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“I’ve never had a birthday party.”
She shifts, lifting her head from where it rests as her hands reach toward me tentatively. While I would love for her to touch me, that’s not why I’m doing this. And if she does, I might stop my story there.
“No, it’s okay. Really.”
“Cam, it’s not. How did I not know this? I’m such a shitty friend. I never put it together,” she says.
“Friend,” I mutter.
Her eyes move to mine, her brows pulled tight in question. I won’t repeat that. It was a slip.
“My birthday’s in June. But that’s not why,” I say, closing my mouth to take a deep breath through my nose. I bring my palms to my eyes and rock back, letting out a low growl. “Gah! This is hard.”
“Cam,” she says, her hand covering my bicep. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter. My chest burns and it feels like gravity is pulling me through the garage floor.
I shake my head with my eyes closed, refusing to chicken out. My story is safe with Brooky. I feel it.
“I don’t have the kind of family you have, that Theo has or Morgan or James or . . .fuck!Anyone at Welles!” My lips feel numb as I speak, and I know it isn’t from being punched. It’s anxiety threatening to strangle me and knock me to the ground.
“Cam, nobody’s family is normal. We’re all messed up in our own way—”
I shake my head and cut her short.
“No. Uh uh. Not like me,” I implore. I lean forward, pressing my forehead to my fists that rest on my knees, and Brooklyn’s palm glides to my back. She rubs it slowly, her touch so goddamn soothing, so comforting. I bet her mom did this for her when she was sick as a kid. I would have given anything for this kind of affection.
Resolved to break free of these invisible chains that I’ve been trained to wear, the talking points I’ve been made to repeat, the boundaries set by myself, by my mom . . . my family, I lift my head and find her waiting gaze for comfort and strength. When it’s there, I let go.
“Brooky, my dad . . . he’s in prison.”
She doesn’t blink. Neither do I. Our gazes locked in this sudden shared reality, we simply sit in the humid chill of a basement garage far away from all the people I can’t tell my story to.
“Since when? How? Why?” Her questions scatter from her mouth, and I offer a pathetic smile because I can’t even answer them all.
“I’m not ready to share the why yet, if that’s okay,” I admit. My heart feels dulled, like a tiny pebble beating deep inside. Everything seems muted, and I’m hot.
“Of course,” Brooklyn says, moving her hand that has been on my shoulder this whole time. I turn to my right to look at it, and before she can pull it away, I cover it with mine.
“Please,” I utter. Her touch sinks in and my head falls against both of our hands.
We stay in this quiet cocoon for nearly a minute before she solves the puzzle.
“Cole was going on and on about your dad, about his, and mine,” she says.
I look up and give her a small nod. Her eyes gloss with sympathy, and while I didn’t want to make her sad, it feels nice to see it. That’s how I feel inside sometimes, but I can’t seem to ever let any of it out.
“I hope you got a few good ones in,” she finally says.
I smile on the side of my mouth that isn’t busted up.
“I surprised him, I think.”He sure did surprise me.
She nods then squeezes my shoulder once, slipping her hand away and gathering up the paper towels from the ground and floor of the car. I shift my body to sit in her passenger seat, and the entire way home, I feel lighter. I feel closer. I feel ready to tell her more.
Chapter9
Brooklyn
Icould smell Cameron’sherbal medicinefrom the lawn below McKinley Hall. He and Theo are only one floor up, and Welles has a pretty strict policy about substances, especially after the accident last year. Theo keeps saying his room is immune to authority and inspections because it was his sister who died. For a while, I assumed he was making a fairly crude joke about it, but I’m beginning to realize he was simply being honest.
