17. CODY

CODY

A n A.

“Congratulations, Mr. Cody. Looks like you’ll get to play in your game.”

I stared down at the paper in my shaky hands and tried not to scream in the middle of English class when I saw that ugly red marker in the shape of an A.

I got a fucking A!

When the bell rang, I collected my bag and beelined for the library. The door slammed against the wall, and the librarian startled up from her desk with a scowl on her face. I apologized in passing and crept through the main space before checking all the aisles, but Lorraine was nowhere to be found.

“Again?” I swore and jogged down to my truck. I didn’t care what her parents said. I wanted to show her my paper and my grade. I only wanted to celebrate with her. The drive up to the gated community was longer than any other day I’ve driven it, but when I finally found myself on her street, my heart was ready to pound out of my chest.

I don’t know why I was so nervous. It was as if she would tell me our friendship was over now that I didn’t need her help anymore or anything, but I couldn’t breathe as I knocked on the door.

It took a moment, but before I could knock again, footsteps approached the door, and it unlocked. Lorraine’s father stood with tired eyes in what appeared to be an old suit with a loose tie.

“Mr. Cody?” He narrowed his gaze on me, rolling from head to toe as he sighed. “She’s not home, and you shouldn’t be here.”

“Where is she then?” I asked him, ignoring the judgmental tone to his dry voice.

“She’s out with her Mother,” he answered quickly and aimed to close the door in my face, but I stopped him. The Field family had a habit of that closing doors on people in the middle of conversations.

“Out where?” I asked. His answer created a tidal wave of unsettling worry.

“Son, it’s none of your business,” he answered, and that time, he managed to get the door closed. I groaned and flexed my hands at my sides, tempted to bang on the door again.

I looked around the porch to find traces of her without luck. None of her usual were lying around, no sweaters or blankets. Even the space where her telescope occupied was empty, leaving three small, worn-in circles where the tripod typically stood.

My heart hadn’t slowed, and my throat felt sticky as I snuck around the side of the house to chuck a few rocks at her bedroom window, just hoping that the nauseating gut feeling I had was wrong.

I threw rock after rock, the last one hitting so hard it created a tiny splinter of glass. I stepped back against the fence with a sad huff. There’s a chance she is just out with her mom… I thought, but that worry still licked at the back of my mind, and I couldn’t leave it be.

Spinning on my heel, I followed the fence and shoved my way into Landry’s backyard, hoisting my weight onto the barbecue and then onto his balcony. I clicked the lock on his sliding door and dipped inside of his empty room.

“Landry?” I called out without an answer. I kicked around his room, trying to figure out where he had gone before exiting his room, wandering downstairs, and calling out to him again.

“He’s not home,” Landry’s older sister, Margaret, stood in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal with a magazine spread open on the island. Her long red hair was braided back over her shoulders, and her attention was minimal as I moved closer. “How did you even get in here?”

“His door doesn’t lock properly on his balcony… where is he?” I asked, setting my bag down.

“Out with that Cooper girl,” She said, pushing around her frosted flakes.

“Mary,” I corrected her, and she shrugged her shoulders. “Hey, have you seen Lorraine?” I asked her. It was a long shot that she knew anything. On the best of days, Margaret was there for a total of an hour when she wasn’t self-involved or staring at herself in a mirror. Half the guys on the team only hung out here because she frequently paraded around in her bathing suit, but I never found the appeal of her.

To me, she looked like Landry was wearing a wig.

I flinched when Margaret looked up from the magazine, “Landry didn’t tell you?” She asked me, and I shook my head. “Last night, the ambulance was here. Mrs. Field and her daughter both left on it. I think the girl is sick again. She was strapped down to the thingy…”

“The gurney?” I asked, the words sticky in my dry throat as my head began to spin. It was back. She was sick again.

“Yeah, that thing.” She snapped her fingers and went back to her magazine without a second thought about the worry on my face.

Panic flooded my body, and my fingers went numb as I collected my bag from the floor and slung it back over my shoulders. “Do you know what hospital they took them to?” I asked before leaving on the off chance that she had more information.

Perhaps something that didn’t make me want to crumble into a ball on their kitchen floor. But my knees were shaky, and my breath was shallow as I waited for her to process the question.

“I heard Dad say that they were taking her to some fancy hospital in the city, that whatever it was, it was bad.” Margaret’s eyes stayed glued on the pages, and it made me want to scream, but it wasn’t her fault, and it wouldn’t do anything…it wouldn’t make me feel better no matter how badly I wanted to expel the emotions from my chest.

“Alright, thanks…” I said before leaving the house and starting back over to the Field house. I banged on the door again, harder this time, and it wasn’t long before Mr. Field had the door open. His expression was annoyance mixed with anger as he registered that I had returned.

“Where did they take her? What hospital?” I demanded an answer, not willing to be pushed around again.

“Go home, Mr. Cody.” He said, stepping over the threshold with his shoulders pinned back. “My daughter is no concern to you.”

“What don’t you people get?” I snapped, it happened. I knew that it was the death of my chances to ever see Lorraine again in a way that didn’t involve us sneaking around and hiding but God, it felt good. “I will show up here, kicking and screaming, every single day until you tell me where she is, Mayor Field. I don't care if you call the cops. I don’t care if you pull strings that ruin my life. I will be here for her. ”

“If she’s sick again, you have to tell me because I’ll go insane not knowing. I know that I’m not rich or smart. The standards you have set for Rae are mountains I could never climb! I’m fully aware that she’s too good for me.” I was seething in his silence. “The thing is, sir, we don’t get to decide for her. Tell me where she is so I can go see her, and if she doesn’t want me there, she can send me away. I just want to help her through all this, and you keep blocking me from getting to her.”

He watched me throw my fit, letting me get everything off my chest with a straight face before he stepped back into the house, his hand ready to shut the door.

“What you want isn’t important,” he said before closing the door in my face.

“Hey,” the ball hit me in the shoulder inside of me, soaring into my mitt from across the field. Landry’s voice a hair too late to warn me about the incoming wave of pain. “Where the hell are you today?” He asked, jogging over to me.

“Have you heard anything about Rae?” I asked him when he stopped in front of me. I rubbed out the pain in my shoulder. It would bruise good but the stinging sensation was already starting to fade. Which was more than I could say about the agony in my chest that I had been carrying around for three days. Three fucking days .

I’d show up on their steps every day after school, but after Monday, they stopped answering the door. I didn’t even know if Lorraine was home or still in the hospital. But I knew she was okay. I could feel it in my bones.

On the third day, Mayor Field called the sheriff's office, and my Uncle Cael waited for me at the gate as I exited the community.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing harassing the mayor?” He asked with his arms crossed over his chest. “He can press charges, Ryan. Cut it out.”

“They won’t tell me what’s going on! Their daughter, Lorraine, she’s my girlfriend and she’s missing. Maybe I should file a police report!” I snapped.

His expression hardened. "Take your truck home, do your homework, and stop harassing the Mayor," he ordered. “I mean it, Ryan.”

I hadn’t been back in twelve hours, but I was tempted to see how far my uncle would go. Was it worth fighting my Dad over tossing me in a cell?

“No, Dad and Mom were talking about it yesterday. It sounded bad…” Landry trailed off. “Little Cooper is going to try to go over to see her. I told her if she has any news, you’re the first person she tells.”

“Thanks, man, and thank Mary,” I said with a curt nod, my eyes filling with water.

“Listen, Ryan… I didn’t know Rae was sick like that, and I’m sorry for giving her a hard time,” he said sincerely.

“No one knew. We shouldn’t have been treating her that way anyway,” I snapped, not at him, just because I couldn’t stop the frustration from bubbling up. “I’m sorry, I’m just—”

“Worried,” Landry finished for me. “You’re allowed to be, man. We all see how you look at her. We know what’s at stake, but you also have a place to be… a game to win. That’s gotta matter.”

“I know, I know!” I said, wetting my bottom lip and tilting my chin to the sky to stop the tears that threatened to fall. “I’m trying, alright.”

“Our futures ride on this game, Cody. You’re future, and if you want a chance at giving Rae the one she deserves, you have to win this with us. We need you.” He clapped his hand to my shoulder and leveled with me.

“Okay, alright!” I shoved him back and rolled out my shoulders.

After the longest practice of our lives, I ended up on the floor of Landry’s bedroom watching Tremors while Mary and him made out on his bed. I tilted my head backward and could see Lorraine’s window at a skewed angle, which only made me more sad.

“Do you think she’s okay?” I asked, my voice breaking through the volume of the TV and the soft sounds of them giggling at each other from the bed.

“What?” Mary was the first to respond, her head peeking out over the mattress to look at me.

“Do you think Rae is okay?” I pushed up onto my elbows and put my attention on Mary.

“I don’t think Mr. Field would be home if she wasn’t,” she said, but her eyes told a different story—they were so sad and soft. She was just as worried as I was.

“Maybe you’re right, I hope you are, but…” I trailed off, letting the darker thoughts invade the light spaces that Mary was trying to create for me.

“I’ll go over tomorrow. Mr. Field will be more receptive to me, and I’ll try to figure out what’s going on. You have a game to win.”

She was right, but deep down, the game was starting to matter less and less.