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“Know what?” I ask him.
“Check your messages.”
I glance over at Lexie, then pull up the message I receive from Landon.
Breaking News. Quarterback Sex Scandal: The Coach’s Daughter?
My heart sinks, my stomach drops, and I feel like I’m going to throw up.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” I say, dropping the phone and leaving the room, Lexie calling after me. Making my way through the waiting room, I hear Lexie continue to say my name, her voice full of concern.
“I’m fine,” I tell her as I walk past her.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“To find Cody.” To find him and fucking kill him for what he’s done.
The only saving grace of the whole sex tape ordeal was that no one knew it was Lexie in it with me. Hurting me wasn’t good enough. He needed to destroy her, too?
I storm into the house.
“Cody,” I shout. “Where the hell are you?”
“Carter? What is it? What’s wrong?” my mother asks as I continue to shout out Cody’s name.
“Is he here?” I ask my father when he joins us.
“Carter, what is it? What’s going on?”
Suddenly, it hits me where Cody is. The one place he always goes to get high.
I charge out the back door, through the yard to the swing set he and I built for Luke before I left for college.
“You son of a bitch,” I shout from across the yard as I stalk toward him. “I’m going to fucking kill you. How the hell could you do that to Lexie?”
I stop dead in my tracks as my eyes fall on Cody, sitting on the swing set, his head hung. The swing set that Luke fell off and became paralyzed.
This whole time I’ve assumed him using had to do with me, with my success. That everything stemmed from jealousy or resentment. Looking at him now, I think I might be wrong. None of this had anything to do with me. Now that I think about it, he didn’t fall down that path until after Luke’s accident.
The day when everything changed.
“What can I say, I’m a fuck-up,” he replies. “Always have been.”
My anger, albeit still there, dissipates significantly, replaced with sadness.
“That’s not true.”
After Luke’s accident, everyone’s attention was on Luke, then my career. Times were so hectic, I don’t think anyone ever really stopped to make sure that Cody was okay. Not even me. No wonder he hates me.
I make my way the rest of the way to the swing set and hop up next to him.
“You remember the weekend we built this thing?” He doesn’t answer, won’t even look up at me. “We had a blast putting it together.” Still nothing. “We were drinking, laughing, and I swore I was going to fuck up my hand after hitting it with the hammer so many times.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.”
“What the hell are you sorry for?” he asks, astounded.
