A/N: Hello, dear readers! "Open Eyes" by Debby Ryan and Chase Ryan has been among the top played songs in my iTunes ever since I watched 16 Wishes last summer. Favourite songs are one of my biggest inspirations for stories and chapters, so here is another one.
Disclaimer: Disney owns the Suite Life characters (lucky Disney! :)
With Open Eyes
Just close your eyes
And push right through
I know it's tough right now
This was meant for you
Debby Ryan & Chase Ryan, "Open Eyes"
[-]
The booth in the farthest corner of the Aqua Lounge isn't as loud as I thought it would be. No point trying to study in my cabin today, since London has covered every surface with clothes after a massive shopping trip to Paris, including my desk. And the library is Cody's domain, so here I am, trying to study for a chemistry test while jazz music plays quietly and schools of tropical fish swish through the aquarium.
Yet, as much as kinetic molecular theory fascinates me, my mind keeps drifting to a dream I had last night. Usually I don't remember my dreams, but this one... this one I can't forget...
[***]
I was back in Kettlecorn, back in our big 'ol noisy farmhouse, and it was a Monday night. I decided to go over to my friend Terri's house to watch Gossip Girl, a show I never even watch—I get plenty enough catty rich girl behaviour being roommates with London Tipton, thank you very much. So away I went without even texting Terri to tell her I was on my way.
As I crossed Main Street in beautiful "downtown" Kettlecorn, I ran into Addison. As in Addison, my fellow student at Seven Seas High, who used to date Woody until they had a disagreement over walruses.
What the feathers was she doing in Kettlecorn?
But naturally, because this was a dream, I didn't think to ask.
"Where are you going?" Addison asked me.
"I'm going to watch Gossip Girl at my friend Terri's house. Do you want to come?"
"Sure," she bubbled, falling in step with me.
When we rounded the corner onto Terri's street, just behind the seed n' feed store, another strange thing happened. We weren't in Kansas anymore, we were stepping off an elevator on the S.S. Tipton. Onto the boys' floor. Right down the hall from Cody and Woody's cabin.
A plan flashed into my head, and I told it to Addison: "I'm going to stand here behind the corner while you go knock on their door. If Cody answers, I'm going to just run off because I don't want to see him and you can go in, or whatever. If Woody is there, maybe you two can work things out."
She agreed to this.
So I stayed behind the corner, hoping and praying that Cody wouldn't answer, while Addison went to the door and knocked.
No such luck, because I heard the door open and then Cody's voice unmistakably saying "Hi."
Immediately I turned to run, but somehow he heard me and came out into the hall. He was wearing skinny black jeans and a heavy plaid shirt that made him look like a lumberjack, like someone I didn't even recognize.
Addison, in typical dream fashion, had disappeared.
"Who's there?" Cody asked angrily, and then he saw me.
I dashed for the elevators, but he came after me.
"I don't want to talk you," I exclaimed. "I don't want to see you at all!"
Ever since Cody used me as an excuse to dump Woody's sister, I haven't wanted to talk to him. I just haven't known what to say. I honestly thought he meant it when he told Willa that he was still in love with me. How could I not? Especially after the cookie he gave me at the chocolate factory in Belgium.
I never stopped loving you. You're the one for me.
Luckily an elevator revealed itself the minute I pressed the button on the wall and I hurried inside.
Cody arrived just as the door was sliding shut.
"If you'd asked the same question two weeks ago, you would have gotten a different answer," he said. I could only see half his face.
Hardly thinking, I jammed my finger into the "DOOR OPEN'" button and got myself out of the elevator and back into the hall.
"Really?" I asked him. What question? I had no idea what question he was talking about. But again, it was dream, so it didn't have to make sense. None of it had made sense so far.
"It's true," he said, looking down at me, and a smile curved his lips. A nostalgic smile that reminded me of planning for our one-year anniversary in Paris. Before everything fell apart, before he said the b-word.
We stood there for a few minutes just looking into each other's eyes. He blinked a couple of times, blue-green irises vanishing behind his uncommonly long eyelashes, and I watched his lips uncurve into a pucker, move toward mine in slow-motion increments.
Yet the closer we leaned, the more the space between us grew, solidifying into a barrier, keeping us apart, holding us back—or maybe we just felt awkward.
It's what still irks me about the dream. That clumsy what-will-happen-next? feeling. It lasted until the dream slipped away like sand in a tide, or until I woke up.
That part I don't remember.
[***]
"Bailey?"
My eyes pop open to see Cody standing at my booth, holding a textbook in his skinny arms. How long has he been here? My hand flies to my neck to adjust my butterfly necklace. A wingtip is digging into my skin.
The Cody in front of me looks does not remind me of dream Cody. Same skinny black jeans, but instead of a lumber jacket, he's wearing a grey T-shirt and a sporty purple hoodie, even though he's not the least bit sporty.
"I uh wanted to return this," he says, putting down my textbook on quadratic degeneracies in fractal equations. "Woody was using it to crack coconuts." Small shrug.
This is too easy to believe, so I just say "Thanks" and slide the textbook toward me.
While the Aqua Lounge is almost deserted, the music has been cranked up a notch and the clock by the aquarium suggests that the pre-dinner drinks crowd will be here soon.
I should go.
Cody stays where he is. Is the dream replaying on a movie screen in my head? Just in case, I push my hand through my hair, trying to banish any incriminating images, and clear my throat. He has no right to look into my private thoughts. The laundry list is already dredging itself up, the familiar anger rising to my face. Cody accused me of cheating on him in Paris. He used me to dump Woody's sister. The transgressions accumulate. He pushed me in front of a seagull. Called me stupid. Fought me for Buck. Started rebound dating first. Said he wanted to break up with me on our one-year anniversary.
OK, I was the one who said "I'm done" when we had our big fight atop the Eiffel Tower, but he was the one who said the b-word. Break-up. Just like I did when I ended things with Moose. I had been thinking about it for a while, so it made sense that I would say it first.
Definitely I should go.
Cody doesn't move.
"What?" I snap, pushing my chemistry notes into a pile.
"Can we talk?" he asks.
"Why, do you need my help dumping another girl? Are you here to get my permission first?"
"Bailey. Please."
The pleading in his tone softens me, although it probably shouldn't. When you break a bone, the fibers grow back denser, making the bone stronger than before. My heart is not a bone.
"OK. What do you want to talk about?"
Cody slides into the seat across from me. "I..." he pauses. "I know that a lot has happened since we uh broke up and it's not always easy to start over, but we still could, if you could..."
"You want to get back together?" I ask, all abrupt bluntness.
When he stiffens at the question and just sits there, toying with my mechanical pencil, I begin to wonder if I've made a hasty assumption. Again.
I stuff my chemistry notebook into my bag.
"Bailey, I miss you," he bursts out. "We've both had some time by ourselves and to think things through. I've been trying to make a new start, but it's not working. I don't want to move on and just be friends. You're the one I need, to talk to and to hold."
I hang onto my anger. "Don't you have Blankie for that?"
"Blankie, for your information, is packed up in my trunk." His eyes narrow slightly. "For good."
"I'm impressed." I am, actually.
"Bailey, I can't change how I feel. I'm asking you if you want to get back together, if you still want me after I destroyed your soul and made such a fool of myself."
I never stopped loving you. You're the one for me.
I hear it, that ecstatic scream somewhere inside my mind. For weeks, months, I've longed for this admission—this apology?—but with the table widening into a gulf, I'm not letting that scream out. There's no surrealness to buffer us here in the Aqua Lounge, no dreamscape to excuse ambiguous questions and disappearing characters. My eyes are open and they sure as heck don't expect to see Addison tear through at any moment, pursued by a horde of flaming penguins.
But I digress.
"You're right, Cody, it's not easy." I keep talking before the words can stick in my throat like chunks of peanut butter. "We had problems. I have... we both have competitive attitudes."
Cody gestures to my chemistry book. "Look, I don't care if you're getting a higher grade in chemistry than me. It's not a big deal."
I raise an eyebrow.
"We'll just major in different subjects at Yale. Me, applied mathematics. You, environmental engineering. Problem solved."
My eyes are rolling. "Cody, I'm serious. I can admit it, I have a competitive side. Back in Kettlecorn I was used to being the smart one. I never had to share the academic spotlight with anyone."
"Neither have I," Cody says. "Academics is the one accomplishment Zack can't steal from me."
Softly, I say, "Our competitiveness is what makes us fight." The truth hurts, and this one hurts a lot.
My gaze shifts over his shoulder to the aquarium. Are any dramas going on in that tank? The fish look so serene as they weave among the ferns and fronds, zip through the holes in the sunken pirate boot, bubbles rising and flashes of rainbow light. Maybe it's all an illusion and the fish are as confused and conflict-ridden as we humans are.
Cody puts his hand over mine.
"All couples fight," he says. "It's just part of being in a relationship. Love is what brings them back together. And I love you, Bailey Pickett. I never stopped loving. You already know that."
My hand stays still and my other hand covers my mouth before it opens, no sound coming out, no words materializing on my tongue to fill the silence that's stretching between us like saltwater taffy pulled to its very thinnest strands.
"But if this isn't what you want, I understand." Tears are starting in the corners of Cody's eyes, diluting their laser-like focus. "I thought it was worth a try because I miss you so much and I wish so badly that I hadn't hurt you like I did and I want you back more than you could ever believe."
A whirlpool of emotions wells up in me. He's suffered enough—we both have—and when I speak, my voice shakes only a little. "Well, there is one thing I do better than you."
"What's that?" he asks.
I practically dare myself to say it. "I'm a way better kisser than you."
"Oh yeah, prove it," Cody says, breaking into a wide open smile.
This time there's no wondering what will happen next. I'm on my feet, grabbing those hoodie strings and pulling him toward me as though the table isn't even there.
"I never stopped loving you, either," I murmur against his lips. "I'm sorry for our fight. I want to be together again."
And then our mouths join, so warm and sweet, and our arms fold around each other, locking us into our cocoon of joy. This is what I'll remember most about today, what I'll always remember—the elation, the heart-swelling relief that Cody and I are finally together again.
I lay my head on Cody's shoulder as he wraps me closer to him and only then do my eyes close.
When the clouds are gone
Not a shadow in sight
You'll be drenched in the sun
With open eyes
A/N: Now I'm off to play that song again! : ) Thanks, as always, for reading. Reviews are the surest way to make a reader smile. Xoxoxo – Ellie