More warnings: The story takes place in a fictional town. I don't even know which country this is. English is not my first language so there are bound to be mistakes. I haven't written in like 3 years. There are plenty more but I can't remember them.

Go ahead. I hope you enjoy :)

01

Endless Story by The Light The Heat

If exactly five days and twenty seven minutes back someone had told Bay Baxter that she'd be sitting next to Keaton Ocean for one hour, every day of her comatose summer in a bus that was painted a horrifying blue, she would have laughed at their faces and called them crazy.

"It'll be fun, Bay," her mum had promised, closing the trunk of their beat up Volkswagen like every other year, but she was firm not to waver. It was the last summer of her high school and she was not going to waste it mowing her Aunt Beth's lawn or babysitting her baby cousins. And it was the only time of the year when she didn't have to work part-time at their own diner which runs yearlong except during summer.

Bay had what everyone would call an average life. She had average grades, average looks, average relationships with average people. She wasn't exactly alone but she wasn't the life of the party either, and though everyone knew Bay Baxter, no one knew who Bay Baxter was. It went unsaid that everyone in their quaint town knew everyone right from their glorious diaper days. Parents. Grandparents. Great grandparents. Great great grandparents.

If someone took the pain to trace back the ancestry of their skeleton town, it wouldn't come as a surprise to Bay if everyone of them stemmed out from a group of close knitted people who were too lazy to migrate.

And this was what it meant to know Bay Baxter and not know her at the same time. Everyone knew Bay Baxter as the daughter of the Baxters', who owned their town's only 24/7 diner, the girl who threw up on Austen Micky's big, pink birthday cake during grade 5 because she was too worked up to turn down a birthday party invitation though she had been puking her guts out because of stomach worms for three days straight. They knew her as the girl who was silent most times, who was always near-by though she was merely a shadow. Just a familiar shadow.

If Bay could get a chance to rewrite her whole life, she would start with adding colour to her life. A little bit of brown. Lot of green. Magenta. Maybe even saffron. But a whole lot of green.

Most of her classmates talked about living in their town as the biggest bad thing that ever happened in their measly seventeen years, but she always disagreed, though mentally. Their town was quiet and honestly just a ghost town if it weren't for the rare tourists who came to spend quiet summers in the cabins on their town's tiny beach. The sand there was white, so white that it could be mistaken for salt and the waves dying by the shores were blue, so blue that she wondered if it were the sky in reverse. Her town was ordinary, but it was charming. But no one was ready to stop and look at it the way she wished someone would stop and look at her.

In grade 7, her curiosity had gotten the best of her and she had taken a bit of the sand, looked around, and when she was sure no one was noticing, she had slipped it down her mouth. She had gagged the next second but she knew. Sand so white that they looked like acres of salt, bordered with water so blue that they looked like the skies had fell. So breathtaking, yet tasting so bad.

If only someone would pause to notice things.

Keaton's thigh pressed against hers and she tried hard not to reel as if she was electrocuted. He slumped, hand cupping his chin, almost covering his mouth, which she learnt exactly three days back, was lopsided. Plus, he had a chipped tooth.

"What do you think is outside of here?"

This was the fifth time they had talked actual sentences. Bay didn't know she was just like the other girls, hormones raging when at close proximity with a guy, let alone a guy like Keaton. Her pulse rate escalated, her throat clamped and she knew why everyone only knew her as the silent girl whose parents made delicious food.

The city, duh, a voice in her mind spoke, the real voice in her, but nothing came out. This was her problem. Having much to say inside but none of them making it out.

Keaton waited a second. Five, and then he sighed. "Right."

He leaned his head on the dusty glass, looking out the window. There was nothing to look at except for the cars and vans on the highway. A baby from the car overtaking their bus, waved at him, blue eyes crinkled as tiny lips stretched to reveal two half erupted teeth. Keaton smiled a soft smile, his rainy expression turning into sudden tropical forest.

This.

Keaton Ocean was the boy who was in the dreams of forty seven point one two percentage of the girls population of their high school. The other thirty two percentage and fifteen percentage belonged to his best friends Peter Biege and Sammy Paolo respectively. It wasn't as powerful as it sounded considering the fact that their entire school population was a measly seven hundred and fifty nine, from Kindergarten to Grade 12 combined, still, that was big for someone like her. The rest of the meagre six percentage counted for the actual, real crushes which would become stories they would tell in the dark of the night, twenty years from now.

Bay Baxter had been classmates with Keaton since kindergarten but minding that every one of her classmates had been there since kindergarten, they weren't exactly friends or even knew each other. Mrs Ocean was friends with her mum though. They spent sunday afternoons with the other ladies --most of them parents of her classmates or underclassmen-- which they called as The Tea. It wasn't anything posh like how it sounded and Bay knew it was only to gossip about every whisper that escaped the streets of their town. Maybe Jean and Benny Lovely are really getting a divorce. Ahhh, my heart still swoons at Daniel Beck's smile, darn Maggie is lucky. Add in a few exclamation marks behind it.

But her mother's friendship with Mrs Ocean built solely on sighing dreamily or sneakily whispering about failed relationships didn't exactly boost Keaton's and Bay's friendship. Five days back, if anyone had asked if she wanted to be friends with Keaton Ocean, she would have shook her head 'no' firmly. Boys with hair that fell effortlessly over their eyes were trouble. She was smart enough to know that. Plus, there was Fiona Pillow. His girlfriend.

Day one flashed in Bay's mind and she wondered if her guess was right. What if it was? Oh the commotion it would cause at school. And worse, the commotion it would cause at The Tea.

"You know," Keaton started and stopped, as if he wasn't sure if it was right to continue. Bay wasn't sure either. Go on, get on with it, she wanted to say. No words came out.

"Bay, right?" That was an unnecessarily pretentious question but Bay decided not to point that out. Most people held up appearances. Maybe Keaton was no different.

Except, he electrocuted her while acting indifferent and distant.

She swallowed the lump in her throat with great difficulty and finally uttered the first reply in five days. "We've been classmates since kindergarten." Keaton looked embarrassed for a second but the moment passed and his sad eyes returned.

"Do you know Fiona?"

Bay nodded. Of course, everyone knew. They had been the power couple of their school since grade 10. Keaton's eyes glazed and Bay worried if he was going to cry. Back at school, Keaton and woe didn't go hand in hand.

"She dumped me. Five days back. "

"Oh."

Bay didn't care about Keaton's love life exactly when her own love life was pretty much non-existent but something about those kicked puppy eyes and those scrunched eyebrows stirred something in her stomach, and for a second, all she wanted was to make him forget about his sadness, about girlfriends and about being alone.

She knew she'd regret it the moment the words would be out but she still uttered them. "I threw up on Austen Micky's birthday cake in Grade 5. It was a pink cake and my vomit was yellow. Not exactly the best icing, but the colouring was pretty good."

And when Keaton's expression changed from sad to disgusted then melted to an amused grin, she knew it was worth it. Maybe that's why everyone liked him. Because the moment he smiled, it felt like the blue bus was glitter and maybe, just maybe, her summer won't be comatose.