falling. (noco)

chapter four

This boy is sweet.

Sweet in the way with his happy little smile and desire to please people. Cody Anderson grins as he sits down on the red leather seat after buying a strawberry pink donut decorated with rainbow sprinkles. "Sorry, I have a huge sweet tooth." Apologetic, he bites down on the donut. Mouth full, he asks me, "Are you sure you don't want anything?" 

"Definitely not," I say. 

"Alright." He continues to eat hastily, as if it was his last day on earth. We went to a local diner after the whole tripping over smoking incident, and the diner was stocked full of people. You can't say I hate people, but I hate people. It started when I had a drink spilled on me by an angry homophobic man when I was taking Gwen's order at the bar I worked at. I hate talking to people, so I don't know what gave me the balls to come here with a guy I just met.

"You're new, right?" I ask. "Heather mentioned you."

He seemed to light up at the mention of Heather. "Oh yeah! I moved here from Toronto. I really didn't expect this place to be an elite college, but nobody gave me any prior information before coming here. They just made me take a test, shoved me in a car and said it was time for a road trip." He shrugged. "Story of my life."

I can't relate. I have seven siblings. The house is always a riot on family gatherings. Everyone is focused on each other, and no one is forgotten. My two older siblings moved into their university dorms and my other older sibling is never in the house. My four younger ones are with my parents in the country. 

"What about you?" Cody returns.

"What?"

"You. About you, you know? How long have you lived here?" 

Ontario is a shitty place and unfortunately so are it's schools, but I have no choice. In a way, this hellhole is my home. I was brought up here. "I went to the primary school and then just moved my way up the grades to grade twelve."

"Ohhh, that's cool," Cody says. He sighs and produces a bag of jelly beans from his pocket and begins to eat them one by one. He takes out a purple one and mushes it between his fingers a little bit before popping it into his mouth.

"I wish I was able to stay at one school for the duration of my life," he says wistfully. "Giving that nothing bad happens, of course. My whole life I've moved from place to place, school to school. All for the family business." 

Cody must be insanely rich then. Heather's dad only remarried about two years ago, but according to Heather, he and his wife never see each other because they're on opposite sides of the globe. 

"But now I'm permanently living here," Cody continues, "with my step-sister and step-dad. I like it better because I have people to actually talk to." He pauses. "I'm so sorry, I ramble easily."

"It's alright," I say. I like it when people ramble because then I don't have to share anything about myself. My habit is giving people the plain truth, whether or not they like it, but Cody was trying to weasel information out of me and he wasn't even aware of it. "It's not your fault." I wish I could say that to myself and mean it. 

"Thanks." The brunette grins. "Do you have any siblings?"

"Yeah," I say. "Seven." Cody's eyes widen. "I know, I get that reaction from basically everyone I tell. I grew up with people surrounding me, whether or not I like it. The last time I got fully fledged attention from my mom was when I broke my arm two years ago."

Cody looks dreamy. "That's nice. Not about your arm, though, but the whole sibling thing. It's like you grew up loved unconditionally." 

"I guess you could say it like that." I look at him. He's looking past me and his smile has faded into something else: a sort of wistful, eerie presence, like moonlight. I really wonder what he thinks.