I had gotten up in the morning to run for the first time in weeks. I felt a strange wave of invigoration, which as much as I hated to admit, probably had something to do with the thought of seeing Brooklyn. By the time I had returned to the house, it was after noon, and Nikki was still asleep. Never in my life did I think I would be actively seeking Nikki's eccentric fashion advice, but here I was, tiptoeing around her dark room, grabbing random articles of clothing that just skirted the line between interesting and obnoxious. I turned back and sighed as I looked at Nikki, sound asleep under mounds of covers and pillows, before shutting the door quietly behind me.

I didn't even know why I cared so much about picking which one of Nikki's midriff bearing sweaters to wear - it's not like Brooklyn cared. We were just hanging out. At least, that's what I kept telling myself.

My stomach did backflips as I thought back to yesterday, looping his words in my head over and over again like a broken record. It had been so short and sweet and horribly astonishing that I stood where he left me, dumbfounded in a hospital hallway, much like that very first day he had crashed into me.

My phone rang, and panic set in as I realized I spent so much time daydreaming, I had barely done anything with the tousled mess of hair atop my head. I breathed a sigh of relief when I checked the caller ID.

INCOMING CALL. KEVIN ROSSI.

I rolled my eyes and set my phone face down on my desk, determined to at least attempt to fix myself up before Brooklyn showed up.

I settled on a lightweight peach and yellow striped sweater and a pair of jeans. I raked a comb through my hair a few times before eventually giving up and tying it back in a ponytail. Gray clouds rolled in, and I heard rain start to drizzle down on the roof. At exactly 2:00, Brooklyn pulled up to my house in his orange Mustang, this time with the black cloth of the roof up. Rain started to collect in puddles on the pavement as I made a dash to his car, desperate to keep my hair dry.

"You look nice," he said as I hoisted myself into the passenger seat.

I fumbled with the seatbelt. "Thanks," I replied with a faint smile, hoping he didn't see the blush creeping up my cheeks. I glanced over at him, my face still warm, realizing it was impossible for him to ever look bad, even with his glasses, messy hair, and wrinkled green Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt. Brooklyn did his usual song shuffling, and I sat in a quiet contentment, watching this small town I called home fly by in a dull blur. I smiled faintly as we passed the Thank You For Visiting Devil's Point sign.

Film Press was filled with old, rickety shelves of even older movies, but that wasn't all. Racks of vintage movie posters hung from the exposed brick walls, and glass cases of collectible items like figurines, props, and all sorts of other knickknacks lined the far side of the shop by the cash register. Brooklyn and I snaked our way around aisles of old DVDs.

"Do you like horror movies?" Brooklyn asked as he thumbed through the "Random" selection.

"Do you like breathing?" I replied with a grin. "The cheesier the blood splatter, the better."

"Damn that's too bad." Brooklyn held a DVD in his hand, tapping it on his chin. "My master plan of scaring you so you'd have to hold my hand has been sorely ruined."

I  pretended to shuffle through more DVDs. I glanced at Brooklyn out of the corner of my eye to see him smirking at me.

"You've got jokes, I'll give you that," I retorted. "Does that work on other girls?"

"What other girls?" He kept smirking.

I chuckled and shook my head, trying to center my focus back to browsing movies. My hand grazed over an interesting cover - a photo of a young boy's profile with disheveled, windswept hair. The photo was grainy and had a murky, yellow tinge. But it was the actual title of the movie that made me tilt my head in confusion.

"What's that?" Brooklyn suddenly appeared over my shoulder. I felt his breath hot on my ear as he reached over me to take the DVD box from my hands.

"Gummo," he read. "What the hell is a Gummo?"

"You snatched it before I had a chance to read it," I said as I crossed my arms over my chest. Brooklyn slung his arm around my shoulders, leading us away from the DVD racks.

"Lonely residents of a tornado-stricken Ohio town wander the deserted landscape trying to fulfill their boring, nihilistic lives," Brooklyn read the back of the DVD box dramatically. "Critics have called this film fascinating, intoxicating, life-changing, and enlightening."

I looked at him with wide eyes, and he grinned that fierce grin of his again. "I think I'm in the mood to be enlightened," he said. "What about you?"

"I'd like to think I'm very enlightened already." I gave him a sarcastic eye roll. "But if you insist."

We walked to the front of the shop where the registers were. I studied the figurines in the glass display case - a nightmare-fuel inducing combination of grotesque creatures and trolls.

Brooklyn handed the young, mousey girl behind the counter his credit card, and I noticed the girl fluster when she touched Brooklyn's hand. I was relieved I wasn't the only one Brooklyn had that effect on.

"Um..." the girl piped in a soft voice. She twirled Brooklyn's card between her hands. "Your card isn't working."

Brooklyn's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Yeah..." the girl fidgeted and avoided eye contact with him. "I ran it a few times, it keeps declining."

Brooklyn plucked the card from the girl's hand and bent it between his fingers. Dean Keller was the name printed on the bottom of the card. His father, I assumed. I watched the veins on Brooklyn's forehead pulse, the red in his cheeks deepening by the second.

"That motherfucker..." He hissed through clenched teeth. "He locked the fucking card."

"Do you want me to-" I tried to offer to pay, but Brooklyn shut me down hard and fast.

"No. I got it." He thumbed through a surprisingly large wad of cash in his wallet, pulling out a $20 bill and handing it to the girl.

"Keep the fucking change," he mumbled before grabbing my hand and leading me out of the shop. We stood under an overhang, the rain still coming down hard and thunder rumbling in the distance.

"Stay here," he ordered, his voice still laced with annoyance. "I'll go get the car."

By the time we got to Brooklyn's house, the rain had become torrential. Brooklyn's scowl faded as he pulled his car into one of the open garages on the side of the house. A clap of thunder vibrated the whole garage. He smiled at me as he helped me out of the car, like the whole ordeal had never happened.

He silently led me through the laundry room that was attached to the garage, down a small side hallway and eventually back to the big open kitchen I sat in during our last brief visit. Everything seemed smaller in the dimness of the storm outside, without sunlight flooding the rooms through all the open windows. 

I took my same stool at the kitchen island while Brooklyn started pulling random items out of the fridge.

"You hungry?" he asked as he grabbed plates from a cabinet next to the fridge. "I don't wanna brag, but I make a pretty mean grilled cheese."

"Well, I guess I can't say no to that." I smiled at him, which seemed to alleviate the tenseness in his eyes. At least for the moment.

Suddenly the speaker at the far end of the counter blared to life, sending some chirpy 80s pop I wasn't familiar with to every corner of the kitchen.

"Do you know this song?" Brooklyn asked.

"No, should I?" I almost had to yell over the music.

Brooklyn held his hand out to me. "Allow me to educate you."

The moment my palm slipped into his, he yanked me out of the stool and started twirling me around the kitchen as the song picked up.

Everybody wants you

Everybody wants your love

I'd just like to make you mine all night

"What is this?" I tried to catch my breath between words, although I wasn't sure if it was Brooklyn's wild dancing, or how close our bodies were that made my lungs beg for air.

"I really refuse to believe you've never heard KC and the Sunshine Band." Brooklyn shook his head. "It's a classic."

Before I knew it he was singing out loud, trying not to laugh as he belted out every na na, na na, na na in the chorus. He wasn't even a particularly good singer, but the way he crooned out the lyrics so naturally made my heart swell.

We both danced like idiots across the kitchen floor, so tuned in on laughing and trying not to trip over each other's feet that we didn't hear the front door open.

"Why the hell does it smell like burnt cheese in here?" Ella scurried into the kitchen with two bags of Whole Foods groceries, carelessly dropping them onto the countertop. Brooklyn and I stumbled over each other as we stopped our lucid dancing and realized there was bread and cheese burning on the stove.

"Oh shit." Brooklyn dashed to the stove and managed to salvage one of the sandwiches.

"Brooklyn," the warning tone of voice came from his mother, who walked into the kitchen shortly after Ella with her own bags of groceries. "How many times have I told you if you use mayonnaise instead of butter, it won't burn."

"I know I know, except there's one problem with that: mayonnaise is disgusting." Brooklyn scrunched his nose up.

"Nice to see you again Natalie." His mother gave me a white-toothed smile that shined against her tan skin. I felt like I was looking at Ella 30 years into the future with her high cheekbones and lightly freckled nose.

"Yeah, you too," I replied as I slid back into my same stool at the kitchen island.

"Anyway, I have to talk to you." Brooklyn dropped a plate with half a sandwich on it in front of me, but kept his eyes on his mother.

Ella gave me a sideways glance as she leaned next to me on the kitchen island. I thought back to the credit card incident at the movie store, and the anticipation made my heart thump hard against my ribs.

"If this is about that trip with Ricky to Costa Rica again, I already told you it's not happening." Brooklyn's mother brushed him off as she continued putting fruit away into the fridge.

"What? No, I'm over that." Brooklyn crossed his arms tensely over his chest. "Earlier today, I tried to buy a stupid DVD at the movie store, and dad apparently locked my damn credit card."

"You mean his credit card," his mother pointedly corrected him. I noticed Ella tense up beside me.

"That's not the point," Brooklyn groaned. "Look, can you just tell him to lay off? I don't know what he thinks I'm getting myself into. It's like he's out to get me or something."

"He's not out to get you. He's just trying to prevent you from doing unnecessary things with your money." Even her words seemed to tip-toe. It was almost as if she was afraid to say the obvious. She continued to keep her voice calm and steady, while Brooklyn looked like he was ready to fly off the handle.

"Mom, drug dealers don't take credit cards." Brooklyn snapped. It was almost funny, but the tenseness of the moment squashed any humor. The kitchen fell silent, and Ella placed her hand gently on my forearm, like a silent plea for me to intervene.

"Brooklyn, maybe we should go start the movie," I blurted out. "You know, just before it gets too late."

Thunder rumbled outside as heavy silence continued to fill the kitchen. Finally, Brooklyn let out a deep sigh and nodded. "Yeah, let's go."

I briefly made eye contact with Ella before leaving the kitchen, and a flicker of hurt flashed over her before she turned away and continued unpacking groceries.

I followed Brooklyn down the hall to the staircase, where photos lined the walls leading up to the second floor. I brushed my hand over Brooklyn and Ella's senior photos, all airbrushed with their white-toothed smiles and deeply tanned summer skin.

"I had football pants on in that picture," Brooklyn quipped.

"Really?" I raised an eyebrow.

"They scheduled all the pictures during practice, but we only needed to be dressed from the waist up. So I kept my football pants on, threw a suit jacket on, took the picture, and went back to practice."

His smile made me smile. It was just that simple.

As we walked further up the stairs, the photos became older and faded, and Brooklyn and Ella got younger and younger as I passed each one. One trip to Disney. Junior football and cheerleading. Several Christmas dinners. They were so painfully normal, they even had one of those awkwardly staged family photos in white turtlenecks and jeans. Looking at them all in one place made my chest swell, like a balloon with too much air. Any family photos I had were too old to remember, and buried away.

When we reached Brooklyn's room, I couldn't help but notice little chips in the doorframe along the hinges, like someone had slammed it over and over again until it cracked and broke.

The way a man kept his bedroom said a lot about him. I didn't know what I expected Brooklyn's room to look like, but it definitely wasn't what I walked into.

A queen sized bed with gray sheets was pushed against the right side wall, and a black comforter was kicked to the edge of the bed. A few shoeboxes were neatly stacked next to the door, and a tiny, four drawer dresser sat against the wall next to the boxes. A TV hung on the wall across from the bed, but any other wall space was empty. The air felt thin, like there was too much empty space for it to fill. Everything felt shrunken and tiny, and the big windows that overlooked the ocean only added to the openness of the space.

"You can sit on my bed," Brooklyn said as he kicked off his sneakers and placed them on top of one of the shoe boxes. "I'm sorry I don't have a chair for you or anything." He kept his back to me, messing with a tangle of wires underneath the TV. "I kind of sold most of my stuff over the years. It's not like my parents were shelling out cash for me to buy pills."

I swallowed hard. I took my sandals off by the door and padded over to his bed. It creaked when I sat on the edge, and Brooklyn's smoky, tangy aroma wafted up from the sheets.

"This thing is ancient," Brooklyn said, shaking an Xbox controller. "But it gets the job done."

He loaded the DVD up on the console, then flopped onto the bed and put his hands behind his head, his t-shirt sleeves straining against his arms. I sat rigid, still on the edge of the mattress. I cautiously swung my legs onto the bed, desperate not to touch him, for fear of spontaneous combustion from the heat his body gave off.

The beginning of the movie was grainy, and the sound quality was shoddy at best. The town in the movie was ravaged by a tornado, and the child narrating the film seemed almost amused by it.

I glanced over at Brooklyn, who seemed engrossed in the bizarre imagery of the movie. His breathing had steadied, and every so often his eyes would droop shut, just for a moment, before snapping back open. Looking at him was like driving by a car crash - volatile, unsettling, twisted and gritty, but impossible not to stare.

I tried to turn my attention back to the movie. The boy in the movie held a dirty grey cat by the scruff of its neck, putting it in a trash can and aiming a shotgun at it.

"Oh my god, they're gonna shoot the cat!" Without thinking, I turned my body into Brooklyn's, burying my face in his chest. His body vibrated under me as he laughed, and I felt him gently snake his arm around my shoulder, but kept the weight of his arm suspended over me, like he still wasn't sure if that was where it belonged. The sound of the gun went off with a muffled bang. 

"We can change it if you want to," he said.

"No, it's okay. It's fine." I shook my head. "I can handle a lot in movies, but animal cruelty is not high up on that list."

I let out a sigh and slowly leaned my head on Brooklyn's chest. I felt his fingers graze my arm gently, sending goosebumps prickling up my skin. His chest heaved as he exhaled, finally letting his arm rest on my shoulders. I eased my eyes shut, listening to the slow rhythmic pounding of his heartbeat. I felt safe in his arms, like the world could end and we would still be exactly where we were, untouched and unscathed. Our bodies fit together perfectly. Almost too perfectly.

The movie chirped along in the background. "Life is great. Without it, you'd be dead."

"Is she sleeping?" a voice whispered.

I slowly opened my eyes, my cheek still pressed against Brooklyn's soft t-shirt and my hair obscuring most of my face.

"I think so," I heard Brooklyn say. He shifted his body underneath me, and I squeezed my eyes shut as tight as I could.

"Dad's home," the voice whispered again. I finally recognized it as Ella's, but more tense than she usually sounded. Almost scared. "I think he's pretty pissed off. He wants you to take a drug test."

"Well I'm pissed off too," Brooklyn hissed. He shifted again under me, this time gently sliding me off of him, resting my head on a pillow. I felt the bed rattle as he got off and walked to the doorway. I inhaled deeply and held my breath, trying to focus on their hushed words.

"You heard what I said to Mom. He locked my fucking credit card, Ella," Brooklyn said. "I was trying to buy a $12.95 movie, do you have any idea how embarrassing that was? And in front of her?"

"Brooklyn he said something about the savings account," Ella shot back. "I don't know what you needed to withdraw $200 for, but it just looks really bad."

"I don't care how bad it looks, he needs to get off my back and out of my space." Brooklyn said through clenched teeth. "Maybe if he just fucking trusted me, we wouldn't have this issue."

"You know he can't do that." Desperation threaded its way through Ella's words. "Just go take the damn drug test. Maybe he'll unlock the credit card once the test comes back clean."

I heard Brooklyn groan before his stomping footsteps faded away down the hall. I opened my eyes to see Ella still standing in the doorway. The perfect facade she usually wore was gone, replaced by a red nose and glassy eyes.

"I'm sorry," Ella mumbled. "We didn't mean to wake you."

"It's fine," I said as I sat up. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, everything's okay," Ella said hurriedly. "My brother and my dad, they just bump heads sometimes."

Ella twirled a chunk of dark hair around her finger. I swore I could hear the faintest yelling echoing through the house. Ella sighed and walked over to me, sitting on the side of the bed. She rested her hands in her lap.

"Sometimes I think my dad is afraid of him," Ella's voice was barely a whisper. She scowled. "Maybe not afraid of him, but...afraid of what he might do."

Ella opened her mouth to say something else when Brooklyn appeared in the doorway. All the color was drained from his face. He sniffed and swallowed hard.

"I should probably take you home now," he said. I nodded tensely as I got up, leaving Ella still sitting on Brooklyn's bed.

A painful silence hung in the air the entire car ride back to my house. Brooklyn flipped through several heavy metal songs before letting out a frustrated groan and shutting the radio off. The rain pounded hard on the windows, and I couldn't steady my bobbing knees.

When we pulled up to my house, Brooklyn kept his hands white knuckle tight on the steering wheel.

"Thanks for today," I offered a weak smile. "I had a good time."

"You're welcome," he replied gruffly, keeping his eyes down.

I fumbled with the seatbelt as I tried to escape the car. Before I shut the door behind me, I turned back to him.

"Will you text me when you get home?" I asked.

He finally looked up at me, his blue eyes glazed over with a terrible, empty hurt that made my heart clench. "Sure," he mumbled.

I shut the car door and watched him pull away. Rain came down on my head in fat blobs, and despite getting soaked, all I wanted was a shower.

After quite literally needing to cleanse my soul, I laid in bed, wrapped tightly in my plush blanket. Brooklyn dropped me off at 7:22. It took exactly 16 minutes to get from my house to Brooklyn's. It was 8:30. Eventually sleep claimed me, my phone still blank beside me.

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