Cody didn’t knock. He never did, not since that one time when he came crawling back with his eyes too wide and a busted lip, desperate for a safe place to crash.

He figured the window was his best bet — even if he wasn’t exactly welcomed inside after the last time he told your old man to “fuck off” when he was trying to throw him out.

He wriggled, just barely squeezing his body through the window, his hands trembling and his breath heavy, a bit too sharp from all the dirt in his lungs. His jeans tore, and he cursed low under his breath. Once he was in, his bruises burned in a new kind of way, the ones that hadn’t even had time to bloom fully before more kept coming.

“Shit,” he muttered, wiping his bloodstained lip with the back of his hand. He tried to steady himself. He tried to stop trembling. But it was useless.

He could hear your breath from across the room — Cody was too close to reality to care. His feet dragged as he made his way over to you, collapsing onto your sheets.

You were still asleep, your back to him, and for a moment, he almost convinced himself he’d imagined everything. That maybe the bruises were just from a dream. That his body wasn’t as wrecked as it felt, and his soul wasn’t as heavy as it had been after that fight out by the diner.

His arms wrapped around your body like he was trying to hold onto the last thing that mattered. His fingers dug into the soft fabric of your shirt, his lips brushing against your bare skin before he let his face bury itself into the crook of your neck.

He trembled against you, too exhausted to care if he woke you up. He needed to feel something that didn’t hurt. Needed to hear a heartbeat that wasn’t his own, something steady, something real.

The trembling didn’t stop — his body shook like a leaf in the wind, as though the moment he let go, everything would crumble.

“Don’t wake up,” he whispered hoarsely, like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be heard or not. “Just let me stay… just for tonight.”