Crash Into Me | ✓

seven

"You tell me why you were really in the hospital, and no jokes this time."

"I knew that was coming." He snickered and held his hands up. "You sure you want to know?"

"Yes. I do." I bit down on my lip. I wanted to know so much about him.

Brooklyn sucked in a breath and nodded. "So, I have this really bad allergy..."

"Okay..." I leaned forward in my chair. "To what?"

"Well, every time I do heroin, I break out in handcuffs."

It took me a moment to digest what he actually said, and when I looked up at him, I was met with a toothy grin that spread wide across his rosy cheeks. His brilliant laugh filled the little patio again, and I swore I could have felt other peoples' eyes on us.

I scoffed and smacked his arm. "I said no jokes!"

"But it's the truth," he insisted, still laughing in between words.

I kept my glare on him. A sigh escaped his lips as he ran his hand down the side of his face.

"I mean, there's never an easy way to tell someone you have - or had, I guess - a drug problem," he said with a shrug. "I just have it in my head that if I joke about it, it won't sound as serious as everyone thinks it is."

A heavy sigh escaped my lips, and when he smiled at me, I smiled back. His energy was infectious. "Well, thanks."

"For what?" he asked. "Telling the truth? I've kind of learned lying doesn't get me anywhere."

He kept his eyes on me, and my stomach flipped as I watched him run his tongue along his bottom lip. A rush of heat tore through me. The way my body reacted to him without warning was infuriating, and my head couldn't keep denying what my physical being already knew. Looking up at him with the sun hitting his face made my breath catch in my throat. With eyes like an ocean, freckles like a map of stars across his cheeks, and a boyish smile that probably made most girls melt, he had an undeniable charm to him. A subtle, unrefined charm, but I'd be lying if I didn't say my heart fluttered furiously in my chest every time he looked at me.

"Well..." I sighed wistfully. "It seems like you're getting the hang of it."

"I'm trying," he shrugged. "That's more than a lot of people can say."

The softness of his voice took me by surprise, and I felt myself wince. "Can I ask you something else?"

"Nope, any more and I've gotta charge you by the hour."

He smirked and bumped my knee under the table with his, and I let out a giggle. I never giggled.

"Well then." I sat up rigid straight in my chair in an attempt to regain my composure. "You just said that you joke about it so people don't take it so seriously. But...is it actually serious?"

I didn't know how many lines I was crossing with him, but I'd never been so compelled to just know someone the way I wanted to know him.

Brooklyn nodded intently, pinching his lips together like he was trying to wrack his brain for the right words.

"You know how they told us in those stupid D.A.R.E. classes they made us take in the 5th grade not to share dirty needles?" He chewed on his bottom lip before continuing. "Well, what they don't tell you is that when you're in some guy's basement and you're so dope sick you can't see straight, the last thing you're worried about is dirty needles."

I couldn't pretend that I didn't feel bad for him. He seemed so good and sweet and...normal. Dirty needles and dope sick were foreign concepts to me, but if you had told me that at one point it was his norm, I wouldn't have believed it. A red blotchiness crept up his neck, and he shifted awkwardly in his chair.