Crash Into Me | ✓

twelve

I glanced over at Ella, her arms still crossed tightly over her chest. Her sharp features were twisted in annoyance, her nose wrinkled and her mouth pinched into a thin line.

Brooklyn picked up the final ball with a grin. I tried to follow his eyes as he watched the final hoop swing like a pendulum. He threw the ball with such force, and it went through the hoop dead center, hitting the back of the booth with a booming thud.

"Wow, you're not half bad," Nikki said with a smirk.

Brooklyn looked down at me with a grin and elbowed me. "I told you, pick one."

I smiled and tried to hide the blush creeping up my cheeks. I pointed at a husky whose head was too large for its body and its tongue stuck out of its mouth.

"Were you trying to impress me?" I asked coyly.

He shrugged in response. "That depends. Were you impressed?"

"Maybe a little bit." I smiled faintly, squeezing the stuffed dog tightly into my chest.

"Hey, I know you," the kid pipped up. "You were that receiver prodigy from Montgomery Prep," the kid said. "You still hold like five state records. Me and my friends worshipped you."

Brooklyn shrugged. "Thanks, I guess."

The kid frowned. "Didn't you get arrested and kicked off of Clemson? My dad said you were probably in jail by now."

Brooklyn's expression turned stone cold. Ella gasped sharply, and Nikki put her hand on Ella's arm to steady her. I bit down on my lip as I watched Brooklyn's movements, slow and methodical as he reached for the cigarette stuck behind his ear.

"Well, not yet," he replied coolly, letting the cigarette hang unlit between his lips.

Nikki finally let Ella go. She grabbed Brooklyn's arm and dragged him away, with my sister and I following behind them.

We continued to walk through the carnival quietly and made our way to where the parking lot met the edge of the harbor pier, with a tension hanging heavy in the hot spring air. I clutched the cheap dog tightly against my chest, feeling the stiff fur poke against my chin. I watched Brooklyn light a new cigarette with the end of the dying one in his mouth, his trembling hands tossing the old one over the side of the pier.

"I'm going to go get some drinks," Ella said, eyeing a lemonade stand down the boardwalk.

"I'll come with you," Nikki nodded, and the two wandered away, leaving Brooklyn and I behind.

Brooklyn leaned with his back against the railing of the pier. He took long, heaving drags of his cigarette, his eyes closed and his head tilted back into the oncoming dusk.

I leaned next to him, my stomach pressed against the railing. I looked down into the sloshing ocean below, beating against the stony wall of the harbor.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

Brooklyn dropped his head and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I'll be fine."

"Don't let what that stupid kid said bother you." I gently placed my hand on top of his, still gripping the railing of the pier. "You're not that guy anymore."

"It doesn't matter what I am now," he let out a heavy sigh. "People only care about what I was, and they're always just going to enjoy picking at my scabs and trying to make me bleed."

I looked down at the beach, where high tide had come rushing in, filling pockets of sand with foaming, salty water. It must have been a 20 foot drop from the pier into the shallow tide below us. I wondered how many people stood where we stood, their breaths ragged and pained and their head swimming and dizzy, contemplating letting go.