Page 30

Rafael

It was July, and the house was abuzz with Jill’s lunacy. She’d planned a soiree for some of her church friends. In a few hours, about a dozen or so Christian idiots would be walking about the house making idle chit chat. I hated nothing more than chit chat, so I was hiding out in my bedroom.

Cody’s Aunt Sue was here to help, and I could tell from the moment she set foot in the house that she didn’t like me. I somewhat remembered her face from the wedding, but like I said before, I wasn’t the most coherent person at that little shindig.

It had been a few days since I dropped my big bombshell, and Cody looked terrible. He barely spent time in the house, and, when he did, he looked like a ghost. He must have asked Asher to drive him to and from practice so he wouldn’t have to sit alone in the car with me. I’d locked my door every night, and, each night, I heard it jiggle just a little. It broke my fucking heart knowing it was him, but I knew this was for the best.

Cody would meet someone else. In time, he’d understand real love and why I didn’t deserve him. I was a flash in the pan of Cody’s life. He’d forget about us eventually. I wouldn’t, though. I knew Cody would stay with me for as long as I lived.

There was a clatter of pans downstairs, followed by the echo of Jill screaming at Cody. I couldn’t handle it. Cody had been up since six in the morning helping Jill set up for the party. Clearly, she couldn’t handle it, so why she took it upon herself to do shit like that was beyond me.

There was another thud in the kitchen, and Jill’s voice was so loud I could hear her clearly in my room. “Cody! What in God’s name is the matter with you?”

I couldn’t take it anymore. Cody was like that because of me. If we weren’t in the horrendous situation I created, I’d probably be helping him.

So, I got out of bed and went downstairs to lend a hand. I knew Cody would leave the minute I arrived, and that was okay. He should take a nap. I was under no obligation to play nice with Jill’s friends today, but he certainly was. A nap would do him some good.

I walked into the kitchen at the tail-end of the mini-catastrophe that caused the crashing sounds from earlier.

Cody was on his hands and knees, picking up the dozens of raw cookies that had landed on the floor when the baking sheets fell. Meanwhile, Jill was picking up the pans strewn about the floor due to the fallen pot rack, which lay against the kitchen cabinets adjacent to the sink.

Sue set a stack of pans on the kitchen island and suggested, “Why don’t you let Cody nap. He’s tired. You had him up at the crack of dawn. It’s just a barbecue, Jill.”

Jill’s hands were shaking, and her chest heaved. “It’s not just a barbecue. This is for the church. These are people I have to see every week, Sue, I don’t want to be embarrassed.”

“This party will be fine. Aren’t they supposed to be religious? They won’t judge you,” Sue added.

“Oh, don’t be naive! Religious people are the most judgmental,” Jill retorted.

Cody released a frustrated sigh and added, “It’s fine! It was an accident, I’m just a little tired—”

“Which is why you should take a nap,” Sue snapped toward Jill.

“Sue, I need Cody here—”

I clapped my hands and yelled, “Well! Where should I start?”

The three of them looked at me wide-eyed, mouths ajar. “I can help. I’m up and ready to do whatever needs to happen.”

There were a few beats of silence before Sue said, “Help Cody.”

I can assure you Cody did not appreciate that suggestion, but I walked over and helped him pick up the remains of the cookie massacre. His Adam’s apple bobbed as I knelt and began helping him. We had to scrape the sticky dough off the floor with our nails. I realized that was dumb, so I reached for the metal scraper lying next to us. Cody must have had the same idea because his hand reached for it at the same time, and our hands connected.

It was the first time we had touched since I said I wanted to leave, and the unyielding need to hold his hand consumed me, so I wrapped mine around his and squeezed.

My eyes closed, and for a moment, I imagined that hand being his body. The urge to wrap my arms around him and tell him how sorry I was that I couldn’t be the person he wanted was so strong it made me tremble.

I opened my eyes to see him staring at our joined hands. His eyes looked glassy, and his lips opened and closed as if he were speaking to himself. Cody looked up, eyes meeting mine, and we froze. We just stayed there like that, holding hands, eyes locked, until we heard a gasp behind us.

The magic vanished in a flash, both of us snapping our hands away from one another. I turned around and saw Sue giving us a knowing look. She cocked her brow then went on stacking the pans like she had been.

I turned back to Cody and saw him losing it. His eyes darted about the room, his face was a deep shade of red, and he clenched the hand holding mine.

He jumped up to leave the kitchen. As he exited, Jill asked, “Where are you going?”

“I JUST NEED A MINUTE, MOM!” His racing feet pounded up the stairs before the slamming of his bedroom door shook the life out of all three of us still in the kitchen.

“What on Earth has gotten into him?” Jill asked.

Sue put up a hand and said, “I’ll go up and—”

“No. I will,” I insisted.

Sue folded her arms across her chest and nodded.

Jill looked at me and stuttered, “Th-thank you, Rafael. Perhaps that will help. I think he’s disappointed that…well…”

“I know,” I replied. “Let me go talk to him.”

My hands were a mess, so I wiped them off with a paper towel and then made my way to his room.

I knocked on his door and heard his frustrated sigh. The stomping of his feet grew louder as he neared the door, which he flung open and yelled, “Look, I just n—”

It was apparent that I was the last person Cody expected to see on the other side of that door. His mouth fell open, but nothing came out. He just looked at me.

With my hands in my pockets, I scrunched my shoulders and said, “Let’s talk.”

Cody

I’d spent the previous four days imagining everything I wanted to say to him. Every monologue I’d crafted in my mind was an eloquent tirade that outlined, in great detail, all the ways in which he was a raging asshole and how fucked up it was that he was doing this.

But all those speeches vanished once I saw him standing at my door. I was a silent, quaking mess of nerves.

No matter how mad I was at him, I couldn’t help but feel my heart beat a little faster when he was near. He was talking to me, which was so much more than I’d gotten for the past few days. Did I avoid him, too? Yes. Because every night when I went to his door to find it locked, a piece of my heart dissolved. I’d wake the next day feeling the pain of its loss. Rage and hurt consumed me, and I couldn’t bring myself to even look at him. It was just too painful.

But here he was. He touched my hand. No. We held hands. He helped me. There was still something there. No matter how hard he tried to fight it, he couldn’t completely squash all he felt for me.

And neither could I. My yearning was an ache that throbbed like a wound; only he could stop it. I backed away from the door to make room for his entrance and closed it. I turned to see him looking at a picture of Mom and me when I was nine, sitting on my desk.

“That was my ninth birthday,” I said.

He turned to face me with the picture in his hand. “You were always cute.”

No. I couldn’t take it. He wasn’t allowed to be charming if it would be another knife to my chest. “Rafael. Why are you doing this? Why are you leaving? Was it too much, too fast? I can pull back. It doesn’t…we can go back—”

Rafael put a hand up to stop me and said, “Cody. Shh.” He made his way to my bed and took a seat. He patted the spot next to him, so I sat beside him. Our legs brushed against each other, and the shockwave of yearning that shot through me was so strong it almost weakened my resolve enough to make me rest my head on his shoulder.

He scooched his leg away, and the loss of touch sank me deeper into my emotional mire.

Rafael sighed and said, “Cody, this is better. You know it. I know it. This is better.”

That’s all he had to say? Like, hell, it was! Fuck you very much, Rafael! How? I wanted to ask, because it sure as fuck didn’t feel better. It felt like death. Every night, I wanted to die, so how could this be better?

“I don’t agree,” was all I could say.

He rubbed his hands over his thighs and shrugged. “I know you don’t, but this is better. I’m not what you need.”

“And when did you become the expert in what I need?” I asked.

Rafael rolled his eyes and replied, “Because I know me. I’m not good for anybody, but especially not for you.”

God dammit, that martyr complex was really getting on my last nerve. I rose from the bed and paced about the room, letting myself unload on him. “Why do you take on this role of the broken, toxic piece of shit who everyone should avoid? You know, this is completely self-imposed, right? You’ve constructed this identity, Rafael. It isn’t you—”

“It is,” he argued.

“It isn’t,” I screamed back. “You force it. You go out of your way to make people think that. You go out of your way to make yourself think that, but I have seen you in ways others haven’t. That’s not you. You have a heart. You care about people. You care about me—”

“Cody—”

“No, I’m not done,” I shouted back, holding back the tears ready to fall. I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. “You don’t need to be this way. You are so unbelievably lovable, Rafael. Sure, you’re a miserable fuck sometimes, but that’s another punishment you’ve forced on yourself. You think you deserve it. That’s what this is.”

Rafael’s eyes narrowed at me. His jaw clenched, and I knew what was coming. It was going to be another bullet—another way to push me away. It would hurt, but I could take it, because I wasn’t letting go without a fight.

“Cody, you don’t know shit about me. I fucked you, okay? I took your virginity, and you’re sentimental about it. That’s why you think you know me, but I assure you, you don’t.”

“I know I’m not wrong,” I replied, shaking my head.

“Well, I know you are.” Rafael jumped up and closed the distance between us, wielding a finger in my face. “Cody, this is sex. I fucked you. I used your ass because it was fun. I could never be something with you because you’re Hank and Jill’s golden boy. Fucking you was a game. I wanted to see if I could do it, and I did. More than that! I made you fall in love with me. I succeeded in breaking you in every possible way I set out to, so my job here is done. I can go back to my life and leave you and your pathetic—”

My fist connected with his jaw hard and fast. He fell back and landed on my desk, blood dripping from the cut on his lip. “Don’t you ever say that to me again. I’m not pathetic, and you know it. You’re mad because you’re a fucking coward, Rafael. Don’t call people hurtful names. You’re better than that.”

The growl that left this mouth filled the room as he lunged at me, throwing my body against the bedroom door. “No, I’m not,” he screamed.

His hands were on my throat, and mine were on his arms. I was embracing him as he was choking me. Truly choking me, but I knew I was breaking through. I was cracking his shell. He was fighting it, but I wasn’t going to relent. “You are,” I spat out through gasping breaths. “I know it. Deep down, you do too.”

“NO!” He punched me in the gut. I keeled over, and he tossed me to the ground and exited my room. I managed to get up, chasing him down the stairs and grabbing him. “You know it’s true!”

He forced me into a headlock. I released quick jabs to his sides as we faltered on the midway point of the staircase, falling down the rest of the stairs. We landed on the floor in a heap.

Rafael gripped my shirt, pulling me closer so that he was screaming in my face. “You don’t know anything, Cody. This is for your own good.”

I heard a scream and looked to see Mom and Sue running from the kitchen to stop us. I didn’t want them to. We needed to do this. We needed to fight it out. I would lose him if we didn’t. I needed to knock the shit out of him so I could replace it with some fucking sense.

My knee connected with his nuts, and I flipped us over so I was on top.

I held up my hand to Mom and Sue and bellowed, “Don’t! Don’t come closer.”

Rafael used the opportunity to punch me in the face, throwing me off him. He got up to walk away, but I ran and tackled him into the wall. Mom’s wall curio, filled with her precious moments’ figurines, fell onto us, breaking apart and releasing the sad little kids. They shattered as they fell to the floor.

“No!” She cried out.

“Where the hell is Hank?” Sue hollered.

Mom ran out of the room, and Rafael’s fist slammed into my face again, but I didn’t let go of his shirt. Together, we fell onto Mom’s coffee table. The legs broke from under us, and we rolled onto the ground: fists flying, feet kicking, teeth gnashing.

“What on Earth?” Hank ran over and pulled Rafael off me, and Mom ran at me with a pitcher of cold water and dumped it on my head.

Sue straddled me and pressed her hands on me, holding me down.

Rafael screamed, “You don’t know me, Cody! I’ll let go! I’ll let go!”

Hank managed to wrap his arms around Rafael and dragged him to the door leading to the cellar. I looked up at Sue’s terrified face. Mom soon appeared beside hers and asked, “What happened, Cody?”

I’m trying to get him back, Mom. In the only fucked up way I know how.