Mayfly Melodies

One

Chapter dedicated to MagnificentA2 who gave me the name Mae

Bailey

To me, country music tells a story about, and deals with, the way people live their lives and what they do—Randy Travis

"It's a sad day for Chasing Mayflies fans. After weeks of speculation, a representative for the country-pop trio has confirmed that the members of the band have indeed gone their separate ways. The group, composed of Mae Laferty, Kyra Ward, and Bailey Grant, hit super-stardom almost immediately after appearing in the music scene in Nashville four years ago. They've won three Grammy awards, including best new artist, best country song and best country album, during their short time together. While the band's representative did not provide a reason for their shocking split, we can only assume that it has something to do with the recent scandal of Kyra Wa—."

Bailey leaned forward and turned the radio off with a click. She normally didn't bother to listen to the darn thing at all but she'd needed something to help keep her awake on the drive from Nashville to Tishomingo, Oklahoma. It was a long trek when attempted without stopping, running just over ten hours, and she'd left early in the morning, heading out of Tennessee just after three. Under normal circumstances, she would have waited until she was better rested to drive home but she'd been ready to escape from the city.

And the media.

She'd known that they would be waiting for her at her flat in Nashville, which was why she'd left directly from the lawyer's office after their late night meeting hammering out details of the band's split. She had only a small backpack, filled with a few spare changes of clothes, and her guitar. That was the one thing she'd refused to leave behind. Even after all that had happened, she couldn't bear to part with the thing. It was old and a little banged up, but it had belonged to her grandmother. If nothing else, it held sentimental value.

Bailey passed through into Tishomingo at just after two in the afternoon. From the heart of the small town, it was a thirty-five-minute drive out to her parents' ranch. It'd been a while since she'd been home, close to two years, but nothing had changed in the time she'd been away. The small town had been her safety net since before she could walk and was nothing but consistent. It never changed.

Annie's Diner was still a few storefronts down from Tack-In-The-Box, the local tack and feed store. As she drove by, Bailey saw a few familiar faces from her childhood stepping into the diner for a late lunch and a few others exiting the tack shop carrying large paper bags. The library was in the same rundown building, though they'd changed the colour of the entrance door from red to blue since she'd last been home. Even the storefronts had hardly changed their front displays.

Well, she thought as she sped past the town's doctor's office, at least everything here is still normal.

That was compared to the rest of her life which had, seemingly, spiraled out of control. Not like she had meant for it to. Everything had been going great for a while and then the media caught wind of Kyra sleeping with Mae's boyfriend. That had been the first of the bombs. The second was when Mae, in retaliation for the boyfriend incident, smashed Kyra's favourite guitar into a million pieces. And the final bomb came when Kyra announced that she'd signed a solo contract with a new record company and blew the entire world to shit.

That was three days ago.

Bailey had stayed out of the situation entirely, as she normally did when Kyra and Mae went at each other's throats, which was often. Most of the time, though, it was over stupid things that could be resolved with a cup of coffee. This time; however, Bailey knew there would be no reconciliation. Kyra and Mae had gone their separate ways, forcing Bailey to do the same.