Before I Forget

Lifeline

The very next day, Cody came back.

Seeing him standing in the doorway, in his jeans and a T-shirt, his dark hair falling to his ears in messy, undisciplined strands, Sky realized how horribly she had feared she would never see him again. Her heart swelled, filling her ribcage, taking her breath away.

"I'm sorry I had to leave like that—" he said, as soon as he had closed the door behind him and they were alone in the room. "I kept thinking about it all night. Sky—"

"It's okay, I know you had to go."

Sky stood up from her bed, but Cody held a hand up, stopping her before she could walk to him.

"Please, let me finish. I– I haven't been able to stop thinking about what you said. I understand why you didn't want to tell me before, why you didn't want to tell anyone. It's the same with what Carol and JD did to me— You think there's shame, that people who love you would look at you differently if they knew, but Sky—" the words were falling off his lips so fast that he was out of breath, his cheeks were burning, they were the color of dark, red wine. "I understand, I don't want anyone to know about— about the abuse either, I've never even told Tom, even if I know he wouldn't stop being my friend if he knew— And yeah, you are right. There is shame. But the shame isn't yours. It's not yours, Sky. You had a boyfriend. You loved him, you trusted him, and he did something horrible to you. The shame is his, not yours."

His words were everything. Never had Sky thought that anyone would understand exactly how she felt, and to hear that he did, that he knew what she was going through because he had suffered too—

She was crying before she even realized it.

"But I've been so stupid—" Her tears burst free without a warning, they spilled to her cheeks in streams. "Everyone's gonna think I deserved that for being— for being a stupid slut."

"No, Sky, no—" he was shaking his head as he walked to her, and took her hands in his. There were tears in his eyes too, his voice was thick, broken. "You didn't deserve it. And anyone who thinks that, is a fucking idiot. It's not stupid to trust someone. To love someone. It's not stupid, it's— it's the most beautiful thing in the world."

The way he said "To love someone— it's the most beautiful thing in the world." formed a knot in Sky's chest. His kindness was more than she could take. She had been so sure, he would never come back, but here he was, his scent of books and aftershave surrounded her, and it was safe, it was familiar, it killed her fear and her shame until nothing of them remained but ashes.

"Sky, I'm here for you," Cody sighed, and his hands were warm, they were steady even if his voice had a slight tremor. "There's nothing you can say that would make me— care less about you."

He didn't say the word love, but it was there nevertheless.

It was there, in the gentleness with which he held her hands, it was there in the silence between his words. She could see it in the way he looked at her, in the way his chest rose and fell with his rapid, strained breaths.

He— loves me? After everything I told him? After everything I've done?

There was a lump in her throat. She was far from ready for this sudden realization, it scared the Hell out of her -  and yet she leaned towards it, because how could she not? Who wouldn't want to be loved? To want to be taken care of? What he was offering to her was water for someone who was dying of thirst, it was a ray of sunlight after getting lost in the darkness.

She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss.

A gasp left his lips, and then their mouths crashed together. His lips were hot, hungry, proof of the fact that he still wanted her - that what she had told him had changed nothing between them. He didn't think she was ruined, disgusting, dirty - he wanted her, he held her against his chest as if he was drowning and she was the only thing keeping him above the surface.