"Are you high?" Cody asked as soon as the door closed behind them.
Sky glanced at the boy by her side and frowned. "So what if I am? You gonna judge me?"
Cody let out a soft sigh, pulled his car keys from the pocket of his jeans, and pressed a button, opening the car doors as they approached.
"No, that would be rather hypocritical of me, don't you think? Just wanted to know where we stand."
Sky didn't reply, since - high or not - she had no clue where they stood. She had told everyone repeatedly that this was not a date - to Cody, to Dad, to Moon, to herself - and yet, now that Cody opened the door for her and she sat down in his car, she couldn't deny the butterflies in her stomach.
Which was incredibly stupid.
She brushed off that feeling, and leaned into the calmness and softness the opiates in her system so easily provided, turned her eyes to Cody when he sat down in the driver's seat and started the car. His hands on the steering wheel were nice to look at - big hands with beautiful, long fingers, an expensive-looking wrist watch on his right wrist. He had pulled up the sleeves of his hoodie, revealing his forearms that were slim and toned, the blue pattern of veins was clearly visible on the backs of his hands, it crept up his arms like a map of uncharted territories.
She turned her eyes to Cody's face, and again noticed the fresh-looking bruise and the scraped skin on his cheekbone.
"What happened to your face?" She asked. "You got into a fight?"
Cody let out a small laugh and brought his fingers to brush his cheek. He kept his eyes on the road.
"It's nothing, don't worry about it."
"No, seriously - what happened? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Just a… soccer ball accident." He shrugged and glanced at Sky, flashing her a smile. "It's embarrassing really. I couldn't catch the ball my brother kicked at me."
That image made Sky smirk.
"Awww, poor you," she laughed. "So, you've got a little brother?"
"And a sister. But yeah, David thinks he's going to be the next Leo Messi. He won't shut up about soccer," Cody replied, and suddenly his voice was soft, his smile wide. "I'm still hoping it's just a phase. He's eleven. And Leigh is ten."
"So you're the eldest?"
"Yeah, I'm the big brother," Cody replied, the smile still lingering on his lips. "So, how about you? Any sisters or brothers?"
That question took away Sky's grin and she was engulfed by a sudden wave of sadness. Stupid, so fucking stupid, how any innocent, little thing such as Cody's small talk could bring back Kat, and every single time the loss was a dagger through her heart.
Sky swallowed and glanced at her hands that lay in her lap, trying to fight away the threatening tears. Kat was gone, and she was never coming back. She had been dead for a year and a half now, but the pain was still fresh - different now than before, because now she knew there was an afterlife, she knew she'd one day see Kat again, but still—
Sky could still feel the grip of her hand on her own, the fierce love she had felt for Kat, that she would always feel for her, no matter how many years passed.
"What?" Cody asked, clearly confused by Sky's silence and the grief she couldn't hide. "Did I… did I say something wrong?"
Sky shook her head, trying to force away the lingering sadness. "It's nothing. I don't have any siblings. Just me and my dad."
That lie felt like a betrayal towards Kat - who might not have been her blood, but had been her sister in every way that mattered - but Sky pushed that guilt away, sending a silent apology to Kat over the dark river. She didn't want to talk about Kat with Cody. She didn't want to share her most painful secrets with a boy she knew nothing about. Besides, it was kind of refreshing to be talking with someone who knew nothing about her past, about Matt or Kat, about all the messed up things she'd been through.
With Cody, she could be anyone. She could be a girl who didn't have a past, who didn't care for the future.
"I'm sorry if I said something stupid," Cody said after a short silence. "You look… sad."
"It's okay," Sky said. "Really, don't worry about it. You just… remind me of someone I used to know."
As she said it, she realized it was true. There was something about Cody that felt like Kat. Maybe it was the smile that was born so quickly and lit up his whole face. Maybe it was the grin, a bit too wide for his face, a bit wolfish with the sharp, white teeth. Or maybe just the mix of smarts and 'I don't give a shit' -attitude they both had. Kat had possessed this irresistible energy, that Sky would have followed anywhere - and there was something of that in Cody too.
"So, how is the Brief History of Time going?" she asked, to get something else to think about, and Cody - keeping his eyes on the road as he drove - replied that he hadn't started that one yet, but continued telling her about another book he was reading, something called Cloud Atlas, and how great it was—
—and it was all so perfectly normal, so easy, and it made Sky feel like she could breathe again. She let go of the sadness and leaned into the conversation, listened to Cody's words, and smiled. For the rest of the drive, they talked about books.
They arrived at the milkshake place quickly. Cody parked the car, then stood up and walked over to Sky's side to open the door for her and help her up.
Sky took the offered hand - Jesus, that boy has beautiful hands - but let go as soon as she stood up. This was not a date. She would not walk in there holding Cody's hand—
"Everything okay?" Cody asked when they approached the entrance and he held the door for her.
Sky glanced at him. "You do remember this is not a date?"
"Oh, don't worry. If this was a date I would have complimented your looks a dozen times already" Cody laughed. "Because let me be honest, you look incredible, Sky."
Sky let that compliment pass, even if it did bring a small smile to her lips.
"So, you're always this chivalrous?"
"Can't help it," Cody shrugged. "That's how I was brought up.
He walked to a table and pulled a chair for Sky, signaling her to sit down. There was ease in his flawless manners, like they weren't rehearsed but came from years and years of practice, and Sky had to appreciate them. She took a seat, leaned her elbows on the table, and glanced at Cody.
"What would you like?" he asked. "Chocolate? Vanilla? Strawberry?"
"I don't know. Why don't you surprise me."
The grin he flashed her was wide and catchy, and Sky couldn't help but answer it. He ran a hand through his hair, brushing the strands of his dark hair off his forehead as he turned to walk to the counter. She looked after him, until she realized she was staring, and then - annoyed at herself - she forced her eyes off his slender frame, his broad shoulders, and turned to look out of the window.
She was startled back to the moment a couple of minutes later when Cody returned holding two milkshakes in his hands. He placed one on the table in front of Sky, making her jaw drop.
The thing was huge. It had to be the biggest size they sold, and on top of the milkshake itself, there was an insane amount of whipped cream, a mountain of cherries, a candy cane, marshmallows, and sticky-looking, red syrup. Sky burst out laughing.
"Well, damn," she giggled. "Nothing says sorry I thought you were a whore like this milkshake."
Cody didn't look too amused by her notion. His smile looked a bit forced as he took a seat across the table.
"I am forgiven then?" he asked, glancing at her over the milkshakes.
"It might take more than one of these, you know," Sky teased and started sucking on the straw, hollowing her cheeks. Cody's glance turned to her lips, froze there for a couple of seconds, and then - as if realizing that he was staring - he quickly turned his eyes to his own milkshake. Sky noticed how his cheeks blushed.
"So, we're going to do this more than once?" He asked, regaining his cool. He leaned back in his chair, his posture was mellow, relaxed, confident. Only the slight blush on his cheeks told of some emotion - which one, Sky couldn't have guessed.
She picked up a marshmallow from her milkshake and ate it.
"I don't know. Depends."
"On what?"
She didn't answer. She was feeling a bit giddy, a bit wild. It was probably the opiates in her system, finally kicking in, but she noticed she was having fun. Cody was beautiful to look at, the milkshake was great. She liked the way the sweetness melted on her tongue, the way Cody blushed so that the rosy color first appeared on the top of his high cheekbones and then spread from there, all the way to his ears. Her foot was tapping the floor under the table with the rhythm of the generic, happy pop music they were playing in the background, and the worries and the sadness were melting away with every mouthful of whipped cream she took.
"I want to know something about you," Sky said, picking up the cherry from her milkshake and eating it. It was delicious - sweet and juicy and just a bit sour.
"About me?" Cody laughed. "What do you want to know about me?"
"I don't know," she shrugged. "I have a feeling that you know more about me than I know about you."
"Well, I know you threw up in my Mom's favorite roses," Cody replied, stirring his milkshake with the straw and then taking a sip.
"I did what?" She had no memory of it - but then again, she'd had vomit on her hoodie so it was probably true. "Wait - that does sound like me."
"You do that a lot? Puke in people's roses?"
"Only when I'm feeling generous," Sky replied with a grin. "So consider yourself lucky."
"Oh I felt so lucky washing the roses from your vomit in the middle of the damn night," Cody noted. "So maybe you'll buy me a milkshake next time? We'll call it sorry I puked over the roses milkshake."
"Hey - that's not even half as bad as what you did. You're not off the hook yet, Mister. Now, come on, tell me something about yourself. Something real. Something not everyone knows."
Cody let out a laugh but it was a bit strained. He turned his eyes away, looked out of the window.
"Why—- why do you want to know something like that?"
Sky shrugged. "To even the scales? I don't even remember what I told you that night, but—"
"I do," Cody said, and suddenly his voice was serious, his smile was gone and Sky was reminded of the morning when he had made coffee for her and he had said "Sky you told me last night you wanted to kill yourself. What the fuck am I supposed to do after that, huh?"
She looked down. There was something in her throat, something salty and bitter and she took a sip of the milkshake to wash that down, to push away the pain.
"Come on, give me something." She forced a smile on her face. "Some dirty secret about you. Like - why are you selling drugs? It's not like you need the money, your folks are clearly rich as fuck."
Cody had fallen silent. His milkshake lay practically untouched in front of him, the whipped cream was already melting and running down the sides of the paper cup but he looked like he couldn't give a shit. He turned to look out of the window, the muscles on his jaw and neck worked when he swallowed.
"If I tell you something, you promise to keep it to yourself?" He turned his eyes back to Sky, those beautiful hazel eyes with a hint of green.
All the playfulness was gone now, Cody's face was dead serious and his mood crept to Sky over the table like frost.
"Of course," She said with a nod. "I promise."
Cody held her stare for a couple of heartbeats, then let out a sigh as he brushed his hair off his forehead.
"They're not really my parents," he said, his tone matter-of-factly, void of all emotion.
"Oh. Are you… adopted?"
"I wish. I'm a foster kid."
There was sudden bitterness in Cody's voice. His jawline turned tight, the color had fled his cheeks. He turned to look out of the window again, and the light of the setting sun painted his high cheekbones with shades of gold. He looked like a statue or a painting, so beautiful that it was impossible to look away.
"They didn't think they could get children, so they asked for a foster child." Cody continued, his voice soft and dark and full of shadows. "I was five when I moved in with them."
He didn't tell where he had lived before that, and Sky didn't ask. She didn't dare to say anything, for fear of interrupting Cody. The way he was talking to her felt intimate, it felt vulnerable. This boy sitting in front of her was not the one with the cold, confident grin nor was he the one with blushing cheeks and shyness. This was yet another boy, another Cody, one she had known nothing about.
"So, they took me in," he spoke, still looking out of the window. "And… a year later they had David. And then a year later Leigh." A short pause. He turned to look at Sky, bitterness suddenly clear in his eyes that looked almost pure green in the light of the setting sun. "You see where that leaves me? None of it is mine. None of it is real. It isn't my family. I'm an intruder in their home, and my so-called parents - well, they're just waiting until I graduate so that they can finally kick me out and pretend that the mistake of taking me in, never happened."
"That… that's—" she didn't know what to say. She had asked for something real and she had gotten more than she had asked for.
"So that's why I sell drugs." Cody shrugged, letting out a bitter laugh. "They won't pay for my college. And I want to go. I want to get out of here, I have to get out of here, to make a life for myself… I— I want to go to an acting school. And I need money to do that."
Silence fell on the table after his outburst. Sky raised her eyes to search his face. His lips were parted, his cheeks were red again, as if he was ashamed of the things he had revealed, but his eyes—
Sky swallowed and looked down. She knew that look. It was the same she saw in her own eyes in the mirror every single morning. It was the look of someone who has walked through Hell.
"So instead of working at Burger King, you're selling drugs," she said. "Nice."
"I get to pick my own hours," Cody replied, and suddenly the vulnerability was gone, it was buried deep under that cold, confident shell again and a small smile was back on his lips when he turned his eyes back to Sky. "And I make more money. A lot more."
"And an occasional blow job from a customer?" Sky arched a brow. "That must be a nice bonus."
"Jesus Christ," Cody cursed, but then let out a laugh. "You're never gonna let me forget that, are you?"
"Like I said - It'll take more of these," Sky replied and turned her attention back to her melting milkshake and drank some of it. The taste of the cherry syrup was so sweet it made her wince.
"So, you wanna be an actor?" She asked then, after a short silence.
"Not just any actor," Cody said a bit defiantly, as if he was used to people telling him his dream was stupid, unrealistic. "I want to act on stage. I want to light up Broadway."
Sky couldn't help a slow smile. "Well, you certainly have the face for that."
That made Cody flash her a crooked grin. "Are you saying you like my face?"
"I'm saying you'll crush the hearts of millions of girls in movie posters one day," She laughed. "Or don't you want to do movies? Just theater?"
"I guess it's pretty early to say since so far the highlight of my acting career is to play Puck in Midsummer Night's dream. Let's face it, I've done nothing more than school plays," Cody said, suddenly serious again. He made a face and ran his fingers through his hair as he let out a long sigh. "It's just a stupid dream."
"Nah. It's great that you have dreams. They can come true, you know. Crazier things have happened."
"So, what about you? What do you want to do when you graduate?"
Sky hesitated, she turned her eyes down.
What dreams did she have? What hopes? Once, she had been so sure of everything. She had wanted to go backpacking in Europe with Kat, to go to college with her - to study what? Maybe science, they could have become doctors, scientists, astronauts. It had never mattered. All that had mattered had been Kat, that they'd be together through all of it.
But now it was all gone and Sky who had always loved school and learning had lost all of that too when Kat had died, and since then she had just been going through the motions, just drifting like a leaf in a stream, with no direction, no purpose.
She didn't want to grow up if Kat didn't get to do the same. She didn't want to graduate. She didn't want to go to a stupid college if Kat wasn't there to do it with her.
"I… I don't really know," she replied after a silence that had lasted for too long. "I haven't… really thought about it."
Cody leaned back in his chair and arched a brow. "Okay."
"I guess… I've never been good at planning life. It's like… if I let myself do that, if I get too comfortable, bad things happen."
Another short silence. Sky kept staring at her milkshake, which was only half finished. She was nowhere near high enough to be having this conversation. She wished she'd brought the pill bottle with her - but truly, no amount of pills would make her forget Kat and all she had lost with her.
"What kind of bad things?" Cody asked silently, his voice barely audible through the cheerful pop music. Shake it off, was Taylor singing in the background, but how could Sky shake this off, this lingering feeling of sadness and loss and shame that were always there, turning even this moment, her date with a cute guy, into a mental graveyard?
Sky shook her head. She thought about Matt. About the cold leather couch under her cheek. She thought about Kat, her blood on the floor tiles. She thought about overdosing, about falling down the stairs and fracturing her skull. She thought about Hawk and her heart that had been brutally ripped out of her chest, so that even now, even at this moment, she wanted nothing but death.
"Things. Please, don't ask."
"Well," Cody said silently. "The way I see it… there is no fate, there is no destiny. We are the masters of our own lives. It's not written in the stars that bad things need to happen to you again, even if they did in the past."
Sky stayed silent for a moment. She wanted to tell the same to Cody - that no matter what had happened before, it didn't have to define him, that he could make it, that she believed in him and his dreams, they were not stupid, they were beautiful and she wanted them all to come true for him.
Instead, she took a sip of the milkshake and said. "Are you going to the Halloween dance?"
Cody let out a surprised laugh and leaned back in his chair, giving Sky a quizzical look.
"I don't know. Are you?"
"I guess I am." Sky shrugged, but couldn't help a smile. "I mean, I already have a costume and all."
Cody looked at her over the table, his eyes wide and dark, with rosy spots on his cheekbones. He looked young, boyish, innocent. There was nothing of the former bitterness or coldness in him anymore, they were erased like frost is wiped away by the warmth of the sun at the sunrise, and he leaned closer to her, looking at her like she was the sun, like he could not take his eyes off her even if her light blinded him. He swallowed, as if hesitating, but then the smile was back, it lit up his whole face and Sky could not look away.
"Maybe—" he cleared his throat. "Maybe you'd like to go with me?"
Who's excited about that Halloween dance? Cause I am. XD