inhale, kevin day.

v. holding on and letting go

chapter five
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The final night in Fox Tower, only one of them never arrived. The last person to see her was Kevin Day, their eyes meeting briefly as he exited the building. He watched her ride off on her motorcycle day after day, only usually he was just getting back from night practice when she took off. This time it was much earlier that he saw her leave— he almost wanted to say something. Almost...

     She was gone before he could contemplate it long enough, the desire to follow in her wake... and Andrew, well he was the same, he warned that he'd go back inside if Kevin didn't hurry up, despite the fact that he'd had been the one waiting on Andrew when he saw her. They went to the Foxhole Court and he trained perhaps harder than he should've, it wasn't like it truly mattered. His game would never be the same and the sore muscles did nothing but remind him of that.

He should've fallen asleep immediately when his body hit the mattress, but instead he lay there motionless as the world passed him by outside the small window in their even tinier room.

     All he could do was think about where in the world Maeve Kingston went after dark, and what it was about such a place that could keep her grounded there. He wondered what it'd be like to live even closer still, for in just a few hours he, Nicky, and the twins would be invading Abby Winfield's house for the entire summer and that was where she was rumored to spend hers.

Kevin looked down at Andrew's bunk below his, who was silent and still, to Aaron across the room, sprawled out on his stomach and lightly snoring, and lastly to Nicky, halfway on the ground, barely hanging on, and mumbling incoherently. He tried to picture the rest of the team, and the empty bed in the girl's room— were the sheets crumpled and loose or did they remain completely untouched? Did she sleep straight on her back like he did? On her side, with her back to the wall, like Andrew? On her stomach? Like Nicky? Did she snore, mumble, or refrain from making a single sound? Did she frown, even while in her sleep? Or was she allowed some peace during that time? It kept him up.

He had no idea why.

Pointless questions, he thought, a distraction, focus on what really matters— why you're here. But as he began drifting, he couldn't help feeling uncertain as to said why, and he didn't know if he'd dreamt this next part, though he wanted to swear he heard the click of a door being shut. Too close, too far, not enough to keep him from free falling into a world where he traveled at light's speed and felt understood by the wind.

It wasn't unusual for Maeve to spend the entire night out, in fact, she found it beneficial rather than laying in a bed, either restless or stuck with the nightmares that filled entire galleries with paintings of her fears. All she wished for was a blank page— a dreamless sleep, or at the very least, the paintbrush in her hand.

Her desires were hardly ever met.

     By daybreak, she'd found her way to Abby's house, though she remained parked on the side of the road where she stationed her bike for easy escape. Her nail toyed with a piece of skin on her finger as she watched orange and red stain careless streaks across the prettiest picture she'd ever seen— a bruised canvas littered in cosmic freckles, the night sky was her muse and she it's sole admirer when the rest of the world has turned away.

     She'd finalized her conversation with the stars hours ago, her voice a gust of wind that traveled to the speed of light. Long gone by the time she finally killed the engine to her motorcycle. She hesitated before stepping away from the curb and shuffling through her keys until she found the right one and unlocked the door.