Plastic

CH. 4

why am i still writing this 

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CH. 4

With Heather's blessing, Cody started talking to Alejandro more and more.

Cody ignores the lesson in favor of staring at the boy in front of him and daydreaming. His teachers' explanations become background noise as he looks at Alejandro. He's snapped out of his thoughts as Alejandro turns around in his seat and looks at Cody. "Hey, what's today's date?" Cody's heart stops as he makes eye contact with Alejandro. His brain scrambles and he grabs his phone with shaky hands to look at what day it is. "It's October third."

Two weeks later, they spoke again. Alejandro looks out the window, and then at Cody. "It's raining." "...Yeah." Cody nods, feeling flustered and not knowing what to say.

Things between him and Alejandro were going well, but Cody wanted things to move faster. So, he followed his instincts.

Cody tapped Alejandro on the shoulder with the dull end of his pencil. He turns around and Cody's heart skips a beat. "...Hey, I'm totally lost. Can you help me?" Cody wasn't lost. He knew exactly what Ms. Norbury was talking about; pretending that he didn't gives him an excuse to talk to Alejandro, and Cody wasn't going to miss a single opportunity to talk to him. Alejandro looks down at Cody's textbook. "Yeah. It's a factorial, so you multiply each one by N." Wrong. Cody didn't call him out on it. "...Is that the summation?" He asks instead. Alejandro nods. "Yeah, they're the same thing." Wrong, he was so wrong... "Thanks, I get it now" ...But if Cody got to hear that voice confidently helping him do math wrong for the rest of his life... Well, he wouldn't mind.

The bell rings, and as they all pack up their stuff into their backpacks, Alejandro turns around to face Cody again. "Um... We're having a Halloween party at my friend Geoff's tonight. You wanna come?" Cody feels like he has just won the lottery. He has to stop himself from yelling out an over-excited 'yes'. Instead, he shrugs, trying to seem nonchalant about it despite all the blood rushing to his face. "Yeah, sure." Alejandro grabs a piece of paper from his bag and hands it to Cody. "Great, here's where it is. It's a costume party. People get pretty into it." Cody nods, looking down at the paper. "Also, that flier only admits one person, so... Don't bring some other guy with you." Cody smiles. Out of all the people Alejandro could've invited, him? He feels like he's about to explode with affection for the guy sitting in front of him. "...Okay, cool." The two words came out way more awkward than he had meant them to. Alejandro gets up and gives Cody one last glance before leaving. "See you tonight!" Cody nods his head. He's both celebrating and dreading what's to come.

Cody makes his way to the door. "Hey, Africa." Cody whips around to see the same guy who invited him to join the mathletes. Harold, was it? "You staying for the mathletes meeting?" Cody takes a moment to think... No. "Uh, yeah! I'll be right back!" And he promptly exits the classroom. Okay... He lied, but he needs to work on his costume.

Cody walks into the house and looks around the crowded space. Clearly, he missed some sort of memo here. The girls were all dressed in lingerie with some sort of animal ears, and the guys were... Well, just guys. He only saw a few of them actually dressed up. Cody swallows down his nerves. Okay, in hindsight, maybe going dressed as a zombie ex-husband was cheesy and an overall bad idea. He finds Courtney and Lindsay talking with red solo cups in their hands. He walks towards the two, greeting them. Lindsay flinches when she sees him and spills her drink all over the floor. "Oh my gosh, Cody? Is that you? Why are you dressed so scary?" Cody raises a brow at her question, "It's Halloween?" Courtney rolls her eyes. "Whatever, Cody, have you seen Duncan?" Cody shakes his head and Courtney groans.