“Very wise.” Brooklyn nodded, pursing his lips. “Not that I can really relate, since I was technically supposed to be a corporate accountant, right?”
“I cannot see you as an accountant, all stuffy suits and business meetings and asking your secretary to get your coffee five times a day. You’re too—”
“Devil may care?” He slid his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose. I shook my head, but he continued. “It’s okay, you can say it. It’s not like that’s really what I wanted to do, but I was good at math, so it made sense.”
I sat up straight in the lounge chair and put my finger beside a ladybug that had crawled up the side of the chair. “What would you have done, then? Like if you had an honest to god calling, what would it be?”
“I used to think it was baseball. I’m sure at some point someone somewhere told me I was good at it and I should stick with it, but I reallydidlike it. I didn’t feel obligated or pressured to do it, and I was good. Like,reallygood. Now, I have no idea.”
Uncharacteristic sadness lingered in his voice, and it clenched my heart.
“You don’t have to know,” I said softly, watching the ladybug crawl onto my finger and then flutter away. “I wanted to be a marine biologist when I was younger. Then I realized I was totally afraid of the ocean, and that went out the window.”
That got Brooklyn to laugh, and hearing it made a sense of ease wash over me like a wave. It was an ease that I had almost gotten used to. An ease I felt only when I was around him.
“But you know now.” He gestured to the notebook still in my lap.
“I guess so.” I pulled my knees into my chest. “I like telling stories, but actual success can feel so intangible. I’ve been reaching out to agents for weeks and not even had one person interested in more of my anthology. That’s why I’m trying to write something new, but—” I waved my notebook around. “No words.”
I paused when I felt his eyes still on me. My heart pounded against my chest like it wanted to escape and leap right into his hands.
“What?”
Brooklyn slumped back into his chair and ran his hands down his face. “I feel like I’ve wasted so much time already with all my bullshit.”
“I understand that. Sometimes I get nervous that I’ll blink and suddenly I’ll be my mom’s age but I’ve done nothing.”
“We’re so young. We’re not even old enough for quarter-life crises.” Brooklyn sighed. “But I definitely don’t feel young.”
The air was heavy with heat and humidity, but the silence that followed was heavier. I knew I had to ask him to come to the gallery showing, and I knew he’d say yes. That wasn’t what made my stomach turn over. Despite agreeing howfineeverything was between us, something lingered in the air every time we were together. We continuously circled each other like wayward asteroids, and I wondered if it was only a matter of time before we collided.
I took a long sip of my iced latte to cool myself off. “Speaking of, my mom actually has this art gallery thing next week. I don’t know if the art gallery scene is really your thing, but if you want—”
“I’d love to come.” Brooklyn cut me off, and a toothy grin stretched across his face. “I’ve got a really great judgy art face.”
He dramatically stroked his chin with his fingers and scrunched his eyebrows before letting out a long sigh. “I find this piece to be very lacking in purpose.”
“You’re missingThere’s too much white spaceor some other pretentious comment like that.” I laughed. “My mom isn’t like that, though. She’s different. All my life she’s been the happiest, most positive person I know. But you can’t be like that all the time, right? Like, all the negativity has to go somewhere, and when you see her paintings, you can really feel them. They’re raw and vulnerable, and I guess that’s better than the right amount of white space or color tone or anything else.”
Brooklyn nudged me. “Now you really sound like an artist.”
“Oh no!”
Ahead of us, Alec’s sandcastle had collapsed, and he and Nikki scrambled to save whatever was left of the turrets and . . . was that a moat with a bridge?
“Guess we better go help them.” Brooklyn stood up and offered me his hand, like he already had so many times before.
I smiled and didn’t hesitate, but I let our palms linger for a moment when he pulled me up. Maybe we’d already collided, and we didn’t even know it.
Fifteen
I wasn’t sure what I thought “normalcy” would look like when I settled full-time in Dahlia Point. Back at Sky Valley, I had a strict routine. I ran in the morning, went to class, went to the library, volunteered as a student editing tutor, went home, wrote things, read things, watched things. Rise, rinse, repeat.
Here, there were too many uncertainties—my post-grad career (or lack thereof), Nikki’s health, and everything slightly more inconsequential in between.
But getting ready together to go to an art gallery show in Nikki’s room while blasting some bubblegum pop music made it feel normal in a new way.
“God, I wish I had your boobs,” Nikki said as she glanced over at me, capping her pink lip gloss.
