brooks & hale ✔️

hale

twenty nine ;
h a l e

"NO WAY THAT'S TRUE."

"Dude, it is," Will said insistently. "It's the truest thing I've ever done."

Dylan scoffed. "That doesn't even make sense."

"Neither does your face," Will retorted childishly. "Doesn't mean I protest it, huh?"

"I'm with Dylan." Coralie rolled her eyes at Will's indignant look of betrayal. "You really expect me to believe you did a fucking backflip off the monkey bars? Get real, Will."

"You don't believe me? Well, I have proof," Will said, and just as Hale anticipated, Will appeared at his side grinning with a little too much vigour for anything good to follow. "Hale, go ahead, tell them. Tell the haters it's just as I said."

It was a rare sunny day for England, possibly due to the fact it was March and Winter was officially over, and the four of them were making the walk to Juniper's after school. They were meeting the others there, seeing as they'd had a free last period and managed to sneak out to snag a large booth before the afternoon rush.

"I hate to admit it, but William speaks the truth for once," Hale sighed, ignoring the ridiculously smug look Will was sporting at the affirmation. "I would know, because I didn't believe it either and dared him to do it."

Hale had been so sure that one would end in another emergency trip to the A&E department. They'd only been about eleven or twelve, messing around at Ashfield Park, when Will started making his ridiculous claims that he could do a backflip off the monkey bars. Naturally, Hale laughed in his face and offered his top set of Match Attax cards if Will did it, which had been a big deal. Match Attax was the latest craze back then and the fact Hale was willing to give away his favourite players showed he really didn't think Will could do it.

By some miracle, Will actually did the backflip, even if it was shaky at best and he ended up bruising his feet from the impact. Will had been just as surprised as Hale at the feat he'd pulled off, even though he claimed it was because he had been practising off the bunk bed he shared with Wendy at the time.

"Aha!" Will said triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you I'd done it? That's right, shower me with praise and amazement."

Coralie and Dylan did no such thing.

"Hale isn't proof, you twatarse," Coralie said. "For all we know, he could just be lying to save your ass."

Will gasped dramatically. "How dare you accuse us of such underhanded things? Hear that, Hale?" He nudged Hale in the side with a grin that contradicted his supposed wounded tone. "Venezuela Gertrude Butterworth doubts us. She's just jealous because monkeys haven't learnt how to do backflips yet."

Coralie growled, "You little - "

Will ducked out of the way of her talon-like fingernails with a laugh. That was one of the few advantages to being a shorty like Will, because if it had been Hale's eyes Coralie had been going to gouge out, he definitely wouldn't have managed to move out of the way in time. It was probably the reason Will was so ballsy; he could easily dodge the attacks the followed his provocation.

"You're an idiot," Dylan told Will. "You really want to prove you can do a backflip, off the bloody monkey bars no less? You can show us yourself. We'll all go to Ashfield Park after school tomorrow."

Will didn't even hesitate. "Gladly."

"Do you even remember how to do it?" Hale asked him skeptically.