I turned onto our street and slammed on the brakes when I saw a red Jeep Wrangler parked at the curb in front of our house. My breath hitched in my throat, and I felt like someone had stomped on my chest. I wasn’t sure how long I sat in the middle of the street, but a loud horn honked behind me and shook me out of my initial shock.
“Jeez, Nat, just drive,” Nikki said, tugging on my arm.
I tried to swallow the lump that formed in my throat as I slowly maneuvered past the car and into the driveway, doing everything in my power to avoid looking at the tall figure slumped in the swing on the front porch. I turned the car off but sat still and rigid in my seat.
“Nat, you need to get out of the car,” Nikki said.
“I don’t want to talk to him.” I could barely speak past the knot in my throat. “Tell him to go away.”
Nikki put her hand on my shoulder. “You need to.”
I looked at my sister with wide eyes, and shook my head adamantly. I opened my mouth to protest, but Nikki stopped me.
“Don’t fight me on this,” she continued. “Forget everything I’ve said to you about him and people like him. All I know now is that you shouldn’t deny yourself what could possibly be love and happiness for maybe even the rest of your life, but you’re not gonna know unless you hear what he has to say.”
I bit down on my lip as I stole a glance in his direction. He crossed his arms over his chest and slowly rocked back and forth on the hanging swing.
“Look, if you want to tell him to go fuck himself afterward, then fine, but maybe give him a chance.” Nikki didn’t give me time to respond before getting out of the car. She walked up the porch, and I watched them exchange a few words before Nikki disappeared into the house.
My heart throbbed in my ears as I shakily got out of the car and walked up to the porch. He jumped out of the swing when I approached him and brushed off his green camo-patterned hoodie.
“Hey, Nat.”
His voice was exactly how I remembered it, and the light of his presence was like a thousand suns—bright and burning.
“Hi, Brooklyn.”
He smiled when I said his name, andthatwas exactly as I remembered it too. I avoided his eyes, blowing out a heavy breath and leaning against the railing of the porch.
“You look nice.” He kept smiling at me, and part of me wanted to smack it clear off his face, but the other part of me wanted to fling my arms around him and feel the warmth that radiated from his body.
“Thank you.” The cold air stung my chest as I struggled to find my words. “What are you doing here, Brooklyn?”
He cleared his throat and rubbed at his face with shaking hands. He looked raw and unguarded, like he’d reverted to the same vulnerable guy I had met back when the air was warmer and I was more naive than I’d known.
“Can we, uh . . . can we go for a walk?” he asked.
I gave him a curt nod, and followed him in silence down the front steps and out to the street toward the beach. I kept my arms crossed and my head down, doing anything I could to shield myself from him. When we got to the edge of the street where the beach met the concrete, I felt like I could breathe. We sat down in the sand, a breeze blowing through us as we looked out at the ocean.
“I practiced what I was going to say like ten times in the mirror this morning,” he began. “But it’s not coming out. Not coming out the way I want it to, anyway.”
I kept my arms crossed tightly over my chest in an attempt to keep myself from unraveling in front of him. But he’d tugged at the little frayed edges of me, and I felt myself start to come undone. “Take your time.”
The silence between us dragged on until finally he let out a heavy breath before he spoke. “I know that I won’t be able to tell you enough times how sorry I am. For everything.”
“I want to accept your apology, but—” I sighed, keeping my gaze on the water and its choppy waves. I felt so small, like one drop in that whole ocean, but I didn’t want to be now. I had to be bigger. “You can’t just show up unannounced like this, you know?”
I didn’t know if I’deverbe ready for this conversation, but I also didn’t think I’d ever needed to be. I was fine with ending this chapter of my life—it was short but big and blinding, like a supernova. Like him.
“I know.” He paused, and I couldn’t bring myself to look at him yet. “Let me get this off my chest, and then if you never want to see me or talk to me ever again afterward, that’s totally fine. I get it.”
“Fine. You have two minutes.”
“When I met you, I wasn’t taking my rehab or any of that shit seriously. That’s the truth. I thought I didn’t have a problem, that I was just a party kid in college who got a little out of control and everyone was being so dramatic about it. That wasn’t true, obviously, but that’s what I thought.”
I finally willed my gaze up to him, and it didn’t feel like the sight of him was about to burn every nerve ending I had, so that was a start.
“Okay,” I said. “Go on.”
