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The next day when I woke up I was alone in my room. For some reason I was disappointed by this occurrence. When I went downstairs I found the house completely empty. All the cars were gone from the driveway. I had been abandoned. On the fridge there was a note:
Hey Paige! We went
Mudding, you were
Still asleep & we didn’t
Want to wake you up!
We’ll be back around two!
Mel!
So they went without me. I looked at the clock, it was noon, I only had two hours of loneliness. I decided to make myself some lunch/breakfast. I made chicken fingers. I’m not a very eccentric person when it comes to what I eat.
I was about to put away my dishes, when there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find Cody, completely covered in mud. I’m talking head to toe, I couldn’t even see his eyes. “Wow,” was all I could say before I started giggling.
“Could you just help me please.”
“Sure,” I said still laughing.” Come on let’s go around to the garage. “ He started walking to the side of the house and I followed him. “So how exactly did you see to drive home?”
“I didn’t.” he said blankly.
“Are you kidding me? You could have killed yourself!”
“I know mom.” He sounded kind of pissed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” The way he said it didn’t tell me it was nothing . I let it go, if he wanted to tell me, he would tell me. I picked up the water hose. “This is going to be cold,” I warned. He grunted in response. I turned it on and squeezed the handle. Water sprayed out and hit him in the stomach. He flinched and I quickly sprayed the rest of his body. For the most part I got all the mud off. When I was done I took him to Austin’s bathroom so he could take a hot shower, he must’ve been freezing.
While he was getting clean I went to finish the dishes in the kitchen. About half an hour later he emerged from Austin’s room shivering. I ushered him to the couch and threw a blanket over him. I sat down next to him and waited for him to say something. He didn’t. So we sat in silence for the longest time, until I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Will you please tell me what’s wrong, it’s kind of killing me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said finally turning to face me. He didn’t sound bitter for the first time since he had come back. His voice showed a genuine apology. “Something happened when we went mudding, totally unexpected.”
“Is everybody okay?”
“Yeah, everybody’s fine, it’s just,” he paused, looking like he was trying to figure out how to word something.” Jaci told me that she liked me.” he let out a big breath like a weight had been lifted off of him.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, I got in the car and left.”
“Oh,” was all I could say.
“Yeah, ‘oh’, as in crap he’s retarded.”
“No,” I put a hand on his shoulder, “ ‘Oh’ as in crap this is going to be a lot harder than I thought.”
“You’re right there.” he said frowning.
“This isn’t going to work.” I said, feeling a frown cover my face.
He looked at me with sad eyes,” But I want it to work so badly.”
“Me too, but if we have to keep it from Austin it’s never going to work. We just have to face it now.”
“I promise, I’ll find a way to make this work.” He said as he stood, shaking the blanket off of him. “Give me a week and I’ll figure it out.”
“Cody-”
He cut me off,” One week.” he got up and walked toward the back door.
“Where are you going?”
“To figure this out.” and he was gone.