51. CODY

CODY

“ A re you okay?” Josh’s groggy voice echoed through the phone pressed to my face.

“I don’t know,” I answered him honestly, because what else was there to do or say?

Clem had left that morning and, for a moment there, I thought she might stay, that she’d figure it out in her sleep but she had slipped away without even waking me. Part of me knows the reason. It’s the exact same reason why I had snuck away that first night, because saying goodbye hurt. It hurt like having your heart ripped from your chest, still beating, and watching the one person you trust with it walk away from you.

It made it impossible to breathe.

Hard to think.

I came out here because I didn’t want to do any of that, but my head was spinning and my fingers had grown itchy with the need to stop feeling it all. My phone burned in my pocket and, in a haze, I had dialed his number.

“It’s five am, Cody,” he said with an exhausted groan. After a long beat, a few grumbled swears and him shifting in his bed on the other end of the phone he said, “She left didn’t she?”

“Yeah.” My eyes stung.

Josh sighed. “Alright, listen. We both knew this day was coming and there’s not anything I’m going to say that’s going to make you feel better. But we both know exactly what you’re thinking about, and it won’t make you feel better in the long run.” Drugs. He didn’t say it but the implications were there. It’s why I’d called him in the first place .

I gripped the phone tighter.

“I know you’re overwhelmed right now and the easiest thing to do is to find a source that will dull all those feelings wreaking havoc on you, but I want you to sit in the feelings,” he said. “It’s time you start feeling that shit because if you can’t you’re always going to turn back to the drugs.”

“I called you, didn’t I?” I said through gritted teeth.

“This time,” Josh noted. “How close were you to calling someone else, someone who might be nicer to you for a couple of bucks.”

I had called an old dealer and hung up.

“Don’t bullshit me, Cody, feel it. Let it consume you just like you do with drugs,” Josh said.

“I don’t want to feel it,” I groaned.

“I don’t give a shit what you want, you called me before the sun came up and you’re whining in my ear about your long-lost ex-girlfriend leaving you. So guess what, I’m now your problem. You’re a time bomb, Cael,” he snapped. “Let it out.”

I closed my eyes and let the feelings rise in my chest. The agony of grief, guilt, and shame drowning out the rough beating of my heart and the painful constriction of my lungs. It pushed through my nervous system and flooded my veins until all I could feel was the overwhelming need to scream and cry.

It felt like drowning and flying all at once. The breeze was beneath my feet, but the water in my lungs burned. I tried to catch my breath, but relief never came. My skin itched, and my collar was too tight around my throat, but I was feeling it all.

I wanted my Mama back.

I needed my Clementine.

I hated my Dad.

I hated myself even more.

A hiccup exploded from me, tearing a sob from my chest, and it was only then that I realized I was wailing. It cascaded out of me in waves, my head throbbed, and my T-shirt became soaked as the sun rose over the lake. Mama. The sun-kissed my cheeks, and the breeze blew through the lavender, knocking petals around in the air. I could feel her fingertips against my cheek like she was standing there, telling me to feel it all.

“You look pretty today Mama,” I cooed and closed the door behind me as Van left to get dinner started. “How are you feeling?” I sunk down into the chair beside her bed.

“Like I’m dying, handsome,” she cooed, her accent still as thick as the day we left Texas.

I smiled at her joke even though it felt like a horse had kicked me in the chest.

“I didn’t know we were doing fake smiles today,” she teased.

“I’m doing my best, Mama, but this is hard,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

There was some uncomfortable need to be happy for her. Like if she couldn’t do it for herself because of the pain she was in, at least I could try. But sometimes it was just too hard and she never cared if the mask dropped. She was just grateful I was being honest with her.

“I don’t know when you got so soft, Honeybug.” She poked me with a frail finger.

“I’m not soft.” I rolled my eyes, trying to push away the memories.

“You certainly didn’t inherit that giant heart,” she teased.

“Alright, Mama.” I wrapped my hand around hers and laid it in her lap. “We should revisit moving you into a nicer space. This room has no windows.” I looked around the guest room of the Nest and scowled. It was nothing but a storage room waiting to happen. It was dark and small.

“I get to see everything I need to when you boys come to visit,” she hummed and the sound was wet and painful.

She couldn’t even see the stars in here and it hurt my feelings I think, more than hers.

“That’s not what I meant. You should be somewhere a real doctor can take care of you, somewhere that gives you what you need,” I argued. We had the same fight once a week.

“I have everything I need right here.” She pressed a cold hand to my hot cheeks. “Dean is going to pass his Mathematics class, and Jensen finally asked out that girl in his sociology.” She smiled. “Arlo is going to make Captain,” she hummed. “I left the recipe for the muffins in the drawer beside the fridge.”

“The one that sticks,” I said with a nod. That drawer was the bane of my existence, it never opened, no matter how hard I yanked on it, but Mama could always slide it open like nothing was stuck.

“Make sure you double the chocolate chips when you make them for him.” She narrowed her eyes on me.

“He’s going to be a really good captain.” I cleared my throat.

“He has an amazing team to lead,” she reminded me.

Her brown hair had grayed and thinned, but Zoey had taught me how to braid, so I did my best to keep it braided and brushed for her. Even so sick her smile remained bright and it ate away at my resolve. I blocked out the feelings that seeing her like that produced. She had weeks left. That’s what the doctor had said, soon she’d die in this shitty little room without windows and she wouldn’t let me do anything about it.

I hated the idea of her dying in the Nest.

I shook my head. “Mama. You need to be—”

“Don’t Mama me. I’m dying. I can do whatever I want. And what I want is to be here, taking care of you all. So let me,” she scolded me.

I wouldn’t win the argument anyway. Mama knew what she wanted and what she wanted she would get. She was never alone; someone was always in here with her. Jensen and Dean were both being tutored in their advanced Mathematics. Van read to her during his free periods; she would run through the old games with some of the other boys. She was teaching Silas to cook on the days she could get around, and he checked on her when he could, relaying with the hospital and a care nurse once a week. If I wasn’t here, Arlo was.

Dad never visited.

Or if he did, I never saw him.

I was tired of trying to convince him that she wanted him around, but he just shut down. I know it’s because he doesn’t want to remember her like this and part of me understands, but if there was ever a time for him to be a Dad, it was now.

“Honeybug,” she whispered to me and broke me from the trance I had fallen into. “Where’d you go?” She asked me quietly.

Somewhere, you weren’t sick and frail.

“Nowhere Mama, I’m always right here.”

I tended to keep her hidden away in my mind, far away from where she could creep in and help me. She felt safe there and if I didn’t think about her then she couldn’t ever tell me how stupid I was being. But maybe I wasn’t keeping her safe, maybe I was only protecting myself. She’d hate the numb person I’d become, and maybe it was easier to keep her locked away so she couldn’t encourage me to feel it. I pressed my hand into the cold, damp grass to steady myself, the phone still pressed to my wet cheek.

“Atta boy,” Josh said softly from the other end. “Feels shitty doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, this sucks.”

Both crying and finding comfort in Joshua Logan’s stupid voice.

“It makes it worse that you’re a giant cry baby,” he joked and I offered a weak laugh in return. “I have training today, but I’ll keep my phone loud and in my pocket. But if you call and get me fined, you’re paying it," he warned. It was his way of saying he’d answer no matter what, that he was here for me.

“Deal,” I choked out.

“Promise me, Cody,” he said before we hung up. “Call me if you need me.”

I hated promises. “I promise, Logan,” I said, and I meant it.

The phone went dead before I could thank him, but he knew.

The breeze kicked up again making my face cold and my nose run but thick flakes of snow started to fall around me in the grass. It felt poetic that the sky had decided to open up and cry with me.