ll be back. And if I ever do come back, I’ll be back for you.

If there’s any chance that you’ll have me, then one day I’ll come back for you.