“Fantastic. Yeah, we’ll see you there!” Trevor says as he tucks his phone back into his coat pocket.
“Hey, Gabe…whatcha doing tomorrow night?” Trevor says. I’m still lost in my own thoughts enough to fully follow him.
“I got nothing. Just me and this Ford chassis. But she can wait…why, whadaya got going on?” Gabe says, looking to Jessie to try to get her attention.
“My buddy Kevin just got the suite for the Browns game. You want in? Free food and drink—you just need to pay for parking,” Trevor says, and I see Gabe’s face light up.
“Hells yeah, man. That’s f**kin’ awesome!” Gabe says, looking in Jessie’s direction again while he whispers “just me?”
“Nah, man. We’re all going. It’s a suite!” Trevor says, and my mind races forward. All of us—that means all of us.
“Hey, Jess. You hear that?” Gabe yells.
“Hear what?” she spits back, not looking up, and I know it’s because of me.
“We’re going to the Browns game tomorrow—sitting in the suite!” Gabe hollers, following it up with a loud hoot.
“Fuck yeah, we are,” Jessie says, her attention now completely on Gabe and her face full of excitement. Then she settles on me. “Cody, you hear?”
I freeze, my eyes wide and looking at her, knowing that she’s trying to make me feel the discomfort—trying to punish me.
“What?” Cody says, and I can tell he’s only a few feet behind me. I hear the clank of tools on the table, and I turn slowly to look at them. I can’t look him in the eye; I won’t—but I stare at his hands. I notice the word promise first, and it feels like I’ve just cut myself, knowing that I broke mine to him.
“Browns game, in the suite. You in?” Trevor says, reaching out a hand for a shake. I sneak a glance at Cody, and his eyes are on me, his face hard and cold. He looks back at Trevor and curls his mouth into a grin and shakes his hand.
“Sounds good, count me in,” he says, looking back at me again, his smile not happy, but full of pain and anger. I want to stop the charade, to pause time and think of a way out of this. But everyone keeps on moving around me, and the only person left paying attention to me at the end is Trevor. When he grabs my hand and kisses it, right over his ring, I feel dead, and I think this might be how I feel for the rest of my life.
I spent the rest of Saturday hiding in my room, drawing at my miserable desk. Even my drawings were sad—I tried new houses, but they all felt lifeless, like no place anyone would ever want to live. Trevor was busy working, using his dad’s office to review a contract file. His dad left early in the day for Chicago—the irony of him running off to be with his secret family felt like lead in my stomach.
I heard the rumble of Cody’s truck outside more than once, and each time I ran to the window, hoping he’d see me and somehow understand. But he always turned the other way.
When I heard Trevor coming up the stairs in the early evening, I rushed to the bed and turned out the lights, pretending to have been asleep for hours. I felt him rub my arm, trying to wake me, to excite me—but I kept up my act, rolling tighter into my blanket. He kissed my head and called me angel when he finally gave in, and he left his arm around me for the night. I let the tears fall without movement, choking on them in my fight to stay still. I was trapped—in every possible way—and my captor wasn’t bad. In fact, he was a decent man…a great man. But he wasn’t the one I wanted.
But that didn’t matter.
I can smell the coffee downstairs, and I hear everyone gathering. Trevor is one of those fanatic type of Browns fan, the kind that have jerseys, and team flags, and team coolers for their beer, and I knew he’d want to get to the game early for tailgating. Somehow, I was going to drag this day out, spread my torture slowly over thousands of minutes.
By the time I get to the kitchen, everyone is packed and ready to go. Cody is leaning against the counter, next to Jessie, and he’s looking purposely away from me. Trevor pulls me to him and holds out a coat—one of his puffy Cleveland ones. It’s supposed to be forty degrees today, so I stuff my arms inside, pulling it over my thick sweater, undershirt, and jeans. My feet are double socked into my Uggs—I figure if I’m going to burn on the inside all day, I might as well be warm on the outside as well.
Cody rides with Gabe and Jessie, ignoring Trevor when he asks if he’d like to come with us. I tell Trevor I don’t think he heard him, but I know he did. I also know he’s been drinking. I can smell him from several feet away, and he smells exactly like the flask I saw him slip into the inside pocket of his leather jacket.