A/N no sequel just some words that wouldn't let me sleep until I got them out. I do not own these characters but I do love to borrow them once in a while.

At some point along the road between Hartford and nowhere, which would soon enough become somewhere, Jess Mariano stopped correcting and interpreting someone else's words in the margins and began to write a story of his own. This is not The Subsect, these are the words that came before that started him on the path to becoming a writer.

Maybe

There's no wind in my hair because the windows are sealed shut. I'm not sure if it's so we don't dump our rubbish out them along the way or maybe it's so the air con works better. Either way I'm wishing I could chip away at the no longer clear silicone and let the fresh air in. There's litter all over the floor and the air is thick and stale and I feel like I'm suffocating slowly. Then again, maybe that's not such a bad thing. At least I feel something other than the numbness that's taken over my body, gradually creeping along my extremities before settling deep within my chest from the moment the bus door sighed shut leaving Her behind.

I'm wishing for my ambassador. I'm wishing I was driving with my windows down as sweet fresh air gives way to city smog and sweaty wastelands and wide open spaces. I'm wishing for answers that I doubt I'll ever find. I'm wishing I had to concentrate on the road and not these useless thoughts wandering through my mind. I'm wishing she was sitting next to me, smelling like coffee and vanilla and something altogether uniquely Her. I'm missing Her and she doesn't even know I've really gone. I've made the last promise I'm never going to keep. Everything resets here, now, on this road to nowhere in particular.

I was 5 years old when I started to realise I wasn't like the other kids on the merry-go-round. Not because my jeans were too short or my shoes too small on my growing frame. Only a grown up would notice such a detail. The details a child notices are the smiles and the hugs and the kisses and the swing set pushes and juice boxes and triangle sandwiches and bandaids for invisible wounds. I learnt too early in life what envy was and tricked my mind into ignoring my desire for normalcy. I rode the merry-go-round with my eyes shut so I could no longer see what I was missing out on.

It seems a little hard to decipher the truths from the make believe when I look back now. Did I never go to bed hungry or did I just pretend the growling in my gut was the monster in the wardrobe? Did someone take me to the park or did I sneak out through the hole in the fence behind our block while my mother was passed out on the living room floor? Did I paste my own plasters over invisible wounds or wind bandages around real ones? Did I keep my eyes shut so I couldn't see or to keep the tears from escaping down my sunken cheeks? Did I curse my mother for putting me on that bus to Hell or did I sullenly wish she'd sent me there a dozen years sooner? Did I resent Her for everything she had or for everything she made me see I could never be? Did I love Her or was that make believe too?

I think I must've been about 9 when I first got detention. I got to sit in a warm classroom and read uninterrupted for an hour after school. They even gave me milk some days. No dishes or chores and one less hour with my mother and whatever prize of a man she was letting take advantage of us at the time. It seemed like a pretty good deal to me. It didn't take much to get detention and what they saw as my punishment I saw as a reward. I kept on rewarding myself for years, right out of the place I'd never been able to call home and onto a bus to someplace that would one day strangely feel like it almost could be. One day. Feelings come and go though, right? What ifs and might've beens have never done me any favours so I choose to ignore them. At least I've been trying to ignore them all the way from Hartford. If the windows weren't sealed shut, I'd toss them out there into the wind along with the scent she left behind. It clings to my right side like ivy but it's too soon to tell yet if it's the poisonous kind. I suspect it probably is. I'm sitting here on this bus to wherever, suffocating, my right thigh beginning to itch, wishing I was 9 years old, reading in peace, drinking my milk, oblivious to Her existence. Wishes are for fools so maybe it's right that today I'm casting my lifetime's worth. Maybe one will come true. Probably not. I never was known for my optimism.

Aside from a recognisable physical resemblance and a shared respect for Bowie, I know nothing about my father. The story goes he went out for diapers or milk or cigarettes or some other arbitrary item and never returned. I could've passed by him in the street and never known he'd contributed to my DNA. I could've gone my entire life not knowing what he looked like or how his voice sounded or that even after almost 2 decades he was still a total flake. I can't take it back now though. He showed up. He actually fucking showed up. I saw that hairline just like mine. The way he clenched his jaw. The way his fingers drummed the table. His tone, his sarcasm, his back as he was running out the door. Nature was definitely winning out over nurture in this fine example of apples and absent trees.

I don't even know for sure that I'm going there. I've never been to the west coast before. Not so sure sand and sunshine agree with me but anything has to be better than the nothing I'm leaving behind. That's the problem though, the thing that makes me grip the seat to force myself from getting off every time we make a stop - I didn't leave nothing behind, I left everything behind. The most I've ever known in my life anyway. I am the nothing. They'll be better off without me. Soon enough it'll be like I wasn't even there at all, right?

At 1 in the morning I started to chip away at the silicone with my borrowed pocket knife. I'll return it one day along with everything else I owe Him but right now it's my accomplice. By the time the sun was rising I had broken the seal and my lungs were appreciating the crisp, fresh air that seeped in around the edges of the aluminium frame. My fingers itched for a cigarette but it was an old habit I'd almost forgotten and could no longer afford anyway so I busied them with a pen instead, filling the margins of the last book she had loaned me. I crossed out all the lines that reminded me of how Her lips felt on mine. I underlined every word that made me forget how delicate Her hands were. There weren't enough words within these covers though. I wonder if there are enough words to erase and mark in all the books in all the world to block out my memories of Her. I don't even think I'd want to try if there was. It's that thought that made me stop tearing apart someone else's words and start writing down these of my own.

We changed buses in St Louis so I had no choice but to leave my hard earned air. The next bus was newer, no mid night vandalism required, the windows were free to open and close as I pleased so I pushed mine as wide as it would go and sat and waited for the wheels to start turning again. As a kid I'd moved around a lot but always in the same city, usually within a few blocks of our last apartment. Driving through Kansas I got to thinking how much I'd always thought I loved the city -the auspiciously ominous steel and glass towers that rose overhead, the old stone buildings that cut through the starkness of modernism, the green expanses that were big enough to get lost in but not so big as to make you feel like you were completely invisible. Actually, maybe the city wasn't so great after all. Being invisible kind of appeals to me right now. I wonder if that's how the ocean feels? Maybe if I swim out far enough I'll disappear. I've never seen the ocean before. Part of me hopes it has some answers for me. I've still got a day and a bit ahead of me to decide which questions I want to ask it when I get there. I've made my mind up on one thing now at least. This road isn't taking me to nowhere anymore, it's taking me to California. Maybe if the ocean has no answers for me my father will.

I couldn't get Her out of my mind as we passed through Colorado. Everything reminded me of Her - the brilliant blue sky, the silky manes of the horses in the fields, the way the sun warmed me through my window and the air seemed to shift and change and become lighter as it settled on my bared forearms, changing the terrain of my skin. I closed my eyes and could feel Her fingertips there, tracing the path of the goosebumps as they raised on my arms. I opened them again before they found the ones on the back of my neck. I doubt I'll shut them again, not for a while yet anyway. She'd often graced my dreams before, I figure it's Her turn to haunt my sleep now. I wonder which is worse? I wonder if she's realised yet I'm gone. I wonder if she knows I'm not coming back? Do I even know that? Maybe I won't break my last promise after all. Maybe when we stop in Denver I'll call Her like I said I would. With no dusky grey silicone in my way this time and my window wide open I watch the maybes float away on the same trajectory as the what ifs and might've beens. I shut the window trapping them out there and put my jacket back on to conceal my exposed skin.

At some point I must've let my eyes shut because suddenly She's there in my arms then I'm awake and she's gone. I can still feel the gentle weight of her in my lap. I can feel her fingers in my hair. Her scent is trapped in my nostrils and my lips are slick from her kiss. I shake her off me, thankful that the rest of the bus is still sleeping and not witnessing my apparent psychosis. I open the window and stand with my head to the opening, gasping in mouthfuls of fresh air. I never did call her from Denver. There are no more maybes up my sleeve. I can almost smell the salt in the air even though I know we've still got too many miles to cross for it to be so. It's better than coffee and vanilla and Her though. What's one more lie to myself? I've been lying to myself for the last 2500 miles, give or take, what's a few hundred more?

I was tempted to get off the bus in Las Vegas but kept my wallet in my pocket and pulled out a book instead. I spent half a second considering what I'd say to my father when I found him then figured I'd just wing it and went back to pretending to absorb the words on the pages in front of me. My first stop would be to find a bookstore and buy a book that didn't remind me of Her. Hemingway was as good as dead to me now. I'd left him back in my uncle's apartment along with Kerouac, Vonnegart and Bukowski. Rand was at the bottom of the lake, her words would by now be floating away somewhere under the bridge. At the time I hadn't been able to think of a better way to taint the only place I'd ever admitted to liking in that ridiculous town. I hadn't even bothered to wonder if I might regret it one day. My list of regrets is growing with every mile that separates me from Her but I've come too far to turn back now. I don't know if I'll be able to go back there ever again.

Why is it always the last stretch of the journey seems the longest? My feet fell asleep 20 miles ago and I'm sick of this seat and these strangers and this synthetic upholstery. I really can smell the salt in the air now. I'm sweating in my leather jacket but I don't dare take it off. Once this bus pulls in I'm out of here and I can't afford to risk leaving anything behind. I'm nothing now and this jacket and the contents of my bag are all I've got. If things don't work out with my father I'll need something to sell to get me someplace else. I stand before the bus has completely stopped and am down the aisle and out the door while everyone else is still collecting their scattered belongings. I see a bank of payphones at the bus terminal but keep walking. Maybe I'll call Her tomorrow. Maybe I won't. I find a local bus to take me to Venice Beach and soon enough find myself two feet in the sand, looking out at the great blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean. I'm relieved to find it's a different blue to Her blue. The sky is a different blue here too. Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea after all. I know the what ifs and might've beens will catch up with me soon too. The maybes were waiting for me as soon as I stepped off the bus so I'm sure they're not far behind.

Maybe I'll call you tomorrow. Maybe I love you. What if I do? Maybe you love me. Do you? What if I'd told you that on the bus instead of wasting my words on prom tickets? What if you'd seen my bag? What if you'd asked me to stay? What if I'd still left anyway? What if I sent this to you? Would I still be nothing? Maybe we'll meet again someday. Maybe one day I can be who you want me to be. Maybe I won't always be nothing. Maybe one day I can forget that you are everything to me. Maybe.