Crash Into Me | ✓

sixteen

I'd only met Brooklyn's father once before, and there was nothing similar about the two of them. If Brooklyn was a summer morning, all soft and warm and bright, his father was a storm, with a voice like thunder and hard, dark edges.

Brooklyn and I had old movie nights on Fridays. We never explicitly planned it, it sort of just started happening, but that's how things were with Brooklyn. By the time we got to his house after he had picked me up, the sun began to kiss the ocean and turn the water to a muddle of purples and oranges. He parked in the garage, next to a sleek-looking Lexus I knew belonged to his father. As soon as we entered through the side door attached to the laundry room, something was off. Brooklyn seemed to tip-toe across the wooden floors, not turning lights on, and keeping his shoulder pressed against the walls we walked by.

When we reached the open foyer, he froze.

"Back already?" a deep voice carried from the kitchen.

Mr. Keller stood hunched over the kitchen island, his eyes darting back and forth across a magazine opened in front of him. Forbes.

I heard Brooklyn faintly hiss through his teeth. "Yeah Dad, we are."

He gently began to tug on my arm, silently begging me to follow him to the stairs, but my manners won out.

"Nice to see you, Mr. Keller," I offered him a small smile, which seemed to soften him the slightest bit. I inwardly sighed in relief, but when I looked back at Brooklyn, his shoulders tensed.

"A pleasure Natalie," he replied. "Please call me Dean."

Brooklyn groaned. "Great, terrific, let's go."

I gave Mr. Keller a brief nod to say goodbye, and when he acknowledged me back, something soft and even the slightest bit sad painted his otherwise sharp features. Brooklyn pulled towards the steps and past all the aging pictures of a happy family that didn't seem to resemble the one that lived here now.

"I really can't believe you've never seen Stand By Me." Brooklyn shook the DVD box at me before loading it into his Xbox. "It's a cult classic."

I rolled over onto my stomach on Brooklyn's bed, placing our bowl of butter-drenched popcorn on the floor in front of me. It felt so much more familiar than the first time I had been there. I casually splayed out across his messy sheets, and I could honestly fall asleep there. I grinned at him. "You say that about every movie we watch."

"That's because I happen to be a cult movie expert," he said as he flopped down next to me.

"Maybe you just watch too many movies." I shrugged and flicked a piece of popcorn at his head.

Brooklyn gave me a sheepish chuckle. "Well, there's not much else to do in rehab, especially the first few days when you're in detox."

I should have been used to Brooklyn's nonchalant attitude, but every time he mentioned rehab, it sent a weird shiver through my bones. I kept telling myself I'd get used to it, even if I wasn't sure I believed it.