Work Text:
i. you are the sun
and it sucks that i cant say anything more meaningful
less cliche, more real and you
but i guess this kind of talk is me
cody, you are the sun
because when i'm around you, i feel like i'll never see the dark again
Trent screwed up another wad of paper. He was ridiculous. When he was thirteen, maybe, words like these would've spilt from his head and seemed like the purest brainchild of the muses--
when he was thirteen.
He was eighteen years old. You are the sun. Words like that belonged on a MySpace page, surrounded by digital glitter. Not on paper, not where he wanted it to be real, when it was all so serious.
Trent was in love. And, as he'd learnt from his parents, and the countless hours of romantic media he'd devoured, there was no better way to say it to the world than through the written word. And he was a songwriter-- in his dreams, but-- and he would write a soundless song.
He'd just have to go back to the drawing board. Picking up another poem anthology he'd stolen from his mother, he flicked through to the first page marked under 'romance' in the index. He'd get it right this time. Something truly beautiful.
ii. i'm in love with you
it hurts every second that i cant say it
im in love im in love im in lowe im i^ jowe
i love you through ugly words i guess because i can't write anything beautiful
this isn't a poem this is a mess
this is the first thing in my head that isn't screaming when i think of
Somehow the morning had come without him noticing-- oh: and not a single good word had come from his attempts. Trent ran a hand down his face, over stubble that had found its way to his cheeks during the night. His alarm went off. It was time to get up.
Maybe Cody would like one of his disasters. The one where he had likened him to music-- what was the word Gwen had used for such a comparison? Cliche-- laughed, over a drink, when he told her her eyes were an ocean. He was fifteen, and she was right. God. Trent was a verbal Hindenburg.
He'd promised he'd give him something today; Valentine's. God. God God God Fuck Shit. Jesus. If you're listening,
The last thing he'd written; i'm in love with you; it was so raw. He'd cried with frustration over every word. When his brain wouldn't worked like he begged it to do. Cody said he struggled with that sometimes-- he never learnt any of their songs, for band, never studied. One night every month, he'd stay up in a feverish haze playing every sheet in his folder over and over until his mind finally let itself rest. He never forgot a thing he had to know. Trent thought he was incredible.
Cody, in a way, was raw. Not oozing emotion, not glaring with eyes that cut like a knife;; but raw. Something unkempt about him. He always bounced his leg and drove the teachers mad; at lunch, he chewed his straws in half. He laughed without breathing at in-jokes and couldn't whisper and handed every piece of homework in on time, straight A's, all completed hours before it was due. If anyone could appreciate the pure patheticness of the written rant Trent had composed, it would be him. One time he wore his pyjamas to school under his clothes.
Settled, unsettled, Trent folded his little scrap and sealed it into a perfect, orange envelope he'd chosen carefully through tiered elimination in the post office card aisle. He couldn't write his name on it. But maybe Cody would recognise his i's.
iii. i hear you in every love song on the radio
not because i know you're that kind of guy
i know you don't like sappy shit
and you don't listen to "real music"
if i watched those meme song edits that make you laugh so much
they'd make me think of you too
Trent was a disaster, and he was dead. All at once. He'd drop out of school.
Because he'd been right, in the second poem he'd doodled while not concentrating during maths: Cody. Wasn't. Sappy. He laughed at everything-- and right now, that everything included the note Trent had slipped into his locker before period one. He'd shown it to Harold, who'd criticised its amateurishness. He'd shown it to Gwen, who'd snorted and shot him a knowing look.
Trent was going to throw himself into a fire.
And yet, he couldn't stop thinking about poems. He'd doubted he'd gotten a single thing done the entire day; words blurred and voices muffled and all he heard was little lines -[poseidon's hues paint your eyes]- and he just had to write them down.
In English, Shakespeare was forgotten. He tried his hand at a sonnet.
In Cooking, his hand became a sonnet-- there was no paper, and it could've slipped away. His muffins charred, but the idea was preserved.
In Chemistry, his teacher nodded approval as he scribbled furiously into his book-- not notes. He still didn't understand the formulas.
And now Maths. Trent had never been much for maths. He didn't know how to divide a fraction, but he could count you out any time signature without a metronome, and that seemed vaguely mathematical.
He could just ask Cody for notes later. Maths-- structured, technical subjects --was where he functioned best. Cody could probably go on to become an engineer; but he didn't believe he could survive the load of university;; and his parents had a job lined up for him as a pencil-pusher. It was a horrific waste of talent, Trent thought, but he wasn't one to comment.
Bell ringing, he was out of his seat before the teacher could say 'the bell doesn't dismiss you, i do,,'. He slung his bag over his back, shoulders stooping from a day's worth of books. They didn't have the time to grab anything between the start of the day and the end; such were the benefits of a locker bay in an entirely separate building to the rest of the school. Cody was leaning on the wall when he got there, chewing the aglets of his hoodie's drawstring and stomping his foot against the ground-- an irritant to Harold, who was lagging, and also to everyone else in the hall.
When he saw Trent he smiled, plastic cracking between his molars. Like the sun oh damnit.
"We're Going To The Arcade. Me And harold." Foot-stomping forgotten, he tapped his fingernails against the wall. Cody was funny, how he had his habits. He'd teased Trent about his OCD, about his touching and tapping an exact nine times until it'd hurt, and Trent had gotten too upset, until he'd called him a weirdo but he did silly things too for mental comfort, just like Trent, just like Harold, just like many many others. It was a joke to Cody to be loud and obnoxious as much as it was to Harold to dig into him, and vice-versa;;/
"Helloooooo??"
Trent blinked at him, and nodded, unheard what he'd said. Smiled he'd and then he was doing that thing oh-- arcade.
"Have fun."
"I Asked If You Wanted To Come."
"Shit. Uh. Yeah."
They went to the arcade, and Cody won at everything.
iv. you make me feel like an idiot
in the nicest way possible
im so fucking stupid
why do i still write about you when it just makes me feel more dumb
how did shakespeare get girls without the girls making fun of him
Trent wasn't sure Cody liked him at all, to be honest. Cody was hard to read; sometimes he just smiled for no reason. Sometimes he didn't react at all. He'd tell you what he'd felt. He said once off-hand that his parents had sent him to a therapist for kids who couldn't act like normal people; but it hadn't worked and they'd retracted their trying in shame. Cody didn't care. He figured he had something on everyone if they couldn't tell what he was thinking.
this is so fucking dumb, he texted. Attached a picture of his homework. It was AP, sciences and maths and other inquantifiable things that looked like Turkish calligraphy to Trent. An explanation followed. That was what Trent liked-- that he didn't follow the route other friends of his did in never explaining anything (as if Trent would ask, and risk being rude); Cody wrote explanations by default, or maybe because it was fun. A few minutes after he'd sent his novella, he'd apparently logicked out his issue, and proceeded to send his working step-by-step. Trent didn't know why he sent him things like this; but it was nice. He wasn't much for making conversation on his own, so Cody's homework and video-game rants bridged the gap between them. To his own merit, Trent often used Cody as a sounding board for song-drafts, because for all his bluntness he knew Cody was one of the few people who respected his sensitivity-- his criticisms came smothered in sugar. It was nice.
That was why seeing him laugh at his poem hurt so fucking bad. Trent was thin-skinned; as an old friend had put it. Words stabbed him deeper than most, he was terrified of being attacked and lived every day working so hard to please everyone that he might as well have put it on his CV. He was anxious; he was a fucking moron and he hated himself.
He brushed his hair out of his eyes; Cody's conversation had reminded him that he had his own homework to do. He stared down at his page, at a single poem surrounded by doodles of arcade machines.
This wasn't one Cody would see. None of them were.
He would never give him a single other poem.
v. your eyes are the sky
at its most lovely hour,
before the gold of dawn,
a hazy blue--
stars afire
"What're You Writing?"
Trent could've thrown up.
Cody leant along the table towards him, brown curls in his face as he shoved his whole head above his notepad, parasol from the flourescents. His hair smelt like Mountain Dew Code Red.
"Your Eyes Are-"
Trent shoved him away and hid the poem with a palm before he could finish; everyone in the class was turned to them now;practically;ormaybehewasjustbeingparanoid. He tapped the notepad against the table nine times.
"Whose Eyes Are The Sky?" oh God; Cody grinned, something teasing, "Is It... Lindsay??"
Trent sucked a deep breath in and let it clog the base of his throat. Without one second of consideration, he replied "I'll kick your fucking ass."
Cody blinked, and shrugged, and spat his wad of gum into his hand and stuck it under the table before unwrapping another.
"It Doesn't Rhyme."
"What?"
"It's A Poem, Right? Poems Are Supposed To Rhyme."
"Not every poem has to."
"Yeah, Cos Otherwise It's Not A Poem. It's Just Some Words In A Funny Shape. Anyone Can Do That, Doesn't Mean It's Good." He blew a bubble, and added "Look, I'll Do It."
i can see a bird
out the window
its got two eyes
and a red beak
Trent had to hold back tears. He was right-- poetry was just a stupid-looking sentence.
vi. fuck poems. im a fucking moron and once again your smarter than me ok you always are ok im fucking dumb ok im so fucking stupid. shakespeare is a fucking moron you were right about that too. his poems are shitty and boring he doesnt deserve to be popular. im sorry i wrote you a poem i want to die just thinking about it im fucking sorry
Trent had his head shoved under a pillow. He'd developed a wild and sudden case of the depression, and nothing would ever bring him out of it. He was done with it all. He'd drop out of school, ask his parents to cut him a fringe again, and spend the rest of his life publishing original songs on Youtube and never showing his face but still making tons of money and having millions of fans; Cody texted him.
sorry for making fun of ur poem. it was probably actually really cool and i just dont know stuff about english. ive never even read a book man. im like 2 years old
He laughed, and replied it's ok
who was the poem about?????????????
..,
WHO
WHO
WHO
WHO
idk
WHO
what
what do u mean u dk
w h o
Trent bit his nails, nine times on each finger.
don't laugh or freak out or anything
sonicthumbsup.jpg
One two three four five six seven eight nine. Just do it.
u
me?
sorry
nono dont be
u think my eyes r nice???
yeah,,
His heart was internally combusting like the chemical thingamabob in a car engine when it makes the car go, it's a miniature explosion which is pretty cool. He was freaking out. His breath came manual, only every ten seconds when he remembered it (once Cody had said 'You Are Now Breathing Manually, You Can Feel Your Tongue' and Harold had gotten so mad and Trent still couldn't understand why; it was probably a meme. He didn't know any memes. When Cody sent him an image he always wrote back 'haha very funny' but he never laughed because it was gibberish. Cody kept pestering him to join Readit so he could 'Stop Being Old'; he said he was a 'Leh Wrong Generation'(?) once because he listened to tapes and liked old dead alt-rock bands from when they were babies. Cody seemed so futuristic with his weird clothes and ironic taste in made-up music genres like simpsonwave; he talked like an internet meme half the time, "Wants To Chill This Weekend; Gets Three Kilos Of Homework", like he lived in third-person. God he was strange and maybe Trent would never understand
wasn't he doing something?
Cody had texted him back a bit ago. thanks lol
Wait
Did he actually get the implication? The implication of complimenting someone's eyes? Was it too indirect??
ur eyes r cooler tho bc theyre green which is statistically rarer lol. u should write a poem abt how ur eyes look like weed or somthn
Trent wanted to fucking cry.
vii. dear cody,
i think i'm in love with you. "cringe". i know.
i'm not going to give this to you but it's nice to say it to myself and imagine the
face you'd make if you ever read this. you'd probably start smiling then explain
why it was unintentional and give me your actual opinion, and then we'd go to
band and you'd pretend this letter never existed because you don't spill dirt
and i like that a lot about you. i don't know what else to write. i've written so
much this week that i've killed two pens, one of them was my lucky pen so i really
miss it. You know when your brain's clogged up and you can't think about anything
but like one specific thing and it fucks you up so bad for school? that's why i'm
failing like every class, i'm really glad my parents are cool and think i can get
a career in music or things would be really shitty probably. it would've been fun to
go to university just for the clubs and stuff, and if we were in the same university
that'd be really cool, but you're not going either so
that's basically what happened. i wrote a lot of stupid poems before i realised that
poems are stupid.
so yeah.
from trent.
Trent was just going to say fuck it and tell him. Okay, correction: Trent was going to get more than slightly drunk, THEN say fuck it and tell him. At the very least, he could pretend he was joking the morning after.
They were at Geoff's-- Trent was friends with him, once upon a time, before things had fallen apart with Gwen and he'd ruined everything with everyone and disappeared into a depressive spiral and had to start over the next year and find new people to hang out with, which was why he joined the school band. Cody and Harold didn't know Geoff. But Geoff threw parties, and everyone was invited.
It was packed inside and outside, like his bedroom drawers during the summer when he started putting his clothes away badly and they kinda ended up everywhere. Like his parents, no one cared if he was a mess; he was well on his way to tipsy about ten minutes into the door; he hadn't had alcohol since way back in Era Gwen when Geoff's parties were an every Saturday event, then every non-school night, then kinda whenever. In retrospect, that probably hadn't helped with the whole depression thing. Anyway, he was still downing shots. Cody had fucked off somewhere with Harold, probably hunting down LeShawna so Harold could embarrass them all collectively with his dance moves (him and her were a match made in heaven). Everyone else was kind of faceless-- how many people were in the room, two hundred? Smoke was starting to waft over from some corner,
When the room started to spin he figured that maybe, perhaps, alcohol was not going to get his confidence up if he had none to start with. Now he just felt like throwing up. The smoke didn't help. It was awful; probably marijuana, which had given him a panic attack the one time he'd tried it, sitting on Gwen's lap outside around the firepit, because he was a year younger and people thought it was really funny for some reason, people had thought everything was super funny and it hadn't helped, any of it-- that whole crowd. He thought it'd been fun with them, but all he remembered was the vomit and headaches and stress and smoke, fucking smoke.
Oh, and it probably meant his old friends were close by. A punctuative thought that only came when Geoff wrapped an arm around his shoulder and boozily shouted "Trent!! Where've ya been, man??"
Geoff had been a good guy. He'd always held his stupid emo fringe back when he was sick after their benders, always lay him down to rest and kept the other folks away from the bedroom door, always drove him home at two AM and helped him drunkenly climb through his window, laughing the whole while because he was also wasted and constantly dropping him on the floor. Once, Geoff had almost crashed his car into a tree-- he shouldn't have been driving that night, any night. Trent had panicked and cried and nearly dry-retched with anxiety as they sat spun-out on the nature strip, Geoff patting his shoulder and saying sorry with wide, shocked eyes like he'd never heard of a DUI. He'd put on a funk album and offered him edibles, as if more drugs was what he needed to calm down. All they did was make him actually retch, and then he had to wake up covered in vomit.
"At school." Trent replied. Geoff laughed at him.
"Come say hi to everyone!! Come on, we've all missed you. Where'd you go, man?"
"School." His brain was spinning out. Didn't he want to talk to Cody? Oh God, he'd dragged them out to this stupid party;; where was Cody? Didn't he want to talk to him?
Geoff pushed him to a seat;; they were in another room, he was on a couch. Was Gwen here? Gwen was next to him. And there was Bridgette, sleepy, and Duncan and Gwen. Bridgette wasn't a hardcore party-girl; she was here for Geoff. Always. She was the designated sober one; how did Geoff always end up driving him? What the fuck was wrong with them?
"Trent?? Hey!"
"Jesus, he's out of it." Duncan laughed.
What was the song that was on? Bassy, hadn't the Art Teacher Played This in a class Two or Three years ago? On the radio. He was surprised she hadn't switched it off after hearing the lyrics. Jesus, he was fifteen. He was only fifteen.
"I didn't know you were bi." Gwen's blue-green painted lips were mouthing the sounds, and Trent blinked, glancing to who she was talking to. Him. He felt the residual hum of words in his throat-- he'd been talking, completely unpresent.
"What?"
"You said you were in love with Cody?" She snorted-- she laughed like that a lot, instead of laughing. Like how Cody would just blankly verbalise 'lol'.
Trent hoisted himself in his chair, too dizzy to make it. "Oh," he stumbled, "I was going to talk to Cody-"
"I know." A giggle. Snort. Giggle-snort. "Oh my Goddd..."
"You've said that like..." Bridgette waved a hand, "six times. Literally just the same conversation over and over."
A second had passed,, he leant his head back, staring at the ceiling. They had disco lights, like at the school discoes when he was a kid. The ones that made squiggles and light-confetti and green spirals.
"Did you die, man?"
He sat up. Geoff laughed triumphantly, raising a fist in the air.
"You should probably go get some sleep." Bridgette had this sympathetic tone. What was he, twelve?
"It's like eleven PM." His eyelids were heavy, head static. A thought came back. "Oh. Where's Cody? I need to talk to him-"
"He went home." Duncan was; he had a new eyebrow piercing, two lined up together. It was kind of cool.
"An hour."
"What?"
"You've been staring at the roof for an hour." Gwen repeated. "And it's three AM."
Had he really been here that long?- but he'd just arrived?
"Wait." The word lolled off his tongue. Why was he hanging out with these guys? "Where's-"
"HE WENT HOME. LITERALLY TWO HOURS AGO."
"Chill out, Duncan!" Gwen chided. "He's fucked up right now. We never hold anything against you when you act stupid."
"Yeah, cos I'm not fucking annoying every two seconds."
Had he ever liked Duncan? Had they been friends? God, maybe in year seven or eight-- before things really got crazy. When Duncan was just the teacher's pet in woodwork class who sawed his shit up for him when he couldn't stop breaking the little blades.
Trent lay down on the bed-- Bridgette was lowering him, and the music was muffled from up here. He vaguely heard his mouth moving: talking about the poems. Bridgette would understand; she was so nice, so good and caring. She got stupid gestures. Geoff had given her macaroni art to ask her out., was that five years ago??
"I know, I know." Sympathetic. Tired. He should ask if she wanted to sleep here too. No that came out wrong-- literally came out, he'd said it and he was still going
"Don't let Geoff beat me up."
"He wouldn't do that." She tucked him in; he wanted to protest that his shoes were on, but they weren't. "Goodnight, Trent."
"Wait- Bridgette-" He sat up in bed. The words were there; but he remembered now, he'd already asked. Cody had gone home. "Oh God, this is so fucked up."
"What?" Alarm. She froze in the doorway.
"I can't fucking- I can't remember shit. Everything keeps disappearing. I was literally talking to you and I can't remember it." He held his head, vodka rising up his throat. "Did I take something?"
"Just alcohol. I hope." Now she was suddenly by him, pushing him back down on his side with a soothing hand, like she was his mother. "You're drunk and you haven't slept. It messes your brain up. It happens to me too." A smile. "That's why I don't drink."
Ah.
She stroked his hair-- they might've talked more --and then the light was out and the door shut. The music downstairs was low and mellow, afterparty shit. Trent could imagine them cleaning up down there, as best as a cluster of drunk teens could, before giving up and sitting down by the TV with platters of leftover snacks. He wiped his face; it was wet. For some reason he thought for a second that Bridgette had spilt something on him.
viii. this has pribly been thge wost night of my ufe
He'd left that little note for himself on his phone-- apparently, drunk-him had deemed it important-- and now he checked it every ten minutes, just to be sure it was real and not something he'd invented and convinced himself of. Every time, he was surprised to see it, and then he remembered the dozen other times he'd read it that morning.
He was on Geoff's couch, waiting for someone to give him a ride home. It was one PM, and they were all sleeping still; he'd been messaging Cody (possibly), but as soon as he sent off a text he'd forget he'd ever written it. It was normally hard enough to remember to reply to things, but now with his mental fog, the conversation had slowed to about one message an hour.
What were they even discussing?
1:03am
hey u were having fun with some friends and i didnt want to annoy u or whatev so im texting to say i went home
harold might still be there for a bit if u need a ride
6:32am
heyy
my head is super messed up right now. i literally have like amnesia or brain damage or something
what are you doing right now?
9:45am
sleeping?? lol
how was the party
i literally don't remember anything. i think i got brain damage. i basically have amnesia right now
lmaooooo
i hope its permanent
10:57am
hahaha rude
11:05am
r u at home? dying?
12:59pm
im at geoff's house still. noone's awake to drive me haha
Cody texted back a moment later i can come get u
Lady Gaga was playing on the radio in Cody's car. Not either of their tastes, but they didn't change it. Cody smirked at him when he climbed in, messing up his hair and throwing some jibe,, rat's nest something something.
Trent tried really hard to keep his mind on the conversation.
"So what did you guys do?"
"They smoked weed," he was casting his mind back, hands jittery with the feeling that he should be frantic in a moment when he felt so chill., "Duncan got pissed off at me because I kept repeating myself- oh my God, Cody it was so bad. I literally forgot everything every two seconds, my brain was like a sieve. I kept asking where you were and Duncan got so pissed off, they were like, 'you've asked that six times already. he went home hours ago.'."
Cody coughed out a breath-- a laugh, kind of. "Lol. So you just wanted to hang out with the Codemeister all night, is what I'm hearing."
"Yeah, of course, man." Continuing thread in what he'd said... so you'd wanted to- "Yeah, I had something I wanted to tell you, you know? Think I told everyone but you."
"Yeah?" Cody raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah. I told them I love you, man. And I told Bridgette about those stupid poems I wrote for you-- you know, the one in your locker? God, it was so fucking stupid, right?"
Cody didn't reply; he stared out the windscreen with utter focus, bated breath.
"I literally want to fucking die when I think about it." He laughed, short. "Jeez, dude. It was so emo and lame. I want to throw myself out of the car and get run over and fucking die just thinking about the fact that you read that shit."
"Yeah, man." Cody's voice was vacant; he obviously wasn't tuned in. When Trent glanced over, he saw the mildest contorsions of panic on his face.
"I'm sorry." He leant his forehead against the window, car's vibrations through his skull. "I wrote you a stupid thing to say sorry for it all, but I was never going to show you. Jesus, fuck, uh..." Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnine. "Fuck. Cody, it was so fucked up. I never should've left that note for you, it was so stupid, like you said. It was dumb as hell. Just don't worry about it, okay? Just forget it. I'll kill myself and you can forget about it."
"What the fuck, man?"
He blinked, licking dry lips. Cody looked at him with something indescribable-- fear, anger, a mess of shit.
"Stop saying shit like that!" His voice cracked-- oh God. This was serious. "You know, like... what the hell? It's messed up, dude. Like I can't deal with..." He sniffed.
Trent shrunk. Nerves were already tapping into him, electric cables stripped of skin and live and deadly. "What?"
"Like, you want to kill yourself! Like you're actually serious! I don't want you to fucking die because- because I didn't like your poem, is that it? Like, I feel bad enough about tearing into it knowing you wrote it, dude, you don't have to fucking guilt-trip me!"
"No, no nonono." Trent went to put a hand on his shoulder, but reconsidered; he brushed his hair back instead. "No, I'm sorry, I have no idea what I'm saying right now. I just say that shit by default, you know? I mean, usually not out loud- I'm sorry-"
Cody took a hard breath through his nose, then pulled the car over. He pressed his forehead to the steering wheel, arms folded above him.
"I don't want you to die."
"I'm not going to." Trent wanted to die- no. "I'm just joking, okay? Just forget about everything I said."
If hours had passed in seconds last night, that time was being made up now. The sun could've set and risen a thousand times before Cody finally lifted his gaze towards him.
"It's cool, man. Sorry for... you know, you just freak me out sometimes. When I first met you I thought, like, if I wasn't there for you, you'd end up... you know. Or just someone, not me, but..." in lieu of a closer, he shook his head. "Sorry. That was probably kinda fucked up to say."
Trent had no idea how to respond. He nodded, and after a millennium of hesitation, gently touched Cody's arm in a way that he hoped was reassuring. Cody took his hand, lacing their fingers together. His chest went hot-cold.
"Can I see the other poems you wrote?" His voice was as soft as his touch, timorous and ready to slip off at the first sign of a 'no'. "I know I don't get English, but they're probably really good, and you could, like, explain them to me and stuff."
Trent stared down at their hands, all the blood in his body pooling to warm his fingers. Holy shit, what the fuck. He was in love with Cody.
"Yeah, man. They're not great, but I can show you."
ix. The guy
Really cool
weEd eyes lol
Nice :okhand:
Tgood at guitar
Cody thought it was hilarious to send him poems now. They were always shitty acrostics; Trent screenshotted them all and saved them. They made him laugh.
He didn't write anymore. Not because he felt bad about it-- he was over that shit; Cody actually had liked his other pieces, and was holding onto the books and scraps he'd spewed his jumbled thoughts into in two different coloured pens, blue and black, in the best-worst week of his life. --Trent had just lost interest, and he'd returned to his old obsessions like origami birds and playing the same two albums of songs until his fingertips went numb. The poems were kind of just a joke now; an inside-thing Cody or Harold would bring up, "I'm in lowe", and Harold would snort and Trent would smile and Cody would go breathless even though, really, it wasn't that funny at all.
And he was dating Cody. It was kinda weird, in the best way possible. Nothing had really changed between them except that they kissed sometimes. They still went to the arcade, played in band, and complained about homework; Trent wasn't sure why he'd thought everything would be different. He was happier, he guessed. Not always, but it was a hell of a lot better than before.
Things probably wouldn't last; like they hadn't with Gwen, like they hadn't with everyone in the rear-view mirror. One day Cody would move on, or drift apart from him. Harold might move away. They'd forget what it was like to know each other.
But for now, at least, they still had three months til the summer.