Perfectly, perfectly, prefect, perfect, perfect.

Chapter 6: Perfectly, perfectly, perfect, perfect, perfect.

 

 

I stood there against the wall with the phone on my ear, waiting for someone to answer. When I finally heard to my surprise, an unfamiliar voice.

“Hello?” She said.

“Hi, is Cody there?” I asked.

“Oh, he’s out right now… but I’ll be sure to tell him you called.” She said clearing her throat.

“Oh, Okay thanks.” I said, slightly disappointed.

“You’re Desiree aren’t you?” she asked interested.

“That’s me.”

“So you’re the girl who’s kept Cody busy all these days, I’ve been enjoying that quiet time, so thank you!” She joked. I laughed lightly.

“No problem, are you his mom?”

“Yes I am, but you don’t get my name yet until we officially meet in person sometime, if that day ever comes!” She said chuckling.

“Yeah I know! I’m sure it’ll be soon.”

“Hope so! Well I’ll let you go sweetie, goodbye.” She said warmly.

“Bye.” I said and hung up the phone. What a nice lady.

 

Seems like Cody’s mom wants to meet me and much as my dad wants to meet Cody. Well that only means Cody’s mentioned me, at least I know now that he mentions me too.

 

Cody called me back a half an hour later, he said that he wouldn’t be able to hangout for a week. He was on full time at work this week because his dad wants him to save up for college money, and Saturday and Sunday he said he was going out deer hunting with his dad. I sulked at that, and he seemed to too. I just had to manage my time with my Dad and June while he was not around, so it distracted me from not seeing him In so long. I found I was having dreams about him every other night or so, but nothing really happened in them, I would be walking down the street and I’d spot him calling and waving at me to come over. I would run for what felt like forever towards him, jumping over obstacles in my way without looking at them, his body get closer and closer… and I just would remember feeling so overpoweringly exhilarated. 

 

A week from last talking to Cody, Dad, June, and I went outside and we all went for a walk down to the beach and we swam for a bit. Dad, June and I played Frisbee in the water and June put her feet on Dad’s hands as he flew June up in the air, June kept asking him to do it again and again, and he did till he had to go pass out on the beach. I miss being light enough to do that, sometimes, it sucks to grow up.

We were at the lake for a few hours when we decided to go back and have lunch.

In the middle of the process of spreading the mayonnaise on my salami and turkey sandwich, the phone rang, and I couldn’t have had a better guess of who it was. I rose from my chair quick and ran to the phone to answer it.

“Hello?” It was Cody. My heart relieved itself.

“Hey Des! I’m back from hunting!” He cheered.

“Really?!” I said excited.

“Yea! Man I-I’ve missed you, you want to come over?” He asked, his voice made me as happy as it sounded.

“Yea- sure, that’ll be cool.” I said trying to hold back my excitement, realizing I get to see Cody again was like a breath of fresh air, he explained where I had to go while I listened.

“You got it?” He asked.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Okay, then I‘ll see ya soon.” He said heartily and hung up the phone.

 

I slammed the phone on the receiver and put my long hair up in a ponytail going to the bathroom to freshen up. My strawberry blonde hair was looking more strawberry today, and the waves were loose and long, just how I liked them. I got my car keys out of the drawer and put some jeans on incase I stay till later.

“Bye dad I’m going over Cody’s.” I said and kissed his forehead. He was on the tapestry couch watching the baseball game; he stopped chewing his sandwich and looked over at me with protective eyes.

“Back from hunting eh? Bye Des, be safe you hear?” I could tell he wanted to say a million more things, but he knows that it’ll just make him look more protective than he already is.

“Of course.” I reassured.

“What about your sandwich?” June asked behind me with a mouth full of peanut butter and jelly. I turned over to her and my eyes fell to my freshly made sandwich. My hand was on the doorknob and I felt my stomach growl.

Cody got me so excited I forgot to eat my freshly made sandwich.

How sad. I smiled to myself guiltily.

I devoured my sandwich in a maximum of five minutes, constantly hearing my dad in the background saying, “Take your time hon.” It bothered him so much that he couldn’t concentrate on the game.

I then got up with a full belly and headed out the door, down the porch steps and into my jeep. I the engine roared and backed out of our driveway, to Cody’s house.

 

The drive was very peaceful. I got a few nice wafts of campfires and BBQ’s, the road was right next to the lake so it was a pretty view, I could even feel the misty breeze from the chilly lake on my face I was so close. I started thinking how it would be so cool if Cody’s house was right by the Lake.

I kept driving, my mind wandering aimlessly. I thought about my week and the last time I saw Cody, it was the day we went to go see the monster truck rally with him, Leroy and Jack. The noise was so loud I would cup my ears frantically, and Cody would pull my head into his neck, to muffle the noise, he thought it was so funny. The sky was pitch black behind him when I closed the door to his Chevy and walked back up to my front door.

I turned to the street I remember him saying and saw what might Cody had described to be his house; it seemed to match all his descriptions. It was just a normal house, which I liked. I pulled over to the curb on the opposite side and parked the Jeep.

It was a normal sized dark brown house, it had two stories but you could tell the second story was smaller room capacity then the bottom floor. The paint was a little chipped and you could tell it was an old building that been round for a while. And hey, it was right by the lake like I hoped! There was a long set of old wooden stairs that led down to the lake… and I was thinking that’s got to be where Cody starts his morning 5am swim… in the nude. I lightly laughed out loud, and jumped out of the jeep, I felt the dirt road under my shoes, and I put my keys in my pocket.       

While walking towards the brown house I noticed that there wasn’t many houses around Cody’s… actually, there were no houses on this road except for Cody’s.

I looked down the road as I walked across it, hearing the small crunch noise of the dirt, my feet crushing the microscopic pebbles, and I noticed a dead end about a hundred yards away, where it stopped and just turned into the dark bliss of the woods.

There was one dark wooden streetlight right in front of his house, and it looked as if it was about to fall off. The wind blew softly and it bent to the right, making a light creaking noise. I walked on the rough stone pathway to his front door, the sunlight was shining through the trees, and it warmed my shoulders as I knocked lightly on the door. I saw Cody’s 81’ blue Chevy pickup in the driveway along with a white old 1980 mustang with red lines across the side’s right under the windows; you could tell that thing has been through a lot. It had a taped window and… wait a minute, CLAW lines screeched across the side?! What the heck happened to that thing? The door opened and I heard in the distance a bark. There in front of me, with his shining white smile, dark brown shaggy hair, and olive, caramel skin… was my hero of the day, Cody. Boy did I miss him in those six days.

“Hey Des!” He said in his wonderful Cody voice. He opened his arms out for a hug and I immediately responded. I wrapped my arms around his body and hugged tightly.

“Hey Cody! I’ve missed you!” I said muffled with my head buried in his chest. He smelled so good, I never took a whiff when I hugged him before, it was a hard scent to identify, but no one else smelled like it… its like outdoors smell, like the misty lake breeze and a hint of pine. I loved it.

“Ditto!” He said in my ear. “Come on, I got to show you the place.”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me inside, there was an unpolished wooden floor and the walls were dark green. So it felt very woodsy. I walked in and the kitchen was in a small corner on the left, the kitchen was so small, only one person could probably walk by the counters without being uncomfortable. There was a small dark wooden table in the lightened kitchen and the floor was tile. There wasn’t any door into it, the whole room was open; there really weren’t any doors. To the right was the television and it was against the wall that was the front of the house. A folded futon was facing it and there was a rocking chair on its right. The futon was navy blue and didn’t match anything else; it seemed like the newest thing in their house. The carpet was a dark brown, blending with the wooden floor hallway that led out to an open area with a huge glass slide door, which brought all the light in.

There was a small porch and stairs towards the dock. It had a nice view of the lake. He walked me towards that area, and there were stairs leading up to the second floor and to the right a door into the bathroom. Which looked quite small too, but most bathrooms are small. He showed me all of that and then he dragged me upstairs which were carpeted with the same thick brown carpet and the railings were wooden. When we reached the top, there was only a 7-foot long narrow hallway with two doors, one right in front when you get to the top, and the other you had to turn and walk down a bit. He pointed to the one in front.

“I won’t show you Jack’s room because he’ll get pissed at me… eh I’ll show you anyway.” He said and I laughed. He opened the door to his brother’s room and it was not much, a simple bed and dresser. And in the corner was a used up desk with numerous things on it. He had some rock bands posted up on his bare white walls and some of his clothes were tossed around in some places on the dark brown carpet. It smelled like wet dog kind of, which was weird.

“Yeah isn’t it beautiful, mines not any better.” He said almost reluctantly and I followed him into the farther room.

“It’s nothing great, but I told you I’d show you everything.” He opened his door and it was basically like his brothers, with the desk and bed except his bed had a plaid sheet over it instead of no sheet, and he didn’t have anything on his walls except a picture that was taped up and his clothes weren’t on the brown floor, they were piled on his bed.

“Nice.” I said, I thought his room really matched his personality well, laid back and ‘who gives a damn’ kind of feel.

“Eh. Yeah like I said, nothing great. Come on.” He pulled me back down the stairs before I could walk in any further and when we reached the bottom, coming through the door was a man with grocery bags piled in his arms. He was shorter then Cody and had his same skin color. His hair was black and medium length like Cody’s and wore squarish eyeglasses. He had a wrinkled white t-shirt on and the same kind of jeans my dad likes to wear.

He gave me a welcoming glance and plopped his groceries on the small table.

“Why you got to be Desiree!” He said putting his hand out. I clenched my hand around his big one and he squeezed it firmly. He was just like my dad in that way, rough. Except unlike my dad, he isn’t afraid of crushing a 16-year-old girl’s hand. I released his hand relieved the bones in my hand weren’t crushed into tiny pieces.

“Yes that’ll be me.” I said warmly, hiding my pain.

“Des this is my dad, George Howell.” He said sounding kind of embarrassed, noticing my hidden pained expression. But my pain turned into alarm, as I finally knew Cody’s last name. I could see a lot of Cody in his face. He had the same nose as Cody, and the face shape was the same, with the good bone structure and angular jaw.

“So that’s your last name!” I said aloud. Cody nodded amused.

“It was nice to meet you Desiree, but I got to put these groceries away before-“

That’s when Jack came running in the door like there was a tornado outside. He came to a sliding stop, which made his bare feet squeak loudly across the tiled kitchen floor. He was concentrated until he met my gaze and seemed to hold himself back together.

“You bring home dinner?!” He asked, lightly and indifferent. George looked him over, annoyed and wide eyed.

“Can you just let me get it all in the fridge for just a second? My god boy.” He mumbled more remarks on his son to himself while putting the ketchup in the fridge and frozen meats in the freezer. I couldn’t help but smile. I tried fighting it back, but it was difficult. Boy, do these Howell boys like to eat. It was intriguing; I couldn’t help but feel how mysterious they all were.

Cody walked towards me rolling his eyes; he placed an arm around my shoulder and led me out the glass door to the deck. There was a bench on the side with a small coffee table. We kept walking, down the many steps towards the dock. I wrapped my left arm around his waist to keep balance. I could hear the birds chirping in the early afternoon sun. The feeling of Cody’s loosened muscled arm around my shoulder made me feel like I was safe, like I was in the right place.

“Your house is really cool, Cody.” I said happily as we were lightly bouncing down the stairs.

“Yeah? Well thank you. I’ve been living here ever since, well, ever.” He said.

“That’s cool, I would have a field day here if I was little… not even, I would have a field day in it now.” Cody chuckled and slid his smooth arm off my shoulders. We were at the bottom of the stairs and on a small bit of land before the dock.

“You wanna go canoeing?” He asked brightly.

“No, I hate canoes, they have spiders in them all the time and they creep me out.” I said sarcastically.

“Okay, let’s go then.” He said catching my sarcasm and smiled.  

                                           

We slid the canoe to the water, and got onto the dock. Cody held the canoe so I could get in first. I sat on the tightly weaved seat, this was a true canoe; it was like it was straight out of a museum, except used in and scratched. Cody started jogging to push the boat off and then at last minute he jumped in to his seat, making the canoe wobble. I grabbed the sides to maintain balance, and he grabbed the oar as the wind suddenly blew, making his sleeveless shirt flap in the wind, and causing my hair blow over my face.

“Des, your hair is so pretty…” He said as if it was a confirmation.

I gave him a questionable look from the randomness of compliment, and then guiltily smirked. “Thanks. I really like yours too.” I did, thought it was so cute on him. Come to think of it, everything about him was adorable.

He smiled at me admiringly and opened his mouth to say more, but stopped himself. Then his lips parted again. “You know, you have really become my best friend these past few weeks.” He said, oaring the canoe farther toward the middle of the lake. The sun was beating down on us, shining the surface of his arms.

“Yeah I know Codes same here, I’m glad we bumped into each other, it’s crazy how something like that can lead to this.” I gestured him and I by crossing my fingers together. I grabbed the other oar lying in the canoe and helped him paddle, even though it seemed like he didn’t need it.

We were in the middle of the lake now, and the view was beautiful, the water was as still as glass except for the small ripples we had created.

Cody laughed lightly, “I know, it is crazy… but it’s awesome ‘cause you’re awesome, and the summer hasn’t even really started, we got the whole summer.” He said smiling but it slowly faded as we both realized something, just the summer. That was it and I was driving back home a week before school started. Driving away from Northville, away from Cody. Both of us stopped paddling.

I looked over at Cody with a resentful look on my face; he was just blankly staring downwards. He looked up at me then, straightening his face.

“Don’t worry, we’ll make the best of it, and then we’ll see each other in a year.” He said it trying to sound hopeful but it came out much, much worse than before. I winced at the sound of ‘year.’

“Oh Cody…” I said upset. He looked passed me frowning with his eyebrows furrowed, and then his eyes met mine. His face snapped like out of a trance.

“Hey now, we got to cheer up, that won’t be for a while, we can’t let it ruin our summer now.”

I nodded and we went back to rowing the canoe. After a brief silence, I thought of a good way to cheer him up.

“I have a riddle for you.”

He looked up, “Ooh, okay let’s hear it.”

“Alright, so… you are stuck in a room with no windows, and no doors. The only thing in the room is a table and a mirror. How do you get out?” He trailed off in concentration, mumbling to himself repeating what I said.

“Is the mirror a secret passage way?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Um… you punch the wall till it breaks open.” He said feeling confident.

“Nope, no one can do that, be reasonable.” I laughed.

“Hey it was a try…” He kept thinking silently. His eyes lit up.

“You never said the floor was concrete or anything so I dig through the earth, make a tunnel, and crawl through the tunnel and pop out from outside.” He said, sure it was right. I just laughed.

“No.”

He looked at me in disbelief. “Well I give up, what’s the answer?”

I smiled. “You look in the mirror, see what you saw. Take the saw; saw the table in half, and two half's make a whole. Then you crawl out the hole!” His face was dumbfounded and I burst into laughter.

“Wait what?” He said with a confused crooked smile, not catching what I said. I repeated it again slowly.

Cody burst into uncontrollable laughter and it made me jump. It came to a point where I started laughing at his reaction. We were crying we were laughing so hard, my abdomen hurt and we couldn’t breathe. Cody had leaned too far to the left and next thing we knew we were in the water. The chill of the water rushed through my body in a refreshing, yet shocking way. I swam under the water and pulled myself back up to the surface. My head burst through the surface and then I saw Cody come up next with that smile still smeared on his face. He looked at me and chuckled. We glanced at the canoe and it was tipped completely over.

“Come on!” I chanted as I ducked back under the silky cool lake.

We both went under water and lifted our heads up so we were under the canoe. It was so cool; it looked like there was a wooden dome over us. And the wood made everything and us look dark orange.

“This is so cool.” I said breathlessly looking around; my voice had a small echo. The whole inside of the canoe was surrounding our heads as we both were treading. I could hear little droplets of water fall from the canoe like you would hear in a cave.

“Yeah, this was a cool idea Des.” He too was looking around. We were close together, fitting into the small space. He turned and smiled at me. His teeth glowed in the dark lighting. I smiled back effortlessly.

“That was the funniest riddle I ever heard.”

“I guess so, you tipped us over!” I said chuckling.

His soaking hair was sticking to his forehead, and his lips spread into a grin, his deep eyes laid on me. Looking at is face gave me a sudden warm feeling in my chest, I realized then to my shock that I wanted to kiss him, really, really wanted to kiss him. It was such a powerful urge I almost couldn’t handle it. I kept asking myself, should I? Should I? Ugh… how perfect the moment was. But I didn’t want to ruin anything. I was so content with everything that was going on. He made me so fricken’ happy.

My heart started beating a thousand miles per hour as I watched he was  slowly tred himself closer to me, he looked at my yearning lips, they were begging for his touch. His face was inches from mine, and I could and feel his steady breaths. He placed his hands on my waist underwater and my whole body tingled as they pressed my floating shirt back to my sides. I put my arms over his shoulders in response; my lips burned of impatience, our body’s centimeters apart.            

His head slowly moved towards me, still staring at my lips… I got a glimpse of his crooked smile before I closed my eyes, and then I felt his wet lips around my top lip. I moved mine with his taking his bottom lip, twining my hand in his wet shaggy hair, and then we pulled away to look at each other. Both of us looked at each other in a happy awe. We slowly smiled. Good thing Cody was holding onto me, or I would have forgotten to tread water.

After a long moment of staring at each other, I cleared my throat to speak, if I still could. My body was still tingling; it felt like little bubbles under my skin like the carbonate in soda.

“So…” I said. “We should uh, flip this canoe over before one of us drowns.”

 

He laughed breathlessly. “That would be smart.” Then he disappeared under the water. I wanted to scream of joy but I would do that when I was really alone and sure that no one would hear me. I dunked under to follow.

 

When I reached the surface the bright light of day was alarming compared to the darkness inside the canoe. I looked over and the canoe was already flipped, wow. Is there anything this kid can’t do? He pulled me back into the canoe not seeming the difficulty with my wet clothes weighing me down. They were sticking to my skin like Cody’s. I could already feel the sun drying them after getting back in the canoe. I sat there and smiled to myself as I replayed what just happened in my head. I was so surprised and shocked by it, but it couldn’t of been any more perfect; I was looking at the now rugged water and then turned to Cody, and could see he thought exactly the same.

Author's Note

FINISHED: June 8th, 7:21 pm

Reviews

[veronica.voodoo]

omg, okay so i have just finished reading all your chapters, and all i can say is "DAMNNNNNNNNNNNN". that was alot. lol. :] (it is now 11:56 pm, California time) i hope you don't mind that i review all the chapters in this last one. :]
and it was very well written, i loved every chapter!!!!! well, the first chapter was pretty hard to get into but after that, everything was awesome and i enjoyed every part of it! you have such a talent for writing, and there are parts in the story that are so vivid i can see them clear as day in my head almost as if i was watching a movie! Desiree is a character that i can envision as an actual person, that, while i can't relate to her too much, i could see as an actual human being i would speak to in my daily life. and i have my speculations of cody, which i'm not too sure because i could totally be wrong, but i'm going to go ahead and guess that he was the black wolf she met when she hit her head and when she was with her little sister. that would probably explain how he knew where she lived. when i read that part, it got me thinking to my story and then i realized that the protagonist's brother took James there to check up on her.
but enough of my story, we're here to review yours! like i said before, you have knack for writing and are extremely talented in creating a world where the unbelievable seems real and believable. i hope that you keep writing this story and publish it one day because i bet you that this would become a bestseller and teenagers around the world(like you and me) would fall in love with Desiree and Cody. wow. i sound like a total suck up. lol. but it's the truth. :]
i can't wait for the big reveal, unless, that is, that cody isn't the big wolf and that it's another person who is maybe trying to protect her from cody even though he seems like the nicest person ever??? hahaha, there's my crazy imagination ruining a perfect story, lol. :]
but i do question why Desiree always related her story to that of the fable of the Three Little Pigs and the Wolf. if i remember correctly, when she voiced the pigs' voices, squeaky=sister, old man=dad, regular=her. maybe you'll explain that later. well, great story, can't wait for the next chapter. :]

[Kayla]

OMG THAT WAS AWESOME!!!! I COULDN'T BREATHE THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE CANOE SCENE!!! AAAAAAWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LUV EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS CHAPTER!!! IT'S MY FAVE ONE SO FAR!!! I LUV THE IMAGERY, AND THE RIDDLE, AND MOST DEFINITELY THE KISS!!!!!! OMG!!! PLEASE ADD MORE SOON!!!!!