Daddy's Baby

by Landis Lain

  Brielle

  “Brielle,” he said. “I can’t talk to you anymore.”

  Brielle looked at the cell phone, briefly and then put it back to her ear. She said nothing. She fingered the half a heart charm around her neck. It was three days until Christmas and she had been sitting on her bed wrapping gifts. She’d saved Damon’s gift for last. Outside the snow fell silently, blanketing everything in beautiful white silence.

  “Brielle?” She still didn’t answer.

  “Brielle, are you there?” asked Damon. His voice was harsh. He felt like a straight up punk, calling Brielle to dump her over the phone, but he thought that it might be easier not to have to face her. He didn’t think that he could get through it without crying.

  “I’m here,” said Brielle, through her tight throat. “What happened?”

  “I’ve got something to do and can’t talk about it right now,” said Damon. “But I can’t talk to you anymore.”

  “You’re breaking up with me?” Brielle’s voice was wobbly.

  “Yeah,” he said baldly. He could feel his chest tighten.

  “Would you tell me why?” asked Brielle. She felt like she was dying.

  Damon was silent, trying to breathe.

  “What did I do?” she asked. Brielle was being flayed alive, like he was peeling skin from her chest one layer at a time to let the tiny pieces of her heart flutter around in a discarded confetti rain.

  Damon hated the begging tone in her voice. He hated the tears. It made him angry that Brielle would beg when he was the one at fault. He burned inside and felt his head pound.

  You didn’t do anything,” said Damon, closing his eyes. He was so ashamed of himself, but he didn’t want to tell her about Sasha’s pregnancy, couldn’t bring himself to give her the details to make her hate him. He wanted to keep it a secret for as long as he possibly could. He didn’t want her to know yet, just how stupid he’d been.

  “I got some stuff to do and it doesn’t include you,” he said. “I won’t be able to – can’t be with you anymore.”

  “Can’t you at least tell me why?” asked Brielle. He could hear the tears clogging her voice.

  “No,” he said. “I can’t tell you, now. And don’t beg.”

  “Beg?” asked Brielle, her voice rising to a shriek on the last letter. “Beg you? You call me out of the blue and tell me you’re breaking up with me and I’m not supposed to even ask why? You asked me to be your girl, not the other way around.”

  “I know,” said Damon, miserably. “It’s just, I need some space to-,”

  “Oh, so now I’m crowding you?” she asked bitterly. “I’m Sasha all over again, huh?”

  “Don’t talk about her,” he said, quickly and knew that it was a mistake as soon as the words left his mouth.

  “Oh,” said Brielle, enraged. “You’re back with her now? That’s what this is about? I knew this was going to happen. I knew you were lying. I should have known. Why would you want me when you could have her? She was giving up the booty. I’ll bet she broke up with you, not the other way around.”

  “It’s not like that,” said Damon. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Did you go sniffing around her again and she let you back in after all this time?”

  “No,” said Damon. “It’s not even like that.” Brielle paused giving him the opportunity to say something. Damon remained silent.

  “What is it like, Damon?” asked Brielle, giving him one last chance. He could hear the hope in her voice, the hope that maybe he’d made some mistake and she was willing to forgive him if he’d just come clean. He was silent, trying to formulate the words.

  “Tell me something,” said Brielle, when he didn’t respond. He could feel her hope fall away through the telephone, flaking to her bedroom floor like sunburned skin. She took a deep shuddering breath. “Tell me that Sasha doesn’t have anything to do with you breaking up with me.”

  He closed his eyes and imagined Brielle hugging him, imagined her soft lips on his. He imagined her talking to him, and laughing and looking at him with her heart in her eyes. Tears formed in his eyes. Brielle was his dream, had been before he ever realized and she was to be gone from his life in a few minutes forever. And he had nobody to blame but himself. He closed his eyes. Damon waited an eternal second before he shattered his dreams into a thousand jagged shards of glass.

  “Damon?” prompted Brielle.

  “I can’t,” said Damon, and snapped his cell phone closed.

  Brielle

  Dumped! She had just been officially, cruelly, unequivocally, dumped. Brielle sat looking at her cell phone, stunned. Her first instinct was to call Damon back and try to find out what she could do to get him back. To force him to tell her what had happened. Confusion rang in her mind as she replayed the conversation inside her head. She started to redial but she was so dazed that she couldn’t remember which number was his. She stared at the screen on the cell phone. Call terminated 6:29 p.m. Brielle pressed several buttons on her phone and scrolled down to the only number that her frozen brain could recognize. She put the receiver to her ear and listed to the distant ringing.

  “Hey, what’s up?” said Sammie’s bright voice.

  Brielle burst into tears.

  “Oh, no,” she heard Sammie say. “Brielle? What’s wrong? What happened?” Brielle could not speak, she just sobbed inconsolably into the receiver. A few minutes later, Brielle’s door burst open.

  “Hey,” said Kyzie, gently. “Sammie called the house phone, said you were crying. What happened?” Brielle just shook her head and kept crying. Brielle heard Kyzie close her door and walk across the room to where she sat on the bed. Kyzie took the cell phone out of her hand and spoke to Sammie softly, but Brielle was crying hard enough to start retching and she stumbled up off of her bed and ran into the bathroom and threw up.

  Brielle cried for a few more minutes, face buried in her hands, while Kyzie rubbed her back with her hand.

  “What did that shyskie punk do?” asked Kyzie, her voice hard. She flushed the toilet and handed Brielle a wash cloth

  Brielle shook her head.

  “Are you pregnant?” asked Kyzie, horror in her voice. Brielle checked in between sobs.

  “Of course not,” said Brielle, equally horrified. “I’m a virgin.” She rolled her swollen eyes at her sister. She took the wash cloth and wiped her face.

  “I had to ask,” said Kyzie. “You know mommy is going to see that you’ve been crying and ask what happened. I was making sure it wasn’t something that I needed to take cover for.”

  Despite herself, Brielle burst out laughing.

  “You’re so insensitive,” said Brielle. She wiped her eyes on the towel.

  “How am I supposed to be properly sympathetic if I don’t know what’s going on?” asked Kyzie.

  “Oh,” said Brielle. She shrugged her shoulders, as if to say she didn’t really know what was going on, either.

  “So, what happened?” asked Kyzie.

  “Damon doesn’t want me to be his girl anymore,” said Brielle, brokenly. Kyzie took the towel out of her hand and turned the faucet on. She let cold water run over the towel and then squeezed out the excess water before she held it out to Brielle.

  “What?” asked Kyzie. “Please! He’s sick in love with you.”

  “He said he couldn’t be with me anymore,” said Brielle.

  “Did he say why?”

  Brielle shook her head and burst into tears again.

  “Wash your face,” said Kyzie. She wanted to say something scathing but didn’t because Brielle looked so broken hearted. Instead she opted for, “You’re better off without that boy. You’re too good for him anyway.”

  Brielle slid to the floor and sat with her back against the cabinet. Kyzie sat down on the commode and looked at her sister helplessly. Neither one of them said anything else.

  They both heard footfalls on the stairs and the hallway. The feet halted outside of Brielle’s door. A tentative kn
ock sounded. Brielle got up off the floor, walked back into her room and collapsed face down into her pillows.

  “Come in,” said Kyzie, following her sister out of the bathroom. She stood looking down at Brielle in confusion. Sammie burst through the door, chest heaving, looking terrified.

  “I got here as soon as I could,” said Sammie, out of breath. “Your mom let me in. I thought somebody died, except that she looked like there was nothing going on. What’s up?” Brielle didn’t answer.

  “Damon broke up with Brielle,” said Kyzie, baldly.

  “Sammie’s beautiful eyes widened as big as silver dollars.

  “What?” said Sammie. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” said Brielle, her voice muffled by the purple cotton covered pillows. Brielle lifted her face out of the pillow. “But it has something to do with Sasha Anderson.”

  “No way,” said Sammie, palm on her chest. “He cannot stand her. It must be something else.” Brielle sat up.

  “I asked him,” said Brielle. “I asked him to tell me that it had nothing to do with Sasha and he said he couldn’t tell me that.” She sat up on the bed.

  “Oh, no,” said Sammie, throwing her arms around Brielle’s shoulders. “That dirty cheating sucker.”

  “Scurvy knave,” said Kyzie, sitting down on Brielle’s other side.

  “Rotten buzzard,” said Sammie.

  “Stank monkey brain,” said Kyzie.

  They all laughed at that one. Between Sammie and Kyzie, Brielle felt a little better.

  “You know,” said Sammie. “My brother Rory said that some of his friends at college break up with their girlfriends right before Christmas or their birthdays so they don’t have to buy them gifts. Then they get back together after everything is over.”

  “That’s an awful thing to do,” said Kyzie. “No boy better ever do that to me. I’d kill him.”

  “Damon wouldn’t do that,” said Brielle.

  “You’re still defending him?” asked Kyzie, incredulously. “He called and broke up with you over the phone like a little punk and you’re still defending him. What are you, stupid?”

  Brielle started to cry.

  Sammie gave Kyzie a look of acute disapproval. “Kick a sister while she’s down, why don’t you,” she said to Kyzie.

  Kyzie had the grace to look ashamed.

  “I’m sorry, Bri,” she said. “I didn’t mean it. I hate seeing you all torn up over that dumb boy. When I see him I’m going to beat his ass.”

  “You’ll have to jump him from behind,” said Sammie. “Since you weigh a buck oh five.”

  “I plan to,” said Kyzie. “I’m going to smack his pretty face with a brick.”

  “I’m okay,” said Brielle, sniffling and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “That is the last tear that I shed over Damon Hamilton.”

  “You still have us, smookie-wookie,” said Sammie, making a comical face. Both she and Kyzie hugged Brielle hard. She washed her face a second time and was able to go down to dinner with the family. Her mother gave her a sharp look because of her subdued demeanor, but for once did not ask any questions. Brielle played with the food on her plate for a while.

  “Brielle,” said her mother, when Brielle refused to eat dessert. Brielle loved sweets and tonight they were having apple pie, Brielle’s favorite. “What’s the matter?”

  “I just don’t feel too well,” said Brielle.

  “Do you want to talk?” her mother asked. Mr. Bronson looked at her sharply.

  Brielle shook her head. Sammie and Kyzie looked worried but pretended to pay close attention to their dinners.

  “Mom, can I talk about it later?” asked Brielle in a choked voice.

  “Brielle,” began her father.

  “Leave it until later,” said Mrs. Bronson, holding up her hand.

  “May I be excused?”

  Her mother got up and walked around the table. She put her palm on Brielle’s forehead.

  “You don’t feel feverish,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  Brielle could feel the tears start again, but she blinked them back determinedly. She wasn’t going to cry over Damon Hamilton, at least not in front of people, anymore.

  “Please, mom,” said Brielle, desperate. “May I be excused?”

  “Sure,” said her mom, looking determined. “But we’ll talk later.”

  Brielle nodded her head and left the table.

  Damon

  “I hate you!!!”

  The door to Damon’s bedroom slammed open and his sister catapulted into the room, still screaming. Damon had been laying on his bed, listening to music on his IPOD, trying to block out the world. He jumped up when the door slammed open.

  “Get out of my room,” he yelled.

  Jada stumbled over a pair of sneakers that he’d left on the floor by the door and then launched herself across the room to grab him by the front of his shirt. She smacked him hard across the face, causing his glasses to fly off. Damon grabbed for her hands and wrestled her onto the bed.

  “Stop it,” he said, breathing hard. His sister was no light weight, fluffy female. One of his boys had used a popular song to describe her, five-five, brown eyes, thick thighs. She was muscular, athletic and enraged. He struggled to pin her without hurting her. He tussled with her for a few minutes before he finally subdued her.

  He landed half on top of her and held her down until she stopped struggling. He wondered where his mother was and why she hadn’t heard the noise and come to investigate.

  “Get off me,” Jada snarled. She caught her breath and started straining against him. He held her fast.

  “Not until you calm down,” he said, through clenched teeth. After a few minutes she gave up the struggle. He let her up cautiously and when she didn’t swing at him again he got up off of the bed and went to retrieve his glasses and IPOD from the floor.

  “Are you crazy?” he asked. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Brielle is all upset over you,” snapped Jada. “You and your stupid slut of a girlfriend have wrecked everything.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Mama and daddy said they have to rethink letting me date at sixteen and I wanted to go on the Spring Spanish trip to Mexico with the school and they said no, because they will have unexpected bills, so they can help you take care of this baby,” said Jada, words flying out her mouth like sparks from a welding torch.

  “I didn’t ask them to do anything like that,” protested Damon.

  “They are going to rethink me dating because you got some skank pregnant!” snapped Jada. She narrowed her eyes. “It’s not fair.”

  “I didn’t know,” said Damon.

  “You never know anything,” said Jada. “But, I know you get to do whatever you want to and I have to pay the consequences.”

  “I’m really sorry,” said Damon. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “No, of course not,” she sneered. “You jack up everything you touch. Brielle couldn’t even talk to me, she was crying on the phone so hard, when I called her after you broke up with her. I could hear her in the background.”

  “You talked to Brielle,” said Damon, his tone appalled. “She was crying?”

  “I talked to Kyzie, fool,” said Jada. “Didn’t I just say Brielle couldn’t talk for crying?”

  “How did she find out?” asked Damon.

  “Find out what? You broke up with her, didn’t you?” screamed Jada. “Or did you send one of your boys to do it?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Damon. “I thought you meant about Sasha being pregnant.”

  “You think it’s a secret that you got that stupid girl pregnant?” said Jada. “Or that you broke up with Brielle? Everybody knows.”

  Damon just stared at her, aghast.

  “I knew that crap you talked about A.C. Green and secondary virginity was junk. You are poison. The devil. You take these girls and use them and when they are all into you, you drop them.”

  “No, I d
on’t,” said Damon.

  “Yes, you do,” snapped Jada. “You know all these girls like you. You used the crazy girl for sex and then when you got tired of her you dumped her. Then you used Brielle to make you feel better. So you could pretend you weren’t scum.”

  “Jada,” said Damon. She threw up a hand to stop him.

  Because she was saying things he’d already thought about himself, he could hardly defend himself from her verbal beat down, so he fell silent.

  “And then you got a baby on the way. So you dumped Brielle. Because you got something else to catch your attention, now. You just dabble with people and their feelings like they are some kind of toys.”

  “No, I don’t” said Damon.

  “It’s like when we were kids and you had to have every toy, even the ones you didn’t want to play with,” said Jada. “You’d just leave them on the floor but didn’t want nobody else to touch them. Except that people are not toys, you selfish punk.”

  “Jada,” said Damon.

  “Don’t speak my name,” snarled his sister.

  She stomped to the door and then turned back towards him.

  “I just got one question for you?”

  “What?”

  “When do you think you’ll dump this kid?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Damon, appalled. “I’ll never dump my child.”

  “It’s not here yet,” taunted Jada. “How do you know nothing more interesting will come along?”

  Damon was enraged. He reached for his sister. Jada took two steps to Damon’s book shelf and knocked the entire top shelf of books onto the floor.

  “Get out of my room,” said Damon, grabbing her by the shoulder and shoving her towards the door. “Get out, now.”

  Jada stomped towards the door. On the way out she picked up a shoe and threw it as hard as she could at Damon. He dodged out of the way and hastened over to slam the door closed behind her.

  Brielle

  “She’s pregnant,” Kyzie announced dramatically. She’d just gotten off the phone with Jada and run to Brielle’s room to tell her the news.

  “Who’s pregnant?” asked Sammie. She was perched next to Brielle on the bed, painting her toe nails a loud fuchsia. Brielle looked up from her perch on the bed and said nothing.