Betrayal: Brianna's Secret (The Betrayal Series)

by Sofia Velardi

  Brianna dropped her gaze to her lap. “After he was done, he walked out of the room and left me lying there, naked, half-conscious, bleeding from my head and covered in bruises. I was in so much pain, I couldn’t even cry anymore. I wanted to get up and climb on the bed, but I couldn’t move.”

  Abby had begun to sob and tears were streaming down her cheeks. She still had her hand over her mouth. She wanted to scoot over and hug Brianna, but she couldn’t move. The horrific story had left her paralyzed.

  Brianna could hear Abby sobbing softly but did not look at her. She was having a hard time keeping it together herself. She knew that if she looked up at Abby and saw that pretty face contorting with empathy and tears flooding those gorgeous hazel eyes, she was going to lose it.

  She knew that if she was going to finish that story, she couldn’t look at Abby. So she kept on telling the story with her gaze fixed on her lap.

  “At some point I passed out. When I woke up, it was already dark outside. I was still lying on my bedroom’s floor, and my mother was hovering over me. She was rubbing some sort of white lotion all over my body. She went to wipe the blood off my face, and I locked eyes with her.”

  “I only held her gaze for a few seconds, but I will never forget the look in her eyes. The shame and disgust with which she looked at me hurt more than any bruise or gash I had on my body.”

  Brianna drew a deep breath as the pain shot through every fiber of her being, making her shudder. Even though she had tried her best to keep her tears at bay, a single one dribbled down her cheek. She wiped it off with the back of her hand and kept going with the story.

  “I had some pretty bad gashes on my arms and legs, and my mother cleaned them up with water and wrapped them with bandages. My mother never said a single word to me that night or any other night after that for that matter. After she was done tending to my wounds, she helped me onto the bed and covered me up with a blanket.”

  “My mother had never been what you’d call an affectionate mother, but that day, when I needed her the most, she was more distant and cold than ever. When she was done and I saw her step towards the door, I called after her. I begged her not to leave me alone. I told her I was afraid my father was going to come back and whip me some more.”

  “She paused with her hand on the doorknob but didn’t turn around. She just walked out of the room and slammed the door after her. She came back a couple of hours later with some food which I didn’t touch and some pain medication. She avoided my gaze the whole time and left without saying a single word to me.”

  Abby just kept shaking her head. She could not fathom that a mother would be so callous to her own child in that situation.

  “I’m so sorry, Brianna. I’m sorry you had to go through all of that. You were just a kid. I can’t even begin to imagine how much pain you were in or how scared you must have been,” Abby managed to say between sobs. She reached over and squeezed Brianna’s hand.

  Brianna turned her head to look at Abby and chuckled bitterly. “I’m not done yet, Abby. I’m just getting started. That beating was actually my father being nice. Should I continue? Maybe I should stop. You look pretty shaken up, and I haven’t even told you the worst part of the story yet.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Abby replied, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hands. “Keep going, please.”

  Chapter V

  Brianna scooted away from Abby. The next part of the story was very difficult for her to talk about. She had told some people about her father whipping her that day, but she had never told anyone about the next part of the story. She was too ashamed to talk about it, even though what happened was not her fault.

  Abby was going to be the first person Brianna would tell the next part of the story to. Abby was a kind, caring soul. Even though Brianna had not known Abby long, she felt a connection with her she had not felt with anyone else. She felt comfortable telling her the secret that had been weighing heavily on her heart for seven years.

  Brianna untucked her legs from under her and pulled her knees to her chest. She wrapped her arms around her knees like a little kid who had just woken up from an awful nightmare. With her chin resting on her knees and eyes staring at the floor, Brianna continued with her story. That conversation was very difficult for her to have, but it also felt like the much needed therapy she never got to have.

  “My father did not whip me again after that day. He did, however, lock me up in my room for weeks. I wasn’t even allowed to go to school. He nailed my windows shut and put a second lock on the outside of my door. I was not allowed to see or talk to anyone. He took my phone and my computer away.”

  “My parents wouldn’t even let Kyle talk to me. I don’t think he even knew what was going on. They were always very protective of him. They probably told him I was being punished but did not tell him why.”

  “The only person I saw over the first three days I was locked up was my mother who would come into my room before and after work to bring me food and water and check on my gashes and bruises. Every time she came into the room, I would beg her to let me out, but she wouldn’t even look at me.”

  Brianna took a small break so she could get something to drink. She got off the couch and went to the kitchen to grab another beer can out of her fridge. She needed as much alcohol in her body as possible to be able to get through the rest of her story. After returning from the kitchen, Brianna tipped her head back and downed half the beer in a couple of gulps.

  Abby watched her intently with a mixture of dread and curiosity in her eyes.

  Feeling a little more relaxed and emboldened by the alcohol working its way through her blood stream, Brianna resumed her story. She had assumed the same position as before: legs pressed against her chest and arms wrapped around her knees. She continued to stare into space.

  “I had been locked up for three days when one afternoon, my father came into my room. A man from our church walked in with him. His name was Patrick Miller. Miller was in his late thirties and was the assistant pastor at our church at the time. I should say my parent’s church because I rarely attended Sunday service with them.”

  “I never liked Miller. I got a strange vibe every time he was around me. Sometimes my father would invite him to dinner, and he just ogled me in a creepy way. I never said anything because Miller never said or did anything I would consider offensive. He just stared at me a lot.”

  “Anyway, my father, who I hadn’t seen since the day he whipped me, sat next to me on the bed while Miller stood at the foot of my bed. My father wouldn’t even look at me. He had this look on his face, a mixture of desperation and shame. He sat on the bed hunched over and kept looking at his hands while he talked to me. He told me that he had spoken to Miller about my ‘disease’, and Miller had offered to come over to pray and help cure me. I looked up at Miller who was nodding while clutching his Bible against his chest.”

  “My father walked out of the room and left me alone with Miller, but not before telling me he was doing what he was doing for my own good. He said he loved me and was just trying to save my soul from eternal damnation. He instructed me to listen to Miller and do whatever he asked me to do because it was going to cure me.”

  “Cure you? How exactly was he going to cure you?” Abby asked.

  “After my father left the room, Miller began to flip through the Bible in his hands while telling me how God had spoken to him and had chosen him to help rid me of all my depraved thoughts and urges. I rolled my eyes as he hovered over me.”

  “When Miller found the verse he was looking for, he read it to me twice before closing his eyes and saying a prayer. I thought his therapy session was going to be just that: him reading verses from his Bible and saying a couple of prayers for me. I was wrong. After he finished his prayer, Miller dropped his Bible next to me on the bed and gave me his signature creepy stare.”

  “A cold chill ran down my spine when Miller began to undo the buttons of his dress shirt while reciting Bible verses f
rom memory. What are you doing? I kept asking him, but he wouldn’t answer me. He just kept unbuttoning and untucking his shirt from his pants and reciting Bible verses.”

  “When I realized what type of therapy Miller had in mind for me, I began to scream at the top of my lungs for my father to come back into the room, but he didn’t come back. When I saw Miller reach for his belt buckle, I leaped out of the bed and ran to the door. I turned and pulled on the doorknob trying to get the door open, but my father had locked it from outside. I began to bang on the door and scream for my father.”

  “I kept screaming and looking over my shoulder at Miller who kept reciting Bible verses and getting out of his clothes. My father wouldn’t answer, let alone open the door. There was no one else in the house. My mother was at work when that happened, and Kyle was at school.”

  Brianna paused to catch her breath. She wrapped her arms tighter around her knees, suddenly feeling as helpless and scared as she did that fateful day seven years earlier. She cleared her throat and continued, her voice sounding huskier the more she talked.

  “After Miller had taken off all of his clothes, he came after me. Seeing his disgusting, naked body moving towards me made me want to throw up.” Brianna made a gagging sound while her body convulsed at the memory. “I tried to run away from him, but there was nowhere for me go. He chased me around the room while telling me to trust him. He caught up with me quickly. He wrapped his arms around me and pressed his repulsive, flabby body against mine while repeating the same Bible verses over and over.”

  “I tried to scratch him and slap him, but he overpowered me. He was just too strong. I did manage to poke him in one eye, and that made him angry. I could see it in his eyes that he wanted to drop the therapy charade and slap me, but he restrained himself. Instead, his face softened, and he went back to reciting verses and chanting hymns while dragging me towards the bed.”

  “I still remember his stinky breath on me. He was just so revolting. On the bed, he gripped my hands above my head with one of his hands and used the other hand to yank my shorts and panties off me. I cried and begged for him to stop and let me go, but he ignored my tears and my pleas. He kept telling me I was sick. He kept repeating that he was doing it for my own good and to trust him.”

  Brianna had been successful up until that point at keeping her tears at bay. She had spent the last seven years fighting those tears, convincing herself she was over it, pretending everything was okay. But she couldn’t pretend anymore, and she couldn’t hold the tsunami of tears any longer. The salty liquid blurred her almost lifeless blue eyes before forceful, nonstop streams of pent-up anger and pain began to rush down her porcelain cheeks.

  Even though her tears were flowing uncontrollably, Brianna did not make a sound. There were no sobs or whimpers. Her face did not twist in pain. Her body did not convulse with grief. She just wept silently. That night on that couch, she wasn’t Brianna Garrett, the glamorous, self-confident, budding movie star. That night she was just the broken, terrified eighteen-year-old girl who could not understand what could possess a human being to be so cruel to a defenseless girl.

  Abby just kept sobbing quietly. She was in shock. She couldn’t move or speak. She couldn’t wrap her mind around someone hiding behind their religious beliefs to be so heartless towards a child. She felt there was nothing she could have said that could have possibly comforted that broken girl. So she just kept listening.

  “Then he forced himself on me,” Brianna continued. “He didn’t even bother to put on a condom, the sick son of a bitch. It was a miracle that I didn’t end up getting pregnant. He kept whispering hymns and chanting while he rammed into me over and over.”

  “It hurt so much, Abby. It felt like my insides were being torn apart. I had never been with a man before him. Miller probably knew that but didn’t give a shit about my physical or emotional pain. He was probably proud of himself for coming up with that scam, the sick bastard. He had found a way of manipulating ignorant parents into letting him rape their daughters in the name of God.”

  “I kept screaming and crying for my dad to come help me, but he didn’t show up. I knew he could hear me. How could he not? I was screaming pretty loudly.”

  “After Miller was done, he dressed himself, and then put my panties and shorts back on. By then, I had stopped struggling. I just lied there sobbing and wondering what I had done to deserve so much cruelty. I felt so alone and worthless. After Miller was done dressing me, he walked to the door and knocked on it twice. I guess that was his signal to my dad that the healing session was over.”

  “Within seconds my father walked in. I couldn’t see his face. I was lying on my side with my face turned away from him and Miller. I felt the mattress sink behind me when my father sat next to me. He pretty much repeated what he had said earlier about doing it for my own good and to save my soul. ‘You may be angry at me right now. You may hate me for this, but one day you will thank me’ he said.”

  "I remember his words like it was yesterday. He was right about the hate part. I hated him so much at that moment, I was shaking with rage, but still wouldn’t look at him. Miller sat on the other side of me. They both placed their hands on my head and said a prayer.” Brianna chuckled bitterly as she remembered the audacity of the two men. She turned to look at Abby who was drowning in her own tears. “Can you believe they had the gall to pray for me?”

  Abby just shook her head. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that someone could so callously exploit another person’s faith just to satisfy their own sick urges. It made her angry and scared that people as evil as Miller roamed the earth.

  Brianna turned her gaze towards the wall in front of her and continued with her story. “Miller and my father prayed for me for about one hour before they left the room together.”

  “I thought it was only going to be a one-time thing. I was so naïve for thinking Miller wouldn’t come back. I mean, why would he stop after one ‘session’? He was getting to fulfill his disgusting fantasies without consequences. Of course he came back. He came back three or four times a week for about a month.”

  “After the second time, I was so angry I kept looking around the room for things I could use to crack his skull open. I didn’t care anymore. I wanted the bastard dead. If I had had a gun handy, I would have unloaded it on him with a smile on my face, and I wouldn’t have regretted it one bit. I would’ve been the happiest inmate in the history of prison. But there was nothing in the room I could’ve used as a weapon.”

  “After the third time, I just stopped fighting him. I also stopped crying and screaming and calling for help. What was the point of screaming and begging for mercy? Neither my father nor Miller gave a shit about how much I was hurting. They both had their own agendas, and there was no one else around to help me. Our house was very secluded and off the road. The next house was a mile away.”

  “No one was going to hear me no matter how loud I screamed. By the third ‘therapy session’, I had started to believe I deserved what was happening to me. I thought God was punishing me for liking girls. I was going out of my mind from being locked up in that room day after day after day with no one to talk to. I felt so worthless and alone. I was so desperate, I contemplated taking my own life.”

  Abby stifled a gasp with her palm upon hearing the startling revelation: Brianna had thought about taking her own life. She understood that only the profoundest, most devastating of pains could make a person believe suicide was their only option.

  Abby felt like hands were squeezing her heart until it burst. Brianna’s story had shaken her to her very core. It was a story she was never going to forget for as long as she lived. Abby searched for words that could express how sorry and broken she was over the story she was hearing, but still couldn’t find any.

  Brianna’s body began to shake violently, but she still did not make a sound.

  Abby scooted over and wrapped her arms around her. She held Brianna tight, rocking her back and forth but wit
hout saying a single word. She still didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry” just didn’t cut it. “I’m sorry” was just too pedestrian, too superficial a sentence to say to someone who had gone through the things Brianna had gone through.

  Brianna struggled to break free from the embrace, but Abby did not let go. Abby kept rocking her until a gut-wrenching, guttural howl tore past Brianna’s lips and resonated throughout the fancy apartment.

  The sound, which seemed to have come from the pits of Brianna’s soul, made the hair on the back of Abby’s neck stand up. Brianna tried to scream some more, but no sound came out of her mouth. It was as if she was choking on all the pent-up hatred and resentment she had been carrying around for over seven long years.

  Still convulsing and unable to catch her breath or make a sound, Brianna stopped struggling and gave into Abby’s comforting embrace. She continued to gasp and pant until another thunderous, halting wail shot past her lips and bounced off the walls.

  She sobbed on Abby’s shoulder, her face soaked, her nose running, her lower lip quivering. The more she cried, the lighter her heart felt. Her tears were washing away her shame and self-loathing. Thanks to Abby’s kindness, she no longer felt she was a prisoner of her despair. A surreal sense of peace had started to overtake her body.

  “What happened then? How did you manage to get away from all that?” Abby asked after Brianna had calmed down a bit. She still had her arms tightly wrapped around Brianna.

  “A whole month had passed since Miller had started subjecting me to his special brand of therapy. I was still locked up in my bedroom and wishing for the sweet relief of death to come rescue me.”

  “One afternoon, I was alone in the house and heard a knock on my bedroom door. It was Kyle. The door was locked from outside, and my father was the only one who had the key. So Kyle and I talked through the door. He told me he had skipped football practice that day and taken the bus so he could talk to me.”