Today is the greatest day
That I have ever really known.
~ Smashing Pumpkins "Today"
It was an unusually sunny afternoon on the La Push reservation where Brooklyn Fisher lived with her mom, Jamie Basina, and older half-brother Paul Lahote. Brooklyn's father, Steven Fisher, was a "pale face" who had had an affair with her mother approximately sixteen years ago, and then decided he would rather go back to—what Brooklyn could only assume was—a loveless marriage to a woman named Kathy, than to stick around and play happy family with her mother. Needless to say, they weren't close. In fact, she thought he was kind of a dick, but she would probably never say that to his face.
On this particular afternoon, Brooklyn was in her room humming along to a song that was playing from her laptop while trying to find a particularly elusive pair of denim shorts that she had hoped to wear to the beginning of the year party that one of the soon-to-be seniors was throwing that night at the La Push beach. She was wearing a crop top and pajama shorts, and her dark hair was gathered into a sloppy ponytail. Her tan skin glimmered with sweat from the summer heat that had infiltrated the room.
Several weeks ago, her mother had declared that due to the cost, they could not run the air conditioning system unless they were willing to go without heating that winter—which was something that Brooklyn and Paul had immediately and dramatically objected to. So, they decided that instead of dying of hypothermia that winter, they would cope with the heat of the summer by taking frequent trips to their freezer and spending time with friends who had air conditioning. Besides, La Push never stayed very hot for very long.
Despite being a part of the incoming Sophomore class, and subsequently lacking in any serious social standing, Brooklyn and her best friend Seth Clearwater had been invited by some of the older kids who thought that they had shown "potential." Whatever that meant. Her best guess was that her status as one of the youngest students on the varsity girl's soccer team had given her the push she needed to make the cut. Besides, everyone loved Seth, and they were a joint package.
"Finally!" Brooklyn cheered in triumph as she held up the blue fabric. It had taken her nearly twenty minutes to dig the shorts out of the black hole that was her closet.
A knock at her bedroom door halted her celebration.
"Come in," she called, not bothering to check entered the room. It was probably her mom coming to nag her about some chore she'd forgotten for the millionth time.
"Are you getting ready for the party already? It doesn't start for another, like, two and a half hours."
Brooklyn looked up with a grin. "Seth!" She said cheerfully as she closed the door behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck in a too-close-to-be-just-friends embrace. His hands found their way to her hips, and her smile grew wider.
He wore a grin that matched hers, "I got bored of waiting at home, and your mom let me in." He leaned in and gave her a delicate kiss on the lips.
Brooklyn and Seth had been best friends since the third day of kindergarten when he had accidentally kicked a soccer ball straight into her face—instead of crying like he had expected her to, she had burst into laughter and returned the favor, sending the ball into his face with incredible force and accuracy for a child her age. Their relationship had been purely platonic until about halfway through their first year of high school, when they both came to the realization that they shared certain romantic feelings, and they had kissed for the very first time.
The kiss had been a little awkward—neither of them had ever kissed anyone before—but Brooklyn would never change it for the world. It was one of her fondest memories. They discussed the kiss and their feelings for weeks, and decided that it was best to not tell their parents or siblings that they had decided to become romantically involved. They didn't want the suspicion or probing questions that were sure to come along with the revelation. Plus, as totally platonic best friends they were still allowed to have sleepovers, and that was sure to end if they began to date publicly. Especially if their parents found out about the things they did during their sleepovers—Brooklyn was sure Seth's mom would never let her step foot in their house ever again if she found out about their physical relationship.
If Brooklyn was being totally honest, the physical aspects of their relationship had escalated quite quickly. They both agreed that it was because they had known each other for such a long time before they did anything, and so the level of trust that they had allowed them to fast track a lot of firsts. Brooklyn and Seth had also decided that they didn't want to call each other boyfriend/girlfriend when they couldn't talk about their relationship publicly—if anyone asked they would say that they're just really close friends. So, for now their relationship was confined behind closed doors and they were both happy with it that way.
"Well, we have a few hours to kill before the party... Should we pregame?" Seth said as he reached into his pocket and produced a small baggie. Seth always had a smile on his face, this was partially because he was generally a very happy person, but he was also a bit of a closet stoner, and he was rarely fully sober.
"Hell yeah," Brooklyn drawled as she went to dig a lighter out of her nightstand.
The next few hours consisted of shared giggles and stolen kisses that were shrouded by a subtle smoky haze that blanketed the room. They were lying on her bed sharing a bag of chips. Seth was convinced that the chip he was holding looked like a dog, but Brooklyn didn't see it.
"I'm telling you! It looks like a fucking schnauzer," Seth shouted as Brooklyn erupted into a fit of giggles. As she caught her breath, she watched him debate whether it was ethical to eat the schnauzer chip.
"He's too cute, I can't do it," Seth said as he put the chip on the nightstand. "I guess he's just gonna have to live here with you forever. Congrats on your new chip dog. I think you should name him Jimmy."
"I'm not keeping a chip for a pet."
"Why not?" Seth pouted.
"Because it'll attract ants! Or one of us will forget and next time we have the munchies, we're going to eat it, and then you'll remember and you'll bring it up every time we have a disagreement," said Brooklyn.
"Yeah, it's probably best not to have that kind of emotional attachment to snack foods," Seth replied as he grabbed the chip off the nightstand and popped it into his mouth. "Sorry Jimmy."
In their intoxicated state, both of them found this to be extremely funny, and they laughed about it until their eyes teared up. As their laughter died, a steady silence filled the room.
"Hey, Seth?" Brooklyn finally broke the silence.
"Yeah, Brooke?" He responded.
"I always feel so happy when I'm with you."
Seth pulled her closer. "You make me happy too. I love you so much," he said.
She shot up, her eyebrows raised practically to her hairline. "You what?"
Her reaction wasn't meant to be negative, but she was worried that he might take it that way. The thing was, he had never said that before. Hell, neither of them had said that to anyone outside of their families before.
Seth must have sensed that her shock wasn't due to not reciprocating his feelings (she really really did love him back), so he grinned and sat up to meet her eyes, "I love you, Brooke."
She grinned back and pulled him into another kiss, "I love you too, Seth."
As she pulled away, her eyes flickered over to the digital clock on her nightstand. "Oh crap. We're like an hour late to the party. I'm not even dressed yet."
"Time flies when you're getting high," said Seth.
She sprung up and began to change into the denim shorts that she had spent so much time looking for as Seth opened the window and sprayed some of her perfume in the air in hopes of masking the skunky smell that had taken over the room. Honestly, Brooklyn wasn't that scared of her mom finding out about the weed, but she might tell Seth's parents and they were a lot stricter than her mom. Paul had been caught smoking last year, and their mother had merely sighed and declared that she would be a hypocrite if she told her children not to smoke weed while they were in high school, but that she definitely didn't support it, and that if any other adults found out, they were to tell them that she had no idea about their bad habits. Brooklyn wasn't gonna lie, she thought her mother's parenting skills were questionable at times, but she liked having the freedom, so she would never say anything about it to anyone.
She grabbed an old flannel that she had stolen from Paul a few weeks ago and threw it on over the black crop top she was wearing. She hastily removed the hair tie from her hair and quickly ran her fingers through the silky black locks. Good enough, she thought. With that, she grabbed Seth's wrist and pulled him out to the hallway. She shouted a brief goodbye to her mother as they left the house, and the two began to walk towards the beach, laughing and talking about nothing in particular.
They could hear the party before they could see it. The sound of music and people talking filled the street, and they soon found their way to the gathering.
The beach was illuminated by a bonfire, and there were dozens of teenagers holding red plastic cups.
"Little Lahote! Seth! I'm so glad you could make it."
The duo turned in the direction of the voice and grinned. "Shawn!" They cheered in unison. Shawn was one of Paul's friends. Well, not so much anymore. Brooklyn wasn't sure exactly what happened, but from what she had gathered they had gone to some party and Shawn partied a little too hard, and Paul's temper had gotten the best of him... again. Paul had stumbled home that night with bruised knuckles, and Shawn hadn't come over since. Brooklyn thought that they were probably destined to drift apart though, seeing as Paul had recently graduated, and Shawn was about to start his second senior year (Shawn was adamant that the first one was so good, that he had purposely flunked it so that he could do it one more time). Despite Paul's issues with Shawn, Brooklyn and Seth thought that he was a pretty cool dude.
"Dude, you know my last name's not Lahote, right?" Brooklyn snorted.
"It's not? That's fuckin' wild," said Shawn. "Anyway, there's drinks in that cooler over there, or there's a keg if you want some of the world's cheapest beer. It tastes like piss, but it gets the job done," Shawn gestured over to where he was talking about using the hand that was holding his beer. It sloshed onto his hand, and he gave a brief "Oh shit" and brought it back up to his mouth. Something behind them caught his attention, and he threw up a hand as if to signal for someone to chill out. "Alrighty then, I gotta get back over there, Mina Davis said she'd give me thirty bucks for my shirt. Joke's on her, I bought it for eight at that thrift store in Forks."
Brooklyn and Seth watched as Shawn retreated into the crowd.
"It is a good shirt," Seth mused. He was right—it was a glorious red Hawaiian shirt covered with technicolor parrots and white hibiscus flowers.
"Yeah, but let's be real. It's Mina Davis. She's definitely just trying to see Shawn's abs," Brooklyn retorted.
"True. Plus she could never pull off a shirt with that much character."
There was a brief pause. Seth looked at Brooklyn and smiled.
"I'll be right back, I'm gonna get us some drinks," Seth said before disappearing into the crowd.
Brooklyn swayed to the music as she waited for Seth to emerge from the crowd. When he finally did, he was holding two cups.
"Here," he handed her a cup, and took a swig from his own. His face scrunched at the taste. "Man, Shawn was not kidding about the taste. That's disgusting."
Brooklyn laughed and took a sip from her own cup. "C'mon, I wanna dance."
She led him to the edge of the crowd of dancing teenagers. They danced for what felt like hours, only stopping occasionally to refill their cups and talk to some of their friends that showed up.
Seth leaned closer to her and said, "I wanna kiss you right now."
"Not here, your sister's friends are always at these things. Those girls share everything, and if they see they're definitely gonna tell Leah and she'll tell Sue and then Sue and Harry will never let us spend any time alone ever again. We'd never hear the end of it," replied Brooklyn.
"You're right," Seth said. "So let's go somewhere where they won't see us."
He pulled her towards the treeline. Once they felt that they were obscured enough from the crowd, she pulled him in for a sloppy drunken kiss. They remained lip-locked against a tree until a loud howl broke them from their trance. It didn't sound close enough for them to be mauled at any second, but Brooklyn wasn't about to take any chances.
"Seth what the fuck was that? Like it sounded like a wolf. Does Washington even have wolves?"
"I don't know. But I don't want to be one of those idiots from horror movies who ignores the spooky shit and gets murdered in the first ten minutes. I'm lasting at least forty-five minutes," Seth said as he pulled her back towards the crowd of people. "Plus I told my mom I'd be home by eleven thirty."
Brooklyn checked the time on her phone. Eleven twenty-seven. "Shit yeah, we better hurry before Sue grounds your ass."
Luckily, Seth lived only a couple of blocks from the beach. They made it to Seth's house two minutes late, but they weren't worried—Harry always convinced Sue to let things like that slide. Harry was great that way. So, Seth focused all of his attention on acting as sober as possible as to not alert his parents to what he had been doing-- they would certainly not approve. Before he entered the house he turned around.
"Wait, are you sure you don't want me to walk you home? Like we both know for a fact there's some animal out there. That howl sounded like it came from something with big teeth."
Brooklyn laughed, "I'll be fine. It'll only take me like... six minutes to walk home from here. Besides, I have my phone on me, so if anything happens, I can call for help. Now hurry up and go inside before your parents bust you for coming in after curfew."
Seth sent her a quick wave and walked into the house.
Once the door closed, Brooklyn began walking towards her house. She had only gotten about halfway down the street when she heard a sound coming from her from her phone. It was a text from Seth.
I love you. Don't get eaten by any wolves.
She grinned at her phone, and replied: Love you too <3
A few minutes later, she arrived home. The lights were off, which meant that her mother must have been asleep, but she could see from Paul's open door that he still wasn't home home. Weird. He was usually home by now. There was definitely a possibility that he had gone to the same party that she had just left, and that he was just out with his friends doing whatever drunk nineteen-year-olds did. Though, it seemed doubtful seeing as it was Shawn's party.
Brooklyn decided to let it go—she didn't really care where he was. Paul had been acting like a dick lately anyway. He was constantly snapping at Brooklyn and their mom over the littlest things. He was a grown man. He could handle himself, Brooklyn thought. She shrugged off his absence and climbed into bed. She was certain that Paul would be back by the time she woke up.
A/N:
Hey everyone! It's been a while since I've updated anything, but I'm finally continuing the editing process (including some minor rewrites) for this fic because it was my first ever, and I'm just now realizing how many errors and things there are lol. So this will be my main focus for a while before I actually get around to posting new content (I think I need to focus on getting my older stuff where I want it to be before I feel okay with posting my newer stuff).
To everyone new to this book, thanks for checking it out! And to everyone who's been around for a while, thanks so much for getting this fic to where it is today <3 Never in a million years did I ever think this would get so much attention.
-Grace :)