Trailer Trash (22 page)

Nate nodded, feeling completely helpless and tiny and terrible. “I understand.”

Monday started out bad and went downhill from there. Nate felt like he was toxic, the horrible knowledge of Logan and Shelley’s accident tucked into some dark corner of his heart. He’d prayed for the first time in years the night before, asking a God he’d never believed in to please make Logan better. Please let Logan come out of this unscathed. In the cold light of morning, it seemed feasible.

Logan was hurt, but he was strong. He was huge. He was larger than life. If anybody could beat this, it was Logan.

Nate walked into the school with a small seed of hope in his heart. He couldn’t say anything, and so he watched.

First period was small. It was calculus, and being the most advanced class the high school offered, not many people took it. Only half a dozen students normally, but on this day, they numbered only five. Nate eyed the empty desk that was usually filled by Logan’s giant frame.

By second period, people were starting to whisper. He spotted a couple of sophomore girls with their arms around each other, crying. Shelley’s friends, he assumed.

Third period was when it got real. The teacher was late arriving, and when she did, her eyes were red and swollen. The unruly class quickly settled, somehow sensing that their world was about to change.

It was clear she’d been told exactly what to say, and equally clear that in every classroom in Walter Warren High School, teachers were making the same announcement.

“Some of you may have heard rumors, but we’ve just received word.” She put her hands over her lips, visibly trying to steady herself. “There was an accident last night, up by where 220 meets 287. Shelley and Logan Robertson—” She gasped for air. “I’m afraid they’re—”

“Only Shelley,” somebody said. “I thought Logan was in the hospital.”

The teacher shook her head. New tears welled up in her eyes. “He was, but . . . not now. Not anymore.”

The tiny piece of hope in Nate’s chest shattered. For the rest of the period, the students were hushed and somber. Grief counselors would arrive the next day from Casper, but until then, there was nothing but an entire school of numb, shocked people.

Nate stumbled through the rest of his day. Teachers were quiet, not bothering to teach, some of them openly weeping. And the students . . .

The students.

Before the accident, Nate hadn’t thought he could hate Walter Warren High School more than he already did, but as the day wore on, his anger mounted. What should have been mourning was quickly growing into some kind of sick competition. Every girl seemed to be claiming she’d dated Logan. Every boy said he’d seen Logan just the other day. He had no doubt that the same thing was happening amongst the sophomores with Shelley.

“I talked to him on the phone on Friday.”

“I told her not to go to Casper.”

“He said we’d go out on a date this weekend, but I guess now it will never happen.”

“I know she was going to ask me out.”

“I wish we’d never broken up.”

I, I, I. That was all Nate heard: people trading memories that seemed to grow by the minute, trying to prove they had the most reason to grieve, vying for attention as they sobbed in the halls.

All but one.

Nate didn’t have to see Cody to know he wouldn’t be trading stories by his locker, or hugging it out next to the water fountain. He searched for him in the hallways, watching for that familiar shock of black hair. He arrived early to social studies and perched on the edge of his seat amongst the Mormons, wanting to catch Cody as soon as he came in.

“My mom’s helping plan the funeral.”

“My dad said the car was totaled, the top of it just torn right off.”

“They won’t be able to have open caskets.”

Nate waited, his foot bouncing nervously as the seconds ticked by.

Cody entered just before the bell rang. One look at him was enough to break Nate’s heart. There was no sign of tears, but there was something so
wrong
about Cody—some terrible stillness that Nate couldn’t begin to describe that told him he was right—that the person who would probably mourn Logan the most was the one person nobody bothered to think of.

Cody stopped a foot inside the door, his eyes locked on the desk where Logan normally sat. His jaw clenched. His eyes closed. For one fraction of a second, Nate thought Cody was going to fall apart right there in the classroom. But just as the bell rang, Cody turned on his heel and walked out the door.

Nate jumped to his feet, made it half a step before he remembered his books. He turned to grab them, wanting to call out to Cody but unwilling to draw attention like that—

“Mr. Bradford, take your seat please.”

Nate stopped, his books a jumble in his arms. “But—”

“I know this has been a tough day for everybody, but the bell has rung.” Mrs. Simmons seemed to be holding her neck at an odd angle so as to look at Nate without seeing the horribly empty desk three seats behind him. “Take your seat, please.”

Everybody’s eyes were on him, and God only knew where Cody was by now. Nate sank into his chair, defeated.

But only for now. Class was forty-five minutes long, and after that, he’d find Cody, no matter what it took.

Cody had noticed everybody in school whispering and crying, but he hadn’t thought much of it. Nobody ever bothered to tell him gossip, and there was nobody he could ask except for Logan, but Logan hadn’t been around.

It wasn’t until third period that he found out the two things were related. He felt like he’d been in a trance since he’d first heard those terrible words.

“Logan Robertson is dead.”

He’d only survived the day by diving for that deep, cold place inside of himself where he didn’t have to feel happiness or pain or heartache. It was a defense mechanism he’d learned as a kid. There hadn’t been an option. It was an instinct born of nights cowering beneath his blankets as his parents fought in the living room, and days waiting on the front porch for a father who never arrived, birthdays that went unmentioned and Christmas mornings when the only gifts were a mushy orange in his stocking and a packet of socks underneath the tree. It wasn’t that his mom didn’t try, but he suspected she’d learned long ago to do what he was doing now: killing everything inside. Locking away any dream of a real life was the only way to survive. There was no such thing as hope. There was just this moment, bleeding into the next, and into the next, slowly trudging toward the sunburnt patch of brown grass where residents of Warren were finally dropped into the cold, hard ground, with only a flat, gray stone to mark the spot.

And now, Logan would be there, long before his time.

Cody walked home, buffeted by the wind, warm in a coat that was suddenly more precious than it had ever been. His mom was gone when he got home, either at work or at the bar, and Cody sat in the empty, silent living room, a cigarette slowly burning to the butt between his still fingers, holding himself in that lonely, safe place. He had to be careful not to move.

Careful not think.

Careful not to hear Logan’s laugh echoing in the distant corners of his mind. Otherwise, he might not make it. He might fracture and break, shatter into a hundred pieces, fall apart on their filthy living room floor.

No, he couldn’t do that.

And so he sat, watching the smoke from his cigarette curl toward the ceiling, convincing himself that this was all there would ever be—this moment, and this numb emptiness keeping him from the pain.

The room was deep in shadows when the knock came. It was only four o’clock, but the sun was low in the sky, ready to be swallowed by the barren, wind-blown earth.

The knock came again, and this time, Cody stirred, turning toward the sound.

Nobody ever knocked on their door except the cops and the occasional Mormon missionary. Even they hadn’t been around in a while.

Knock
,
knock
,
knock
.

Cody dropped his cigarette butt into the ashtray and pushed himself off the couch, moving slowly to keep from losing his center. The room seemed to tilt around him, everything going left while he went right, and he flicked the light switch by the front door, illuminating the porch, before opening the door. His heart missed a beat when he found Nate waiting on the other side of the torn screen. The careful stillness that sheltered Cody threatened to crumble, just seeing Nate standing there with the wind blowing his hair into his face, his eyes so full of concern that Cody could barely stand to look at him.

“I wasn’t sure which one was yours. I tried that other one first, but—”

“Why are you here?”

“I wanted to see you.”

Cody did his best to sound angry. “Well, now you have. Is that it?”

Nate didn’t even blink, as if he’d expected Cody’s hostility. “Can I come in?”

Cody hesitated, but only for a second. What was the point? He’d dreaded this moment since the day they’d met. He’d tossed a pack of cigarettes to Nate and climbed into his car, and ever since then, he’d done everything he could to keep Nate from seeing his real life, but he didn’t care anymore. It was time for all pretense to be tossed aside. Time for all his careful dissemination to be discarded like the stack of crumpled yellow butts in the ashtray. What the hell did it matter anyway, with Logan gone?

He turned away without opening the screen door, but Nate opened it anyway and followed him inside. Cody glanced around and the familiar space—sagging couch, threadbare armchair, dingy curtains, the whole place reeking of cigarettes and stale beer, a bit of smoke still lingering in the air. He wondered how it looked through Nate’s eyes, but when he turned to face him, to try to gauge his reaction, he realized Nate wasn’t seeing any of it. Nate, it seemed, only had eyes for him.

And Jesus, those eyes. Cody knew in that instant that Nate had come for him. Despite everything that had happened, despite the fact that they hadn’t spoken in weeks, Nate had seen what nobody else had. He’d recognized that Logan’s death would break Cody’s heart. And he’d come to the Hole, knocking on doors, until he found the right one.

Nate said only, “I was worried about you.”

Cody’s stillness cracked right down the middle like the earth in some Hollywood movie earthquake, everything he’d been steeling himself against welling up through that breach. He turned away, trying to stamp it all down, trying to locate that safe place he’d found earlier, but it was out of his reach. He wanted to run, but he only made it as far as the kitchen, where he came up short against the refrigerator, the stupid stained towel with the crocheted hook hanging from the handle, and Cody hung there as well, his shoulders and jaw tight, his teeth clenched, his knees threatening to give out.

“Cody, I’m sorry.”

Cody bit his lip, shaking his head, wishing he could send Nate away.

“I know you must be upset.”

“I’m fine,” Cody choked out, but he wasn’t fooling anybody. Not even himself.

“Look, I know you probably hate me. I know I’ve been an asshole. But I just—” He sighed. “I care about you—”

“Stop.”

“And I’m sorry about what happened between us. But most of all—”

“Don’t.”

“I’m sorry about—”

Cody put his head in his hands, trying to cover his ears, trying to block out the words. “Don’t say it!”

“I’m sorry about Logan.”

Cody couldn’t handle that. Couldn’t face the wave of emotions rising over him, threatening to drown him. He put his head against the freezer handle, clenching his eyes shut. He wanted to quit fighting it. He wanted to scream at Nate, to tell him to go to hell, to go away, to leave him the fuck alone.

But most of all, he wanted to bury his face in Nate’s chest and cry. He wondered if that would feel as good as he’d always imagined, to have somebody hold him while he let go.

God, he couldn’t let that happen.

He took a deep breath, his lungs aching. “I need you to leave.”

“No.”

“I don’t want you here.”

“I know, but you shouldn’t be alone.”

Alone. Alone sounded good. Alone sounded safe. “I want—”

“I know you’re upset. I know you must be devastated, Cody.”