Chapter 18
Eighteen
The rain started early the next day, and it came down hard and didn’t let up all weekend. Stacks was closed for the holiday, and I couldn’t even run, which meant I had zero mental reprieve, giving me plenty of time to think and overthink every single thing leading up to what happened.
Since the entire town was half underwater for Fourth of July, Gracie and I spent the day buried under a mass of blankets and pillows rereading my favorite Stephen King novel (because obviously reading about other people’s misfortunes with killer interdimensional clowns made us feel better about our current situations).
“Do you plan on sitting in here forever?” I heard my bedroom door open and Mom’s voice, and felt the bed shift as she sat down on the edge of it.
“I’m not sitting. I am very busy,” I replied, muffled through my comforter. I stuck my arm out and flailed around my thick copy of It.
There was a pause, and Mom pulled away some of the blankets until I was greeted with the dim light of my bedroom. Gracie sighed as her peace was disturbed.
Mom put her hand on my forearm and gave it a gentle rub. “Come on, I’m going to pick up sushi. You should come, just to get out of this room.”
“I’m fine.” I shrugged her off.
“Nat—”
“I said I’m fine!” I snapped. Gracie, who never liked it when people raised their voices, promptly got up and huffed at me as she left the room.
If that wasn’t something that filled you with immediate regret, nothing would.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, rubbing my face with my hands.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. I wish I had better advice.” She took a pause and reached over to brush a few strands of staticky hair out of my face. “You’ve always been like this, even when you were young.”
“Like what?”
“Nurturing and supportive. You get that from your dad.”
I glanced over at my notebook on my bedside table. I hadn’t even told Dad what had happened. I wouldn’t know what to say to him. It wasn’t like it was embarrassing to be wrong, but the whole thing made me sad.
“I remember when your sister first started playing soccer,” Mom continued. “She must have been four or five with practically no hand-eye coordination. But you went to every game to cheer her on, and not because we asked you to, but because you wanted to.”
“Also because I was seven and couldn’t stay home alone,” I reminded her.
Gracie poked her long snout back into the room, and when Mom called her over she hopped back onto the bed and rested her head in my lap. I absentmindedly stroked the swirling gray and white fur on the top of her head. She’d come back, even though I’d scared her off.
“You can’t force people to get better, Nat.” Although still soft, Mom’s tone had turned serious. “You know that, but you need to remind yourself more often.”
I nodded. “I’ll try.”
“That’s a good place to start.”
I willed myself up and went with Mom to pick up sushi.
By the time we returned home, the rain had become torrential.
Little waterfalls tumbled off the house gutters, creating dirt-filled puddles in the flower beds my mom had been trying to fill.
Despite the rain, one rose had popped out of a dying bush, desperate to live its life against the odds.
>> <<
I’d fallen asleep at some point Monday afternoon with It open on my lap, rain still gently pattering against the windows. I awoke with a startled jolt as Nikki shook me, half expecting Pennywise the clown to be standing over me.
“What? What’s going on?” I groggily rubbed my eyes, trying to shift my body out of fight-or-flight mode.
“Get up. You’ve got a visitor.”
“I do?”
I asked the question despite knowing the answer, as if somehow asking would change it. My body shook with anticipation, very much back in flight mode. I slid out of bed and padded downstairs as I pulled on a sweater, pressing myself against the window that peered into the porch.
My heart seized when I saw Brooklyn sitting on the wicker rocking chair on our porch, casual in a Clayton baseball hat and Nike shorts. I caught a glimpse of a small bundle of colorful flowers in his hands.
“I told him he had to wait outside,” Nikki said tersely.
I scoffed. “Why would you do that? It’s raining.”
“Because he’s up to something,” Nikki snapped, pointing at the window. She sighed and put her hand to her forehead. “Whatever’s going on with him, you need to sort it out before it gets out of control.”
I thought about what Mom had told me the other day about not forcing people to get better. I shouldn’t—couldn’t—strive to control any of it, but how else would I prevent it from getting out of control to begin with? It made no sense. I had to drive it, because who else would?
“Hey,” Brooklyn greeted me, his voice weary as he stood up from the rocking chair. It squeaked a few times as it continued rocking, banging slightly against the side of the house.
I felt a weird wave of déjà vu wash over me as I looked at him.
So much had changed since the day he first showed up at my house, but the familiar sight of him standing there, smiling down at me, made all of the uncertainty evaporate.
It almost tricked me into thinking we could go back to that first time.
“Hey,” I replied. Brooklyn tensed when I walked closer. “Everything okay?”
“I’m not sure Nikki likes me,” Brooklyn said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“She’s being defensive. It’s like her job,” I responded as I twirled a lock of hair around my finger. I looked down at his hands, calm and steady holding a small bundle of mismatched flowers in an array of pinks and purples and oranges.
“Are those for me?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah.” He handed them to me. “I’m sorry, they kind of suck.”
I ran my hands across the soft petals of the flowers. There was one rose, an orchid, a few carnations, and an azalea, tied at the stems by a thin string. Like outcasts from a garden that didn’t match their own kind but instead complemented each other’s differences. Just like we did.
“No, these are beautiful, thank you,” I said with a nod. “But what are they for?”
Brooklyn scowled, looking down at them as I cradled them in my hands. “For trying to help me the other night. I’m still kind of ashamed you had to see me like that. I’m sorry.”
I looked back up at him, and he smiled at me the way he always did—calm and bright and so assured of himself. It reminded me why it was so hard to walk away; it was for that Brooklyn. That Brooklyn was worth it.
“I like flowers,” I told him.
Brooklyn stepped closer to me and ran his hand up my arm. He gave me a weak smile and kept his hand on my shoulder. “Will you just hear me out, Nat?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Fine. We can sit out here if you want.”
He sat back in the rocking chair, looking out at the road as a car drove by slowly, sloshing through a puddle. “I like the rain.”
“Me too,” I told him, sitting in another chair across from him. “It’s so calming when it’s like this, and I love the smell. It has a name, you know.”
“Does it?”
“Petrichor,” I replied, running my fingers over the petals of some of the flowers. “It’s from the plant oils and bacteria in the soil that build up when it’s dry, and when it rains, the smell of it all is released.”
“Wise girl.”
“I try.”
Brooklyn shifted in the chair, accidentally sending it back against the house with a smack. He rubbed his palms on the thighs of his shorts.
“I want to start with I’m sorry, and I’m an idiot.”
I nodded, and after a moment, he looked at me expectantly.
“I’m sorry, did you want me to tell you you’re not?” I chuckled.
“Guess I deserved that one.” He sat back in the chair with a faint smirk.
“All joking aside, the only thing I want right now is an explanation,” I said to him. “God, I look back at some of the things that happened, and I wonder—”
I knew what I’d seen, but that didn’t make reckoning with it any easier for either of us. As much as being lied to hurt, sometimes the truth hurt too; it just hurt in a different place.
“I feel like you see right through me and all my bullshit,” he muttered.
I wanted to reach over and squeeze his hand, but I kept mine wrapped around the stems of flowers. “Let it out. Like ripping off a bandage.”
“I want you to understand that I’m not like seeking any of this out, you know?
I’m not going out looking for it, and I swear that’s the only thing I’ve done since I’ve been clean.
” His voice splintered, and he paused, desperate to mitigate the damage.
“I used to buy from Dalton. He and a couple of guys had a few grams of coke, and I couldn’t help myself. I thought I could handle it.”
All I could do was listen. It was about all I knew how to do at this point.
I could see his hand tremble as he rubbed the side of his face. “I wanted to fit in so badly. To prove I didn’t have these kinds of problems and that I could be the Brooklyn people think I am. But I lost control, and the next thing I knew I was so loaded I couldn’t see straight.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” I said softly.
“Yeah, and I hate it,” he grumbled. “Anyway, at that point I gave up. I knew I’d relapsed, and I felt like shit about it. I didn’t want to push you away like that, but I couldn’t even imagine that once you found out you’d want to be with someone like me anyway.”
I finally gave in and reached for his hand, and he took it, his hand clammy and still shaky.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Brooklyn’s breaths caught as he tried to hold back whatever storm was brewing inside of him. He rubbed at his eyes, glassy and on the verge of tears. “This was a slipup. That’s all, I swear.”
“It’s going to be all right, Brooklyn,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. It was hard not to cry when watching someone else cry, but one of us had to keep it somewhat together. “You can’t lie to me anymore. I want to help you, but there’s no way I can if you keep pushing me away.”
He nodded and brought his hand up to my face, wiping away a stray tear from my cheek with his thumb. “I promise. No more lying. No more pushing away. Just me and you.”
“Me and you, huh?” I asked, giving him a tired smile.
Brooklyn replied with a chuckle. “I’m not good at this, Nat.
Any of this. I haven’t had a real girlfriend since high school, and that was a disaster.
I don’t bring girls flowers, get into fights over them, or—” He took a deep breath and his cheeks reddened.
“Or beg them to forgive me when I know I don’t deserve it. But you? You make me want to be good.”
“You are good. You don’t have to try,” I reassured him. “But there are things you have to do. Not for me, for yourself. For one, you need to go back to group therapy. It helps my sister, and I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t help you. I’ll even go with you, if you want.”
“I get stuck thinking my problems aren’t as serious as other people’s. Like I’m better than it all or something.”
“I admire your self-awareness.” I chuckled. “But you’re wrong.”
Was I trying, like I told Mom I would? Maybe. But Brooklyn needed someone to prop him up right now, and if I didn’t, who would?