Trailer Trash(58)

“My mom’s helping plan the funeral.”

“My dad said the car was totaled, the top of it just torn right off.”

“They won’t be able to have open caskets.”

Nate waited, his foot bouncing nervously as the seconds ticked by.

Cody entered just before the bell rang. One look at him was enough to break Nate’s heart. There was no sign of tears, but there was something so wrong about Cody—some terrible stillness that Nate couldn’t begin to describe that told him he was right—that the person who would probably mourn Logan the most was the one person nobody bothered to think of.

Cody stopped a foot inside the door, his eyes locked on the desk where Logan normally sat. His jaw clenched. His eyes closed. For one fraction of a second, Nate thought Cody was going to fall apart right there in the classroom. But just as the bell rang, Cody turned on his heel and walked out the door.

Nate jumped to his feet, made it half a step before he remembered his books. He turned to grab them, wanting to call out to Cody but unwilling to draw attention like that—

“Mr. Bradford, take your seat please.”

Nate stopped, his books a jumble in his arms. “But—”

“I know this has been a tough day for everybody, but the bell has rung.” Mrs. Simmons seemed to be holding her neck at an odd angle so as to look at Nate without seeing the horribly empty desk three seats behind him. “Take your seat, please.”

Everybody’s eyes were on him, and God only knew where Cody was by now. Nate sank into his chair, defeated.

But only for now. Class was forty-five minutes long, and after that, he’d find Cody, no matter what it took.



Cody had noticed everybody in school whispering and crying, but he hadn’t thought much of it. Nobody ever bothered to tell him gossip, and there was nobody he could ask except for Logan, but Logan hadn’t been around.

It wasn’t until third period that he found out the two things were related. He felt like he’d been in a trance since he’d first heard those terrible words.

“Logan Robertson is dead.”

He’d only survived the day by diving for that deep, cold place inside of himself where he didn’t have to feel happiness or pain or heartache. It was a defense mechanism he’d learned as a kid. There hadn’t been an option. It was an instinct born of nights cowering beneath his blankets as his parents fought in the living room, and days waiting on the front porch for a father who never arrived, birthdays that went unmentioned and Christmas mornings when the only gifts were a mushy orange in his stocking and a packet of socks underneath the tree. It wasn’t that his mom didn’t try, but he suspected she’d learned long ago to do what he was doing now: killing everything inside. Locking away any dream of a real life was the only way to survive. There was no such thing as hope. There was just this moment, bleeding into the next, and into the next, slowly trudging toward the sunburnt patch of brown grass where residents of Warren were finally dropped into the cold, hard ground, with only a flat, gray stone to mark the spot.

And now, Logan would be there, long before his time.

Cody walked home, buffeted by the wind, warm in a coat that was suddenly more precious than it had ever been. His mom was gone when he got home, either at work or at the bar, and Cody sat in the empty, silent living room, a cigarette slowly burning to the butt between his still fingers, holding himself in that lonely, safe place. He had to be careful not to move.

Careful not think.

Careful not to hear Logan’s laugh echoing in the distant corners of his mind. Otherwise, he might not make it. He might fracture and break, shatter into a hundred pieces, fall apart on their filthy living room floor.

No, he couldn’t do that.

And so he sat, watching the smoke from his cigarette curl toward the ceiling, convincing himself that this was all there would ever be—this moment, and this numb emptiness keeping him from the pain.

The room was deep in shadows when the knock came. It was only four o’clock, but the sun was low in the sky, ready to be swallowed by the barren, wind-blown earth.

The knock came again, and this time, Cody stirred, turning toward the sound.

Nobody ever knocked on their door except the cops and the occasional Mormon missionary. Even they hadn’t been around in a while.

Knock, knock, knock.

Cody dropped his cigarette butt into the ashtray and pushed himself off the couch, moving slowly to keep from losing his center. The room seemed to tilt around him, everything going left while he went right, and he flicked the light switch by the front door, illuminating the porch, before opening the door. His heart missed a beat when he found Nate waiting on the other side of the torn screen. The careful stillness that sheltered Cody threatened to crumble, just seeing Nate standing there with the wind blowing his hair into his face, his eyes so full of concern that Cody could barely stand to look at him.