No Thanks, Mate [Completed]

Chapter nine

I laughed.  “Well this wasn’t just ‘some guy.’  This was the guy.  Or so I thought anyway.  Cody Rockwell.”  My eyes looked out the window on the opposite side of the bed from Kyle.  “He had a face like the beach.  Sandy blond hair, ocean blue eyes.  I swear, I could have found a way to swim in those eyes if I wanted to…”

                When we were twelve, he moved to my school, and I sort of fell for him.  The only person I ever told was Katie.  However, he would never feel the same way.  I wasn’t the prettiest girl to ever exist.  My hair was uncontrollably curly, and my eyes looked an ugly grey most of the time.  I was a fairly chubby little girl with a weird personality.  I was teased when I was little and didn’t have many friends.

                He wasn’t the cutest guy I ever knew, but in my eyes, he was never ugly.  He had light brown hair and pale blue eyes that made me think of ice.  Later on in life, I would find out how cold they really were.

When we were fourteen, we were in eighth grade, and we had a class together for the first time.  Unfortunately, that class was American history, which was not my favorite class.  I would have talked to him in that class, but I was too busy working to get up and walk over to him.  However, one day, he started eating lunch with me and my friends, Katie and McKenzie Richardson.

McKenzie was close friends with me and Katie when we were younger.  She was our red head to complete the circle.  Some people liked to tell us the dumb blond jokes that start off with, “So a blonde, brunette and a red head…” because we were inseparable.

At first I was thrilled that he ate with us, but then I noticed how every day, he sat next to Kenzie.  Every day, he talked to all of us, but mostly Kenzie.  Every day, he would leave the cafeteria with us, but when we separated to go to our different classes, he went with Kenzie, even though his next class was with Katie.

This went on for months, until the eighth grade dance was right around the corner.  Since February, we had planned on going together, all three of us, getting each other corsages, and saying we were each other’s dates as a joke.

However, our plans were ruined when Cody asked her to go to the dance with him, a week before the dance.  She told him she’d think about it, and then that night at our monthly sleepover, asked us if she should go with him.

I, obviously wasn’t thrilled about the idea, but Kenzie didn’t know I liked him.  How do you tell one of your best friends that you like the same guy she likes, who likes her back?  I didn’t have the guts.  I told her she should go with him, and so she called him up and accepted.

The night of the dance was crazy.  Katie and Kenzie came over to my house to get ready, and then Cody came to pick her up.  I’ll never forget the pain I felt when he walked off with my dear friend, to the dance.

Katie asked me if I was okay with it, and what could I do but nod my head and fake a smile.

A few minutes later, my mom drove us to the dance, and we danced the night away.  But every time they played a slow song, Katie and I would sit down at a table, and I would see Kenzie and Cody dancing together, close as two people can really get in the eighth grade.

Over the last few weeks of school, Cody continued to show interest in Kenzie, and she agreed to be his girlfriend, and although it was killing me, I kept quiet.

They stayed together for about a year and a half, until almost half way through our sophomore year of high school, when I was sixteen.

We were at a party, Which Katie had stayed home because she was sick, and we were all drinking.  Like I said before, I was a good kid.  I never got drunk, but I did get a little tipsy on occasion.  Cody had a little more to drink than me, and Kenzie hardly had anything.  Cody started talking about stuff and started trying to get Katie to do stuff.  She kept saying no, but he just kept pushing.  After a while, he went a little too far, so she just left, not even saying goodbye to anyone.

Like I said, I wasn’t drunk, but I was as tipsy as you can be without passing the line.  I started talking to Cody, and telling him about my past obsession.  He started telling me he thought I was cute and after talking for about half an hour, we were making out.  He started laughing and I pulled him up the stairs and we…

I’m too ashamed of myself to even think the words of what we did.  But the next morning, he was gone, and all I could find was a note saying,

Lainey,

I’m sorry.  But I’m not interested.

From then on, Cody and I never talked.  Kenzie didn’t know about it, but she knew there was something going on.  She started thinking crazy things, and she kept asking Cody what the weirdness was about.

He always denied it, but after months, she wore him down and he told her.  She came over to my house that afternoon, crying.  I had guessed she walked all the way to my house from his, because she was so wet from the rain.

“Is t true?”  Those few words were the last she ever said to me.  Or anyone else.  After I looked down in shame and nodded, she ran home.  A few hours later though, I got a call from Katie, who was scared to death and sobbing.

“Kenzie” sob “got hit” bigger sob “By a car” huge sob “and died!”  She cried, and I dropped the phone, and fell to my knees.  I ran to Katie’s house and came clean, about everything.  About how much it had hurt me to see them together, about how I had slept with Cody, and about how I was the reason our best friend was now dead.

“Does Cody know?”

She sniffled a bit and replied, “Yeah, Kenzie’s parents called him an hour ago.  He was broken apart.”

I thought about that.  I understood.  I thought of how guilty I felt, and realized that it must have been worse for him.  He was her boyfriend.  They had something that he and I would never have.

I cursed under my breath at my stupidity.

“Lainey, don’t blame yourself.  It was a drunken mistake!  Don’t hate yourself!”

“It wasn’t though.  I wasn’t drunk enough to have lost control.  I don’t know why I didn’t say no.  But truth be told, I had always wanted that night.  You know, without the part about him leaving and Kenzie dying.  Deep down, I was never okay with Kenzie and Cody.  And I let that ruin so many people’s lives!  I killed Kenzie!”  I started sobbing and went insane.  I was punching pillows, throwing anything I could find against the wall.

“I killed McKenzie!  I’m the worst person to ever live!  I don’t deserve to life.”  I picked up a broken shard of glass and eyed it, wondering if I wanted to do what flashed through my mind.  I raised the piece of glass a little, when Katie grabbed it out of my hand.

“Lainey, what are you doing?  Lainey, are you crazy?”

I just broke down, and fell on my knees crying.  “Oh my God, if there is a God, how did this happen?”

A few days later, when I finally went back to school, I decided to go find Cody and apologize for everything.  I found one of his friends, Nick, and asked him where he was.

“You didn’t hear?  When Kenzie died, he went missing.  He left a note on his desk that just said ‘I’m so sorry.’ Any idea what that was about?”

I frowned.  “Yeah,I do.  Have you tried calling him?”

He looked at me like I was stupid.  “Do you really think a kid on the run would pick up a cell phone?”

He turned and walked away from me, shaking his head like I was crazy, which I actually seemed to be the last few days.

Kenzie was dead, Cody was gone, and I was a horrible person.  My life had turned upside down in such a small amount of time, and I never stopped hating myself.