To the Moon and Back

senior year

"Keith, honey, you're going to be late." His mom rapped her knuckles on the door as she passed and Keith buried his face in his pillow, wondering how summer passed by so quickly.

He considered going back to sleep when his phone started buzzing. He groaned louder and shot his hand out to try and grab the thing off his bedside table.

He barely saw the contact picture for his friend, Pidge, before answering the phone. "What do you want?" He grumbled.

Pidge laughed on the other end. "Last weekend you made me sign a contract to call you thirty minutes before school started so you could—and I quote here—'have time to get your swag on.'"

Keith rolled over into his back. "Did I really say that?"

"Yup, you really did."

"I'm never getting drunk again. I sound like a douche." Keith threw the blankets off his lap and sat up. "I'm up now so I'm gonna hang up on you." He didn't even wait for a response before following through and hanging up. He tossed his phone back on his bed and went to the closet to get clothes.

After a quick shower, he ended up in the kitchen where his mom had already packed his lunch and cooked breakfast.

"Mom, I'm not gonna have time to eat pancakes and eggs and bacon and drink a whole glass of orange juice." He grinned as he spoke though, sitting down to at least try to eat some of it.

"You don't want to starve you're first day of school," his mom told him.

"It's senior year, not kindergarten. Why are you so excited?" Keith was totally stoked to be entering his senior year; just four semesters left of hell and then he would be free. No more early mornings, no more homework, no more annoying teachers insisting that he would need this information for the rest of his life.

"Because you're my baby and you're all grown up." She kissed the top of his head as she spoke and filled his orange juice back up. "Your dad left the mustang behind for you."

Keith almost did a spit take when his mom put the car keys in front of him. "He did what? He loves that car." His dad had basically rebuilt a '69 mustang from scratch and he'd told Keith he would most likely not get to drive it while he was still alive.

"Yeah," his mom shrugged. "But you love it too and he knows you had a rough summer. He thought it would give you a nice confidence boost."

Keith twirled the keys around his fingers. His summer had basically sucked; and it was nobody's fault but his own. His boyfriend had dumped him on the last day of junior year and of course that meant Keith spent most of the last three months listening to shitty pop love songs and watching the same three rom-coms over and over again. The last couple weeks hadn't been too bad and he was pretty sure his broken heart was mostly okay now. Granted, today would be the first day he would see his ex so a sweet car couldn't hurt anything.

"Okay," he paused to down the rest of his drink, "I've gotta go so I can pick up Pidge and Hunk before they leave." He shoved another slice of bacon in his mouth before kissing his mom on the cheek, grabbing his bag, and running to the garage.

"Drive safe and have a good day!" His mom called after him.

When Keith pulled in front of Pidge's house and honked the horn, the second floor window to her bedroom flew open and she stuck her head out. "You got the mustang?" She cried, knowing how badly Keith had always wanted to drive the thing.

"Hell yeah," he yelled back and waved at her to hurry and come down.

Pidge shut her window quickly and Keith didn't even wait 10 seconds before she came running out the door and hopped in the car. "This car is so badass." She started fiddling with the dials and knobs and buttons on the dashboard, trying to figure out which things did what and how to get to her favorite podcast station.