21

  Susie

  I came by Cody’s locker, not because I wanted to come by Cody’s locker, not because I had been coming by Cody’s locker every day since that one night Somewhere Else, I came by his locker because Christian wasn’t in Pre-Cal.

  “Hey babe,” Cody smiled. He had called me babe a few times, since we didn’t have any classes where we would cross paths and share the way to, we were never seen holding hands on our way, no one knew that I was Cody’s…babe.

  “Christian wasn’t in Pre-Cal, again,” I said, rolling my eyes. It happened somewhere else, it didn’t count, I kept saying to myself. Though those thoughts of thinking of that night with regret were always under protest. Part of me wanted it to count. Part of me wanted everyone to know what I did, and another part of me, the more sensible part, never wanted knowledge of what I did to get out.

  “I know, he wasn’t in English either,” Cody said, I could see him trying to focus on the moment at hand instead of just getting lost looking into my eyes. God damn, the way I felt when he looked in my eyes, when I saw his eyes. That night, that stupid, special, amazing night, I had to shake my head every time I thought about that mistake. That wonderful, amazing mistake.

  “He’s Somewhere Else, you know it, Brad knows it, and I know it,” I said, “We have to fish him out,” I said.

  “Hey, look, I heard he got an excuse. Someone brought up Christian’s absence for the past few days, and Mrs. Pate said that he came down with some illness, I mean, I know that’s bull. His grades are good enough to get a pass even if he does miss a few days,” Cody said, “Mid-terms are over, it’s not like he’s ditching out on finals,” Cody shrugged his shoulders. He always would defend Christian and his actions, even in the end, that damned, kind fool.

  “This is not healthy,” I said, shaking off Cody’s hand from my waist, “We, all of us, have to go Somewhere Else and drag him back, if he goes missing people are going to look for him,” I said, “They’re going to look for him, and a search for him could lead back to us, his friends,” I said. Writing this I feel a bit of sick in my stomach calling Christian a friend, a man so monstrous, a man so pathetic. A man I would if I knew him now, for the silly social status I had in the real world, always treat like a freak and an outcast.

  “Maybe we should give him some more time,” Cody said, “He told me he would be gone for a while,” he confessed.

  “Oh, he told you?” I asked, “He told you he was going to retreat there and you just, you did nothing?” I asked.

  Cody put his hand on my shoulder, “Susie, you don’t understand,” Cody closed his eyes, took a breath, “He got really worked over by what happened at the party, like people are still talking about it,” he said. “I almost had to jam my fist in one of the other player’s jaw to get him to stop,” Cody shook his head. All I can think looking back is stop defending him and bring him to task for his actions, you idiot. “Things make sense for him Somewhere Else,” he said, as I ripped my shoulder away.

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  I closed my eyes, took a deep breath. I didn’t mean for my action to be so angry towards Cody, “Things make sense for him Somewhere Else, but Somewhere Else isn’t real, if we’re his friends we need to help him not just there, but here, in the real world,” I said.

  “Look,” Cody said, he took a moment, god damn it, I thought. Stop looking at me with those eyes, stop looking at me with those beautiful brown eyes I found myself lost in in a drunken wonderful night Somewhere else.

  “Christian took a blow here, a hard blow, he got an absence, he has an excuse, he told me he worked out some condition, with the faculty,” Christian had, apparently, been faking some kind of chronic illness, to get out of school for as so many days as he had. He’s gotten out of absences enough to graduate with the rest of us.

  As if Christian even cared about graduation at this point. It’s not like he was even there for graduation, not that he even cared. He had already acquired everything he wanted, the weak man that he was.

  “I just think that we need to find him, he’s been gone for four days,” I said, in that moment, before things became so horrible, I shared the same pity that Cody had for Christian. This was before I saw what he was truly capable of doing in and to Somewhere Else, “He had a bad night, we all saw it, but we can’t let him run away to that place,” I said, “We can’t just let him think all his problems can be solved running away, you’re his friend, you care about him right?” I asked, putting my hand on his chest, his broad strong chest.

  “When I last saw him, he told me about meeting some princess,” Cody said, “A princess of all people, she was freaking Cinderalla, he told me how beautiful he thought she was, and he told me about her Prince Charming, I could hear the jealousy in his voice,” Cody said. I would guess he probably left this part out of his recanting of the night before Christian disappeared. But he confided this moment to me, and since I’m, building my case as it were, against Christian I’ll tell you what my witness Cody said about him that night. If Cody even keeps this mounting evidence in the final project I’ll be shocked beyond shocked. But Cody swore to Brad and I that he wouldn’t edit our sections. So, think of what happens next, if your actually reading this, a test of both Cody’s and your own moral compass.

  “He told me how beautiful she was, and he told me with a sad look that she had already found her prince, that she was off the table,” Cody said.

  “So just because a princess has a prince already there’s no reason to bother talking to her?” I asked.

  “It’s rare a man meets his princess,” Cody’s hand reached for mine. He wrapped his fingers around mine. Did he really think I was a princess? Did he think I was his princess? Did I want to be his princess? No, those are forgone thoughts of a bygone era.

  “If Christian is missing people will look for him, maybe not us, maybe not even his parents, but if word gets out, they’re going to ask the people he talks to, and that’s us,” I said, pulling my hand from Cody’s, “His excuse can buy him a few days, but I don’t want people asking us about where he is,” I said.

  “Okay, he said he’ll see me next Monday, we’ll go in and find him this weekend, Somewhere Else is smaller than we think, I think at least, I know you’ve noticed it too, important places have a way of being closer to the lake. If Christian is in an important place we can find him,” Cody said, resting a hand on my hip.

  “You better be right,” I said, turning to head to next period and ripping my hip from Cody’s hand.