“Aren’t you freezing? Why didn’t you wear a coat?”
Cody ducked his head and crossed his arms, tucking his hands under his armpits. “You’re the one who wanted to meet out here.”
Nate sighed, feeling defeated. He’d clearly said the wrong thing. Again. He wasn’t sure if he was really as clueless and clumsy was Cody made him feel, or if Cody was overly sensitive. Maybe a bit of both. But he hadn’t pictured things starting out so wrong. He’d come here to try to reclaim his friendship with Cody, and so far, Cody hadn’t even looked his way.
“Look, Cody. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry about how things have gone this year. I never meant—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does though. I’d like for us to still be friends.”
“Why bother?”
That hurt, no matter how much he wished it didn’t. “You don’t want to be friends, then? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No. It’s just, this was always how it was going to be. It’s not a big deal. I knew you’d get in tight with that Grove clique, and I’d—”
“But I’m not ‘in tight’ with them. That’s what I’m trying to say. I don’t even like them, to tell you the truth. And I don’t know how you and I ended getting separated in the first place. I mean . . .” He floundered, running his hands through his hair in frustration. “Jesus, you’re the one who’s been avoiding me, not the other way around!”
He waited, expecting Cody to deny it, maybe even to lash out, but Cody said only, “I know.”
Nate sat back, stunned. “You do?”
Cody shrugged. “I figured it’d be easier that way.”
“Easier for who?”
“Look, I know how people in this town see me. I know the things they say, and I figured once you heard all that, you wouldn’t want to hang out with me anyway. And you wouldn’t want to have to tell me. And I wouldn’t want to be hanging around, watching you tiptoe around it. So I just split, all right?”
It was insane that Cody’s ridiculous reasoning almost made sense. “But—”
“And I was right, wasn’t I? Larry Lucero told you everything.”
Nate looked down at the toes of his sneakers, his stomach suddenly twisting into knots. “I don’t care what Larry says.”
“Maybe you should.”
Once again, Cody’s answer surprised him. He remembered the day at the secondhand store. Cody had said, “Some of what they tell you will be lies, but some will be true.” Nate’s mouth went dry. “So, Larry wasn’t lying?”
“Well, it depends. What did he tell you?”
“He told me you live in that little trailer park.”
“Is that how he worded it?”
Nate had been trying to keep things civil, but it seemed Cody wasn’t in the mood for having things sugar-coated. Nate took a deep breath and dove in. “He said you lived in the Hole.”
“That part’s true.”
Nate had suspected as much, but having Cody admit it bothered him. It meant Cody had deliberately misled him.
“So each day last summer, you’d leave your house and walk to the gas station, and then I’d drive us right back to your house in order to walk out here? And at the end of the day, we’d walk past your house to my car, and I’d drive you to the gas station, just so you could turn around and come back to where you started?”
It was absurd, but he knew it was true. He could tell by the way Cody’s cheeks turned red, and by the way he refused to meet Nate’s eyes. But Cody didn’t duck his head. He didn’t try to hide. He kept his gaze straight ahead, locked on the distant highway.
“Why would you do that, Cody?”
“Why do you think?”
Nate scrubbed his fingers through his hair again, debating that. So Cody lived in the absolute crappiest, poorest corner of town. It didn’t matter, did it? And yet, Nate couldn’t quite deny that he might have thought worse of Cody on that first day if he’d known the truth. But that had been months ago. Certainly Cody trusted him by now?
“What else?” Cody asked.
“They said something about your mom. That she’s a lizard?”
Cody still didn’t look over, but his eyes flashed and his jaw clenched. He gripped the side of the wagon, as if anchoring himself, as if to keep himself from flying into a rage. “That’s not true. She’s a waitress. That’s it.”
That confused him. He wanted to ask Cody what exactly the term meant, but he could see how angry Cody was at the insinuation, so he kept his mouth shut.