Crash Into Me | ✓

thirty

Morning crept up slowly on me as I stirred awake, blinking a hazy sleep out of my eyes. Light filtered into the room through blinds on the window, sending streaks of dusty sunlight onto the bed, and I needed a moment to remember where I was waking up. I rolled over to see an empty space beside me, but an imprint where Brooklyn's body had laid so close beside me. The sheets still radiated with his warm scent.

I made my way out to the common area and felt a gust of cool, salty air. The doors to the balcony were slid open, and Brooklyn leaned on the railing with a cigarette hanging between his fingers.

"Hey you," I said as I approached him.

"Hey yourself." Brooklyn dropped his cigarette in the ashtray on the small glass table next to them. A number of them had already piled up, and I wondered how long he had been sitting outside in a perpetual cloud of smoke.

The sun hung high over the ocean, decorating the waves with glints of gold and white. A comfortable quiet consumed the space, with nothing to hear but the faint sloshing of the ocean.

Brooklyn put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me into his chest. It was amazing how at home I had become in his arms, letting his warmth and tangy cigarette scent consume me.

"It's so pretty out here," I said.

"It is," Brooklyn sighed. He gently kissed the top of my head. "Not as pretty as you though."

I nuzzled in closer to his chest, and I felt a smile pull at my lips. I wondered for a moment if this was really how it was going to be. Mornings on the ocean, coffee and cigarettes, warm bodies and the fluttering sensation I got in my stomach every time he smiled at me.

Or maybe it was all just an illusion. A trick my mind was playing on me to deflect me from the next crash. The constant threat of his relapse crept in the shadows of my mind, only exposing small bits of itself and making me wonder if I could handle another collapse, or if I'd collapse with him. I shook my head, desperate to expel the darkness of my thoughts.

A knock at the door of the suite disrupted the brief lull of peace.

"I got it!" Ella burst from her room in yoga pants an a sports bra. Brooklyn whipped his head around when he heard a man's voice at the door. I faintly recognized it, but couldn't put a face to it. It was only until after a head of floppy brown hair came into view that it clicked.

"Brooklyn, you gotta learn to pick up your phone." Ricky came striding into the common area of the suite, skin just as tan and hair just as floppy as I remembered when I first met him. He slid a bag of golf clubs off his shoulder, letting them clatter to the floor. "Our tee time is in a half hour."

"Shit," Brooklyn hissed.

A disgruntled look washed over Ricky's face. He blew a chunk of hair off his forehead. "You forgot, didn't you?"

"Give me five minutes," Brooklyn replied hurriedly. "I swear I'll be ready."

"Take a shower, you smell like an ashtray," Ricky called after him.

Brooklyn groaned and retreated to our room, leaving me alone with Ricky and Ella. The tension between the two of them was so thick it was almost physically tangible. Ricky cleared his throat.

"Nice to see you again, Nat." Ricky nodded at me.

"Likewise," I replied. I looked down at my newly manicured nails and fought the urge to bite at them.

"You can come to the golf course if you want," Ricky offered.

"Oh no, that's okay," I shook my head. "I don't golf. I can't golf."