Blindness (43 page)

He called. Tonight.

And I didn’t answer.

I didn’t even hear it.

I dig feverishly under my seat, my fingers
frantic, and grasping for the phone until I bring it back to my
lap.

He called. Twice.

No message. Probably no more than a single
ring. But he called. He must be at the party. I bet Jessie told him
about my project, and I bet he just wants to see it. He probably
wants to know how he can lease a property, and what he has to do to
be a part of it, to work at the garage.

This isn’t about me. It’s about
Jake’s
—about the sign I stole, about getting back his
home—the one he thinks I ripped away from him. It’s probably a
lecture on
how dare I use his father’s shop for my own personal
gain
!

He probably wants to blame me again for not
giving him a choice.

I toss the phone into the seat next to me and
slam my hands on the steering wheel over and over while I scream
obscenities. How could he choose the garage? How could he not
choose me? Not choose
us?!
Didn’t I mean anything to him at
all? I told him everything, I shared Mac with him, and I let him
in! I threw away EASY! I threw away PERFECT! Because I chose
difficult—I chose fucking impossible! I chose him!

My foot is heavy on the gas, and I know I’m
going at least 90 down the highway. I also know I couldn’t possibly
look less
ready-to-party
in my faded jeans, long-sleeved
T-shirt, and black slipper shoes. I wore the knit hat all day
because the office was cold; my hair is permanently dented around
my ears. When I finally hit a stoplight, I brush my hair out with
my fingers and pull my cap back on when it does no good, wrapping
my neck in the scarf, too. I’m cold, and damn it, I’m staying
fucking bundled.

This isn’t about looking good and making him
want me. And I won’t be there long. I just have a few things to
say—things I should have said long ago. Things I repeat over and
over when I’m angry at night—those times in between missing him.
And then I can move on, start over with my life—my
new
life.
I’ll always thank him for inspiring my work, but that’s it. That’s
all he deserves.

I’m taking my heart back, and my soul comes
with it. Reclaimed.

Jessie and Gabe’s street is packed with cars,
some parked side-by-side, and it’s a tight squeeze to get through,
but I manage. My eyes are scanning both sides of the street,
looking for the beat-up pickup that I just KNOW is here. I don’t
see it, but I’m sure it’s around. I find an open slot, slip my car
in park, and grab my heavy coat from the back seat. I didn’t bring
anything, but the party’s been going for a while, so I’m sure
Jessie and Gabe will understand. Hell, I might be in and out before
they even see me!

I don’t bother to ring the doorbell and just
walk right inside, my body still wrapped in my winter coat from my
short walk in their neighborhood. It’s warmer in here, but taking
things off would mean I’m open to staying. And I’m not. I’ll find
Cody, and then I’m leaving.

The living room is full of dozens of girls
who all look like Jessie. Their hair is dyed and shaved and braided
and twisted, and their bodies are all covered in piercings and ink.
One girl nods at me with a smile as I walk by, but I turn away—I’m
not here to make friends.

The guys are loud in the kitchen, and I see
Gabe by the sink mixing some drinks, laughing at some story one of
them is telling. I see a gray and black striped beanie, and I think
for a moment it might be Cody, so I walk around the counter toward
Gabe to get a better look, my fists balling in my pockets to spur
me on. But it’s not him. I don’t even have to get close to
tell.

“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.

I swear I can smell him. This house is filled
to the point of fire code violation, and the air is dripping with
cigars, cigarettes, and pot. But all I smell is
him.
I turn
slowly, and my eyes meet his neck. As tall as I am, he’s always
taller. I peer up slowly, wishing somehow I could pull my hat lower
over my entire face and skirt away. His face is tired, and his
beard is thick, at least two weeks worth of growth. He’s wearing a
black sweatshirt and a black hat, dressed just as plainly as I am.
This party was an afterthought for him, too.

Words are pointless, so I don’t even bother
trying to form them. Cody and I are just staring at one another,
the rest of the world quickly fading away. We’re exact mirrors, our
expressions blank, lifeless—exhausted.

“Hey, man. You came after all,” Gabe says
over my shoulder, and Cody pulls his eyes from me to talk with his
friend.

“Yeah, I ended up getting done a little
early. Thought I’d come…” he says, looking back at me again.
Swallowing. “Just in case.”

“That’s awesome, man. It’s not a party if
you’re not here,” Gabe says, handing Cody a drink. In that split
second
,
I take my moment to slip away, back to my corner. My right eye is
twitching from stress, and my body suddenly feels hot and flushed.
I strip my arms from my coat and unwind the scarf that now feels
like it’s strangling me. I take a giant gulp from my cup, downing
the entire drink in four more sips. Thank god Gabe made it weak,
because I’d be done if he hadn’t.

I’m having a panic attack. I know it, and
recognize what’s coming next. My lungs won’t get full, and every
time I try to take a deep breath, it gets worse. I’m not breathing.
I’m not breathing!

The music is muffled around me. I know it’s
loud, but I can’t make out any of the words, only the whooshing
sound over my eardrums. I push my head between my knees, and force
myself to count slowly while I inhale through my nose, holding the
air in my lungs for a few seconds before letting it slip away. I do
it again, and again, until I can finally hear voices.

Fullness—finally, I feel fullness.

Everyone is filing into the living room now,
turning on the main television to watch the ball drop. But I stay
in my seat, safely sandwiched between strangers and behind happy
couples. My eyes are wide, and they’re searching desperately for
him, until I see his legs walk across the room, and he sits in a
dining chair directly across from me. He doesn’t see me at first,
because of the dozens of drunk people laughing and shouting in the
space that’s between us, but eventually our eyes meet.

We’re caught, completely stuck here—forced to
watch one another, feel all of our cruel words, and suffer amid our
regrets while new loves spark around us. Neither of us is
breathing, only staring, as the room starts to count down.

“Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven!”

It’s like a bomb, and Cody and I are just
waiting for it to destroy us, knowing there’s nothing we can do to
escape. When the room hits one, everyone cheers loudly, and lips
find other lips as men wrap their arms around women and lean them
over, kissing them hard and long to welcome in a new year. One
girl, who looks a lot like me, leaps into a pair of tattooed arms,
and the man spins her around in front of us, kissing her like I
want to be kissed—by Cody—and I can’t stop the tears it
elicits.

Cody’s eyes never leave mine, and every time
I try to turn away, I find myself looking at him again. He never
smiles, he never blinks—but there’s depth in his eyes, and I can
see the longing.
Old Lang Syne
is playing on repeat from the
television, and the blasts of toy horns are filling the living
room, but for us, everything is silent. We’re locked here,
together—so close, but so very far away. He reaches up his hand at
one point and rubs the back of it along the side of his face,
trying to hide his emotion. A second later, he’s on his feet, and I
lose him in the crowd.

My stomach clenches; I push myself from the
sofa, trying to weave my way through the couples still locked in
kisses and embraces in front of me. I finally get to the kitchen,
where Gabe and Jessie are kissing one another and laughing. I hate
interrupting them, but I need to stop Cody before he leaves. I’m
overwhelmed by the strange sensation that if I don’t find him, I’ll
lose him forever.

“Heyyyyy, Charlie!” Jessie says, slinging her
arm around me. “Happppp-Peeeeee New Yeeeeeaaaaar!”

She kisses my cheek, and it’s wet and sloppy.
I want to wipe it away in the worst way, but I don’t, instead just
squeezing her back and smiling.

“Happy New Year, Jessie,” I smile. “Do you
guys know where Cody went?”