ALL THE RAGE (writer: T.M. Frazier)(6)

“I sent him a text,” I admitted.

“Do you want him?” Cody asked, taking me by surprise. “Is that why he’s here so fast? Is it him over me?”

“What?”

“Do you want him?” Cody asked, pounding a fist on the roof of his car.

“Are you f*cking insane? Do you think I would have just let you…” I paused, trying to find the right word so I wouldn’t come off too harsh.

“Let me f*ck you,” Cody finished, not caring about harsh. The spiteful tone in his voice was getting under my skin. I shot him a warning glare. He was the only person who’d ever gotten one of those. He knew the drill and reluctantly unclenched his fists and took a deep breath.

“Yes, do you think I would have just let you f*ck me, do you think I would have gone through with trying this one last thing to see if I was capable of attraction, of a relationship, of being a normal teenager, if there was someone else out there I wanted?” Cody didn’t say anything, but I could see the regret at his choice of words plastered across his face. “I don’t want anyone. That’s the f*cking problem. I don’t want anything except to be me. If you really think I’m taking off with someone else because I want to f*ck them then I’m glad I’m leaving, because here I thought you were the only one who really knew me, but I can see now that you never really knew me at all.” I huffed. “To think it only took a few minutes in the backseat of your f*cking car for you to forget everything you’ve ever known about me.”

Cody’s regret was written all over his face before my last words had even left my mouth. “I’m sorry, but…” He growled and pulled on his hair. “What about your parents?” Cody asked, grabbing both of my shoulders, digging his fingers into my skin. His anger forgotten. Desperation in its place.

I shook my head. “I’ve already taken care of everything.”

Cody looked toward the parking lot. He shielded his eyes from the single beam of blinding white light that beckoned to me like the warmth of the sun, thawing me from a long cold winter.

I reached out and touched the side of Cody’s face. I smiled a rare genuine smile. “You know I don’t want anyone else, right?” I asked. I needed him to understand it wasn’t him I was running from, but me I was running for.

“Yeah, Rage, but you don’t want me either,” he stated flatly, using my nickname for the second time. Rage was a name Cody came up with but as we’d gotten older he stopped using it and more and more started using Hope again. I knew why. It’s because he wanted me to be Hope. Hope was a girl you dated and took to the movies. Hope was a girl you made future plans with and lost your virginity to in the backseat of your Honda after prom.

I wasn’t her.

I tried to be her. To make her real, but that night the truth was clearer then ever.

Nothing I tried had worked…because Hope Michaels didn’t exist.

“No, I don’t want you. But you have to know that if it was ever going to be anyone, I wished it could’ve been you,” I said. Cody nodded, closing his eyes and leaning his cheek into my palm.

“What will I do without you?” he asked, his words whispering across the palm of my hand. A tear formed in the inside corner of his eye, spilling down the bridge of his nose. He sniffled.

Cody was a straight A student who was destined for the Ivy Leagues. He was a math wiz and a star on our high school’s baseball team. Without me to drag him down, he had nowhere to go but to the top of whatever mountain he wanted to climb.

The bike engine revved and vibrated deep within me, letting me know it was time.

“Do you really wanna know what you’re going to do without me?” I asked. I dropped my hand from Cody’s face and turned, running as fast as I could with my ridiculous tulle skirt bunched up in my fists. “You live!” I shouted back over my shoulder. “And you can keep the list. I don’t need it anymore!” Dried leaves and pine needles stung and stabbed at the bottoms of my bare feet, but I didn’t care.

I never looked back. Not at Cody. Not at my old life.

I ran toward more than just a bike. I ran toward the freedom to be myself. Toward a new life. Toward the real me.

Freedom.

Where I was going, Hope Michaels wouldn’t be coming with me. In her place would be the girl I’d shoved aside for as long as I could remember. The one who mainstream society, my teachers, my doctors, my parents, and even Cody spent a lot of time trying to change into someone else.

When I reached the shell parking lot I hiked up my dress high around my waist and straddled the bike behind the driver, holding on tight to the wall of leather and muscle in front of me.

I couldn’t see Cody, but I could feel his eyes on me as the bike shot forward into the blackness of the night. Into the unknown.

Cody could have Hope, because I wasn’t taking her with me.

With the wind whipping through my hair and my pink ball gown floating all around me, Hope was officially gone.

All that was left in her place…was Rage.





CHAPTER THREE




Rage


My bag vibrated for the millionth time within a span of three minutes. Since that phone was specifically reserved for calls from only two people, and since very rarely did one call without the other on the line, I knew exactly who was trying over and over again to reach me. I couldn’t ignore it forever, especially since they wouldn’t stop calling until I either answered or the battery died, but I was still running wire. A task that required my full attention.