ALL THE RAGE (writer: T.M. Frazier)(5)

My only friend.

I met his blue eyes and dropped the fake smile.

Shit.

“I told you it wasn’t going to work,” I said, taking another deep breath, snuffing out the anger inside me that threatened to take hold at any moment. I could hold on for a few more minutes. For him. “I told you I’m broken. I told you this couldn’t fix it, but I wanted us to try.”

Cody reached for my hand and I let him link his fingers with mine one last time. A feeling of familiarity I’d always been comfortable with when it came to him. Cody sighed. “I don’t understand. I mean we can try again. Maybe we just need to…” Cody’s grip tightened around my hand. “Hope, be honest. Tell me. We can’t make this work if you don’t…” His continual use of a name I hated was what pushed me over the edge and suddenly the backseat of his Honda seemed impossibly too small.

I felt trapped.

“Make what work?” I snapped, tearing my hand from his and pushing open the car door. I stumbled out barefooted onto the grass and leaned up against the Honda. Cody got out and stood on the other side, the moon highlighting every line on his face I didn’t want to see.

“Us!” Cody yelled out. “Of course us! This is what this was all about, wasn’t it? Seeing if we can make it work as a couple even with your…issues?”

I finally understand how na?ve he really was. All this time. All these years of trying to help me, and he still didn’t get it. He didn’t get ME.

I squared my shoulders and launched the truth at him. “What do you want to hear, Cody? That we can live happily ever after? Because you of all people should know that’s not in the cards for me. And what we just did? Sex? Fucking? Do you want to hear the truth when it comes to that to? Because the truth is that I felt numb,” I admitted. “It didn’t hurt. I didn’t really even feel anything. Honestly, I thought about my hair and the pins that are poking me in my brain. Then my mind drifted and I don’t know where I went, but it wasn’t here. That’s the problem, it’s never been HERE.” I reached up and pulled on the two main pins that holding my hair in a pile of tight curls on top of my head. I threw the pins to the ground. My hair fell around my shoulders, the tension instantly relieved. “I feel like a failure, not because this didn’t work, but only because I let you down.”

“You didn’t let me down,” Cody said, rounding the car joining me on the other side. “It’s not like all this is instant. These things take time. There is so much more to all this than…”

“Cody!” Pushing off the car I turned around to face him, gesturing with a wave of my hand down to my pink sequined prom dress. “It’s over. This was it. This was my last shot. You’re standing there looking hurt, and I’m upset that I hurt you. That’s all I feel. I care about you, and I want to love you in the way you deserve to be loved, but I can’t. You’re one of the few people in the world who if you dropped dead, I wouldn’t just step over your body and keep walking. That’s my definition of love. You deserve more than that, Cody, but I can’t give it to you.”

“But Rage,” Cody started to argue, attempting to use the nickname I’d preferred to be called. He took a step closer.

“No!” I said, holding up my hand to stop him. I leaned in through the window of the car and grabbed my bag, slinging it around my shoulders. I took out my phone and tapped out a quick text. Then I pulled out the wrinkled piece of torn notebook paper I’d been carrying around with me since Cody and I first started working on it over six years ago. “There is no ‘but Rage.’ We’ve tried everything and more. It’s been years. I’ve gone along with every idea and every suggestion. And although I’ve managed to fool some people, I can’t fool you and most importantly, I can’t fool the one person who knows who I really am and who doesn’t want me to pretend anymore.”

“Who’s exactly is that?” Cody asked, jealousy in his voice.

I handed him the folded pages. “Me.”

“You keep it,” he said, looking down at my hand at the years worth of suggestions on how to make me normal, aptly titled, THE RULES FOR BEING RAGE.

“I don’t want you to leave,” Cody whispered, tears in his eyes. The psychologists had said I lacked remorse, empathy, and a general lack of respect toward human life. They were right for the most part, but I was capable of caring about a few people.

Enough to know I had to leave, so I couldn’t hurt them anymore. Cody included.

“You knew this was coming,” I said, like Cody knowing a bomb was about to explode would somehow lessen the impact.

“I hoped tonight would change things,” he said, pushing his hands into his pockets and looking at me sheepishly through his dark hair, which had fallen over his eyes.

“I’m relieved,” I said, with a small laugh. “There are no lines of confusion slashing through everything now. I know what I need to do.” The roar of an engine thundered through the silence of the night, growing closer until the sound echoed across the tops of the pine trees, calling out to me like freedom.

A single headlight illuminated behind the brush, hiding the driver of the motorcycle behind the shadows.

“Why is he here? You already called him?” Cody asked, tucking in his white dress shirt like whoever was out there could see his state of dishevelment.