Chapter 8
Eight
Running had been a part of me for as long as I could pick out my own pair of sneakers at Sports Authority.
Mom would have me run back and forth on the little makeshift track in the shoe section to make sure I liked how they fit.
She signed me up for soccer to get me socialized over the summer, and while I was crappy at kicking a ball around, I was a good runner.
I liked running. I believed in runner’s high.
However, I wasn’t sure even runner’s high could calm the buzzing energy coursing through me. Sure, I could keep my cool on the outside, but on the inside, my nerves were all frayed live wires.
Last weekend Brooklyn and I had both agreed that we were friends. That was all well and fine, but as much as my brain agreed, my body insisted on rebelling. Friend or not, I’d never been so frazzled by a boy before. Boys were boys, but Brooklyn was, well, Brooklyn.
He was everything I’d read about in romance novels about the perfect “book boyfriend”—kind, attentive, funny, and honest almost to a fault.
The thing about reading about those kinds of boys was that when you closed the book you were reminded of what they were: fictional.
As in, not real, didn’t exist, fantasy. Except now, here he was.
And maybe for the first time in forever, maybe I wanted him to be that, a boyfriend.
I repeated that to myself (and Gracie) about fifty times while deep in contemplation about what I was wearing to work (Is a summer dress too fancy?
I asked Gracie, to which she replied, You can never be overdressed), and continued to do so until the clock forced me to leave.
I didn’t exactly enjoy the fact that the knowledge of Brooklyn’s presence had me changing up my whole work routine, but I wasn’t sure what I could do about it by this point except grin and bear it.
By the afternoon the shop was quiet, the late-day sunlight slanting in dusty stripes through the front windows, the hum of the old ceiling fan wobbling just enough to sound like a sigh.
I was perched behind the counter, nursing a cold brew that had melted into watery ice, trying to decide if I had the will to open my laptop and write something—anything—before my shift ended.
You’d think working in a bookstore would fill me with inspiration, but somehow, it made me feel worse.
The idea of publishing felt half myth, half miracle.
I’d gotten a few “promising” rejections lately, which was the literary equivalent of being told you’re almost pretty.
I still checked my inbox too often, still imagined an email with We’d love to discuss your work further blinking in bold at the top, even though all I ever saw were Unfortunately and Not a fit for our list at this time.
Sometimes I thought about how Dad would’ve handled that kind of failure; if he would’ve told me to keep sending things out or to stop trying so hard altogether. I hadn’t decided which advice would hurt less.
I was lost in that thought when the bell over the door jingled and Brooklyn appeared with a bag of chips in one hand and a bottle of soda in the other.
“You know,” I said as I watched him shake the bag open, “every time you bring snacks in here, I should remind you food’s technically not allowed.”
He shrugged and popped a chip into his mouth. “Technically, rules are meant to be broken.”
“Yeah, that’s what they say right before they spill salsa on a display copy of Harlan Coben novels.”
He looked scandalized. “This is dry snacking. I’ve matured.”
“Big step for you,” I teased, leaning on the counter.
He gave me a mock glare before his mouth curved into a grin. “So, I’ve been meaning to ask you something, Nat. What do you do? Besides waiting around for me to show up and brighten your day?”
“What do you mean? That’s literally all I do.”
He pointed at me. “See, that right there? Deflection.”
I snorted. “No. Observation.”
“Deflection,” he repeated in more of a singsong voice, smirking.
I reached across the counter for the bag of chips and grabbed one. “No, I’m snacking.”
Brooklyn’s laugh filled the empty store—loud, unrestrained, warm enough to echo off the shelves. I couldn’t help smiling. The sound made the quiet feel less heavy.
“Well, if it makes you feel better, I do wait around to hang out with you, or my friend Alec. But he’s always busy, and I’m pretty sure I’m starting to annoy him. He’s put up with me since middle school, so . . . your turn.”
“To put up with you or tell you what I do?” I sat back in the stool behind the counter and arched an eyebrow at him.
“Both.”
I hesitated, suddenly aware of the way the sunlight hit the counter between us. “Well, I write.”
He leaned forward, forearms braced on the counter like I’d confessed something top secret that he had no business knowing. “No shit, you’re a writer? I guess the bookstore job makes even more sense now.”
“No, I said I write,” I corrected him. “Writer implies success. I’m not there yet.”
“Success is subjective,” he said, serious now.
I shrugged. “Tell that to my inbox full of rejections.”
His lips quirked. “Maybe the world just hasn’t caught up to you yet. I bet you’re way better than you think you are.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to say to that, so I looked away and pretended to straighten a stack of bookmarks beside the checkout screen.
But Brooklyn’s curiosity was disarming; it made me feel seen in a way that was both thrilling and terrifying.
While considering my next words would normally be the smart move, here it gave me too much time to study the way Brooklyn slid a silver pendant back and forth on a thin chain hanging around his neck, and the way the mckinnley’s seafood logo on his gray T-shirt looked faded enough to either be vintage or just worn too often.
Finally, I surrendered with a sigh. “I’ve been trying to get a couple of short stories published in like an anthology sort of thing, but that’s not really working. So I’m trying to write something different in hopes that maybe that works out better. I guess I’m distracted lately.”
“I know how that part feels.”
“Okay, then,” I said. “Your turn. What do you do, besides being distracting and loitering around small businesses?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Oh, I see.” I nodded. “Very convincing.”
He heaved out a sigh. “My mom owns a boutique downtown, and with my semilegit community college accounting degree, I help her do her payroll and books and stuff. Very serious business.”
I scrunched my face up. “I thought you went to Clayton, Mr. Hot Shot Baseball Player.”
“I did. I just didn’t graduate from there.” His face flushed, and he sat back on the bench. “That whole painkiller thing might have gotten me kicked off the team and out of school. But it’s fine. I mean, I’m fine.”
I heard my sister in him—the constant need to reassure people how badly you didn’t need help because god forbid you asked for it, as if it was a crime to do so.
Brooklyn handled it with admittedly a bit more humor and pluck, but the sound was still familiar enough.
I offered him a faint smile, and swore I could see the tension leave his shoulders.
“I’m sure you are,” I said, softer than I meant to. “But it’s okay not to be fine too.”
He tilted his head, studying me. “Spoken like someone who’s been to family therapy.”
I smiled faintly. “Yeah. I guess you would know, wouldn’t you?”
“My family therapy sessions were great, okay?” Brooklyn scoffed. “My therapist, John, looked and sounded exactly like the guy from Jurassic Park who tries to steal the egg embryo things and gets attacked by the Dilophosaurus. You know, Get the stick, stupid?”
“The fact that you know exactly what dinosaur that is is astounding.” I shook my head. “What is your obsession with Jurassic Park, anyway?”
“I was one of those toddlers who really loved dinosaurs, and I guess I never grew out of it.”
That earned another laugh from me. “You’re an endless source of unnecessary knowledge.”
We fell into a companionable quiet then—the hum of the fan above us, the soft shuffle of paper as the breeze through the cracked window flipped a page on an open book near the register.
Finally, I spoke up in a way I wished I had months ago. “You can tell me, you know. If you ever need to. I won’t judge you.”
After a moment that felt more like an eternity, he heaved out a sigh. “All right.”
He really looked at me now, his eyes dark like the ocean in a storm, so sharply serious with the faintest glint of fear in them.
“Fall semester of my senior year, I was at a party. I was in full-blown addiction by this point, although I either didn’t realize it or was in denial at the time.
I was drinking almost every day, and I was eating Adderall like candy so I could keep up with my schoolwork.
So at this party, I was buying oxy from some guy I found through connections.
I don’t even know. Anyway, the cops busted the party, and I got caught with enough on me to get pinned with intent to sell controlled substances.
The school and the team caught wind of it and bye-bye scholarship. ”
I was listening intently, but that silence we’re told we should sit in must have unnerved him, and he squirmed on the other side of the counter.
“But, listen, Nat, I swear I was never selling drugs,” he pleaded. “I would have been the worst drug dealer ever. I probably would have just done all the drugs.”
It felt wrong for laughing at that, but I did, and when he laughed, too, it felt right.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I put my hand over my mouth. “Continue, please.”
“Well, that’s really it.” He shrugged. “My dad knew a lawyer, he got possession pled down because it was my first offence, and I went to court mandated rehab for ninety days. Got out, somehow finished my last semester at community college, and I’d been doing outpatient until about last week, which you know. So, yeah, I am fine now.”
“I believe you.”
Something eased in his expression then; his shoulders lowered, the tension draining from his jaw. It was the same look Nikki used to have after therapy, that quiet exhaustion of someone who’d spoken a truth they hadn’t expected to share.
He tried to joke again. “Thank god. For a second, I thought you were going to whip out a polygraph test next.”
I smiled, even though it ached a little. “No polygraphs here. Only curiosity. I like to know things. It makes life feel safer.”
“So you can stop bad things before they happen,” he said, not unkindly.
I met his gaze, startled by how close to home his words hit. “Exactly.”
I sucked in a breath, suddenly hyperaware of how see-through I must have been to him, like I was made of frosted glass and all my wiggling organs were on display.
But the thing was, I didn’t mind. “My sister is supposed to come home next week, and I’m mortified about feeling like I’m going to have to micromanage her. For my own sake, not hers.”
He nodded. “How about this: I’ll mitigate you if you mitigate me.”
“That’s not even remotely how that word works,” I said, laughing despite feeling like someone was hanging me upside down.
“Still sounds like a deal.”
He held out his hand across the counter, and I took it. His palm was warm and a little calloused. His fingers curled around mine like he didn’t want to let go too fast.
Just like that, the whole bookstore seemed to go still, because it wasn’t hard to feel how perfectly our hands fit together.
June 2
Hey Dad,
I feel like I should tell you more about Brooklyn—or rather, what I’m starting to feel when he’s around.
It’s like he’s actually paying attention.
Not the way people do when they’re waiting for their turn to talk, but like he’s listening to what I’m not saying.
It’s strange how comforting that can be.
For the first time in a while, I don’t feel like I have to edit myself when I speak, to not have to appear so together and stable.
He told me things today that I don’t think he tells most people. Heavy things. Messy things. I don’t know why he trusted me with them, but he did. Afterward, he looked lighter. That should feel good, right? To help someone carry their load for a little while?
But here’s what I keep wondering: Am I helping him by listening and being present or do I just need him to need me?
It’s a bad thought, but it comes to me in little flashes the same way most crappy thoughts of mine do.
I like feeling useful—not just because it makes me feel good, but also because it makes me feel safe.
Mom tells me I was like that even when I was young.
You probably remember. But I don’t know where the line is between kindness and dependency, or if there even is one.
Even so, I don’t want to have the same missteps I had with Nikki. I want to get it right the first time.
Love, Nat