Blindness (26 page)

“Oh, these are mine. Sorry, I’m taking a
class, trying to finish an English credit. It’s just for some
paper. I take one class at a time, kinda all I can afford,” she
says, picking up her notecards in order, tucking them in the book,
and sliding it to the corner of the room.

As she packs her books, I’m distracted by her
hands, just staring at them; my mind whirls through all of the
possibilities, fighting the one that I desperately don’t want to be
true. When she stops moving, I slowly lift my chin and find all the
confirmation I need in the look on her face.

“Charlie, believe me, I’ve told him what a
bad idea this is. I make no secret about how I feel about Kyla, but
he’s not listening to me,” she says. I let the sobs fall now, and I
fall forward on her lap, all air knocked from my lungs at her
words.

“He…he…he’s been seeing her?” I ask, just
needing to hear her say it out loud.

Jessie nods
yes
, and a feeling hits my
stomach that forces me to run outside. Thankfully, Gabe’s left the
door to the garage open, and I run to the small grass area to be
sick. I throw up everything inside of me, and I fall to my knees.
I’ve never felt pain like this, and I know right now that I’d give
anything to make it go away.

“How could he, Jessie? After everything she
did to him? How could he?” I say through my tears. I’m crying even
harder now, and I don’t know how it’s possible. Gabe can’t help but
hear me, and he steps out onto the driveway with a wet towel.
Jessie pulls me by the hand back to my feet, and we walk to him. I
take the towel and bury my face in it, thankful for its warmth.

I feel Gabe’s hand rub my back, and then I
feel his lips kiss my forehead as he pulls me into his embrace. I
just stand there with him all around me, shivering.

“Goddammit. I’m really shit at this, I’m so
sorry, Charlie. I told him. But he’s so fucking stubborn,” Gabe
says, his hands rubbing my back with force, trying to will me to
stop my tears. I manage to get them to subside for a moment so I
can talk.

“What did you tell him?” I say, my lip
quivering from emotion and the freezing weather outside.

Gabe just lets his hands fall to the side,
and I see him lock gazes with Jessie behind me.

“He told him how you feel,” Jessie says, and
I flip around with shock at her words.

“He…what?!” I say, suddenly feeling betrayed
by the only girlfriend I’ve ever had.

“Hey, I didn’t tell him. Jesus, Charlie…I
didn’t have to. It’s obvious from a mile away, and anyone who’s
ever seen you two as much as look at one another knows how badly
you want one another,” Jessie says.

I slap my hands over my face and try to
rewind through everything that’s happened. “Oh god, oh god, oh
god,” I say, sliding my feet back into the garage and to the office
couch. “Jessie…it was supposed to be him.”

She’s looking at me like I’m deranged,
probably wondering if I’m drunk or if I hit my head outside. I need
Jessie to understand. I don’t know why, but for some reason having
her on my team feels like the only chance I have to survive
whatever this is that I’m going through. I tell her everything,
about the first time we kissed, about Cody and Trevor, and about
how Cody skipped the Dean’s party, and how I’m convinced—more than
ever—that I would have fallen for
him
that night instead of
Trevor…if he just would have gone.

By the time I’m done, it’s two in the
morning, and Gabe’s wrapping up his work for the night. I feel
guilty that I’ve taken up so much of Jessie’s time, but I’m
clinging to her, like she’s the only thing holding me together. And
as we’re getting ready to leave, locking up the garage, I feel the
tears start up again.

“Charlie…are you going to be okay tonight?”
she says, stopping just as she’s about to get in the car with
Gabe.

“Yeah, yeah…I’ll…I’ll be fine,” I say, doing
my best to mask how afraid I am to go home—how afraid I am to face
whatever is next.

Jessie leans in the car and says something to
Gabe, then he reaches over to give her a kiss. She grabs her bag
and walks toward me while Gabe pulls away, and I feel a little air
lift my lungs, allowing me to breathe.

“Come on, let’s go home. I’m staying with you
tonight,” she says, reaching for my keys and taking over
everything. And I let her.

We don’t talk during the ride home, and
Jessie leaves the radio off after the first song that plays is one
about a girl getting her heart broken. I almost laugh at the irony,
but what’s mortifying is how much that simple song affects me,
making my eyes tear up for the fifth time tonight.

Jessie turns the headlights off as she pulls
up the driveway and parks my car close to the front door. I wait in
the passenger seat while she walks around the car to open my door.
I’m utterly dependent on her for everything, and I’m eternally
grateful that she’s in my life.

I wrap my fingers around her forearm while I
stand, and I reach my other hand into my hair to brush the strands
out of my face from the chilling wind that’s settled into the
night.

Then I see his headlights, and I’m
frozen.

“Don’t move. Don’t even move from this spot.
I’m begging you Charlie. Let me do this, okay?” Jessie says close
to my ear. I trust her—she’s all I have right now.

Cody steps from the truck and starts to walk
in our direction, the look on his face full of concern. Jessie
doesn’t let him get closer than a few steps, though, as she strides
at him with fierce determination. I even think I see a small amount
of fear in his eyes.

I can’t hear them—and I’m torn between
wanting to and wishing I could melt into the ground beneath me.
Jessie’s hands are waving around her, and more than once she grabs
Cody’s arm and stops him from passing her, from heading toward me.
He’s rubbing the back of his neck, and he keeps pushing his hand
through his hair.

My feet are planted firmly where she left me;
I do as she said, despite the overwhelming urge to let my emotions
run my body. I fight against the desire to run to him, not knowing
if I would pound on his chest, or throw myself around him and kiss
his mouth until I felt the scratch of his chin hard against my
skin.

He’s pacing now, walking away from her, but
coming back to her and pointing. I hear bits and pieces. He keeps
saying, “You don’t understand.” But I don’t know what Jessie’s
saying in return.

And then suddenly everything stops. Cody’s
posture wanes, his shoulders slump, and his chin falls to his
chest. Jessie turns to look at me. Slowly Cody’s face rises until
he’s staring right at me; his eyes say just how sorry he is, and
his half-smile is nothing happy at all. And I can’t help the flow
of tears that come from looking at him. I gasp a little and bring
my fist up to my mouth, biting on it in an attempt to stop myself
from letting go of too much.

I see Cody lunge toward me, and I flinch when
Jessie grabs him. He’s yelling at her, and then he says something
that makes her slap him in the face—hard. She doesn’t give him
anything more after that, and she’s marching back to me, reaching
for my hand, while he stands in the distance behind her, his hand
flat against the place where she struck him. When she gets to me,
she whisks me around and finds the key to the front door.

“I know it’s hard, but don’t look at him. He
doesn’t deserve you right now, and he needs to know what that feels
like,” she says.

“What do you mean?” I say, part of me worried
that something’s wrong—that Cody’s fallen into drugs, like Gabe
once did.

“Charlie, please trust me on this, and just
don’t…” she says, as she pushes the door open. I grab her arm,
desperate to understand.

“He slept with Kyla tonight. They’ve been
hanging out…since he saw her at the concert. And tonight they
hooked up. And he’s bringing her to Thanksgiving,” she says, the
sharp pain through my heart so foreign, so awful, but also
answering the one question I’ve been struggling with since I moved
into the Appleton house.

I’ve never
really
been in love before,
and now that I am, I hope I never am again.

Chapter 14: Reasons to Be Thankful

I’m awake hours before Jessie. I sneak
downstairs to brew myself a pot of coffee. It’s been days since
I’ve slept an honest full night through, and if I’m going to drive
to the airport today, I’m going to need to spike my energy.

The sun is long from rising, and the house is
the same unnerving quiet that it always is. It’s like I live with
ghosts—these fake people that pass through on special occasions.
Jim is flying in Thanksgiving night, late, so I doubt Shelly will
come out of her room at all today. Trevor says that she always
hires a catering company to bring in Thanksgiving, and he told her
how many people he was bringing with him, so she already knows how
many plates to set.

I load the grounds into the machine and push
the button, leaning forward to wait for the water to drip into the
pot. It’s funny, I can’t sleep a wink with my head on my pillow,
but with my chin propped atop my hands while I stand at the
counter, I’m suddenly sleepy.

“You can’t sleep either?” Cody says, his
voice caught between normal and a whisper.

I’m not surprised to hear him. I think
somewhere inside me I thought—maybe hoped—that if I came down here,
he’d find his way to me.

“No,” I say, keeping it short. I’m not really
sure what I want to say to him, and I’m not sure I’m ready to be
nice.

“Trevor coming in today?” he asks,
accentuating Trevor’s name. I get it. He’s reminding me that I have
no rights to him—that I’m the one that’s taken. And he’s right. But
it doesn’t mean what he did with Kyla didn’t destroy me.

“Yes,” I say, still not turning to face him.
I decide to keep the one-word answers up as long as I can; they
seem to be keeping me out of trouble.

Cody chuckles lightly, and I hear one of the
stools slide out. I shut my eyes, exhausted already from this
conversation.

“Pour me a cup?” he asks.

“In a minute,” I say, already pissed at
myself for breaking my own code. That was three words, two more
than he deserves.

“I’ve got time,” he says. I pull a pair of
mugs out from the cabinet and get the milk from the fridge. I turn
to slide it over to Cody and realize he’s still wearing the same
thing he was when I saw him last night in the driveway. The same
clothes he wore to Kyla’s—I bet I can smell her on him, and just
seeing the long-sleeved DC shirt is making me sick. I know I’m
scowling, so I’m ready when he calls me on it.

“Wow, someone is super pissy today,” he
says.

I just smile, a full-grinned fake one, teeth
and all. “Why, not at all, Mr. Carmichael. I’m super peachy. I love
waking up at five in the morning to have coffee in the dark, while
I listen to some smug asshole talk about the hot piece of ass he
got the night before,” I bite. Cody flinches at my statement, and
I’m surprised at myself, but glad I affected him. I’m filing this
away to share with Jessie later, hopeful she’ll be proud.

Cody’s getting back to his feet, and on
instinct, I slide back into the counter so I can see him and escape
if I need to. He walks around the island to the coffee pot and
pushes the flashing button.

“Coffee’s done,” he says, his smile tight. He
reaches for the pot and pours himself a cup. Then he reaches over
and offers to pour one for me. I slide my cup at him, flippantly.
He smirks and laughs softly, shaking his head while he pours.

“So tell me, little miss perfect…does Trevor
pour your coffee for you? Or do you do all the work, waiting on him
hand and foot, while he’s off playing powerful-lawyer-man?” Cody
says as he reaches up and takes a long, noisy sip of his
coffee.

I’m instantly hot with anger. He has no right
bringing Trevor into this, especially given everything he’s done
for Cody,
is
doing for Cody.

“I wouldn’t judge Trevor. He’s saving
your
ass, you know?” I spit back at him, holding my mug
under my lips in both hands and blowing on the steaming liquid.

Cody nods at me, setting his coffee down and
reaching for the milk now. “You’re right. It’s not Trevor’s fault
you’re the way you are. Seems I’ve misjudged
two
people.
Here I thought he was the asshole, and you were the princess. But
turns out he’s a good guy and you’re just a…”

“A what?!” I say, leaning into him now, no
longer afraid, and honestly ready for a fight.

He smiles with the corner of his mouth and
raises his shoulders up to show his amusement. He’s getting to me
and he knows it, and he’s thriving off of it.

“A what?! What am I?” I say, the quiet all
gone. I’m yelling now, pushing my finger into his chest.

Cody puts his cup back down and pushes it
away from him, then he leans in close to me, almost as if he’s
about to kiss me, but instead stops short. “A bitch,” he says, his
lips wrapping around every letter of the word—the flash of regret
on his face is instantaneous, but too late all at the same time. He
went too far, and I can’t stop my hand from hitting him just as
hard as Jessie did the night before.

“Funny, if you think about it, Cody. You keep
getting yourself slapped like this, you ought to look inside and
see exactly what it is
you’re
doing wrong,” I say, my
breathing hard and my hand stinging. “I think you should take your
coffee to go.”

I leave the kitchen and leave him standing
there in the dark. I’m barely around the corner when I run into
Jessie’s arms. I collapse into them, the tears pouring from my
face. I can hear her in my ear, and it’s the only thing keeping me
attached to this world.

“Shhhhhhhh, let’s get upstairs. I heard it. I
heard it all…you did good, and it’s going to be okay,” she says. I
follow her back up to my bedroom and then I crawl into the shower
where I sit on the floor and let the water hammer away at my back
and head for the next hour.