Blue Belt

Chapter 22

                                                                                    XXII.

        I woke up to the sight of a curly haired brunette cracking eggs in the kitchen.  She had sweat shorts on along with a Chargers jersey.  I was laying on a couch, using one of the back cushions as a pillow.  I opened my eyes fully, and adjusted my position, suddenly recalling being carried by Cody to the car, and then just barely recalling me making my way up to this apartment.  I had a head ache and felt fairly stiff.   I rested my head back against the cushion and took a deep breath.  Suddenly there was the memory of the bourbon, the pier, my cut hand, and finally passing out.  The pieces were rapidly fitting together.

            "Matt.  Good morning."  Suddenly Cody appeared from the hallway, holding an ice pack against one of his arms.  "Got a headache?"  He asked, I think also knowing the answer.

            "Cody, we're out of juice."  The female in the kitchen said to Cody.

            "Guess we'll be going with water."  Cody replied.  "Oh, and Matt, this is Sasha."

            "Nice to meet you."  I said, now sitting up on the coach.

            "Shit.  You've really got a way of smashing bottles don't you."  Cody said sarcastically while sitting down on a chair across from the coach.  He still had the ice pack on his arm.

            "Yeah.  I guess so."  I said, shaking my head.

            "Sasha, it's good we laid that sheet down.  He would have gotten blood on your couch."  Cody stated across the room to Sasha.

            "Yeah, I saw that."  She said.

            "I figured you needed a place to crash."  Cody nodded to me.

            "Thanks."  I said, as I wondered to the bathroom to wash up a bit.

            We ate breakfast and Cody talked about a place he was going to take me afterwards.  It may not have been the best breakfast I ever had, and the coach may not have been the most comfortable bed I'd ever slept in, but somehow it felt good being there.  The two of them treated me really well and did not ask a whole lot of questions while we ate.  Mostly they just talked to one another as if I was not there.  But they were cool hosts to me.  Cody had me guessing about where he was going to take me.  And who was I to say no at this point.

            As we drove South I was feeling a bit better than I recalled from my thoughts of yesterday.  I just mostly felt apathetic and numb, and Cody kept going on about this place he was taking me, so I just thought I'd see it through before I decided what to do next.  He shared that we were going to a place just South of Del Mar, and the rest he'd explain as I needed to know.  I asked him a few questions about Sasha as we made the drive down.  She had been his girlfriend for the past year or so.  When we arrived where he had wanted us, we had to take a strange trail that Cody referred to as "off limits" down a bluff.  The trail was rocky and steep at times. 

            "Don't complain.  You've got to see this."  He said as I began to ask where the heck this was all leading.  Finally we arrived at a beach.  I looked back up and it was clear we had traversed some small cliffs to get down to this place at the beach where it seemed we were the only ones there. 

            "Okay, over here."  He said.  We veered off to the right, and suddenly Cody cleared away some brush close to the rocks that revealed breaking boards, much like the set up that Brandon had started working on with the class.