It's always been this quiet.

Adele scoffs into her exhale, just her warm breath into her hands and a puff whistling the ripen morning. The sun slinks its eyes open 5km into the horizon, the wind is blue and the tall grass wavers. Time is still if she's the only head and eyes that could think out here in the fields.

Like the falling tree in the forest, the rest of the world doesn't really exist. Or, she doesn't exist to the rest of the world. She can't figure out how to tell the difference yet, from where she stands and contemplates.

The dawn breaks, so does the silence. A bell rings behind her. Even without the bell she could've heard Olivia's approach, wheels squeaking and chains rattling. Her belongings where it was tied to the small trunk steadily bumping to the rhythm of her cycle.

Olivia stands on the pedals, she hung her lantern on the handlebars again. Adele had told her not to.

"You're late," she chastises but no bite, lips cracking open as Olivia slows down next to her.

Her rear trailers turned low rise rack, is stuffed like Adele's own. A rolled up sleeping bag, extra clothes in a burlap sack and a mismatched boho bag fastened with what used to be her preschool backpack clips. The only difference was the two tupperwares in the caged basket attached to the front set.

"Yeah, well," she starts, catching her breath, "You really need to savor breakfast." It's long stretches without home cooked meals after all.

And here Adele thought she overslept again.

Olivia looks up. Her neck is speckled with sweat but it doesn't stain the collar of her loose band t-shirt. The once Guns N' Roses logo had faded, Olivia says she's listened to one song, it counts and hums it when someone out of town asks her if she knows them.

Adele doesn't know any better. She thinks she's listened to a couple of theirs, but never caught the name of the band afterwards so it's merely speculation.

"Did you eat yet?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Oh good," she chirps, "Cuz I was going to eat the extra sandwich."

"You have an extra sandwich?" Adele sputters and Olivia grins. She cycles away and Adele kicks off after her. She's convinced herself that height doesn't matter but Olivia cycles tall, breezing through momentum between two pumps.

The asphalt sprawled in front of her is bleached and worn and soiled with gravel that eats it away, edges first.

It's not this road, the bridge that leads out of Lake Jade clamoring between the woods. But it's there if she squints, because summers are always meant for bike rides in the suburbs and dogs that chase after her.

When everyone gets on their ride, it's a case of aimless days. Of flocking to the first suggestion someone comes up with that afternoon, be it terrorizing the movie theater or going into the woods to sword fight with sticks and climbing dead trees just to break them.

They raced a lot.

One of the girls always sits out because her bike isn't built for speed, rainbow streamers tethered to long stretched handlebars on a low front set and a tall pair of metal bars as a backrest. Adele always wanted one like it. She cruises on her head start as the finish line referee.

Adele always end up behind the boys who had dropped curled handlebars like the ones on the Tour De France but ahead of the siblings, which the older of the two had to pedal twice as much.

In hindsight she didn't know why she tried so hard back then, knowing she wouldn't make it first to the parlor. Ice cream doesn't exist anymore. And it's an indescribable loss.

Olivia finally brakes when she calls out for the umpteenth time and treks her way to where she stopped. This was completely unnecessary. This much energy didn't need to be wasted pre-journey and seven hours of biking ahead of them. Adele thinks Olivia wanted to set it fair and tire her just as much to start.

Adele doesn't have it in her to rant that's not how it works.

She settles instead on, "You suck."

It's lettuce and scrambled eggs. Olivia bites off a huge chunk, then another, to account for half of the sandwich before handing the rest to her.

"I know," she replies in a mouthful.

Once she stuffed her face and her hands were free, they set off a lane each. It's quiet after the race as they unwind their tightened breaths. The speed, balanced between their preferences, keeps a steady stream of air wafting their faces.

Adele fills the gaps because she's the talker and because she's supposed to. If words were something people divide between themselves, Olivia would tip the scale and give out most of her share.

"You know, they finally got their transformer replaced."

Olivia adjusts the tan jacket around her waist. "Where, the Pass?"

"Yeah," she says, "So the thing's actually generating electricity now."

And they have approximately hundreds more to power up. Frankly, she doesn't know how they were supposed to rebuild the infrastructure needed to redistribute that power so all they're doing now is sitting ducks and charging batteries. But it's better than watching turbines turn knowing it's not working.

"Who gave it to them?"

Adele mulls over this. "I mean, nobody gave it to them. Finley found a 'guy' apparently, who has the connections to make it. To be honest, I think he stole it from the government. The guy, not Finley. The guy definitely exists."

"Sounds legit," Olivia jibes, in her perpetual morning voice, deep and sleepy almost. She's always quiet in actual volume but the inflections make up for the lack of emotion. "The government," she adds cryptically.

"No, but think about it!" Adele counters which doesn't do much as Olivia shakes her head with humor, and she doesn't fault her on how ridiculous it sounds. Which reminds her—

"Oh, and Dre-" She bursts before she could even recount the story, taking deep breaths for the words to come out but a ghastly giggling spirit overtakes her every time.

Olivia stares patiently albeit amused, as Adele tries to keep cycling when her insides hurt.

"And Dre?" she prompts lightly.

"So we get to the Pass, right?"

Olivia nods at the right places as Adele tells her about her last trip on Friday. After loading the lettuce crates onto the truck, Finley showed them the new transformer in its large but underwhelming glory. She wished she has his engineer spirit relevant to their circumstances as beautiful and detached it may be.

Dre, just as disinterested, asked about the corn instead as he plucked an ear out and examined it. Green and dull.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, it's still a month off harvest."

"Yeah, that looks..." She didn't come up with an expressive enough adjective, opted instead to wince.

What Dre failed to notice was a bug between the leaves as he ignored Finley's warning, shucking off its husk. Finley fell silent and Adele found herself watching along.

"That is the essence of a hungry man, Adele," she recalled him saying just as he bit into the cob while the poor bug, stubborn as it is, refused to move. And they both got what they deserved. Hubris, or so they say.

"Like he straight up doesn't notice the giant ass bug on that thing and literally bites into it." She gesticulates to get her point across, biting into an imaginary cob with a firm and over-confident crunch.

Olivia's face curls in disgust. She grips her handlebars and her arms stiffen, rejecting the incident with more gagging noises. Adele, duly satisfied with the appropriate reaction, cringes with her.

Finley threw his head back at this and laughed hysterically. To save face, or what's left of it, Dre rambled on what if cornflakes were green instead of yellow. Adele imagines they'd still be sweet but taste more like leaf than starch. She couldn't think of a worse way to ruin the cereal's sugary reputation.

She ends fondly with, "He's so dumb sometimes."

Olivia hums like she agrees but doesn't know enough about Dre to comment further. After all, they only met four months ago with a total of 19 words exchanged between them. And she only counted because she was counting on them getting along, being friends.

"Anything interesting at the bathhouse?" Adele asks back. Partly out of habit, a shred of conversational obligation but it stopped feeling like that for a while now. A bathhouse is definitely less boring than trips to the same old Pass out west, stuck with a coworker who's not the brightest but at least his shenanigans keep her preoccupied.

Olivia considers it languidly, in a slow blink scanning the past week. She opens her mouth, only to close it again and Adele could've sworn she wanted to dismiss it with, "Nothing much," but decides it's too boring.

"It's the regular," she admits blandly, "Someone slipped into the pool— they're fine by the way— one of the basins overflowed again, and these old guys—" Olivia gives an exasperated huff, "From the Pier."

"The guy with the gold chain?—"

"Yep."

"—ugh."

As far as Adele knows she's supposed to tell those people off. And she's seen how the harmless old man insists on his harmlessness as Olivia pretends to listen to their weak defensive protests before she threatens to evict them. She used to have a view from the window, thoroughly unimpressed but amused.

She chews on her lip. "That sucks, he sucks."

Olivia notices the acute disappointment she was trying to hide and smiles sheepishly. "Sorry I'm not funny."

She heard that apology before, Adele had corrected her then so she corrects her now.

"You don't have to be." The unbalanced give and take, while justified, isn't much comfort in their relationship. If anything she wants to let Olivia run her tangents and talk about her life for a moment. "I just wanna listen to you."

Olivia pulls away from the scenery, peers into her and Adele remembers to watch the road even though she knows it stays straight for miles out, and too wide to accidentally veer off course.

"Yeah, well." She pauses, picks up the pace again and Adele matches her. "I want to listen to you too."

"You do know if both of us are listening we won't actually talk?"

Olivia doesn't respond, a sly smile on her lips. Adele doesn't find this clever.

She scoffs. "You're unbelievable."