Crash Into Me | ✓

twenty-one

All the surrounding little islands that we lived on were suburbs of downtown Charleston, and although I had been into the city a decent handful of times to take Nikki to the medical university hospital for her clinical trial appointments, I'd never driven any further into the epicenter of the city. Brooklyn had picked up Nikki and I, and we'd plan to meet Brooklyn's sister and her friends at a trendy bar/restaurant at the far end of the city by the harbor.

"You're gonna love this place, it's all artsy and shit," Brooklyn said, lowering the volume on the stereo as he maneuvered around the parking garage for a spot.

"Care to elaborate on artsy and shit?" Nikki leaned between the two front seats and pressed her hands on the center console. The subtle twang of attitude in her voice wasn't lost on me, but if Brooklyn had even noticed, he didn't care.

"Well, it used to be a church, like 100 years ago," he explained. "I can't remember when they turned it into this fancy bar/restaurant, but they kept a lot of the old framework and windows, so it has those cathedral high ceilings and whatnot, but now they're all written all over. There's paragraphs from The Art of War, and all other kinds of crazy stuff, plus some other local modern art just freehand painted on the walls."

Brooklyn swerved into a spot and put the car in park, glancing over his shoulder to give Nikki a sly grin. "So yeah, artsy and shit."

I could tell Nikki was holding back an infamous eye roll as we all got out of the car and made our way down to the street. Dusk was just beginning to settle in, and with it came a warm breeze rolling in from the harbor. We walked along cobblestone side streets to the bar, passing packs of bachelorette parties taking pictures and younger college students from the university, still donning their backpacks from their summer classes as they dashed back to their apartments to get ready for the night. It was like the peaceful, sleepy beach town I'd just gotten adjusted to had been flipped on its head, and the place I now called home had taken on this new, more eccentric persona. My house was only 15 minutes away, but I felt like I'd just stepped foot in a foreign country.

A few months ago, this would have been nerve-wracking for me - a new place in a new city directly fought with my disdain for change. But with Brooklyn, nothing felt uncertain.

Brooklyn wasn't kidding about artsy and shit, and when we walked into 5 Church, I was immediately sucked into all the words painted on the high cathedral ceilings. One block of text caught my eye, stark white in contrast to the black backdrop of the ceiling. All warfare is based on deception.

The stained glass windows painted the floors in soft colors as the sun continued to set. We made our way to the back of the bar, where a small group of people I didn't recognize congregated around Ella. She sat on a transparent barstool at the end of the bar, but slid off and immediately strode over to us in her high fuschia-colored heels.