Cody I

It’s that rain. Its innocence is what corrupts you. There are years here where it doesn’t rain for months. There are years when it rains for days on end. The dry months are the worst. They bring out the forest fires and they all have a smell to them. They have a certain sweetness to them that lies to us. It makes us believe everything will be okay again. Watching it all burn down is a beauty unmatched by none.

Then the rain comes in. It silences the world and nobody ever comes outside. The heavy rain stops the world. But just like forest fires, the rain also has a smell to it. It’s the sweetness that comes from the ground starched for its innocence. We call it Petrichor; the beauty that fades.

And I am that Forest Fire that burns everything around me.

Andrew Mera waits for me outside the diner just outside of Darkwood. There’s was a time when I was good friends with him. I’m not sure if that’s true anymore. He’s proven time and time again that he doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. Even now, I start to wonder if that’s true too. Despite all that, he somehow has been becoming more reckless. It’s as if he has a death wish. What started as a hobby has transformed into his actual job. He’s this town’s drug dealer and it’s going to get him killed. The people he works for are dangerous.

“Took you long enough, slim.”

Slim is the word we use whenever Andrew uses the politically incorrect racial epitaph. He uses it often, nobody really likes when he does but he never cares.

“Here’s your shitty ass weed. You sure you don’t want anything more. Molly, Whitney?”

“I’m good.”

“Fuck Codes, keep giving me those eyes and I might just fuck you,” he laughs. It’s this obnoxious laugh that always makes him tilt his head to the sky. I hate it.

“Shut up.”

I look over to the windows of the diner. Emily is sitting by the window, laughing with her friends. I expected her to be here, but not this early. And here I wanted to grab a cup of coffee.

I know I shouldn’t ignore her.

There isn’t a day where I don’t want to talk to her, be with her, make her laugh, and make her smile. I’ve been in love with her since we were kids. I’m sure she feels the same way. We’ve been destined, but fate is hazy. It’s been so hazy that I’m losing the sense of who I am.

She always keeps asking me, texting me, calling me, “Why am I being so distant?”

And I never tell her anything.

We both know why. She says it doesn’t matter, that it was a lapse of judgment and that it’s okay. She keeps telling me that she knows I will never hurt her.

I’m not sure if that’s true.

I love her, but I’m the devil.

Andrew starts looking around as if he’s expecting someone else. There’s always someone waiting for him. I can only assume he’s waiting for his supplier. I’ve only met him once. Never have a met someone whose presence overpowered everyone in the room. It was terrifying.

“The fuck you still doing here?”

“Are you meeting him?”

“Nah, he doesn’t see people anymore. It’s just Acid and Sessions.”

I know of Acid, but I never met Sessions. It’s a legendary name that’s often thought of as a myth, especially after the Golden Heart Riots six years ago. Since then they’ve been rumored to be all around the country. Lately, they’ve been rumored to be in Seattle.

“Sessions?”

“Yeah, meeting him for the first time,” Andrew grins, giving me a pat on the back. “Moving up in the world, Codykin.”

“Just be careful.”

“The school called again,” is the first thing my mother says when she comes home from work. “I’m more surprised you’re home,” she sighs, dropping her purse on the kitchen table next to me. “But I’m still curious as to why you haven’t been going to your classes.”

“Don’t need ‘em.”

“So instead you would rather eat a bowl of cereal? Code, I know the death of your friend is hard, but you can’t let it affect your school.”

Mom ruins my appetite. I place the spoon on the half-empty bowl and sit upright. “I’ll be fine. It’s still early in the semester.”

Mom sighs and crosses her arms. It’s like this every day I see her. It never ends; my mom standing in the middle of the kitchen worrying too much about me. I suppose it is a mother’s duty to worry about her youngest son, but where’s Dad when she needs him?

That’s right. He’s gone for weeks on end and I barely see him anymore. Whenever he is, Mom always starts a fight with him and all I can do is listen. At least I’m not alone in having a shit home. Everyone has one, or at least close to one.

“Alright, just don’t get yourself in trouble.”

“Thanks.”

“Your father is going to hear about this. He’s not gonna like it. He still wants you to go to college. It’s not something you can run from.”

I scoff, “Like he’s around in the first place.”

“Cody,” Mom sighs. “He’s doing the best he can in the position he’s in. You know how hard his job is. He just wants you to have a better life than him.”

I stand up and dump the milk on the sink. “You can tell him I have better dreams than doing what he wants. Look at where it took Travis.”

“Your brother is doing fine.”

I laugh, “Not from what he told me.”

Mom walks past me and opens up the pantry. She usually doesn’t cook. “How about we have a nice dinner and we can talk about it. Why don’t you invite Emily as well? I haven’t seen her in a few weeks.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Maybe? That didn’t sound so assuring. What’s going on with you two.”

I sit back down on the kitchen and table and pull out my writing notebook. Mom has started to get ingredients out of the fridge. “Nothing.”

Mom snorts, “Please, Emily is like a daughter to me. I know when you two are fighting.”

We aren’t fighting. I’m keeping my distance. I could sit here and talk about this with my mom to figure out why but that would require me telling her everything. Mom is in the dark about Elizabeth’s death. I can’t tell her about the party. I can’t tell her anything about last summer. Only I know the truth, but even that gets me nowhere.

“Cody did you know I’ve lived here my entire life? I’ve seen everything this town can do to you.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Back then nobody ever dared to go inside the forest. There were no drugs, no parties in the middle of the weekdays. With each passing year, I have seen more and more people die here. It seems to get worse each year.”

“So why are we still here?”

“Change cannot happen if you run away from it,” Mom smirks at me. “Go to your room and catch up on your schoolwork, I’ll call you when dinner is ready.”

Emily is sitting across from me at the dining table. She isn’t hiding in sweaters or jackets; she’s wearing a black tank top and gym shorts. I can see her frail little body and I start to wonder why I’m hiding from her. She’s my world.

I can’t have her here. She makes me uncomfortable but I can tell she’s pleased to be here. Mom asks her a bunch of questions that don’t really matter. The two talk like mother and daughter. Mom’s right, Ems really is part of the family. Mom made sure of that during the divorce of her parents four years ago. She took care of her and assured her it wasn’t Ems fault. There was a time when Emily would spend days at a time with us.

I think those were the best days of my life. That was before we really knew what this town was about. We were just kids without a care in the world.

“Ems, you're looking a lot healthier. I’m really proud of your progress,” Mom says out of the blue. Emily doesn’t like to talk about her weight, my mom knows this.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Emily smiles. It brings warmth to me. “Thank you. The doctors are telling me I have about 15 more pounds to be at a healthy weight. “I’ve been gaining about a pound every two months.”

“Is that healthy?”

Emily finishes the food and nods. “It’s a lot better than not doing anything,” she laughs. Of course, what she doesn’t tell my mom is that the progress would be faster if Emily wasn’t doing coke every weekend. “Cody makes sure I eat enough at school.”

I don’t know why she lies but she’s looking at me like she’s trying to provoke me.

Mom blushes. She ships us more than anyone in both our families. “You two are so cute together. I wish you would just admit that you’re boyfriend and girlfriend already.”

“Mom!” I speak up for the first time during dinner. Emily just chuckles.

“Emily, have I told you how Cody would refuse to leave the hospital until you got better? Aldric got so mad at you for missing so much school,” She says to me.

“Like grades in elementary school matter,” I respond.

“That’s what I tried to tell him,” Mom chuckles. “Anyways, Ems, you should have seen him.”

Emily has this big grin on her face because she knows I don’t like the story. It’s like she gets this big satisfaction knowing that I love her. “Yeah, I heard the story a thousand times, Elana.”

“That’s when I knew you two would spend your entire lives together.”

Emily blushes.

Dinner becomes stale with school talk. I’m more at ease now. Maybe I’ve been overreacting. Still, I haven’t found my answer as to why I’ve been avoiding her. Maybe I’m scared that my mom’s wishes won’t come true. It’s counterproductive.

Emily sits at the edge of my bed and kicks her legs back and forth. “It’s been ages since we have been here together.”

I’m on my desking writing on the last page of my notebook. “It’s been about two months, I think.”

“Actually, two months and 13 days,” she chuckles. “Does this mean you’ll stop ignoring me?” I don’t answer. “I’m glad you’re still writing. Have you been practicing on your voice?”

“Of course I have.”

“You make me sad y’know. I’m losing my best friend. Rather, you’re losing me. Stop ignoring me, Code. Come sit with us during lunch, come to class. Stop hiding.”

“I told you, I need time.”

“How much do you need? Because I need time too. With you. Where’s the Cody who literally skipped school for me when I was sick?”

That was what Mom was talking about earlier. Back when we were ten, Emily got struck with this illness that left her bedridden for a few days. It got so bad that she eventually had to go to the hospital. Those days were blurry, I can’t remember much. I think she had to go into surgery and didn’t wake up from it. Everyone thought she was going to die. I thought she was going to die.

Ever since then, Emily has been struggling with her weight. She’s uncomfortable with her body so she hides it. She often clings to the people around her because she’s scared they’ll leave her like her mother and sister. She hates being disliked so she tries to be friends with everyone. Emily is lonely.

“Stop it.”

“Hmm?”

“Stop looking at me like that, analyzing me.”

It’s only then that I catch myself. Emily guards her body with her arms, uncomfortable with how I was looking at her. “Sorry.”

“I know you’re scared, Cody.”

“I’m not.”

“But you are, so am I,” she says in a soft-spoken voice, almost a whisper but filled with her sadness. “It wasn’t your fault.”

I get fed up with Emily being in my house. “C’mon, we’re leaving,” I say, leaving the room.

Emily follows closely behind. “Where are we going?”

“To Carlos’s party.”

Emily grins.

We arrive together but we slit up after people drag us to go drink with them. These sorts of things aren’t enjoyable anymore. Sometimes they don’t even feel real. Once I got invited to a house party in Seattle. Everyone there only smoked and drank. If they did anything else it wasn’t out in the open. Things are different here in Darkwood. Nobody cares if you do coke or ecstasy in the open. It’s wild out here. Mixing uppers and downers, popping pills, and passing out early: it’s all too common here.

I drink a little bit. I don’t like to anymore. I’ve never liked to do anything hard. Smoking weed is the most I do. Andrew calls me a pussy because of this.

As the party goes on I’m reminded just how quickly everyone seems to be moving on. These parties are just like the ones before her death. Nobody cares about her anymore but that’s only because nobody really knew her as I did.

I just don’t understand…

Something happens in the living room and I watch the freshman girl Emily has been hanging out with, running out the door. Megan and Amanda are laughing their asses off. I’d imagine Emily running after her but when I look over, she isn’t paying attention. She’s too busy laughing with Andrew. She wearing her sweater.

They have been getting close lately. I don’t trust him, but I trust her. Emily wouldn’t do that to me, she isn’t Elizabeth. No one has seen her as I’ve seen her. That’s how I know she’ll always be mine.

Still, it’s enough to make me jealous.

I go to the backyard where people are savoring the warm autumn air by playing around in the pool. This is where I find Chris staring up at the sky again. I leave him alone, I know better than to interrupt his thoughts. Then I get tapped in the shoulder by Lucas.

“Hey man, have you seen Sara? She isn’t here and isn’t answering my phone calls.”

“No, haven’t seen her.”

It is odd that I haven’t run into her, she loves to get fucked up at these things.

My attention is turned back to my surroundings. It’s quite peaceful out here, not much noise compared to inside. Carlos’s yard neighbors the woods. It’s just like my house. Nothing but darkness awaits there. When I was younger I used to explore them all the time. Even now I’m sure I can navigate through them blindly.

The woods that surround the town are creepiest at night. Once someone goes in deep enough it’s nearly impossible to find the way out. My entire childhood was spent here so it isn’t a problem for me, so I head inside.

It’s all so silent. The only noise is the sound of my feet breaking the twigs on the ground and my thoughts. There isn’t a particular destination I walk towards, but the treehouse is near so it’s a good of a place of any. There are too many memories there, the last few not being good ones.

Elizabeth spent a lot of time there and I often caught her staring at all the polaroid photographs hanging on the walls. Emily was the one who took those pictures and it was always of us two. Elizabeth never expressed her jealousy and I never did reassure her that there was nothing to worry about. It was that lack of communication that caused that rift between us.

The silence is broken by a girl’s scream.

To get to the treehouse you have to jump over a small creek that would then lead to the open field that houses it. It’s far away enough where even if you screamed, no one would hear you back in town.

This is where I find the small, skinny girl screaming out curse words and smacking a branch against the tree it came from. I watch her until the tree branch breaks in half. She picks up another one and starts slamming on the tree, screaming, “Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!”

“Is that how you take care of your problems?” I ask.

The girl turns around completely startled, holding the tree branch that’s her height towards me like a sword. “W-who are you?!”

Right, you can’t see anything out here. I get close enough to where the end of her stick touches my neck. “Is this how you have fun?”

“Y-You’re-”

“Who are you?”

“G-grace.”

There’s a faint moonlight that breaches through the trees, just enough to cast light to her eyes. It doesn’t take me long to connect the dots. Grace has been crying because of things beyond her control. She thought she could be alone here to vent out her frustrations.

Grace Ciotta is her name. This is the girl who Emily and Sara decided to be friends with. This is the fish Chris told me about. This is the little girl Andrew was laughing about. She’s the girl who wouldn’t stop looking at me the first time I saw her. She looks so much like…

“You shouldn’t be out here. You’ll get lost.”

“T-then what are you doing here?”

“Emily told me to come to look for you,” I lie.

This gets her to lower her stick. Grace is trembling. “Oh, so she does care,” she says weakly. “Thank you.”

“Were you being bullied?”

“Yeah…”

Grace drops the tree branch and wipes her tears. “I-I just don’t get-why did she kill herself in front of me?”

“Come with me.”

I take her hand and start leading her to where I was going in the first place. Surprisingly, she doesn’t complain. After a few minutes, we pass through the trees to find a tree surrounded by a small open plain and a small little cabin on top of this tree. This is where I’ve been spending most of my time lately.

It’s not too big, it was built when we were just kids so it could only fit about four of us now. There’s a little balcony on the other side where we would sit and let our feet hang off of.

“What are doing here?” Grace asks as we enter it. She ignores all the polaroids hanging on the wall, likely she’s unable to see them.

“To calm you down.”

“Oh.”

I sit on the balcony’s edge only to be protected from the flimsy deck railing that’s starting to fall apart. “Why do you want to know so much? Does it still bother you?”

Of course, it does. It bothers everyone. It bothers me. But Grace is different, she was right there. No answers, no explanation. It just happened.

“Yes. Everyone keeps telling me they don’t know and that I should leave it alone because there isn’t anything to find but I just know that’s not true!”

“They’re right. You were simply in the wrong place.”

“No,” she whispers. “Megan kept saying it’s all your guy’s fault. That it was your fault. Yours, Andrew, Emily, Sara, and Chris. What happened?”

Grace just wants answers. She wants closure. We all do, but out of everyone, I think I know the most. Maybe I’m the only one who had enough information to piece it all together. No, I’m sure Andrew and Chris have too. Andrew just doesn’t care and Chris just knows that there isn’t a thing we can do about it now.

“I happened.”

“What do you mean?”

I think about it all over again. Elizabeth was always that girl who’s been around my life. She was my first real girlfriend in middle school. We broke up and went on with our lives. She got popular and I stuck doing my thing. It wasn’t until this kickback they threw at a camping site that we would start talking again. This was right before last summer started.

I don’t even remember why I got so fixated on her in the first place.

“Tell me.”

Think about it now, I think…

Emily thinks Ellie died because she was jealous. We started to date but it didn’t matter how much I liked Elizabeth, my heart always stayed with Ems. I knew this infuriated her, made her act out. I tried to stop her and in the end, I lost my temper. I scared Ellie, I hurt Emily. She was there that night too.

I tell Grace all of this.

“Then what happened?”

After that night, we didn’t talk much. I was scared of myself. So I left her alone and Elizabeth just spiraled down. She couldn’t handle it.”

“So she shot herself.”

“That’s what we think.”

“But what really happened?”

I don’t say anything else. I kept it vague on purpose, I don’t like to think about it too much. There’s still so much I could tell her, stuff nobody else knows except for the people involved. Like Andrew and what he did.

The thought of him hurting Emily comes back to me. If he did that to Elizabeth, he can do it to Ems…

No, Emily wouldn’t do that to me.

But she’s wrong. Emily tells me not to blame myself but how can I when I know it’s my fault. Why do I keep running away from it? Why do I keep running away from myself?

Why do I keep lying to her that it's to protect her?

Why can't admit what I'm doing?

“No, I want to know more!”

Why can’t I just be a good person?”