Cody V

July 2nd, 2013

“You should call her,” Travis says.

“No, I shouldn’t call her because we’re not friends anymore, Travis,” I sigh.

My brother laughs and kicks down the tree branch that doesn’t allow the wooden plank to cover the last hole to the floor. “So why the fuck are we building the treehouse?”

“Because I need a place to relax”

“No, I think you just need something to remind you of Emily. This treehouse means your love for her.”

“Just the fuck up and finished the floor already,”

Travis laughs. “God, you’re so deep in denial you’re making me believe it.”

“Pass me the hammer.”

“You’re 18 now, stop acting like a child.”

“Pass me the hammer, please.”

Travis sighs. “Fine,” I look at the only wall in the partially made new treehouse. I plan to make this one bigger and it’s possible by this huge old tree it’s resting on. “But you should still call her.”

I drop the hammer on the side of the house which causes it to fall to the ground. “Fucking great,” I sigh. “You know what, Trav? I will fucking call her.”

“Oh no, don’t do that. You have a girlfriend.” Travis laughs. “No but seriously, don’t.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“Chill, Cody,”

“No, fuck you!”

“Cody,” My brother stays calm. I hit the floor with a fist. “Cody,” I hit again.

Fuck, I think it’s happening. I can never really tell. All I can ever remember is getting angry and then it’s like I fall asleep but when I wake up someone’s bleeding. No one has been able to stop me.

“Cody!” All I feel a stinging sensation on my left side of my face. It snaps me back into reality. “Cody,” he says one more time.

I hear the floor cracking. “Whuh?”

“Cody!”

I hear something crack and then I see the body of my brother become smaller and smaller. Then I feel a sharp pain in my entire left side of my body. I realize that I’m now on the ground and I’m on bleeding somewhere. My ears are ringing and everything is a blur.

“Aw,” I cough. “Fuck!”

The blur of my brother climbs down and then jumps from the tree and lands beside me. “Oh, shit! Fuck, fuck I didn’t mean it.”

“Wha-what happened?”

“Fuck man, your face is bleeding. Come on,” he says while picking me up. “We need to get you to the hospital.”

“No, no,” I cough feeling like I’m dry heaving. Fucking shit it hurts. “I’m fine, it doesn’t hurt that bad.” I lie, feeling my face. In truth, I feel like I’ve been cut up everywhere in my body.

“You’re not fine. You just fell from like 30 feet.”

I stumble on my first few steps and then I laugh. “You’re right you know,” I say, regaining my balance. I take in a deep breath and exhale. My brother looks up at the broken tree house up in the sky and I do the same. “I miss her.”

“You’re afraid you can’t do it. You can’t be with her because you know there’s a chance you can fuck it all up. She’s testing you y’ know. And then she continued to torture you just so you could finally give in. But you couldn’t, and you didn’t.”

I chuckle, “Yeah,” I lie again.

I can feel the blood in my face dry up and be replaced by the new. “Now stop being stubborn and let's go to the hospital.”

I shake my head. “No, I’ll be fine.”

“You had a deep looking cut right next to your left eyebrow, you’re not fine. You probably have a concussion.”

I laugh, “Not happening, bro.”

“You dense motherfucker,” he laughs. “Good luck explaining that to Mom and Dad then.”

“Come on, I’m going to drop you off at the house and I’m going over to Gracie’s”

My brother sighs and starts to walk. I follow him only being a foot behind. He takes me keys and drives me to a fast-food restaurant to clean me up in the bathrooms. The cut isn’t as bad at Travis made it seem. The blood has dried up so all there was left to do is to clean up my left side.

Before I get out of the car outside of Grace’s house, my brother takes hold of my arm. “Be careful with what you do with this girl, Cody. Don’t break her, she’s fragile. Trust me, I’ve been there before. You don’t like this girl.”

I nod once, “Yeah…”

I shouldn’t kid myself. Emily has become such a demon in my life that there isn’t a way to get over it. I just have to accept it as it is. That’s why I’m rebuilding the treehouse, not for our friendship, but my own damn will. If I build it just means it’s going to be a symbol of my strength. I’m not gonna let this girl beat me, no matter how weak I seamed before.

It is why I must start all over. Start new. I can’t let anything from my past affect me anymore. Not Emily, not Andrew, not Elizabeth.

-

Grace stares at me frustrated and disappointed. Something has been bothering her. It’s even more noticeable now than last month. She hasn’t been enjoying the jokes I make and barely holds her own in the conversation. I pause the game she was watching me play and ask her, “What are you doing?”

She gets up and puts her shirt back on and looks away.

“Why don’t you like me? I try and try but you just don’t want to do anything. It’s pissing me off.”

“Grace, you’re my friend. Your fun to be around but you just can’t make someone like you because you want them too.”

“Fuck!” Gracie turns around embarrassed.

“Grace, what’s wrong?”

“Why is everyone afraid of crossing ‘that’ line with me?”

“What do you mean?”

“About a month ago, Andrew took me out. He took me to this rave and gave me ecstasy. Honestly, it was the funnest I’ve ever had. Then after I wanted to go home it was raining and Andrew was fucking this girl. He asked me if I liked what I saw then he took advantage of what I said.”

“He didn’t-” I should be mad, but surprisingly I’m not. I already know the answer. This is the same situation that happened with Elizabeth. This time Andrew stopped himself.

Gracie shakes her head like I thought she would. “But I wanted to. But Andrew got all pissed off about it and didn’t speak at all after that. I fell asleep in the car after that.”

“Oh.”

“You’re not mad?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should be…”

“There’s no point. I’m glad nothing happened. It’s just,” I stop myself and think about Elizabeth for a moment. It was Andrew and Elizabeth that night that he gave her the Winter. One that could’ve been avoided. “You remind us what’s pure in this world. I think.”

-

I’m pulled away from Grace by Emily. She wants to hang out, wants to go to that new boba shop that just opened a few weeks ago. She had them a lot in New York and liked them. Grace shuts the door on me frustrated.

Emily is as beautiful as ever. Her haircut suits her well now that I’ve taken some time to get used to it. She’s waiting with a smoothie already in her hands. Emily doesn’t have the bandana I gave her anywhere on her. She finally ditched it. My demon is here to eat me.

“You look good,” She greets me. She’s been here for a month and I’ve only seen her a handful of times. Emily keeps her distance which is fine, I’ve grown used to it.

“Thanks, so do you,” I sit down.

Emily smiles. She doesn’t blush as she used to, but she smiles. “The Boba here is pretty good, have you had it?”

“Yeah, I come with Grace all the time.”

“Oh?” Emily shocked. She stalks to Grace all the time, has she not told Ems that we’re good friends? “Are you two dating? You seem quite close.”

I shake my head, “No.”

If Grace never told her then that means Grace doesn’t want Emily mad at her. What Grace did today was a hail mary. She’s desperate and it’s hurting her that I’m rejecting her this much. I didn’t even think about it.

“She’s a good person, she’ll be good for you.”

I laugh, “I’m not good for her, Ems.”

There are words I want her to say, “You’re not good for anyone, Cody.” But she doesn’t. Instead, she says, “I’m sorry I’ve been distant.”

“It’s okay.”

After all, I understand it now. She’s been punishing me.

“Are you not going to get anything?”

I shake my head. The boba here is good but I know I wouldn’t enjoy it today. Emily is tapping her cup with her fingers. She’s nervous about something. “Where are you going to school?”

It was supposed to be here in Seattle, I’m sure that changed. “I’m staying in New York. They have a great school for fashion, I already go in. You?”

“I’m not sure I will.”

“Why not? If you don’t, your dad is going to kill you.”

I laugh. Dad’s been home for a while but we haven’t talked much since he’s been home. The last time we discussed college was back before he left for his job. He was very strict about wanting me to get a good education. It’s the very last thing we talked about.

“If he does that’ll be the least of my problems.”

“Oh?”

“He’ll chase me down to the pits of hell and kill me there too.”

Emily laughs and I almost make her spit out her drink. I don’t think what I said was funny but I’ll take the laugh. “Y’know, you should make it more of a habit to have a clear vision of the future.”

I don’t think she knows what she’s talking about. She could take some of her advice. Still, it’s nice that we’re here like old times. We haven’t talked as much since she’s been in town, but we’ve been talking so that’s a start. It’s still not like how it used to be.

How did it use to be? What does that even mean? It doesn’t mean anything is what it means. The past is the past and there isn’t a thing that I can do to change that. Chris always talks about how we cling on to it to predict the future. I think I know what he means now. Every single action we take is dictated by what happens in the past and through that process, we never live in the now. It’s what’s happening right now, isn’t it?

Emily and I want to reconnect to be friends again.

I get it. This isn’t the way to do it.

I change my attitude towards the conversation. Everything changes after that. We’re no longer estranged lovers wishing for the future and instead, we are just now. Emily starts to notice and her tension seems to ease up. I get up to order a drink and then bail out of the shop to walk around town.

We end up walking long enough for the sun to start to set. We end up at the edge of town and decide it’s time to head back. We end up walking side by side how it should always be.

“Do you know what’s going on with Andrew?” She asks at some point.

I look at Emily. She’s walking directly in front of the sunset and it makes her cherry coke red hair shine even brighter. “He asks me for help a few ago, why? Why are you talking to him?”

Emily giggles, “I forgive him, Cody, maybe you should do the same. The car crash wasn’t his fault, it was mine.”

“Doesn’t make him less of a piece of shit.”

“He sounds desperate, Cody, you should hear him out.”

“What’s going on?”

She shrugs then sighs. “I don’t know. He said something about finding out the truth of that guy Lyle, y’ know his drug dealer? He said he’s trapped.”

Lyle?

I ignore it for now and change the conversation. “I’ll talk to him later I guess. How’s your sister doing by the way? I haven’t talked to her since Grace’s thing.”

“Jerrica’s great. She found something new to keep her busy so she’s always out of the house. You know how she is. Can’t ever leave the mysteries alone.”

We eventually get back to the boba shop as they’re closing down. The sun has set and the store is about to close. We stand awkwardly in front of our cars because I don’t know what to do. I want to hug her but I don’t think we’re close enough to do that. Emily is the one to initiate it though. She smells the same as always, like trivia.

“You know, we should go to the town’s fair on the fourth We haven’t gone in like three years,” She says releasing me from her grasp.

“We aren’t kids anymore, Ems.”

“It’ll be fun, c’mon,” her tone is somber. She wants to tell me something else. It’s what’s been on her mind all day. “I only have a month, we gotta make the best of it.”

Emily tries to hide a frown in her smile. She’s always been a bad liar when it comes to me. I think I understand what this little day of ours was supposed to be, she just didn’t have the heart to come out and do it. She tried a few hours ago and I stopped it when I stopped treating her as Emily instead of Ems.

“Okay, it’ll be just like when we were kids.”

I watch Emily leave first before I unblock Andrew’s number. Emily is right, I shouldn’t blame everything on him. Besides, if he’s even talking to Emily about asking me for help he must be desperate.

Lyle.

Andrew doesn’t even take a half hour to meet with me. He’s grinning like the little bitch that he is. I sit first even though the store is closing in twenty minutes. He follows and finally greets me. “Finally come to your senses, eh?”

“What the hell is going on?”

Andrew smacks his lips and shrugs, “Oh wouldn’t you love to know, Cody-Kun.”

I don’t say anything. If I do that’ll just inflate his ego and I know better than that. Andrew likes to play these games where I have to force him to say whatever he wants to say. The best way to win is to not play at all. Eventually, Andrew won’t be able to stand not hearing himself talk.

“You’re no fun, you know that,” Andrew leans back to rest his back on the store’s window. “Look I only have a day. I need you to talk to your dad for me.”

“My dad? What for?”

“He’s a cop, yeah? He’s home, yeah? Lyle wants me to go to this big deal. I need your dad to get the bluebirds and stop this shit. I-I know all their information, I can bring them down.”

I stay silent for a moment. He’s not one to back out of something like that. “Why now?”

“Because!” Andrew yells and leans forward toward me. “Fuck Lyle,” he whispers. “He’s a monster that I need to stop.”

This doesn’t make sense. If this is what was so desperate why didn’t he just knock on my front door and went to my dad in the first place? Are they watching him? It’s the only thing that I can think of. “What did he do?”

Andrew doesn’t hesitate to tell me what Lyle is. I was right, Lyle did give Elizabeth the gun. It’s his fault she’s dead right now. What’s even worse is that Elizabeth got herself under his control. Lyle took her and made her do the one thing that could break her.

He tried taking Sara too but know since Andrew asked for her Lyle completely owns him. There isn’t a thing Andrew can do know without getting killed. Shit, can my dad even do anything about it?

I don’t know.

I tell my dad anyways.

He stares at me like I’m crazy then tells me to sit down. Just what the hell did Andrew drag me into?