46. Brian
CHAPTER 46
When I pull into the driveway behind Marty’s SUV, I don’t see Kodi’s Subaru anywhere. I was hoping we’d get a chance to clear the air before we get in the house, but I’ve barely even switched off the ignition when all hell breaks loose.
“Marty! Marty! Kodi’s gone!” Linda Gander is frantic as she bursts out of the front door. She keeps blathering a mile a minute as Marty climbs out of the car. “I wanted to go after her but I’d just put the roast in the oven, now she won’t pick up her phone and she ran out of here so fast I didn’t have time to?—”
“What happened?” I’m at her side before I even realize my feet hit the ground. “Where’d she go?”
“I don’t know! She got upset after…” As if her brain finally caught up with her mouth, her words trail off as she looks me up and down. She purses her lips, as if unsure if she should say anything more.
“Uhh, Mrs. Gander? If you have any information, I might be able to figure out where she went.”
Her eyes narrow slightly, but Marty puts a hand on her shoulder. “We can trust him, Linda.”
The few seconds that follow feel like they’re happening underwater. My brain moves slowly as I try to parse out why on Earth this man is defending me after everything that went down at golf this morning.
“A moment, Marty?” Linda hisses, sending a brief fake smile my way before turning the two of them and speaking low in her husband’s ear. I can’t make out all of what she says, but I hear “article” and “trust” in there, along with a word that sounds suspiciously like gay.
That’s when I start to sink. The slow, painful pressure of trying to impress these people weighs heavier and heavier with every quirk of Linda’s eyebrows as she whispers. This is it, it all seems to say. You never actually belonged here, Brian. No one wants you: not your exes, your parents, this town, or your girlfriend.
“No.”
That one word snaps me out of my underwater world and my head breaks through the surface. Marty is shaking his head at Linda and stepping away.
“I don’t care what that old gossip rag says, Linda. And you shouldn’t either. In fact…” The man takes a deep breath and looks over his shoulder at me, before finally turning his whole body to face the two of them back in my direction. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what made Kodi run out of here in the first place.”
“What? What do you mean?” Linda’s hand flies to her chest. “I had to let her know what people were–”
“That’s enough, honey.”
Marty looks tired. Truly bone-weary, and a flash of guilt shoots through me, remembering how exhausted he seemed out on the golf course.
“I haven’t spent a lot of time with you, Brian, but I’ll say this. Until today, I’ve only ever seen one other person stick up for my daughter the way you did, and that’s her friend, Lily.”
Both Linda and I raise our eyebrows. Of all the things that might have come out of Marty’s mouth, that was the last one I expected.
He shakes his head and continues. “When Kodi got back from the hospital, back when she first tore her ACL, that girl wouldn’t leave us alone. Knocking on our door as soon as school let out to bring Kodi her homework, locking the two of them in her room to study, and then showing up every weekend once she was off bedrest to get her back out into the world. I don’t think even Kodi realizes how much that girl worries about her. And until today, I didn’t think she’d ever open up enough to let anyone else care that much about her.”
I’m absolutely speechless. Apparently, Linda isn’t.
“She’s hardly been a good influence on her.”
Marty gives her a disbelieving look. “It might be hard for you to understand this, honey, but not all friendships are about keeping up appearances.” He takes a pause, and I wonder if there’s more to Marty’s apparent friendship with Coach than meets the eye. “Brian, it sounds like Kodi left after reading the Nosy Pecker article about the loss yesterday. Do you know where she might have run off to?”
I don’t. I wrack my brain for any clue as to where she might have gone, but I realize with a horrible jolt as I do that Kodi and I don’t know each other nearly as well as I wish we did. We may have opened up about some things with each other, but the normal things that couples learn about each other when they start dating: favorite movies, hang out spots, where they feel safe…I don’t know any of that.
But after listening to what Marty just said, I realize I might not have to.
“No, but I know someone who might.”