Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-4199666-20140111223232

'''ooc: Okay, so this is written like this because I had no way of having Nora talking to herself, so the word bubbles didn't really work. Also, I've been listening to If I Die Young by the band perry like 20 times in the past 7 hours, so this is inspired by that.'''

She could hardly stand the thought of it, but she knew she had to have one last look inside before everything got moved around and taken out. On one hand, it meant acknowledging that this room no longer belonged to her best friend, and on the other hand, it meant that she wouldn't have to see his deathbed every time she walked past the closed door. She took a moment to let the purified air escape her mouth, although it was hardly a sigh as she couldn’t stop the oxygen tank from whirring on, fulfilling its duties. Finally, she pressed her hand on the doorknob, trying to ignore the hole in the door that had been made in order to get Cody out, and as she opened the door, all she could smell was the overwhelming smell of his deodorant.

Unlike herself, who chose whichever deodorant was the cheapest (and had now resorted to using roll-on deodorants to give her lungs a break), Cody would always use the same one. Push, it was called. Nora had never really noticed the smell until now. The scent landed somewhere between a pine car air freshener and an orange, but now it had started to settle, and it was more musty. One week, she couldn’t help but think of the date over in her head. He’d been gone for one week. Paradoxically, she couldn’t help but feel it was the longest week of her life, and also that it had gone by much too fast. His poetry book had long since been removed, kept in a shared possession by Nora and Cody’s girlfriend, (Nora couldn’t stand to think that not even an hour prior, Cody had visited Amber telling her that he wanted to break up, so she didn’t acknowledge that part of history).

Sitting on the desk, Cody’s weapon of choice had long-since been removed, and his floor was tidied up from the mess which he had irately strewn across the room. The room had been changed, and aside from the furniture, which didn’t feel like it was anyone’s possession, the only thing that remained of Cody was his wardrobe and the lingering scent of his deodorant. Nora tried her luck in the laundry hamper to see if there was something which hadn’t yet had the orangey-pine scent rinsed out of it, to no avail. It seemed like nobody else had needed the time to grieve, even though she knew that almost everyone had in some way or another. One of their foster carers had to move back in with their parents for a while, one girl dyed her hair black in honour of Cody, hell, even the resident ass, Phegan O’Connor, had been somewhat less of an asshole to everyone, but to Nora, everyone was so busy trying to move past this black mark on their records, that they forgot to realise that some people took longer to grieve.

Hidden behind the mahogany doors of Cody’s wardrobe was an overwhelming scent of Push. Cody’s shirts were neatly organised on their hangers, and fallen down the bottom was a hoodie of his that Nora recognised from the night he stayed overnight in the hospital with her. Nora wondered if he’d knocked it down on purpose, or if he’d ever hung it up, being so exhausted the morning after, while Nora was unconscious, getting cut open and he was busy spending all of his time worrying about her. She remembered how terrified she’d felt that she wasn’t going to make it through her surgery and how she stayed up all night with him, talking about how she wanted her funeral to look if she did die. The wry irony of it all would have brought tears to her eyes if she was capable of producing anymore. Her eyes were sore and dry and just the thought of losing more water gave her a headache. People must have mistaken that for being past grieving.

The news was that people over at Cody’s old high school were talking about him, and saying how much they wished they got to know him (something Nora had predicted about her own eventual passing, not Cody’s). Over at her own high school, no one really knew of “the Miduna Beach drop out who killed himself over the weekend,” except for the one person who had provided her with that biography. She tugged at the sleeves of the jacket, unfolding them, and then she decided to put it on herself, embracing herself in its warmth and scent, as she wove her hands through the sleeves, and into the pocket, she discovered one more missing treasure in the pocket. It was a penny Cody had found lying on the ground of the hospital while Nora was in there. He had been flipping it up and catching it on his hand, silently getting frustrated when he couldn’t master the heads or tails option.

“What’s up with the coin,” Nora asked after catching it in her peripheral vision. “It’s for extra good luck with the surgery. I know it’ll be fine, but I’m just making sure.” “Do you think I’ll make it?” “Of course you will. You heard them. They do this all the time. Thousands of people go through surgery without any problems every day.”

Nora smiled at the thought. Somehow he knew what to say to lighten the mood, whereas she only seemed to heighten the tension in bad situations. She took solace in the arms of his jacket, while she toyed with the penny in her pocket, her fingers exploring each side of the coin several times over. She sat down on his bed, and considered some of the last words that Cody had said to her, about how he didn’t want to write anymore and how people would only pay attention to his work because they thought he was dying. ''It’s funny when you’re dead, how people start listening. ''She couldn’t help but think about it. She’d listened to her fair share of sad music since Cody’s passing, but this one song in particular had been playing over and over in her head, even while it was dead silent.

Nora whispered a solemn “Goodbye Cody,” before stepping out of his room for what she hoped would be the final time, and something felt warmer inside her. She was never a huge believer in the afterlife, or spirits, but for Cody, she made an exception. He wasn’t overly religious either, but he found a strange poetry in life, and parting with him felt like something that he would have loved to see. Turning around, she took one final look at the room, pausing to take in every detail of it, Cody’s photographs were tacked all over the walls, but Nora had no interest in them. Cody had given her a pile of his favourite ones, and his family needed something of value to look at. Finally, warily, she pulled the knob of the door shut and felt a huge weight fall off her shoulders. Cody was gone, yes, and he was never coming back, but she couldn’t help but notice the bittersweet lining where Cody’s family would finally be proud of his work.  