“Good thing I told you to pick your prize in advance.” He nodded at the Reptar plush as the kid working the booth got it down with a long hook.
“Were you trying to impress me?” I asked him as I was handed the plush.
“That depends. Were you impressed?”
“Maybe a little bit.” I allowed my smile to soften.
“Hey, I know you,” the kid piped up. “You were that baseball prodigy from Montgomery Prep. I recognize you from the pictures in the trophy case outside the gym. You still hold like five state records.”
Brooklyn grinned sheepishly. “That’s me.”
Based on my lukewarm knowledge of sports culture in the South, I half expected the kid to ask for Brooklyn’s photo or something, but he abruptly frowned instead. “Didn’t you get arrested and kicked off of the team at Clayton? My dad said you were in jail or something.”
My body lurched forward ready to defend Brooklyn (for what, I wasn’t even sure), but he gently put a hand to my forearm, holding me in place.
“Not yet,” he said to the kid. “Thanks for the prize.”
We walked through the carnival quietly and made our way to where the parking lot met the edge of the harbor pier, the faint sound of an Oasis song fluttering from an unseen speaker. I clutched Reptar tightly against my chest, and he wasn’t nearly as soft as I expected him to be, but that’s carnival prizes for you.
Brooklyn leaned with his back against the railing of the pier. He took a long, heaving breath, his eyes closed and his head tilted back into the dusky sky. I leaned next to him, my stomach pressed against the railing.
“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 groaned and ran a hand through his hair. “People only care about what I was, and they’re always going to enjoy picking at my scabs.”
I looked down at the beach, where high tide had rushed in, filling pockets of sand with foaming salty water. It must have been a twenty-foot drop from the pier into the shallow tide below us.
“Then prove them wrong,” I told him. “You absolutely can, because you’ve done it already.”
Brooklyn blew out another heavy sigh and shook his head. “I don’t even think you realize how good of a person you are.”
My heart swelled. “You are too.”
“Come on.” He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be like that. I mean it, you know.”
“So do I.”
I looked down at the ocean rushing in below us, and when I looked back up at Brooklyn, his eyes shone just as blue and just as deep as the water. When you stood at the edge of the cliff, sometimes there was this overwhelming desire to jump, despite knowing the danger. It was calledl’appel du vide—the call of the void. Somewhere in the breeze, I must have heard it calling, and suddenly I was very aware ofhowclose we were now, felt goose bumps prickle up my arms in anticipation.
The call of the void was also often brief, which typically prevented you from actually putting yourself in danger. Even if I wasn’t in any actual danger, I was scared. Scared of what this could become. There were so many unknowns, and to me, there was nothing more frightening than that.
“We, um.” I recoiled, feeling the adrenaline in my body kick in. “We should rescue Alec from Nikki and your sister.”
Brooklyn exhaled a sharp breath. Something flickered behind his eyes (regret? guilt? or something else entirely?), but it was gone as quickly as it came.
“Yeah. Good idea.”
We started walking again, slower this time, as if we were trying to preserve whatever this moment was. For someone who talked as much as he did, when he was silent, it said more than words ever could.
“Hey, will you do me a favor?” he asked, pulling me back to the surface.
“That depends.”
“Come on the Ferris wheel with me.” He pointed across the fair at the Ferris wheel, and my heart dropped into my stomach.
