Chapter 11
Eleven
I woke up late the next morning, still without a text or explanation from Brooklyn. Nikki meandered into my room around ten and sat cross-legged at the foot of my bed, furiously scrolling through her phone.
“I cannot believe he doesn’t have one social media account.” She groaned. “I can’t even find a goddamn Instagram. Like, who doesn’t have Instagram?”
“What? Who?” The words were groggy as they came out of my mouth, and I sat up in bed and tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes.
It was still raining out, and through my open window, the dark sky cast a gray haze across my room.
A small pile of clothes (mostly running attire) had collected at the foot of my bed, and suddenly all I could think about was how badly I needed to do my laundry.
“Brooklyn.” The duh was implied.
I followed up with the next obvious question, even though I could have probably predicted Nikki’s response. “Why?”
“Because I need the insider info on who my sister is dating,” she replied, again with a duh implied. “I need to know where he went to preschool, who his best friends are, identify any potential competition that comments on his photos . . . you know, the standard stuff.”
“Please.” I groaned as I swung my legs over the side of the bed and got up. My knees popped and cracked as I stretched. “We’re not dating.”
I didn’t even want to speak it into existence, because that made whatever was going on that skirted the line between friends and more than friends too real. Not just for my sake, but for his too. I kept what he’d said at the forefront of my mind: People in recovery shouldn’t date. Period.
“Do you have clothes you need me to put in the wash?” I asked Nikki.
“What?” She shot me a confused look. “Can you focus, please?”
“I am focused—on things I have to get done today. Laundry. Quick Mart for Mom because she’s teaching back-to-back classes at the community center. Library to return a few books. Feel free to join me for any of those.”
Nikki, whose head had been back down in her phone during my quick tirade (and may or may not have been listening at all), suddenly snapped upright. “Oh. I found something.”
“What did you find?” I sighed.
She scooted to the edge of the bed and handed me her phone. An old article from ESPNU illuminated the screen, and the headline in big, bold letters read standout clayton university baseball star brooklyn keller dismissed from team following drug allegations.
She’d actually gone ahead and searched him, and while I should have been frustrated that she kept poking and prodding when I’d asked her not to, it was frustrating for a different reason—that that was the first thing that came up when anybody searched him. It didn’t seem fair.
The lack of surprise on my face when I handed Nikki her phone back was enough to throw her for a loop, and she tossed her hands up. “You knew?”
“Yes, I knew,” I replied steadily, gathering the clothes on my floor. “He told me.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” She clapped her hands to her sternum.
“I obviously did not.” I shot her a stern look. “It’s his business, and therefore not my place to share it.”
Nikki scoffed and sat back on my bed, leaning against the wall. “That’s why he was at Otter House, wasn’t it? Damn, this whole time I thought he’d been visiting someone. You think you know a guy.”
“Now you know.” I groaned as I bent over to pick up a stray sock that had fallen out of the wad of clothes in my arms. “Now, please. Laundry. Wash. Things.”
With a dramatic sigh, Nikki slid off the bed as if she were melting onto the floor. “In a minute. I need to lie here and reflect on my deteriorating snooping skills.”
“You do that.” I nodded before maneuvering myself out of my room, trying not to drop any more stray clothes.
I was hanging halfway into our washing machine to load it when through the walls and the splattering of the rain outside, Nikki called my name. As I lifted my head out of the drum of the machine, I realized she’d actually been screaming.
With my heart in my throat I ran out of the laundry room, nearly slipping on the wooden floor in my socks as I darted up the steps two at a time.
“Nikki?” I called into what felt like the void. The darkness of the upstairs hallway lit up in a flash of lightning.
“In here!” Her voice cracked as she called back from Mom’s room. Nikki was on her knees on the bed, hovering over Gracie, who was sprawled across the thick white comforter.
“She’s not moving,” Nikki croaked. Her shoulders heaved up and down as strained breaths came from her tiny frame. I trod across the carpet carefully, avoiding imaginary landmines as if the wrong step would blow us all sky-high.
Gracie’s breath came out in short, ragged spurts, and her eyes remained closed even when I eased myself onto the bed.
“Come on, girl,” I whispered to her. “What’s wrong?”
And even though her responses were always in my head, even there it was silent.
“Okay.” I got off the bed and stood rigid, desperately trying to keep it together in front of Nikki. “Okay. Okay. Okay.”
I repeated it until I believed it.
“We have to get her to the vet.” I forced the words past the tangled knot of tears in my throat.
“How?” Nikki bawled. “She’s, like, a hundred pounds. I can’t—” She took a wheezing breath, wrapping her arms around her waifish, trembling body. “We can’t move her.”
I slipped my phone out of my pocket and tried Mom, but I knew she kept her phone on Do Not Disturb during classes.
My thumb twitched as I hovered over my text message thread with Brooklyn—still radio silent since yesterday—before quickly hitting the Call button next to his contact. It rang only twice before he answered.
“Hi.” He sounded a little breathless, and a little surprised. I’d never outright called him before.
“Hi.” I tried to stay cordial and not let the panic seep through my voice. I could keep it together. I had to keep it together.
“Hi.” This time I could hear him smile.
I took a measured breath before continuing. “Are you, uh, are you busy?”
“No, I’m not.” There was a pause. “Everything all right?”
“Um, well, no.” I breathed out. “It’s my dog. She . . . she’s breathing but she’s not moving. She won’t get up. We need to take her to the vet, but she’s big. We can’t carry her.”
This time there was no hesitation. “I’m leaving now.”
I don’t know how long we sat huddled on the bed, flanking Gracie as if we weren’t too late to protect her from whatever was happening, but I watched shadows of clouds dance across the floor as rain gently pattered against the window, and it was almost peaceful.
When the doorbell rang, I used whatever surge of adrenaline I had to keep myself together as I dashed down the stairs.
Just before I opened the door, I rubbed at my face and blinked away any stray tears that had made their homes in the corners of my eyes.
God forbid I looked as distraught as I felt.
I swung the door open to see Brooklyn standing in the rain wearing a thick, square-framed pair of glasses and a backward hat.
He looked out of sorts, with stubble prickling across his chin and a tired heaviness to his features.
But then he stepped through the threshold of the door and pulled me into a hug, and his sweet, boyish charm overtook it all.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he mumbled into the top of my head. His jacket was damp and made goose bumps prickle down my arms, but I hugged him back like he was the warm little center of my universe.
“I’m sorry.” I shook my head as I pulled away from him. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” He put his hands on my shoulders. “It’s your dog. That’s family.”
I gulped my heart down and nodded before turning and leading him upstairs. Nikki didn’t care about appearing to keep it together; her eyes were puffy and red as thick tears rolled down her cheeks. She had her arm around Gracie’s torso, and as we approached her, she tensed.
“Be careful,” she pleaded before she finally let Gracie go.
We slid Gracie to the edge of the bed so Brooklyn could get his arms under her and lift her up safely. We flanked him like a doggie secret service as he trekked down the stairs with a gentle precision.
“Nikki, get an umbrella,” I told her as we made it to the base of the stairs.
“I can drive,” Brooklyn offered. Even though he was already doing enough, I didn’t have the energy to debate it.
I nodded and opened the door for him as Nikki jogged back into the foyer with a big umbrella.
They stepped outside, and she held it over Brooklyn (for Gracie, really), and I slipped on whoever’s jacket was hanging by the door before following them out.
Nikki sat in the back seat with Gracie, cradling her head in her lap, and I watched in the rearview mirror as Nikki sniffled and rubbed Gracie’s nose.
Nikki barely knew life without Gracie. I might have been Nikki’s big sister, but Nikki was Gracie’s.
I knew what that felt like—the instinctive, almost carnal need to protect your little sister.
“Thank you,” I said to Brooklyn, and it came out softer and more distressed than I wished it did.
“No need.” He shook his head. “You’d do the same for me. If I had a dog.”
I choked out a quick laugh, and it dislodged a few tears that had been choking me up.
They rolled freely down my cheeks, and I let them.
His lips lifted into a gentle smile, and at the very least, he seemed back to his usual self.
Maybe I was just emotionally vulnerable, but I had to believe that whatever had transpired last night seemed to be gone.
>> <<
Nikki refused to leave Gracie’s side and went into an exam room with a nurse while they took Gracie’s vitals. I managed to get a hold of Mom in between her classes, and in the fifteen or so minutes (ten if she ran red lights) it took her to get from there to here, Brooklyn refused to leave my side.