Finding Forever (27 page)

“It's me!” Holden shouted from Brooklyn's front doorstep. “Open up!”

Brooklyn opened the front door. “Dude.” She glanced at her phone. “It's been almost four hours.”

“I drove as fast as I could,” Holden huffed, pushing his glasses up and closing the door behind him. “I had to clean my room first. My mom freaks out when I don't.”

“Why's she so obsessed?”

He shrugged. “It's a Korean thing?”

“Okay, Mr. Racist,” Brooklyn said.

“Hey, you can't be racist if you're talking about your own race,” he shot back. “My dad's always claiming our rules are ‘a Korean thing,' as if that justifies everything. Like having to keep the house as clean as an operating room.”

“But isn't your dad a surgeon?”

“Yeah.”

“So then it's also a doctor thing.”

“Brooklyn, where are you going with this?”

“I'm saying that cleanliness and order is a
good
thing. I'm the only one in my house who freaks out when things aren't in order. Actually, my mom wishes I didn't clean so much. She's the messy one I'm always cleaning up after.”

“I'm glad you brought that up.”

“What?”

“Your whole organizing thing,” Holden said. “Like when you kicked me out earlier so you could do that fours thing that you do.”

“How do you know what I did after you left?”

“When you slammed the door I could hear you lock and unlock the door—four times—while I was still standing on the porch.”

“So you creeped on me,” she said, walking away.

“Listening is hardly creeping.”

“What business is it of yours anyway? Are you going to be all like my mom now and tell me I need to see a shrink?”

“No, Brooklyn. I've known you since sixth grade. Trust me, I'm fully aware that no one can tell you what to do.”

“Then why are you even bringing this up, especially right now?”

“Because I think it's getting in the way of your life. I read an article today saying that when a compulsion interferes with daily life it has become a problem that needs treatment. You've even told me you have trouble with math because you have to—”

“Okay, Dr. Phil! If I want to be preached at, I'll go to church.”

Brooklyn turned down the hall.

Holden followed. “You don't need to overreact, Brooklyn. The whole fours thing is not necessary. That's all I am saying. Honestly, I don't even understand why you would pick four of all numbers. In Korea, four is an
unlucky
number. If anything, you should do sevens.”

Brooklyn stopped at her bedroom door. “I called you over to help me break this story, not to psychoanalyze me, you weirdo. On top of that, I'm fine. Or at least I was until you came over here and started judging me.” She planted a couple light taps on his cheek with an open hand. “As a matter of fact, I don't need your help. I have my own computer. I can handle it from here. You're not needed.”

“So that's what I am to you?” Holden snapped. “A computer?”

“No. That's not it.” Her lips pursed into a pout. She felt guilty. “Actually, I do need you.”

“As a friend, or an assistant?”

“Honestly, both. If you haven't noticed, I don't exactly have a ton of friends these days.”

This was true. The more time she dedicated to her blogging,
the more Brooklyn's social world had shrunk—“isolated” is how her mother put it.

Holden slid his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “You sure have an interesting way of showing your friendship.”

“Hey, I'm a work in progress. Maybe it's just part of being in high school. Nobody's perfect.”

“I still think we had a perfect relationship.”

“Holds, we've talked about this. We weren't perfect. We aren't meant to be that way. Perfect friends, yes. Lovers, not so much.”

Holden shook off her comment with a nod. “I know, I know . . .”

Brooklyn had been the one to break up with Holden, even though they told their friends it was “mutual” in order to avoid drama. But they both knew the truth: she dumped him. Brooklyn had sat him down three months into dating and informed him that he was way too important to her as a friend to risk losing him if they got too serious romantically and ended up broken up. In Brooklyn's head, it was simply a preventative measure.

Before she could re-explain her reasoning for their split, Brooklyn's FaceTime rang on her phone.

“Hello?” she answered. Holden rolled his eyes.

“Brooklyn!” Simone was sitting outside on a patio looking haggard compared to the other day at the stadium.

“Ms. White? Or is it Witten?”

“C'mon, hear me out,” she pleaded. “Okay, all that stuff about me and my past is true. But Taylor knows everything about me. I just changed my name to get a fresh start.”

Brooklyn sat down at her desk. “So you're confirming my story?”

“Yes, sort of,” Simone said. “But I swear that everything else I told you about Taylor is also true. She was taken. I'm telling you, this is not at all what it looks like.”

Brooklyn flashed a puke face into the camera. “We're going in circles here.”

“But I have proof.”

“Okay . . .”

Simone stuck a cigarette in her mouth and took a puff. “Surveillance video. From Taylor's house.” She blew out the smoke. “I found it.”

“You went back to her house?”

“I'm here now.”

“But I told you to lay low and stay away from there. Someone could be on to you.”

“Yeah, well, you also said you were about to out me as a felon. But I remembered she had a surveillance system, and I just checked it. There's video of those guys taking her! You'll see that everything I said is totally true.”

“Okay. So then just bring me the tape.”

“That's the problem,” Simone said. “It's not a tape,
per se
. It's just video on a monitor. I don't know how to save it onto a drive or anything. I could maybe figure it out, but it will take time. Why don't you come down to the house?”

“Just FaceTime me the video from your phone.”

“I would, but this is literally the only place at her house I can get reception.”

“How about Wi-Fi?”

“Taylor had it turned off when she got into her yoga phase. She wanted to make this place a sanctuary.”

Brooklyn glanced at her phone. It was 4:22 p.m. Her mom wouldn't approve of her heading down to L.A., but then again, she wouldn't be home from work until after ten o'clock.

“I don't own a car. Actually, I don't even drive.” She batted her eyes over at Holden. “But I might be able to get a ride from
someone
.”

Holden, off camera, shook his head “no.”

“Simone, hold on a sec,” Brooklyn said, pressing Mute and pointing the camera at the floor.

“Holden, this is a huge. If I see footage of her being taken away, that's a huge story, total confirmation. Right? I have to see this video.”

Holden shot her a blank stare.

Brooklyn unmuted. “Text me the address. I'll find a way to get there.”

She hung up and took the glasses off Holden's face and put them on her own. “Holden, Holden, Holden. You know, glasses can be quite sexy, don't ya think.”

Holden snatched his glasses off her face and put them back on. “Stop it, Brooklyn. You're making a huge mistake.”

“Wearing glasses?” she joked.

“I don't trust that girl Simone at all. She's sketchy.”

“Sure, she is. But she also could be telling the truth. She didn't deny her shady past—she confirmed it! If every source had to be an angel, journalists would hardly ever break a story.”

Brooklyn clutched Holden's forearm. “C'mon. You're a smart guy. The smartest person I know. That's what I love about you.” She adjusted his glasses again. “But you're also a safe guy. Too safe.”

“You say that like it's a bad thing to not want to die.”

“It's also a bad thing to not want to live. I'd rather die young for exposing the truth than live forever for ignoring it.”

Holden guided her hand over her heart. “You need to learn when to think with this.” He then placed her hand on her forehead. “And when to use this.”

Brooklyn wanted to grab him by his cute, unblemished face and kiss him—four times—on the lips. Just like when they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Just like when she had thought having a boyfriend would make her a happier person. Perhaps
four kisses would persuade Holden to change his mind, and make her one less lonely girl. But then . . .

“Think about your dad,” he said.

She backed away. “What about him?”

“He wouldn't want you to go. And you know it.”

She stepped back. “My dad's not here.”

“Maybe because he took a risk that day.”

“He died doing what he loved.” Brooklyn blinked back tears.

“He also broke a department rule by meeting with a potential witness alone,” Holden said. “It proved deadly.”

Brooklyn ran her fingers through her hair and wet her lips. “I can stay up here in this little Twin Oaks bubble my whole life and play it safe and never go anywhere, never take a chance, like everyone else at our school probably will their entire lives. I could get a job with the oil company or teach grade school or work at Target. But I refuse to let fear of something possibly bad happening stop me from making a better life for myself.”

“So you're willing to lose your life?”

Brooklyn stepped closer to Holden. “Do you want to be one of the safe, boring people, Holden? Do you want to be the perfect boring student who does perfect boring things, so you can go get a perfectly boring job and live a perfectly uninspired life? Because I, for one, don't want to be that person. I want to make a difference, I want to live a life of adventure. I want to open people's eyes to injustice, truth, different perspectives. I want to feel fulfilled. And I bet you a million dollars that I will never feel fulfilled if I never leave my bedroom.”

Holden stared silently.

“Seriously, Holden. What are you going to do with your life?”

“You know the answer,” he replied.

“Oh, that's right,
games
. You want to design video games. Silly, pointless games. You want to create things for people that divert them from reality. Well, that's not me. I want to
draw people into reality, expose reality, enhance people's lives by breaking stories that reveal truth.”

“No offense, but I don't think picking through celebrity trash is exactly making a difference in people's lives.”

“Hey, you gotta start somewhere. And, by the way, Hollywood matters because it's a business about portraying fantasy. There's nothing more important than dreams and imagination. Dreams are what keep you going when everyone else has stopped believing.”

Holden went to hug her.

Brooklyn turned away. “It's not like I'm some pseudo blogger on Tumblr spreading gossip and lies. I have ethics, standards. Yes, I cover entertainment and celebrities. But celebrities have a social currency that can be as valuable as any politician. Look at George Clooney and his work in Africa. Angelina's volunteering to help refugees with the U.N. Demi Lovato got people talking about body image, drug addiction, and eating disorders with girls. But the messed up part is that celebrity-focused journalism has become a dying art. And you know what? I want
Deadine Diaries
to be the authority. That's
my
dream.”

Brooklyn reached into the top drawer of her nightstand and pulled out a notecard. “At my dad's funeral, my grandmother gave me this. My dad kept it in his desk at work.”

Holden read the typewritten text. “‘There are just some kind of men . . . who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one.' It's from
To Kill a Mockingbird.
”

Brooklyn took the card back and read the reverse side aloud. “‘Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.' Henry David Thoreau. My dad didn't want to be that guy who didn't get the most out of life. And that's how he lived until that day.”

“Which day?” Holden asked.

“The day he died.”

“I know, but what
date
was it?”

“April fourth.”

“So it was four-four?”

“Yes, Holden. It was four-four.”

“So the Fourmation comes from—”

“The worst day of my life? Yes, it does. Congrats. You cracked the code.”