by Max Hudson
“That makes sense.”
This was the part that made Brooklyn pause. The part that he didn’t seem to be that sure he wanted to talk about. Luca assumed that he was getting to the bit of the story that was hard, the bit where he was hurt. The bit where his sister was hurt.
As traffic started going, so did Brooklyn’s car. He focused on the road. It made Luca feel like he might not talk again, but the moment that he had taken a corner, Brooklyn’s voice piped up once more. It was quiet—quieter than Luca had been expecting—but it was there. “Because of the way things were set up on the ride, however, instead of going to the front, like it was supposed, it started to slide to the back.”
“The entire rollercoaster?”
“Yeah,” Brooklyn said. “And our car was the one at the very back.”
Luca watched him intently, unsure of what to say. He wasn’t sure that there was anything he could say to this. He wondered if that was what people felt like in his position, whenever he talked about the accident. He wasn’t there yet but he was sure it was going to become something that people would talk to him about like he was talking to Brooklyn.
“What happened?”
“Something to do with the stops wasn't working, so our car started to go back,” Brooklyn said quietly. “It started to go back and… it made this awful noise, like clack-clack-clack. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like the sound of a rollercoaster when it starts going up. It was like that, but like that a million times over. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
Luca watched him. “That apartment complex,” he said. “Pull in here. My apartment is number twelve.”
“Gotcha,” Brooklyn said. He pulled the car into the parking lot and killed the engine in front of the door to Luca’s apartment. Luca could only watch him, his eyes wide.
“Then the car came off the track,” Brooklyn said, matter-of-factly.
“What do you mean?”
“It came off the track,” he said. “Completely off the track. It started flying from the track and then it kind of just… started falling. I could feel this pit in my stomach. And then the car landed and it threw us out.”
“It threw you?”
“Yeah,” Brooklyn said. “It landed in a pool, so we were lucky. But we were still thrown out and we fell into the pool. I went into one of the sides and hit my leg hard, which meant that one of my bones broke out of my skin. Compound fracture, hurt like a bitch. I hurt my arm too and I needed rehabilitation for around a year.”
Luca paled. “That’s terrible.”
“I was lucky,” he said. “So lucky. My sister was thrown out of the car and she landed in the pool head first.”
Luca blinked.
“She was hurt,” he said. “Seriously hurt. It looked like she was about to die for a bit, but she was going to live eventually. But then, I don’t know, things changed for her.”
“For good?”
“Yes, things changed for her for good,” he said. “Things changed for me for good too.”
“In a good way?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, sometimes I think about it. About what my life would be like if I had never been in the accident. If I’d continued playing—”
“If you’d continued playing what?”
“Football,” he said quietly. “I was on my way to nationals.”
“Right,” Luca said, looking him up and down. That made perfect sense. Of course that was why he looked like that. He was so buff and he looked like a model. The athleticism surely helped with that. He wondered how much bigger he was before the accident. “I can see it.”
“Yeah, well, I work hard to keep this buff,” Brooklyn said.
“I believe it,” Luca said with a smile. “So are you coming inside or…?”
“Sure,” he said. “That sounds good.”
He killed the engine of the car and walked around it, opening the door for him. He extended his hand and Luca grabbed it. His hand was soft and warm, steadying him as he got out of the car. He hadn’t realized just how much he had needed Brooklyn to help him out of the car, because his balance felt off when he climbed out.
Brooklyn held him up in place, as if he was a doll or a prop. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m fine, thank you.”
“We need to get you inside,” he said. “When are you due to take your meds again?”
“In a few hours,” he said. “Everything is starting to hurt.”
“Then it’s better that I support you,” Brooklyn said. “Put your arm around my waist.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” Brooklyn said, giggling. “I’m too tall for you to put your arm around my shoulders.”
“You are tall,” Luca said, giggling when he heard the way that Brooklyn sounded. Every time he laughed, the butterflies in his stomach fluttered. It was so stupid, a statement of fact like “you’re tall” shouldn’t have made him feel like he was a teenage boy.
“I’m going to sling my arm around your waist,” he said. “Then I’m going to hold you close to me, okay? To steady you.”
“Okay,” Luca said. He leaned his head on Brooklyn’s shoulder, and it felt like it was the exact perfect place for him. He could have stayed there with his head on Brooklyn’s shoulder for the rest of his life and he thought that he would have loved it.
They walked to his apartment in tandem. “You’re going to have to get your keys out,” Brooklyn said.
Luca fished his keys out of his pocket and tried to unlock his door, but it was hard when he wasn’t the person that was in charge of his own balance. They both giggled about it, as if they were drunk and just arriving from a night out.
They were standing in front of Luca’s door for what felt like a long time, until Luca finally managed to push inside. Brooklyn let him go in before he could.
“Nice place,” Brooklyn said.
“Thanks,” Luca replied. “My parents just cleaned it up for me because I’m an independent adult.”
“I can see that,” Brooklyn said with a snicker. “It is nice, really.”
“Thanks,” Luca said. “Make yourself at home. I would get you a drink but I really think I need to sit down.”
“Of course, of course,” Brooklyn said, shaking his head. He was still holding on to Luca, but only to his elbow. Luca supposed that it was there to keep him steady but part of him didn’t want Brooklyn to ever let him go.
It was stupid. He was romanticizing Brooklyn being kind and there was no need for him to do that. It would only end in heartbreak, if not for Brooklyn, then definitely for Luca. It wasn’t like his relationships had a good track record.
“Here,” Brooklyn said. “Let me walk you to the sofa, okay?”
“Okay,” Luca replied, flashing him the goofiest smile ever. He was pretty sure that Brooklyn was trying not to laugh at him from the way that he looked at him, but for a fleeting moment, Luca didn’t care.
He was just enjoying this. Sure, there was the pain and the fact that the situation was almost painfully awkward. It didn’t matter because Brooklyn was there with him and he seemed to be having fun, even though he was literally simply helping him to move to the sofa.
The way that he was looking at Luca was making his heart do flips in his chest. He knew that he was reading too much into it and maybe—quite possibly—it had more to do with the accident and the drugs and how they had met than with how much he liked Brooklyn as a person.
Brooklyn walked him to the sofa and deposited him softly on it. He did it with such sweetness that for a second Luca wondered what it would be like to really go out with him. He looked at Brooklyn’s arms and decided that Brooklyn could easily scoop him up as if he weighed nothing. When he thought that, his cheeks went red. He had no business thinking something like that about Brooklyn.
They weren’t dating. There was nothing romantic about this, he told himself. They just kind of knew each other from the hospital and they had accidentally run
into each other when he was out with his friend. It didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t mean anything.
“You should get yourself a drink,” Luca said. He watched Brooklyn, who was standing over him, looking down at him with what appeared to be concern on his face. Luca twisted his lips. “I would offer to get one myself but you just sat me down.”
Brooklyn took a second to react to that, but when he did, he laughed. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
“Don’t be shy,” Luca said. “Feel free to get yourself a drink. God knows I could use one.”
“I don’t think you’re allowed one with your medication.”
“Boo, you’re no fun.”
“I know,” Brooklyn said. He started to walk toward the fridge. Luca watched him, his eyes wide. It was so weird to him that he had someone that gorgeous in his apartment. The last man he remembered having there was Derek and even that was hazy.
He closed his eyes. Thinking about Derek wasn’t good. It was the first time he had since he’d run into Brooklyn, though, and he still wanted to crack the mystery of what had happened with him. Maybe he would bring it up to Brooklyn. After all, they were friends.
Maybe. Luca wasn’t sure. Suddenly, he really wanted there to be a more formal way to categorize their relationship. Asking Brooklyn what they were spelled disaster in several different ways and he wasn’t going to do that.
He didn’t want to ruin the tenuous balance of whatever was going on with them. Addressing it was definitely going to do nothing but ruin it. He watched as Brooklyn turned around to face the fridge, his wide back on display. He had always thought that mouth-watering was an expression that referred only to food, but when it came to Brooklyn, he wanted to eat him up.
He told himself to reel it in. He had seen attractive men before in his life, plenty of attractive men, but he hadn’t reacted nearly as strongly to any single one of them as he did to Brooklyn.
He took a deep breath as Brooklyn turned back and flashed him a smile. “Okay,” he said. “What have you got?”
“I'm not sure,” Luca replied. “I don’t really remember what I have in the fridge. But you can get whatever you want from there.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, you find it and you're welcome to have it.”
Brooklyn flashed him a huge smile and turned around. He leaned back down to look at the contents.
“I think you have shitty beer,” Brooklyn said. His voice was muffled because it was coming from inside the fridge, but it didn’t matter. It made Luca laugh.
“I definitely should have shitty beer,” Luca said.
“Do you want anything? We should toast.”
“I’m not allowed to drink,” Luca said quietly.
Brooklyn laughed again, that beautiful high-pitched laughed that had made Luca laugh so hard when he had first heard it. “How about some water? Then we should be able to clink our glasses together at least.”
“Well, that’s what matters.”
“Definitely,” Brooklyn said. Luca watched him as he opened a bunch of cupboards trying to find where Luca kept the cups and glasses.
“To your left,” Luca said, biting his lower lip. “Your other left.”
“Great,” Brooklyn replied. He finally pulled out two glasses and brought them over to the living room, along with his bottle of shitty beer. It really was the shittiest of beers, and for a second, Luca had the good sense to be embarrassed about not being able to provide him with anything better.
He put the glasses down in front of them on the coffee table and grabbed his keys out of his pocket. Luca noted that his keychain had a bunch of things on it, a seal he didn’t recognize, a discount card for a pharmacy, and a library card.
The keychain also had a bottle opener. He grabbed the beer, opened the bottle and poured some in the glass.
“For cheers,” he said when he saw Luca’s inquisitive look. “Don’t worry. I’ll clean up before I go.”
“You will?”
“Yeah, of course,” he said. “What kind of person would I be if I just left you with all the mess?”
Luca smiled. “A sensible one?”
“Sure,” he said, rolling his eyes. “A sensible one.”
“What? You disagree?”
“I’m just saying,” Brooklyn said. Luca didn’t say anything. He grabbed his drink and sipped it quietly and slowly. Part of him knew where this conversation was going and he didn’t want to hear it.
Brooklyn might have been right—about whatever it was that he was accusing him of—but Luca still didn’t want to hear it. He was still getting used to his new normal and it was hard.
There was nothing easy about this. Brooklyn drank a little of his beer, saying nothing. Luca noticed the absence of cheers, which was the reason that he had brought the glasses in the first place.
Luca put his glass down and turned to look at Brooklyn. “What is it?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Would I have asked if I didn’t want to know?”
Brooklyn shrugged. “I don’t know if I should tell you.”
“Well, you asked if I wanted to know. I told you I wanted to know. So take my word for it,” Luca said, a little more harshly than he had intended.
Brooklyn sighed. He leaned forward and put his glass on the coffee table in front of them. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. “I understand why you're clinging to your independence,” he said.
“Okay…” Luca replied. He found himself unable to say anything else, because he felt like there was judgment in those words. He wasn’t sure if it was warranted or not, but he was interested to see where Brooklyn would take this. Interested and preemptively a little angry, too. He was sure that it wasn’t going anywhere good.
“Luca,” Brooklyn said, turning to face him. His eyes were wide and glimmering. “I want you to know that I get it. I truly do get it. It's important that you have independence, but you need to let yourself be helped too.”
Luca held back the urge to scoff. “Since when am I not letting myself be helped? You helped me come in here. You helped me sit down. You’ve literally helped me with everything. How am I not letting myself be helped?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Brooklyn said.
Luca raised his eyebrows.
“That is help, but it’s… minimal,” Brooklyn said quietly. “I know you, Luca.”
Luca’s eyes widened when he said that. He had to resist the urge to laugh. He had to try to ignore how burning red his cheeks were. He leaned in closer to Brooklyn, and even though Brooklyn was much bigger and more intimidating than him—not to mention, he could easily take him in a fight at that moment regardless of his physicality—Luca was completely ready to square up to him. “You don't,” he said, his voice a threatening whisper. “You don't know me.”
Brooklyn moved back slightly. He was following Luca’s cues, but it wasn’t making Luca feel any better. If anything, it was making him feel worse. He didn’t understand why he was getting so angry with him, when it was clear that all that Brooklyn wanted to do was help. “You're right,” he said. “I don't. I don't know you personally, but I know people like you. I've seen so many people like you in the hospital. People who are so proud. Too proud to be able to ask people for substantial help unless their circumstances are dire.”
“Are my circumstances dire?”
“Not right now,” Brooklyn said. “They won’t be for a while, until they are, and you’re going to regret not taking the help from the start. People would kill for support networks like yours.”
Luca laughed bitterly. “And I suppose you know this because you’ve dealt with so many patients whose pride has been their downfall?”
Brooklyn laughed, too, but there was no bitterness there. It was just knowing and annoying. “No,” he said. “I wish it had been patients.”
Luca glared at him. He didn’t want to ask him what he meant but he had a feeling that Brooklyn was going to tell him exactly what he m
eant anyway.
“I used to be like you,” Brooklyn finally said, after a terse silence.
“What?” Luca couldn't help but feel a little of offended at that, but his curiosity was winning. He wanted to know exactly what Brooklyn meant. He wanted to know what Brooklyn’s life was like. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I used to be like you,” Brooklyn said. Luca was going to open his mouth to ask him to elaborate, but he didn’t have to. Brooklyn continued talking without prompting.
“After the accident,” Brooklyn said, his gaze darting away from Luca’s face. “I didn't want anyone to help me. My sister was so hurt. And with how hurt she was, I didn't think that I deserved help. I mean, if anyone deserved help, it was my sister.”
Luca nodded, though he wasn’t sure if he agreed.
“I couldn't help her, after all, so if I couldn't help her, nobody should have gotten to help me,” Brooklyn said.
Luca furrowed his brow and Brooklyn gave him a weak smile. “It made sense in my head, okay?”
Luca nodded, unsure of what else he was supposed to do.
“I know that you have no survivor's guilt and you shouldn't,” Brooklyn said. “You are the person who was hurt worst in your accident, just so you know.”
“Good?” Luca replied.
“That’s not the point,” Brooklyn said, though he had smiled and shaken his head when Luca had asked him that.
“What is the point, then?”
“The point is that I get it, okay?” Brooklyn said. “After the accident, it always feels like all your self-reliance, everything that makes your life yours, is taken from you.”
Luca blinked as his eyes welled up with tears. He’d had some issues with putting everything into words, but Brooklyn had managed to pretty well and Luca couldn’t help but find it all to be a little too much. Verbalizing it had made it somehow more real and Luca wasn’t sure if he was ready to deal with that.