Dear God,

Today was a good day.

I wasn't cranky at all.

I actually laughed a lot.

My sides hurt from laughing.

Cody's eyes danced from making me laugh.

I haven't laughed that hard in ages.

I need to laugh more.

Cody makes me laugh.

I knew there was a reason I kept him around.

Love,

Peyton

Peyton’s P.O.V

I laugh at Cody as he tells me about when he was in high school and some boys in his class pushed his teacher down the hallway on his swivel chair.

“That actually happened?” I wipe my eyes from the tears of laughter.

“Yes!” Cody exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. “And I really wanted to try it!” he adds, whining a little.

I laugh at that, pulling my blanket around tighter. Cody noticed and immediately moved from the chair to the bed, wrapping an arm around me and pulling me into his side.

“Are you cold?” he whispers, pressing a kiss to my temple.

“Nah,” I reply. “My blanket just moved because someone made me laugh really hard,” I mock-glare at Cody, who laughs.

“You loved it,” he teases.

“It hurts to laugh sometimes,” I say huffily. “In my chest.”

“Oh boo-hoo,” Cody teases. “Last time I checked, it was your head, yeah?”

“Yes,” I admit, my cover blown. “You caught me.”

“I think you should get it by now, babe,” Cody says, suddenly his face quite close to mine. My breath hitches at the closeness of him. “I’ll always catch you.”

With that mysterious phrase, Cody quickly presses a kiss to my nose and bounds away, chuckling as he takes refuge on the other side of the room.

“Coward,” I scowl at him.

“You love me,” he sticks his tongue out at me.

“No, I hate you,” I correct him, crossing my arms.

Cody mocks me, saying, “No, I hate you,” in a high-pitched voice.

“I don’t sound like that!” I exclaim, waving my hands in the air.

“I don’t sound like that!” Cody mocks, waving his hands like a crazy person.

“The psychotic ward is just down the hall,” I inform him. “You’re welcome to go get treatment.”

“The psychotic ward is just down the hall,” Cody imitates me.

I scowl and this is when I know that imitation is not, in fact, the sincerest form of flattery.

Cody smiles and comes to sit next to me, the act dropped. “I love you,” he said matter-of-factly, as if he was ordering a pizza.

“I love you too,” I answer, leaning forward and kissing him.

Cody pulls back and immediately starts talking again. “Did I ever tell you about my sister? Well, I have a sister and her name is Ella, and she’s about five years older than me and she thinks she’s too good for me-”

I smile and sit back, readying myself to hear this story yet again. Cody seems to think that I forget everything, but I actually remember a lot of things, especially the things that Cody tells me about himself, as I know that he’ll only tell me once. Except, it seems, when it comes to his sister. He talks about her all the time, and all the fun they had when they were younger, but since he started drinking, she left him in the dust to be with her fancy husband. I knew the stories, yet every time I listened to them like I hadn’t heard them before. I love Cody’s stories.

I knew there was a reason I kept him around.   

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so yeah for those who read letters from liz and were ready to shoot cody bc they thought peyton didn't know about his sister, she did. i didn't mention it before, but just because i wasn't thinking about it. i wanted to focus more on peyton's and cody's relationship, not cody's family. okay? okay. and yes, that was a TFIOS reference :)

cover by @FillesBleu