Brooklyn:  

Once Leo went to juvie, I didn’t know how long it would be for. It had a way of unravelling me.

I kind of suspected that might happen and I started to plan accordingly. There would be no more talking to Leo. His phone would surely be taken away at the juvie place. 

I started to brace myself. 

I would not be able to have him hold me when I feared that sometime he would be taken from me. I would not feel his warm touch.

I knew not how he would be taken. But I never really had the feeling I would be with him forever. Even though I wanted to. Only my mother had married her high school sweetheart and I knew this would not be my path. 

Or maybe I was just trying to convince myself of this. 

The brain has a lot more maturing to do I had learned in my anatomy class when we had delved into the workings of the brain. 

Does this mean I was not supposed to trust myself? I had thought. Because I am in love with Leo. I knew this would somehow change. But I did not want it to. It scared me. It was something tangible that I could feel. 

I did not know how much this feeling had anchored me until he was thrown into the walls of juvie.

Leo had sent me a message the night before. It said:

Being arrested

And then:

Won’t have my phone there

The walls of the high school classrooms were caving in on me the next day. 

I knew Leo would not be there and I could not see his serene face with his sweeping walk in the courtyard. 

And his eyes. 

I would not be able to see the change of colors in his eyes as the light swept through them.

I would not be able to help him. Had Leo really needed me helping him in the first place? Maybe it was me that needed helping.

I decided to stop by Leo’s house on the fourth afternoon. It was a Thursday. I knocked on the door.

It was Ryan that answered. I assumed.

He was wearing shorts and a Tommy Bahama linen shirt with palm trees on it. His hair was combed back behind his ears. He had a glass of ice and something fizzy in his hand. Sparkling water?

“Oh hello,” he said. He shook the glass slightly so that the crystal sound of the ice could be heard, and then took a sip.

“You must be Brooklyn.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you know how long Leo will be gone?”

Ryan laughed a little.

“Well, no I don’t know that now. How could I?” 

“Ok, well how long do you think it might be?” I said tentatively.

“That is up to the court, I do believe,” he said. 

“Only time knows the answer to that one,” Ryan continued, with an air of self-importance and condescension.

“Ok well, thanks anyway,” I said.

After Ryan had closed the door, I thought to myself, that was absolutely no help at all. Of course. What had I expected?

Should I just wait for him?

But with a little research I found out where the juvie detention place was and I knew I had to go there. They probably had visiting hours, and I could see Leo then.

* * * 

Leo:

When I heard what Brooklyn had said after she had tried to come for visiting hours, it cut straight to my gut. 

The “rule” was that you had to be in juvie for thirty days without any visitors. She had tried to come on the fifth day. 

A friend of mine was in the same juvie place and told me what she said about me. She had told her friend that came to visit.

So what my friend told me that Brooklyn said, is that I am really messed up. 

That I am impulsive and cannot control myself. 

That I threw glass like a small child for no reason at the shopping center. And that I was probably trying to cut someone. 

Which is a lie. I was not trying to cut someone. No one was even around that dump of a place in the back of the shopping center. 

Afterward I just sat staring at the walls. It’s over, I thought to myself. If she is just going to backstab me like this then who can I trust? 

It hit me pretty hard and I had to shake myself out of just staring at the walls. I needed to do something else.