Identity Crisis (Boy x Boy)

Part Fifteen

I ended up staying at Cody's the rest of that day and then the day after that. What finally separated us was the fact that he had to work on Monday morning. Not that he would've minded me staying in his place, but I also insisted on going back to mine. I didn't have any extra clothes to keep staying night after night, and while parading around in Cody's clothes was a cute idea, it was better for me to have some alone time. Life wasn't just fun and games, after all. I had a mission to complete.

For the two nights that I stayed with him, I forced myself to stay awake long after he had fallen asleep. My ultimate theory was that if I kept my eyes open until it was almost a workout to keep them from closing, I would be too exhausted to even remember that I slept much less have nightmares. During those long hours of silence where a sleeping Cody softly breathed against the crane of my neck while his arm slumped over my torso, I contemplated how the fuck I would go about telling him everything as the ghastly darkness in the room shrouded my entire vision.

I dissected each of his words until they were a jumbled string of letters, and I always ended up with conflicting sides. One side of me felt like an idiot. I was assuming the worst of Cody by thinking that he would run away from me when it was quite clear that everything that had happened was beyond my control. Every time I told myself that I was the victim, I tried convincing myself to just roll over, wake him up, and give him the truth that he deserved.

But before I would do so, Side B would give its two cents and tell me to wait. Until Cody was comfortable with me, comfortable with Derek, it would be too risky to just start leaking such info. Wait for what? My first side would then argue. Wait until he proposes? Wait until you move in together? Wait until you adopt kids? He's practically known you for a year already. Just tell him.

But that's the thing. My other side would refute. Isn't he gonna be mad that you didn't tell him before? A little creeped out that you led him on with another personality, perhaps?

Yeah, and that's why he should know now. My first side would offer. It's better he gets the truth a little late than really late.

These internal arguments never came to a conclusion. No matter how much progress I thought I made, the other side of me would always offer a rebuttal. I didn't know whether to feel accomplished that I could always find flaws in my own arguments, or annoyed that I couldn't listen to a side of me and stick with it.

By Monday morning, I was so exhausted that I drank half of the cup of coffee that I made in Cody's kitchen with my eyes shut. If only Alex could see me now. She would have lectured me up one side and down the other about leaving Cody for someone else and deliver some spiel about how the stress wouldn't be worth it in the end. Reluctantly, I started to agree. This was starting to become less of a relationship and more a form of potent suffering, and I needed to fix it soon.

My cup was black and had the words 'You can do anything!' printed on it in white cursive. It seemed like the last thing Cody would ever put in his apartment, but apparently he got a good bargain for it when he was buying stuff for his apartment: a whole fifteen cents.

Can I, cup? Can I really do anything? I took another swig of the hot drink to break myself free of this zombie-like temperament I was trapped in. Because right now, I'm sure as fuck doubting that.

"Not so much of a Monday person?" Cody asked upon catching a glimpse of my current state. In a chipper mood, he walked towards the fridge and grabbed himself a bottle of water. To think that I was younger than him and yet he was more energetic than I was. Was I certain that I wasn't actually an old man and my parents somehow managed to reverse my age?

"And you are?" My mind could vividly flash back to one Monday morning where I had to literally drag him out of bed while he kept begging me to let him call in sick. No way did that aspect about him change.