Blindness(106)

“Charlie! Hey, you made it!” Gabe says, coming over to give me a drunken hug. I smile politely, but before he even gets near, I hammer away with questions.

“Where is he?” I ask, pulling the gloves from my fingers and stuffing them in the pockets of my puffy coat.

“Wha? Whoooooo?” he asks back, wiggling his eyebrows up and down suggestively.

“I’m not in the mood, Gabe. Stop playing. Where is he? I know he’s here. He called me,” I say back. Gabe only furrows his brow, twisting his lips.

“Cody?” he says, rubbing the side of his face, like he’s trying to wake himself from a nap.

“Gabe, stop it! Yes, Cody,” I say, still scanning the small house and trying to make out figures standing outside in the back yard.

“Charlie…he’s not here. I haven’t seen him all day. He said he wasn’t coming,” he starts, but I push past him and make my way to the back yard.

He has to be here. I know he is—I can feel it. There’s a fire roaring in a giant pit outside, and I study the faces around it. They all look like people I’ve seen in pictures with Cody, and I almost feel like I recognize some. But he’s not with them. I walk the parameter of the yard, looking at the small pockets of people, expecting him to recognize me and call out my name. But he never does.

Back inside, I turn down the small hallway to Gabe and Jessie’s bedroom, and the door is closed. I can hear muffled sounds of people laughing, so I push the door open. It’s dark, and there are four or five girls snuggled on the bed watching television—it looks like they’re watching a Christmas movie.

“Charlie!” I hear Jessie call out, her voice slurring my name. My eyes finally adjust when I see her figure stand up from the back of the bed. “You made it! Come on in and join us, we’re watching The Muppets! Fuckin’ hilarious!”

She’s hugging me and leaning on me for support a second later. Her breath is downright flammable—I can smell that she’s been hitting the hard stuff. I hug her back awkwardly and bite my tongue, almost stopping myself from asking her about Cody, but I know if anyone knows where he is, she does.

“Is he still here?” I ask, starting to believe that Cody left long before I arrived.

She just shrugs at me and sits back down on the bed, patting the edge for me to join her. “Here? Hell, that boy never showed up. Gabe told you—he ain’t comin’.”

She starts laughing at something on the screen again and takes a drink from a bottle being passed around. I leave her there, and I don’t even think she notices. I make another pass through the house, this time my heart beating more slowly and my eyes careful to notice anything out of place. But nothing is new—nothing has changed from the moment I walked in that door.

He isn’t here.

He isn’t here, and I’m sick about it. I don’t want to yell anymore; I don’t want to show him how strong I am, or how little he means to me. Lies—those would all be lies. I just want to see his face one more time, to know he’s okay. That’s why I came. But now it doesn’t matter.

I walk back by Gabe in the kitchen, and he hands me a red cup and squeezes my shoulder, looking into my eyes. I take it, find a sliver of sofa in the back corner of their main room, and slide down—stuffed in my coat and clinging to my cup of beer in front of me between my two cold hands.

The party almost suffocates me, the crowd has grown so thick, and, at least three times, one of Gabe’s friends has come to try to talk to me. He’s cute, and maybe another day—a day long from this one—I would consider smiling at him, maybe even flirting. But he’s not Cody, and that’s the only thing that keeps replaying in my mind as he talks to me. I watch his mouth move, waiting for it to smile, waiting for it to look like Cody’s. When he does smile, it isn’t even close.

There’s a couple next to me, and they’re making out. It’s funny, because I bet in their minds this moment is full of heat and passion. But from the outside, it’s comical. I can’t help but smirk at the slurping sounds and moans the girl is making, and she keeps trying to slide her leg up on top of the guy’s lap, grinding on his knee—I’m sure thinking her moves are sexy as hell. It’s like poor-man’s porn, and it’s almost gross, except that it’s so damned funny.

My beer is empty, and if I’m going to stay any longer I’m going to need a refill. I can’t drive at this point, so I stand from my safe corner and make my way back to Gabe in the kitchen. He’s still mixing drinks for people, still laughing and playing host. The air is thick with smoke, and it chokes me a little at first.

“Hey, lovely,” Gabe says, and I just shake my empty cup in the air and reach over a few people sitting at the counter to hand it to him. “You want a refill? Or something new?”

“Something…kinda weak?” I say, knowing that at some point I’m going to have to drive home.

“Okay, let me work something up for ya,” he winks, and then turns to the fridge to pour a few juices in my cup. I glance at my spot on the sofa and am relieved it’s still open. I start tapping my fingers nervously on the counter as Gabe mixes my drink. I see him put only a tiny splash of vodka in the mix, and I smile at him.

“I’ll take care of you. You can count on it,” he smiles back, but his eyes aren’t looking at me—they’re looking over me. And my heart kicks up, the pounding so rapid, I think it might just fail at any moment.