Before I Forget

Corsican Stars

Sky had a bad feeling about this.

It was a cold lump in her stomach, making her tense as a string as she kept pressing the doorbell, hoping that someone would come and get the door, but—

Nothing.

Maybe he's not home. Maybe He's sleeping. Maybe he is—

—dead?

That thought made her stomach clench tight with anxiety as she hit the doorbell again. No, Cody couldn't be dead, even if he sure had looked like that in the photo Moon had seen on Insta, where some anonymous asshole had posted it. A photo of Cody bleeding on the bathroom floor, clearly unconscious—

After seeing that photo - Moon had shown it to her during lunch - Sky had left everything. Screw school, screw her next class - it would have been English and she had been planning to skip it anyways. After what had happened yesterday, there was no way in Hell she would do any more group work with Hawk. So she had left her lunch on the table, almost forgotten her backpack too as she had rushed out of school to drive here as fast as she dared, not even stopping at red lights, calling Cody's phone nonstop—

He hadn't picked up once. And now he wasn't opening the door.

Sky was panicking.

Giving up on the doorbell, Sky walked around the house to the back porch. The door was locked, of course, but a quick search revealed the key under a flower pot, and Sky didn't hesitate to use it to open the door.

"Cody?" She called his name but no answer came. "Is anyone here?"

The house was silent, eerily so. Lights were turned off and there was no sign of anyone.

"Cody? I'm coming in," she called again, to make her presence known as she walked in and through downstairs, then headed for the stairs and climbed to the second floor.

She found him in his room.

He lay on the bed on his side, in a fetal position, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts and a white T-shirt, a sheet partly covering his legs. The shirt and the sheets were covered in blood stains, and had Sky not known that this must be Cody, she would not have recognized him.

His face was horribly bruised, his eyes swollen shut, his lips cut, cheeks scraped and bloodied—

Sky stood frozen in the doorway, fighting nausea that washed over her in waves. Burning hot tears of anger and shock filled her eyes. The floor was crumbling under her feet, she was standing on unsteady legs that could give in at any moment.

Every part of Cody's body that was visible, was covered in bruises, just like his face. His arms, the parts of his legs she could see, the strand of skin between his T-shirt that had rolled up and the waistband of his boxers—

Blue, purple, red bruises - and wounds that were plastered but some of them were still bleeding through the bandages.

Sky brought a hand to her mouth to suppress the sobs that wanted to break free, but Cody heard and stirred on the bed. He lifted his head to see—

"Cody—" Sky breathed, realizing with a jolt that he was alive. He is alive, he is alive, Oh my God— She rushed closer to the bed, tears falling down her cheeks. "Oh my God, oh God, are you—?"

She stopped talking, the words failed her. Asking if he was okay felt idiotic.

"Sky— n— no—" he groaned and tried to cover his face with his hands.

The realization that he didn't want her to see him like this, as the exact opposite of the handsome, confident boy she had gotten to know, hit her like a wrecking ball. As if she cared about his looks, in a moment like this! She just cared if he breathed, if his heart was still beating.