Blindness(42)

“I need to know what the hell you’re doing,” she launches right into it. Funny, I wish I knew what the hell I was doing, but my girlish instincts have me defensive and ready.

“What are you talking about?” I say, brow scrunched—I’m really trying to sell it.

“Pffft,” Jessie rolls her eyes at me and pushes off from the hood of the car, closing the distance between us and showing me just how not intimidated she is of me. “Let me be clear; I love those boys, Gabe and Cody. We’ve been through some serious shit together. And I nursed him back to coming out in the daylight the last time some chick ruined him…and he’s still f*cked up, but he’s a hell of a lot closer to the light than he was five years ago. I’m not letting anyone take him back,” she says, her foul cigarette breath pungent in my face.

I’m not going to lie, Jessie makes me nervous—I wouldn’t say I’m afraid, but I just don’t know how to approach her, deal with her. She’s honest, painfully so. And I know she’ll call me on my bullshit. So I don’t even try.

“What happened five years ago?” I ask, deciding that if I’m going to walk away from Cody, I should know about the damage he’s survived. It makes me feel like I’m making the right choice, not hurting him again.

It takes Jessie a full minute to talk. She takes a deep breath and holds it, her mouth tight and her eyes examining me, scanning to decide if I’m trustworthy. I relax when she steps back a few feet and once again leans on the car, this time sliding up the hood to sit and cross her legs.

“You know about the accident?” she asks, her eyes unflinching, daring. I nod yes, assuming Gabe probably filled her in on what he told me.

“Right, well, Cody was a mess before the accident, and things just spiraled after it,” she starts, pulling a pack of sunflower seeds from her back pocket and unfolding it, reaching forward to offer me some. I just shrug no and she continues.

“Jake and Cody were exactly what you wish every father and son were—in-f*cking-separable. God…Jake was so proud of Cody. He taught him how to ride. And when most parents would freak out because their kid was taking their dirt bike and building ramps, Jake was buying truckloads of dirt from construction sites and farm lots, helping Cody build the shit he was jumping off of. He drove him around the country, got him sponsors, put the garage in danger just to get Cody on the damn tour. That’s why the garage is in so much trouble. Jake really let business slide for the three years he had Cody in the X-games.”

“He was the youngest to pull some of those stunts,” Jessie pauses for a minute, shutting her eyes. I can tell how much she loves Cody because of the sadness on her face when she remembers him before, when his body and his heart were stronger. “His last few competitions? Damn, girl. He was sick—like people were talking about how he was this phenom and shit. Then Jake died, and Cody just lost his grip on everything.”

I slide my bag from my shoulder and move over to sit on the other end of the hood. Hearing Cody’s story is bringing out feelings of my own, and it’s getting harder to hold onto the power I used to have to hide it, to bluff my feelings away. “How’d he die?” I ask because I’ve been wanting to know, but I know how it is to be the child without—you don’t want to talk about the details.

I’m gripping the metal crease of the hood, waiting for Jessie to speak. “That’s the thing. It wasn’t some freak accident, like a car crash or something. One day, Jake was fine—the next, he was gone. He had a brain aneurism, Shelly found him on the kitchen floor, a gallon of milk spread on the tile around him, his cereal bowl on the counter, bone dry. Dude was just getting up to have some breakfast.”

I feel the tears falling down my cheeks—Jessie has no clue how close to home her words have struck. But I think I would cry hearing Cody’s story even if it wasn’t a parallel of my own life in so many ways. I wipe them away quickly with my sleeves, hoping she doesn’t notice, but she does. She doesn’t make a big deal of it, but I know she sees me. “You said it got worse. After the accident?” The need to know more is strong, and I’m thankful Jessie is sharing.

“Yeah, it got way the f*ck worse,” she says, sliding forward and stuffing the bag back in her pocket. “Cody got really depressed. His leg was mangled, I mean like really messed up. He had to live in that chair for months.”

“That’s when Kyla left him?” I ask, piecing the rest of the story together myself. Jessie just nods and rolls her shoulders back.

“Yeah, girl was a bitch. I never liked her, but when she just ditched him like that?” Jessie trails off, looking up at Cody’s place.

I wonder if he’s home, and I peek over at his garage. It’s empty.

“He’s at the garage; that’s why I came here,” Jessie says, reaching out for my hand to help me slide from her hood. “I’ve gotta get back though. Gabe’s going to wonder where I am. I told him I was just going to grab breakfast burritos.”

I smile at her realness. And I’m jealous that Cody has someone like her to look after him. I know I need to get to class, and I know Jessie’s ready to leave, but I can’t help but ask her one more question, get my final puzzle piece locked in before she goes.

“What pulled him out?” I ask, and she looks at me puzzled. “You said it took forever to pull him out of the dark. What did it? How did you do it?” I’m not sure why I’m asking, really. Maybe I want to know because I’m hoping it will work for me, or maybe I just need to have some sort of happy ending in my head for Cody’s story—especially now that I’ve made the decision to end trying to get closer to him.