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Cody kind of walks in on them. It takes him a moment to realize it, of course, because he’s too caught up in his joy of Woody being willing to switch rooms, but then he sees Zack sitting on Bailey’s bed, and Bailey kneeling on the floor, and the two of them clasping each other’s hands. He stops, mid-sentence, and then (because he’s a dumbass) demands, “Why are you guys holding hands?”
Zack and Bailey look at him, panicked, and then proceed to lie about a handshake before doing an unsynchronized mess filled with too much performative masculinity to be anything but fake. Bailey looks half-confused by the whole affair but he does follow through with it, and then Zack—
Smirks?
“By the way,” he says, “I am not trading roommates.”
And then Cody finds a door slammed in his face, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
The thing is, Cody knows Zack about as well as anyone can know another person—maybe even better. It comes with the territory of literally sharing a womb together. All that’s to say, Cody recognizes the smirk Zack had thrown his way: it’s the same one Zack gives when he’s about to hit on a girl.
Cody has been told that he’s an idiot, but he is still a man of science, so he follows the evidence—the hand holding, the overly masculine handshake, the smirk, the staunch refusal to switch roommates—to its logical conclusion.
Zack likes boys. Or, at least, he likes Bailey Pickett.
Hm.
There’s nothing wrong with liking boys, Cody thinks, when you really get down to it. It’s common enough in other animals so it’s inevitable in humans, isn’t it? And it’s not like Cody is new to the idea of homosexuality—his own mother had mentioned being in a throuple where everyone had liked each other, not to mention a single drunken remark about “the girl who got away”—but it’s not really the kind of thing anyone talks about more than necessary.
Zack liking boys is unexpected but not impossible.
It’s just that Cody had never even had an inkling about it. Zack was always hitting on a girl growing up, always gushing about his decidedly female crushes, and Cody had reciprocated in kind. They’d shared info about their girlfriends and had gotten into slight mishaps with all of them, as they often do. Throughout it all, Cody had simply assumed that his brother was straight. He’d never had any reason to think otherwise.
Now, he doesn’t know what to do.
Confiding in Woody, who stinks of farts and stale urine, is probably not the best idea, but Cody knows no one else on the ship—except London, and she’s London, and Mr Mosbey, who seems to want to burst into tears every time they make eye-contact—so he’s left with a subpar sounding board.
“Boys,” says Cody. “Discuss.”
“Uh,” says Woody. “What?”
“I mean—boys liking boys.”
“Um, no offense or anything, but I don’t really—”
“Not me!” Cody says. And even if I did, certainly not YOU! he doesn’t say.
Woody, slumping in relief, says, “Oh, thank God. You scared me there for a second.”
“Why would that scare you?” Cody demands. “There wouldn’t be anything wrong with it!”
“I just…wouldn’t be comfortable rooming with someone who likes me, I guess. Especially when I don’t like them back.” Woody fidgets with his fingers, shifting uneasily. “Like—I’m all girls, you know?”
“Right,” says Cody.
“And if you’re not, that’d be all right, I think.”
“Well, I’m not,” Cody says shortly.
“Then why’d you ask?”
“I think someone I know is,” says Cody. “And I just need to talk to someone about it.”
“Er, I’m not the best at—”
“I mean I need to talk and I need someone else to listen.”
Woody brightens. “Oh! I can do that, I think.”
“Good,” says Cody. “So, I know a guy, and I think he likes another guy, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I just don’t know how to talk to him about it.”
“To the guy, or the other guy?”
“The guy…I think?” He shakes his head. “Unimportant. I just…I want him to know that I know without making him upset or scaring him. I care about him, you know?” And then, to himself, “I can’t believe I just said that…”
“Hey,” Woody says sympathetically, “it’s all right. And I think this kind of thing needs a direct conversation, maybe in private.” And then, conspiratorially, “You know, my mom briefly dated a therapist, and he said that distancing yourself from the situation is a great coping mechanism when first coming to terms with it—but don’t do it forever, yeah?”
Cody, blindsided by this sudden show of emotional intelligence, nods dumbly, at which point Woody smiles at him and promptly exits the room.
And then he realizes that Woody thinks Cody likes boys.
“Fuck,” he says.
Okay, listen—it’s not an inaccurate description. Cody has liked boys in the past, he guesses—boys who are dark haired and brown eyed and who have great smiles. Boys he’s been just as obsessed with as he was with Barbara. But, liking, having liked boys in the past isn’t the same thing as liking boys, is it?
…Yeah, okay, he sees how that sounds.
“Oh my god,” he says to no one in particular. “I like boys.”
Well, he and Zack are identical twins, aren’t they?
Oh god, he likes boys. The thought of anyone knowing makes him want to curl up in a ball and die. He can’t tell anyone—not Woody, not Mr Mosbey, not his mother, and not…
No. He can tell Zack. Zack will understand—and, at any rate, they’re twins, aren’t they? Best friends since day zero. Lifelong companions. Cody can tell Zack, and Zack will come clean, and they’ll be on equal footing again and everything will be fine.
Everything will be fine.
“So,” Cody says lightly as he, Zack, Bailey, and Woody enter the game room, “why didn’t you want to switch roommates?” Better to let Zack and Bailey make their excuses in public, especially since Woody will probably be on the lookout for whoever Cody was mentioning.
Zack and Bailey share a look—dear god, they’re not even subtle—before Zack throws Cody a smirk and says, “We figured, opposites attract.”
What.
Bailey, looking appropriately panicked, stutters out, “A-And by ‘opposites,’ he means, like, in clean and messy! Not, like, in boy and girl…” Zack whips his head around, eyes wide.
Cody wants to scream. His brother is an inconsiderate idiot and his brother’s—roommate? crush? boyfriend?—is a walking disaster. They’re so fucked. What’s going to happen if they get found out? Cody’s not entirely sure but it’s not going to be anything good, and at any rate, he’s not going to let that happen.
And then Zack says, “Why don’t we go play some pool and let Cody and Woody work out their issues?”
Woody says, heartbroken, “We have issues?”
Damn him.
Cody attempts to smooth things over and then gives up entirely, truly earning him Woody’s ire—
And then Bailey goes to hit a ball only for Zack to put his arms around him and lean in close to teach him proper form, the way all those suave men in movies do with slim ladies in low cut dresses at saloons. Woody, who seems to have lost all his emotional intelligence, cries, “Why can’t we get along like that?” before storming off. Cody is too busy staring at his brother in horror.
When the idiot does it again, Cody is quick to shut it down because they are in public! At this rate, they’ll actually get discovered and everything will go to shit!
“What are you doing?” Cody demands, leaning onto the pool table.
It’s only then that Zack and Bailey seem to realize what’s going on as they hastily break away from each other, looking around frantically. Zack says something about the Patriots out of nowhere and, like, come on, they’re not even trying.
Luckily, London proceeds to wander into the room and she’s attention grabbing enough that Cody relaxes.
Everything will be fine.
…And then the boat starts SINKING.
Cody finds Bailey’s cap floating in the hot tub water. Cody says, “Here’s your hat, Bailey.” And then he actually looks at Bailey. His mind goes blank.
He says, “Dude, you’re a girl!”
And Bailey looks sheepish.
What the FUCK.
So. Bailey is a girl, actually, and Zack had known and has been helping her hide, and he definitely likes her but only because SHE’S A GIRL.
So Zack doesn’t like boys, but Cody does, and now Cody realizes that he can’t come out to Zack, either.
He suddenly feels a whole lot more alone.