The Moments I Recall

CHAPTER 19 ½

"I know it's hard to believe but really." Coby tells Alix. Alix looks at Coby in disbelief. I wouldn't believe him either.

"There's a sixteen-year-old boy stuck in yo' head?" Alix asks. Technically I'm seventeen because I am in Coby's body. Anyway, I told Coby not to tell him, but he was convinced that he'll go crazy if he has to take any more years of talking to me alone. I don't mind, I like Alixavier, even though he talks a little funny.

"Yes, son of Officer Price." Coby says.

"You kidding right?" Alix shakes his head. Something about Alix has changed a lot over the last two years. He's more distant and doesn't laugh the way he used to. I guess he's more like me now, but there's something deeper that even parental issues or having no friends can do. Whatever has gotten to Alix seems to be affecting us all. I learned to like him either way, I guess we could have been friends through Coby if I wasn't in his head. But then again, I wouldn't have known the red head existed.

"Unbelievable, I know but you have to believe me this time man." Coby tells him. Alix's looks him up and down but then gives in with a small smirk.

"Fine," He sighs, "you know you sound crazy right?"

"I know." Coby smiles putting his arm over his best friend.

"Uh hey J.P, if you can hear me man." He laughs. I feel shy all of the sudden.

"Hey Alix." I say, but he obviously can't hear me.

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I have never seen or felt nervousness like this ever. I don't understand why Coby even gets like this. His thoughts become gibberish I can't even decipher sometimes and yet, everything he feels for her I feel.

"It's not as easy as you think J.P." He tells me pulling on the forty third shirt he has tried since he came from school.

"It's easy, you just make it seem bigger than it is." I laugh. "You're seventeen years old Coby Ray and you've known this girl practically your whole life. Plus, the fact that she even has stayed for this long makes me seventy percent sure she may like you." I didn't understand why she stuck around at first. Coby Ray wasn't exactly the coolest or best looking, and she's practically perfect, not to mention is on the cheer team, but being stuck for as long as I have made me see what she and Alix saw before I got to know Coby.

"It is bigger than it is." He tells me.

"Why do you like her anyway." I ask. I had to admit, she is a girl I'd go for, but Coby and I are very different people.

"I don't have to explain myself to you." He laughs avoiding the question. "You live in my head, figure it out."

"Coby honey, your friends are here." His mum calls.

"Do you really think I'm not good looking?" Coby asks me. To be honest I did at first, but somehow over the summer before junior year, after days of working on the Campbell's farm and nights racing Alix on the abandoned rail road, he grew taller and stronger. His hair became less orange and more light copper from the days in the sun. I guess Alix grew as well. Let's just say, I couldn't take him anymore. I wonder if I even grow.

"You are good looking Coby Ray." I tell him, and with that he runs downstairs and out the door.

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"You gonna make a move Ray?" Alix asks as they buy popcorn at the canteen. I doubt I considering we are already halfway through the movie and he spent most of it psyching himself out.

"It's a drive in Coby, you do know you can talk." I mentally roll my eyes.

"I don't know." He tells Alix

"Well, what does J.P say?" Alix asks.

"J.P says Coby stop being a bitch and make a move." I tell him.

"J.P doesn't get an opinion on this." He tells Alix taking the popcorn and going back to sit with JJ in her 1957 cadillac eldorado biarritz. She smiles at him taking the popcorn.

"I feel like we haven't really talked in a while." She says quietly. "Like we talk, but we don't... talk. We didn't even hang out much during the summer."

"I'm sorry." Coby says quieter.

"See that's just like you. You don't have to apologise I just want to know what's going on. You sneak out of class and some days you don't show up. Your nose is always bleeding, and I know you never used to have them before. You talk to yourself a lot and I just... miss my best friends. You guys are always doing things without me now and I'm tired of hanging out with Maddison and the girls."

"It's complicated." He tells her. "It has nothing to do with you, just a lot has been going on."

"Coby Ray I am the same person who held your hand the entire day when we went on that field trip to the cave tunnels a town over." She says placing her hand on his. I guess this is more Coby then me, but something melts away inside of us. I have never known the feeling of love until Coby Ray. He loves like no boy I know loves but he's afraid and not because of his own selfishness, never because he thinks what it be like for him but he never wants to make anyone else feel uncomfortable. He wasn't afraid he'll get sent back, he was afraid someone he loves will get dragged into this mess with him. But in this exact moment he has let his guard down because of her.

"I was stuck at a camp for six years."