Staring blankly across the table, she just let her mind process the words slowly, gaping at them. “You guys are dating?” Keely asked in her raspy voice,

Awkwardly Tony just nodded, gripping Sadie’s hand on top of the table where they sat across from her and Joseph. Sadie seemed unable to meet her eyes, instead hiding her face with her madly curly light brown hair, staring guiltily out the window.

Having gotten over her shock, Keely burst out laughing to the alarmed looks from her companions.

Her laughing only ended when she took in a painful breath, making her gasp before cutting off sharply. Ignoring the jolt it caused in her stomach, she just shook her head, looking at her two friends. “But that’s so gross!” she exclaimed, “You two are best friends!”

All three people in the booth squirmed awkwardly at her words.

“Well, I…” Tony trailed off, sending a quick glance at Sadie. “I – I love her.”

Sadie quickly glanced at him, shooting the – her boy a warning look, but when she found him staring at her the look slid away. The expression turning into a soft little smile, a quick blush brushed her cheekbones before she turned her head purposely away.

Unable to set her heart against it, Keely felt her cynical heart melt at the moment. Yes, she was far from believing that love ever worked out, she had proof all around her and she had already refused to take the bet. But why couldn’t it work for them? Even if a part of her was cynical, she had the downfall of a romantic heart deep down. She was still the girl that cried like a baby in Titanic and Moulin Rouge.

Feeling the smile touch her lips, she shook her head, looking down at the bowl of soup in front of her on the table. “But I guess it’s kind of cute too,” she admitted, bringing the spoon up to her lips.

After their dinner where the talk mostly revolved around whatever Sadie and Tony had to say since Keely was attempting to keep her talking at minimum and to be honest Joe just didn’t really like Tony. And she thought she was one to hold a grudge. They talked about the universities they were going to, making Keely smile, but find she was grateful she didn’t have to deal with school. Apparently Sadie had got a scholarly scholarship while Tony had gotten a sports one to the same school.

It really was sweet.

Almost sickeningly sweet.

When the movie they’d decided to go see was approaching, they paid for their meal – well, she was told she had to pay since she was seemingly a rock star to them – the four took off down the road towards the theatre.

Trying to ignore the fact that this night had been planned to happen with a completely different friend, Keely slipped her arm through Sadie’s, pulling them further ahead on the road, leaving the boys behind. As much as she liked Sadie, the girl was Tony’s best friend, not hers, never had been. And she’d never be Haley. But if Haley would ever be Haley again was the real question.

Mentally shying away from thought of her friend, Keely nudged the other girl with her shoulder. “So… you and Tony?” she prodded.

Blushing again, Sadie looked away to the side. Biting her lip to hide her smile, she couldn’t help but think the other girl looked adorable when she blushed and wonder if Tony thought the same. Although she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to be in Tony’s head when it came to thinking about girls.

“Yeah,” Sadie murmured, still staring away. “Look, I know this has to be awkward. With you and him having been you and him for so long before. But it just sort of happened, and I do love him and–”

Chuckling, Keely shook her head. “It’s not awkward, sweetie. I swear.”

“It’s just you’re my friend but he’s Tony and yeah,” she tried to explain. For such a smart girl, she seemed to be failing with words for the night. “He said he was going to wait around for you but he didn’t and you guys started talking, so I guess–”

“Oh my god, Sadie!” she exclaimed, her voice cracking slightly, but she needed to do it. “Shut up! It’s okay, seriously. I didn’t want him to wait around; I was never coming back for more than a couple weeks at a time. It’d be unfair. And what we had obviously wasn’t the love story of our century. So it’s okay, stop apologizing.”

Sadie gave a sigh, leaning her head on Keely’s shoulder. “Okay, I just wanted to make sure.”

Rolling her eyes she just kept going forward, but then a thought settled into her mind. She tried to ignore it, but it just kept burrowing deeper into her mind, bothering her and she was unable to hold herself back from blurting it out.

“Just you guys didn’t… you know. I mean, of course you did or you’re going to eventually, but you didn’t while me and Tony were… whatever we were, right? Because, I know it happened a bit and I guess – but, oh man. You know what I’m saying, don’t you?” It appeared that Sadie’s problem with finding the right words was rubbing off on her too.

Sending her a horrified look, the other girl shook her head fervently. “No way,” she assured Keely. “I’d never do that.”

“Okay, okay,” Keely murmured roughly, giving a sigh. She sent a quick look behind them where Tony was awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck as Joe walked beside him with a sour expression on his face. “Be careful, alright?”

Understanding what she meant, Sadie nodded, letting them fall into silence for a moment. “So did you have fun in New York and with touring?”

It was the first time anyone had asked her about moving away and the tour, causing Keely to send her a quick glance in surprise. So far her dad and Joe had purposefully avoided talking about music and the tour with her and while at dinner whenever Tony would bridge the subject, Joe would glare at him deliberately.

Smiling at her, Keely dipped her hand into the front pockets of her jeans. “It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. And I’d try to explain it to you, but my voice wouldn’t handle it and I think it might take like six hundred pages to write it down.”

With a shrewd expression, the other girl observed, “You loved it.”

Giving a slight chuckle, she went to run a hand through her hair in habit, but remembered she had it pulled back into a ponytail. “More than anything else in the world.”

Having come up to the theatre, the four of them got their tickets but when they were pondering who gets seats and who goes and gets the popcorn, Keely sent Sadie and Joe inside for the seats. She, instead, opted to drag Tony towards the concession lines.

In the enormous line up, Keely signed a few autographs for people who recognized her. But all too soon she and Tony were left standing in silence as the long line started to dissipate.

It wasn’t until they’d gotten all the drinks and popcorn and were standing at the side for Keely to poke straw into the drinks that she piped up.

“Okay, you know I forgave you a long time for everything that happened when we were together?” she questioned, looking up at him as she stabbed a straw a little too violently through the lid. “You’re still one of my best friends, despite everything and I don’t hold a grudge against you personally.”

Sending her a confused look, Tony wisely took a half a step away from her, spacing them out. “Uh… yeah,” he muttered warily.

“Okay, good,” Keely said brightly despite her rough voice. “With that being said, you fuck with Sadie the way you did with me? I will have your balls, and not in the way that you’d like.”

Seeing his expression fall at her words, Keely arched an eyebrow at him. Snatching the tray that held the four enormous drinks, she just side stepped him, heading straight towards the theatre where Joe and Sadie were waiting without a backwards glance.

“Are you sure you don’t want to?”

Shaking her head at Joe’s voice, Keely just ran her hand down the smooth neck of the horse in the cross ties. “No, I really don’t,” she replied hoarsely. “You were always a better rider than me anyways. You know what they say, those who can’t do teach.”

“I’m not better than you,” he replied adamantly, his blue eyes peeking out from over the horse’s withers.

With a short laugh, she just patted the horse one last time, taking a step back and dipping her hands in her pockets. “When we were kids, maybe, but you always cared more about being the best. I was focusing on other things.” Her voice cracked at the thought of the other things that she’d been focusing on at the time.

Gulping, she sent him a very much false smile, hiding the ache that had panged angrily in her stomach. “I mean, all the horses at the barn are much better after being with you all these months. So yeah, I’m just saying I don’t plan to be in the Olympics any time soon. You go for gold; I’ll go for a Grammy.”

When he didn’t respond, Keely peered around the horse, finding him running the brush along the hairline with his eyes focused solely on the motion.

Sighing, Keely pushed her bangs away from her face. She didn’t like this, ever since she’d gotten home, Joe had had a tendency to just go quiet, seemingly just focused on the thoughts running through his head.

To be honest, it got a bit annoying.

They’d always shared their thoughts with each other, since they were children. They weren’t supposed to have secrets.

“I’m going to go,” Keely said abruptly, taking a step back and pointing back towards the doors. “I was going to try and cook something for dad tonight. I got to go to the grocery store and, you know, cook.”

Finally looking up but with a tight smile on his mouth, Joe said, “Try not to poison him.”

She arched an eyebrow at him, answering dryly, “There’s a recipe, Joseph. And it doesn’t look too hard; I think I can handle it.”

Just with some more words of farewell, she walked away from the stable, her eyes on the ground, shoulders slumped and hands stuffed into her jean pockets.

It was a hard thing to explain to him that she didn’t want to start training for the show season that had already started months ago. Despite her multiple times of telling him that she was staying home forever, he just seem

ed to overlook her words and then forget. Because every day he was trying to get her to do these things that were long term commitments.

Either he didn’t care that she had something she loved and was going back to, or he was having selective memory lost. She was disposed to hope for the latter.

Hurrying up the steps of the back porch, Keely quickly slipped in the door.

As always, it was quiet.

The little girl’s hope inside of her had been hoping that everything was different, and even with the older cynical thoughts in her head, she couldn’t help but side with the hopeful ones. They’d hoped that after all this time, something might have changed. That maybe home wouldn’t be just a house where people avoided, where people might remember good memories instead of the awful ones.

But those hopes had been squashed, the optimistic little voice being overtaken by the much angrier one. It was the same as when she’d left, except she didn’t go to school. All she had at home was an empty house, her dad being quite sure to spend as little time there as possible. Maybe it was even worse than when she’d been going to school, because then she’d been able to go somewhere, get out of it. Now she didn’t even have Joe to save her from the darkening thoughts and sinking morale most of the time, since he was at school the days.

And even with the chances she had, to share the things she knew about her mom, tell him that every day in this place was making her mind feel darker, her movements slower and just in general listless; she didn’t.

Heading straight to her room with thoughts of grabbing a sweater to ward off the night that was so much chillier here than it had been when she’d been in the south, Keely dropped to her knees on the ground, digging through her bag of clothes.

But she hadn’t found that sweater by the time her hand froze.

With her muscles suddenly taut with nerves, she clenched her hands into the soft shirt, dragging it out slowly. She couldn’t even tell if she was breathing anymore. It felt as if everything but her movement had stopped. If her heart was beating, blood was pumping, she had no idea.

When she’d managed to pull the entire Sonic Youth t-shirt out of the bag, Keely didn’t hesitate as she allowed her hands to clench on to it tightly and bring it close to her. Breathing in deeply even though she knew this had to be disturbing on more than just a few levels, her breath tumbled out from her lips in a tremble when she found that despite being mixed in with her clothes for so long, it still smelt like him.

She couldn’t even remember when she’d borrowed – or rather stolen it – from Seth. Hugging it to her chest, Keely shook her bangs away from her eyes, looking up to the ceiling in hopes that it’d stem the tears that instantly ripened. Bringing in deep calming breaths, she refused to loosen her grip on the shirt even though she knew very well it was pathetic. She didn’t even let go to wipe away the tear that fell from her eye, tracing the graceful curve of her cheek.

Abruptly there was an abrasive knocking that rang through the house, causing her to jump like a thief caught in the act.

Not being able to convince herself to let go of the white Sonic Youth shirt, she tightened her grip on it as she stood, using her elbow to wipe the tear stain away while she moved towards the front door.

Taking deep breaths that did nothing to calm her racing heart; she finally tore one of her hands away from the soft fabric of the familiar smelling shirt in order to open the door.

“Miss Staub?”

Blankly she just stared at the man in the plain grey uniform consisting of shorts and a button up shirt. It didn’t matter that she was probably pale and blotchy from the tears just moments before or that she probably looked off her rocker; she was just confused.

“Ah, yeah?” she returned, brushing her bangs away from her eyes with her forearm. “That’s me.”

“Here,” he told her, apparently disinterested in her to the highest degree as he shoved the clipboard into her possession. “We need you to sign this and tell us where you’d like to unload everything.”

Bewildered Keely looked down at the sheet, quickly reading it over, her heart sinking when understanding set in.

Not daring to look up at him, she stared down at the clipboard, fighting a war with her breathing but losing as it came out ragged. “Just put it in the entry way,” she murmured, stepping back away from the door so they could bring in the boxes of belongs while she leaned against the wall for support.

It was all her things from the tour bus as well as what she’d left behind at anyone’s apartments or at the warehouse in New York.

She couldn’t say why this came as a blow to her. Keely had known it was coming; Maureen had given her the warning before. But it felt worse than if someone had punched her in her stomach. She was wavering and there was no one around to care, let alone catch her.

This way, with the movers who obviously didn’t care more than making sure she got the things in order to get paid, just seemed wrong. After everything she’d been through in New York, with Ms Jones, Colton, Marissa, Marco… Seth. It just felt that sending her all her things, making sure she left no mark on the city she loved and obviously not on the people she loved either, she thought it should mean more. Mean more than some surly movers throwing her boxes into her house.

Even though her heart felt it was in the clenched in a vice grip, she signed her name where it was indicated, her free hand fisted so tightly she could feel her nails digging into her palm even through the shirt.

Silently she handed it to one of the two men doing the work before leaning back against the wall, watching them go about their work with wide eyes. At another time she might have tried to help, but now she just felt… gone. It was as if she couldn’t do any more than grip onto the last thing that connected her to Seth and watch all the history she’d left behind in New York be thrown back at her.

It was her fault. She knew that, but it didn’t mean it didn’t rip at her stomach to the point where she wasn’t sure if she would be able to stand much longer. It had been her that walked away; they were just doing what was asked of them. She didn’t want Seth to fight for her; she couldn’t handle it, not now. But a part of her had been in hopes that when everything was healed, there was a chance, they could do the impossible and talk.

It hadn’t been clear how impossible it would be until then.

When the movers finally fled, Keely walked slowly up to the box that was sitting the highest on the little stack.

“To the toppermost of the poppermost,” she murmured, making herself give a tense little laugh at the John Lennon quote.

Even that short moment didn’t dissolve the tension running taut through her muscles, giving up on relaxing; she just popped the lid from the box, peering down inside of it. They were the posters she had gotten for the bus, from the Broadway flyers all the way to the Jimi Hendrix poster she’d gotten at a music store in Colorado.

Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, she hurriedly went to open the rest of the boxes even though it just ripped at her heart further.

But eventually she found what she was looking for.

Dragging the small portable record player she’d bought for herself back in New York, she placed it right at the foot of the sliding door that went to the back porch. Twisting the volume dial all around so it was at full, she placed the vinyl she’d gotten while they’d been in Los Angeles carefully down, stepping over it carefully to get to the deck.

Bundling Seth’s shirt, she laid on the deck, letting Leonard Cohen’s rough voice flood loudly over her, gaining goosebumps.

She used the shirt as a pillow as she curled on the deck beneath the sun.

Through everything that had happened, how had she not seen the damage she was causing to everyone? It was a fact, like the sun rose in the east and set in the west, she was bound to hurt every person she’d ever loved.

And she was so oblivious that she didn’t realize what she was doing until the damage was irreparable.

There was something wrong with her and Joe. Keely didn’t know what it was, but it was wrong. He was never going to understand her completely again, and she wasn’t sure if either she or him wanted him to. She and her dad lied to each other. She’d hurt Haley in a way she couldn’t even begin to understand. She’d left Marco and Colton without a word.

And Seth…

Biting her lips, she rolled over so she could breathe in his scent deeply.

What she’d done to him was unfair, but what he’d done to her was unfair as well. Were they always going to hurt each other? It was all the seemed to be able to do.

“Show me the place where the suffering began,” Leonard crooned to her in his brilliantly hoarse voice, but her thoughts were occupied.

If that was all they were going to do, wasn’t it better that this had happened? It was as if they managed to hurt each other on every occasion, even the happy ones. Wasn’t there a time to learn from the past?

It should be easier that it was over.