Falling for Ocean Blue [BxB] ✔️

Chapter Forty seven

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to, Max."

My brother seems to switch from caretaker to teenage boy so easily it hurts to be related to him. He brushes a crumb off Kitty's hand, with his phone perched in two fingers scrolling through TikTok.

The boy is not in his soccer kit, instead wearing a white shirt with a collar too starched to belong to a student. Exams are edging closer every day, and, unlike me, Soren wants to more than pass. He lives inside the word 'more'.

A part of me wants to storm the halls with my head high. Another, bigger part of me wants to grovel in the hole I've dug and die in it.

My mind is warped in my emails. Reading speedily over hundreds of entries beginning with 'my condolences'.

"Kitty, aren't you going to study?" Soren asks.

Kit rolls her eyes.

"School is your thing. I'm going to be a famous singer-songwriter." She punctuates her point with a click of her phone. It snaps a burst of photos. The flash pulls me from my daydream.

"Seriously, the music industry seems kind right now?"

"You couldn't hack it. Doesn't mean I won't be able to..." She grins like she's insulted me.

I just roll my eyes and concentrate on the math questions printed on the back of an old music sheet.

Soren steals it away to mark it.

"I'm not ready!"

"Too bad... ten math problems in ten minutes, buddy."

"No offence, but you guys are fucking boring." Steven yawns. He clambers out of Soren's room in borrowed clothes.

He stayed the night.

It's not unusual for Steven to spend the night. He sleeps in Soren's room at least thrice in a month.

The boy immediately lifts the air around us. He's naturally bright, and on several occasions we laugh together like the world hasn't imprisoned us in these willowing walls.

Kitty scowls.

"How do you always find us?"

"Be nice." Soren warns her. He strikes a big red marker through the bottom half of the page making me groan.

"I'm going to fail..."

"Grace is tutoring after school. She's helping me in physics. Maybe you can ask her?"

I shake my head.

"Hans and I have a press conference at 4. Plus, I have a meeting with my lawyer. I won't have time to study..."

I don't tell him that I haven't slept in days. Hidden under my covers. I practice on a SAT website that was too expensive and read Othello until sunrise. All they'll see is passing grades. No one has to know how hard I'm kicking under the water.

"Damn, that should be fun..."

Slowly, we make our way to Steven's station wagon, parked askew.  He drives faster than Soren, chasing yellow lights and clipping bumpers. Kitty is complaining in the front seat. Soren has his earphones plugged in and is staring out the window. I can hear the thoughts racing in his skull.

I block them all out, memorising the new route to school. Winter is soon blanketing the city in a blue haze. It does nothing to extinguish the heat of the summer. Beyond the peace, cicadas and crickets sing merrily together. A chorus of song flood the rooms of the car.  Eyes closed, inhaling the brisk air masked in exhaust fumes. Pollen is clinging to the orifice of my nose. Somewhere inside me, I'm excited to see Fray again. His presence does something to me. I'm already feeling the withdrawal lulling my organs into failure.