Chapter 51

They walked over to Cody’s. Jacky had been as vague as he could be, first texting Cody about his afternoon with Nina and Haylee, an exercise in feigned interest that felt more like torture. He did care about Cody and his dilemma, but at the moment all he wanted was for Ryan to kiss him again. Only Ryan didn’t want to kiss him. Ryan wanted drugs.

Jacky didn’t like using his best friend this way.

So he joked along about how Haylee could be the provider in the relationship by shooting squirrels, and then he found that he couldn’t come out and say, “Hey, can you get me some pot? Tonight?”

Instead he texted, Hey, you wanna hang out tonight?

on a school nite???? Cody texted back, including an emoji of a shocked face.

i had therapy with my mom after school… i could use something to take the edge off

ya man sure. just go straight out to the trailer, stepdad’s in a mood

Cody added, you left ur xbox controller here last time

Jacky didn’t mention that Ryan would be coming along. He knew he should, but he figured he could play it off. “Of course Ryan’s gonna hang out with us, he’s living at my house.”

He still felt shitty about it.

“Okay, let’s go,” he told Ryan, tucking his phone in his back pocket and grabbing his puffy jacket.

“Where?” Ryan asked.

“To Cody’s house?”

Ryan looked down at his knees. “Can’t you get it and bring it back here?”

“So my mom can catch us smoking? No. Come on, Cody’s cool. We’re gonna play some video games and smoke and then we’ll come back here. Okay?”

Nothing about Ryan’s body language said that he wanted to move off Jacky’s bed.

Jacky felt his frustration level rise. He reached out and tugged at Ryan’s arm. “Okay?”

“I want to not feel anything for a while,” Ryan said, before he started to cry again.

***

Of course Mrs. Jennings wasn’t keen on them going out on a school night. “Come on, Mom. It’s Cody’s house. It’s like two streets over. And it’s only six-thirty. I’ll be back by nine-thirty. I swear.”

“Honey,” Mrs. Jennings beckoned for him to come over to where she was sitting on the couch, then she whispered, “Does Ryan really want to hang out with your friends?”

“He said he was fine with it,” Jacky said. He didn’t tell his mom that Ryan was the one who asked, for obvious reasons. “If he looks tired or he seems upset, we’ll come back. No problem.” More loudly, he said, “We’re gonna play some mindless video games. Do something normal.”

“Well, alright. Do you have your cell phone? Does Ryan have his phone?”

“Yes, mom.”

“Okay. Nine-thirty.”

The five-minute walk to Cody’s had them both shivering and noses running. “We hang out in the camper in the backyard. Cody told us to meet him out there.”

Light from the camper’s windows cast little spots on the lawn. Jacky rapped his knuckles and after a second he heard Cody unlatching the door and opening it. “Hey, dude.” Then, upon seeing Ryan behind Jacky, Cody paused, and added another, “Hey.”

The inside of the camper was steeped in the smell of marijuana. Ryan coughed once as he closed the door behind him. Jacky wished Ryan would talk or something, at least say hi. “What’s up your stepdad’s butt today?”

Cody shrugged. “Dunno. His car got a flat tire or something.”

They settled down on the narrow couch that lined one wall and faced the TV. Jacky had to pat the cushion beside him before Ryan would sit. “Ryan had a pretty rough therapy session too.”

“I bet,” Cody took this as a signal and pulled out some rolled joints in a bag. He extracted one, stuck it in his mouth, and flicked a lighter to the tip. Exhaling a cloud of smoke, he said, “Your mom just died, right?”

Ryan nodded.

When Cody held the joint out to him, Jacky passed it right along to Ryan, who looked at it like he didn’t know what to do with it. “Good thing you have my controller,” Jacky said. He punched the console on and picked it up. The controller was designed for one-handed use, and Jacky had gotten it for his first birthday after the accident. He still wasn’t quite as good as he used to be, but at least now he didn’t feel like Cody was going easy on him. “I should probably get another one to keep here.”

Another peek back over at Ryan.

Cody spoke up. “You inhale, and hold it in. It’s not rocket science.” The look he gave Jacky said he didn’t appreciate a noob in wasting his stash.

Jacky returned with a look that said, His mother died.

Finally Ryan put the joint to his lips and sucked in a lungful of smoke. Immediately he coughed.

“That’s the stuff, man,” Cody laughed, and then the game came on and he tossed an extra controller to Ryan, who passed the joint to Jacky.

Jacky passed it over to Cody. He wasn’t really feeling it tonight. Besides, he needed his one hand to play.

“That’s pretty cool,” Ryan said, nodding at Jacky’s controller.

Jacky shrugged. “Yeah.”

“I never knew there was stuff like that. Like, I never thought about it.” Ryan’s voice was low and slow.

Cody nudged Jacky’s foot and gave him a look. Jacky wasn’t sure if the look was about the people Cody referred to as “norms” or if it was specifically about Ryan and how he seemed to be high already.

Luckily, the game sucked them all in. Cody and Ryan passed the joint back and forth until it was little more than an ember. Jacky thought playing video games was much better for forgetting about your problems than pot, until he noticed that Ryan wasn’t really playing. He was staring into space. “You okay?” he asked.

“I thought it would be more like getting drunk,” Ryan said slowly. “But more mellow. You know how drinking makes you feel kinda numb?”

“What, you got the munchies?” Cody asked. He hit pause and stood to reach into the cabinets up above the TV. “I got Cheetos, Doritos, Fritos… ha ha, I don’t actually have Fritos. Because they’re gross. Uh, chips – regular, barbeque, salt and vinegar, sour cream and onion—”

Jacky heard this list and stood to peek into the cabinet. “Did you steal those from Subway or something?”

“Maybe…” Cody grinned.

“I want Doritos,” Jacky told him, and Cody tossed him three little red bags. He tore one open and was about to empty it into his mouth until he remembered Cody at lunch. Then he glanced at Ryan, feeling embarrassed.

“Whatcha want, Sully?” Cody looked at Ryan expectantly.

“Um…” Ryan propped up his head with a fist under his chin. “Surprise me.”

Cody gave Jacky another look, Really? Jacky shrugged. Cody tossed a few more bags of Doritos over to Ryan. “So you both have bad breath when you’re making out later.”

Jacky kicked Cody. Cody pushed at Jacky. They fell back on the sofa and slapped at each other, before Jacky once again remembered that Ryan was there. Must be the pot, I’m being so dumb right now. He tried to sit normal but Cody didn’t get it. “No fair!” Jacky said when Cody got him in a headlock. “I only have one arm!”

“You want me to take my hearing aids out so we can have a fair fight?”

When they had finally settled down, Jacky caught Ryan staring into the Doritos bag. “Earth to Ryan,” Jacky said.

“It’s shiny in there.” Ryan looked up with bloodshot eyes.

“We should head home,” Jacky said to Cody, who laughed.

“You’re just worried that I’ll beat you up.”

Once they left the dim lighting and noise of the camper and entered the dark silence of the evening, Jacky felt his good mood drift off. He shouldn’t have enjoyed himself so much, not while Ryan was still grieving.

Impulsively, he reached out and grabbed Ryan’s hand, mostly to keep Ryan from veering into the bushes while he stared up at the clear night sky. “There are so many stars,” Ryan said.

Jacky tugged him back to the center of the sidewalk.

“It takes thousands of years for starlight to reach Earth,” Ryan continued. “By the time we see it, the star might already be dead.”

“Ryan,” he started, “I don’t know if you want me to tell you some shit about how your mother’s light will shine on long after she’s dead or whatever, or if you’re just high, but I wish I could tell you everything was going to be okay. I want everything to be okay for you. But I guess… if things are ever going to be okay, you need to want it, too.”

Ryan tilted his head away from the stars, blinking slowly. “When did you realize you wanted everything to be okay?”

Their footsteps crunched over the pavement. The front porch lights cast a friendly glow over Jacky’s house, welcoming them home. Through the curtains covering the picture window, Jacky could see the flickering light of the television, and knew his mom was watching CSI, by herself. He thought about everything they’d said to each other in therapy.

“When I realized you were just like me,” he said.