She thought about taking a quick trip to Michigan, but she couldn’t afford it. She had maxed out her credit card buying the dress she wore to The Philharmonic’s Opening Day Gala. The people she worked with, including Jeremy, were good friends, but they were not close enough that she could share this particular problem with them.
Abby thought about going to confession, but it was a Saturday night, and she wasn’t even Catholic. There was only one person in the entire city she could talk to about this without being judged. That person was also the cause of all her heartaches, but Abby had run out of choices. She needed some human contact that night, or she was going to lose her mind.
After a couple of hours, she got off the couch, put on some clothes and went to see Brianna at her new apartment.
Chapter IV
That Saturday night, Brianna sat on the couch of the swanky two-bedroom apartment that was going to be her home for the foreseeable future. She had just moved in and hadn’t even unpacked most of her things. She was thankful the place was already furnished. She did not have the time nor the desire to furnish and decorate an apartment that big. Her mind was preoccupied with Abby and the things that had happened ever since she met that gorgeous girl.
After leaving the bookstore, Brianna spent the rest of the day in rehearsals for the musical. She had the dancing part down, but her singing needed major work. She was having a hard time concentrating that day. She couldn’t get Abby off her mind and wondered if she was going to come over to see her.
After rehearsals, Brianna had an early dinner with her agent and publicist, spent some time buying some groceries and toiletries, and then went home. It was almost nine o’clock when she finally walked in the door. She checked her phone and saw there were no calls or messages from Abby.
After putting the phone down, she stepped into her spacious bathroom and took a much needed warm shower. She got out, went to her bedroom and slipped into comfy pajama bottoms and a worn out t-shirt. With the ends of her hair still dripping water, she went to the kitchen, grabbed a beer out of her fridge and sat on her couch to wait for Abby.
Even though it was late-almost ten o’clock-Brianna still held hope that Abby would show up. An hour and a couple of beers later, Abby had not shown up. She had not called or texted either.
Brianna knew Kyle was not the reason Abby had not shown up. She knew Kyle was in Montana for the family reunion. She had been invited to the reunion but declined to attend it. The members of her family who, like Kyle, condemned her “life style” far outnumbered the ones who accepted or even tolerated her. So Brianna decided to save herself pointless, unnecessary heartache and awkwardness and sat that reunion out. She had skipped the previous reunion too. That one had taken place five years earlier.
Besides, it was not like she could just take a few days off to fly to Montana. The rehearsals for the musical were behind schedule, and the producers would have had a cow if Brianna or any other member of the cast asked for any time off.
Brianna picked her phone up off the couch and stared at the screen, wishing desperately for it to ring or buzz, but it didn’t. Brianna was losing hope that Abby was ever going to show up. She wanted to see Abby badly but fought the urge to call or text her.
After their encounter at the bookstore, Brianna had decided she was not going to pursue Abby anymore, whether Abby decided to stay with Kyle or not. She was going to leave it up to Abby to decide what type of relationship, if any, she wanted to have with her.
Brianna was about to call it a night and go to bed when her landline phone rang. It was the building’s doorman letting her know she had a visitor. Brianna’s stomach did a flip when the doorman told her it was Abby waiting in the lobby. After instructing the doorman to let Abby come upstairs, Brianna began to frantically tidy up the place. She also tied up her slightly damp hair into a bun on top of her head.
A couple of minutes later, Abby was standing on the other side of Brianna’s door, looking casual in a pair of fitted jeans and a loose fitting patterned top. Abby’s eyes were red and puffy. Brianna noticed it immediately, and it broke her heart. She felt guilty because she knew she was the reason for those tears.
“Come on in,” Brianna sighed as she stared down at the pretty brunette who took her breath away no matter what she wore or how puffy her eyes looked. “Would you like something to drink?” She asked as Abby walked past her to get inside the apartment.
“A bottle of water would be fine, thanks.”
“Have a seat. I’ll be right back.” Brianna pointed towards the couch before walking towards the open kitchen. Abby gazed around the apartment. It did not have a view of the New York City skyline like the hotel suite from a week earlier, but it was bigger and a lot fancier; nothing like the shoebox where she and Kyle lived.
A few seconds later, Brianna reappeared holding a bottle of water and a beer can. After handing the water bottle to Abby, Brianna plopped on the couch and took a sip of the beer.
Sitting hunched over on the couch, Abby looked small. She kept staring at the iced cold water bottle in her hands, trying to find a way to start the conversation.
“Congratulations on getting the part in the musical, by the way,” Abby breathed, shifting her body on the couch to face Brianna, a faint grin briefly curling her lips.
“Thank you. I’m really excited about it. I’m very grateful I got the part considering I almost blew the auditions.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Abby breathed, casting her gaze downward.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Abby. It’s not your fault that you are gorgeous, kind, sweet, smart. It’s not your fault that I’ve fallen head over hills in love with you. It’s my fault. I should have known better. I should have stayed away from you just like Kyle asked me to. If I had blown those auditions, it would have been on me, not you. You have done nothing wrong.”
Abby felt her cheeks burning. “Brianna, please…” she whispered, awkwardly running her fingers through her hair and casting her gaze downward. She was starting to regret her decision to come see Brianna.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I need to stop saying things like that to you,” Brianna apologized. She took another sip of her beer before putting the can down on the coffee table.
“You said this morning at the bookstore you were going to tell Kyle about what happened between us. Are you still planning to tell him?”
“Yes,” Abby replied, her voice laced with resignation.
“How do you think he’s going to react when you tell him?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s going to break up with me.”
“How do you know?”
Abby raised her gaze and locked eyes with Brianna. “I just know. He won’t forgive me. I just know.”
Brianna sighed. “You love my stupid brother, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. I love him with all my heart,” Abby replied, her voice breaking, her eyes turning to glass from the tears that were threatening to flood them.
Abby’s words sliced through Brianna’s heart. “What about me? What do you feel for me? Do you love me?” She asked.
Abby shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Her eyes bounced around the room as she tried to come up with answers to Brianna’s questions. She returned her gaze back to Brianna.
“I don’t know, Brianna. I honestly don’t. I’m just so confused. But it doesn’t matter anyways. You and I...we can’t be together, even if Kyle and I break up. You’re his sister. It’d be too weird. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I understand. You’re probably right. It’d be too weird.” Brianna’s lips curled into a half smile, but her eyes couldn’t hide how devastated she felt.
“So, why didn’t you accompany your boyfriend to his family reunion in Montana?” Brianna asked.
“How do you know about that?”
“I may be estranged from most of my family, but I’m still a Garrett. I was invited to that reunion. I get polite invitations to reunions and other family events, but I choose n
ot to attend any of them.”
“It must be difficult to have no contact with your own family.”
“Yes, it is, but you learn to live with it.”
“What happened to you, Brianna? You said that if I came here tonight, you would tell me. Here I am. Tell me, please.”
Brianna let out a sharp breath and reached for her beer can. She downed the rest of the beer and placed the empty can on the coffee table. She was feeling a little lightheaded, but was glad she had chosen to drink a lot that night. She needed a lot of alcohol to summon up the courage to talk about what happened to her seven years earlier.
She scooted over and took Abby’s hands in hers, giving them a squeeze. “Okay. I will tell you everything. But before I do, I have to warn you that what you are about to hear is pretty rough, heavy stuff. I also want to make it clear that by telling you these things, I’m not looking for pity or sympathy. I’m not trying to guilt you into choosing me over Kyle.”
“I’ve moved past these things that I’m about to tell you. I survived them, and I’m, for the most part, content with my life right now. Do I wish I had a family that loved me and accepted me the way I am? Absolutely. But I’ve come to terms with the fact that it is never going to happen.”
“I’ve learned to be happy with the things I do have: my career, my friends, the freedom to be who I am and love who I want. The only reason I’m telling you the truth about why I ran away from home is because I care about you and what you think of me. I don’t want to go through life knowing that you hate me or think I’m something I’m not. Kyle thinks I’m a terrible person, but I’m not. He’s been lied to.”
Feeling more intrigued than ever, Abby placed her unopened water bottle on the coffee table, tucked one leg under her and rested her elbow on the couch. She stared intently at Brianna with bated breath.
Abby had lost count of how many times she had asked Kyle to share with her the reason why Brianna had run away from home. Each time, Kyle had either given her vague non-answers or had flat out refused to answer her questions.
Over the three years that Abby had known Kyle, his evasiveness had frustrated her greatly. She had never been as intrigued and fascinated by anyone as she was by Brianna Garrett. She took a deep breath, relieved that Brianna was about to tell her everything.
Brianna tucked both of her legs under her and rested her elbow on the couch. She remained silent for a bit, and her gaze began to bounce around the room. She wasn’t sure how to begin the story. At times, it felt as if it all happened a long time ago, but other times, the memories of it were so vivid in her mind, she felt she was still the terrified eighteen-year-old that ran for her life.
After returning her gaze back to Abby, Brianna smiled sweetly and began to tell the story very few people knew. “I’ve known I liked girls since I was eight or nine years old. I struggled with it at first because of where I lived and how I was raised. Montana is an extremely conservative state. Up until 1997, it was illegal for two people of the same gender to have sex. It was a felony.”
“Besides that, I come from a very conservative and extremely religious family. I grew up hearing that having sexual urges over people of the same sex as you would send you straight to hell. I was scared of going to hell. I used to pray to God to make those feelings and urges go away. I used to attend church groups for young people, and they taught us to believe that girls who like other girls were sick, deviant and needed to be cured. I wanted desperately to be cured.”
“But as time went on and I reached puberty, I found groups and people online who helped me accept who I was. It wasn’t easy, and I shed a lot of tears, but I eventually came to terms with the fact that I couldn’t change who I was no matter how much I prayed.”
“I decided to stop attending those youth groups. My parents were mad at me for doing that. I had also started to experiment with pot during my freshman year of high school. So as you can imagine, I was not my parent’s favorite child back then.”
“I didn’t flaunt who I was in people’s faces, but I didn’t try to hide it either. Glen Falls, where I come from, is a very small town. Very few things are a secret over there. People talk. I remember hearing whispers and snickers as I walked by groups of kids at school, but no one ever dared say anything to my face. They didn’t have the balls.”
“I didn’t take shit from no one back then. I had blue streaks in my hair and piercings in my nose and ears. In Glen Falls, that was enough to be considered a street thug. I spent half of my high school life in detention and got suspended many times for getting into fights with the few girls and boys who thought it’d be funny to get cute or clever with me. I knocked out a few teeth back then. People knew better than to mess with me.”
Brianna chuckled with pride as she remembered those fights. “Anyway, it was a very small town. Even though no one talked openly about it, everyone knew that I liked girls. I had a reputation. My hormones were going crazy when I was in high school, and there were a lot of confused and curious teenage girls in Glen Falls, Montana. You do the math.”
“Everyone knew the deal except my parents. Well, actually, they knew too but chose to pretend they didn’t. I guess they were hoping I’d grow out of it or that their prayers would cure me. They lived in denial until one day when my father came home early and walked in on me in bed with a classmate of mine.”
Abby’s eyes widened as she shifted on her seat. “Oh my God. What happened then?” She asked, blinking rapidly and hanging on Brianna’s every word.
“Her name was Christina Morales. She was a trouble maker just like me. That girl was absolutely nuts and so much fun. She had piercings and tattoos all over her body. She did some very interesting things with a bolt she had through her tongue. She had a boyfriend but had been with more girls than I had.”
Brianna chuckled with fondness as she remembered all the good times she enjoyed with the feisty Christina. “It was the beginning of my senior year in high school, and Christina had just transferred from another school. She was a bit of an outcast like me, and we hooked up almost immediately after we met.”
“When Christina arrived in Glen Falls, I was getting over this girl I had been seeing who had moved away with her parents. I was heartbroken, and Christina was exactly what I needed to get over her.”
“Every day after school or detention, I would drive her to my house, and we would hang out, make love and smoke a lot of pot. Kyle had a busy extracurricular calendar. He usually got home a lot later than I did, and my mom worked. So I had the house all to myself for several hours each afternoon.”
Brianna paused, dropping her gaze to her lap. Her jaw tightened as she tugged at the hem of her t-shirt. Abby could tell from the way Brianna’s face was contorting that the story was about to take a painful turn. “Please go on,” Abby encouraged her, placing her hand on Brianna’s knee.
Brianna drew in a long, relaxing breath and rubbed her eyes. She smiled nervously at Abby before continuing with the story. “One afternoon, my father came home early because he didn’t feel well. I had left my bedroom door open, and my dad walked in on me with my head buried between Christina’s thighs.”
Abby brought her hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp. Her eyes bugged out of her head.
Brianna continued. “Neither Christina nor I heard his truck pull in the driveway. We didn’t hear him come into the house either because the music we were listening to was really loud.”
“My father just lost his mind when he walked into the room. He picked up the stereo and yanked the chord off the socket before throwing it against the wall. It shattered into pieces. He then began to shout incoherently about Satan and hell and sin and sickness and evil. Christina jumped out of the bed, butt naked, and just kept screaming hysterically while my father chased her around the room calling her some terrible names.”
“I was frozen with fear. I placed a pillow in front of my naked body and just stared up at my father with my heart beating in my throat. I had never seen my father as ang
ry as he was that day. I was terrified.”
“When my father reached for his belt, Christina grabbed the first piece of clothing she saw lying on the floor and tried to get to the door. But my father was blocking her path. He kept lunging at her and threatening to kill her, but Christina managed to dodge him and escape his wrath. She ran out of the room screaming. That was the last time I saw her.”
“After Christina was gone, my father turned his attention to me. The darkness I saw in his eyes still sends shivers up and down my spine. With the belt in his hands, my father reached behind my head, grabbed a handful of my hair and dragged me off the bed until I dropped on the floor.”
“Then he began to whip me with the thick, leather belt in his hands. He kept chanting hymns and asking the devil to release my body while he struck me furiously and repeatedly with that belt. It was as if he were possessed.”
“I tried to cover my face with my hands and kept screaming, pleading, begging him to stop, to let me go. The instant sting of the belt was excruciating.”
Abby did not say a word. She was speechless. She stared at Brianna with her hand over her mouth and horror in her eyes.
Brianna saw how much her story was affecting Abby, but she couldn’t stop there. She had to tell her everything. She looked away from Abby and stared into space as the memories of that fateful afternoon flashed before her eyes.
“The more I begged my father to stop the harder he whipped me. I tried to crawl away from him, but that just made him angrier. He grabbed me by the hair and slammed my face against the sharp corner of the wooden bed frame. The impact left me speechless, in a daze. My vision was blurry, and my father’s voice sounded far away even though he was still hovering over me and still beating me.”
“I felt a sting on my temple and could feel a warm liquid dribbling down my cheek and hit the carpet. I began to scream again when I saw the red dots soaking into the carpet. My father did not care that I was bleeding. He kept hitting me over and over until he couldn’t lift his arm anymore.”
Betrayal: Brianna's Secret (The Betrayal Series) Page 4