Original publication date September 11, 2015
A few months have passed since I broke up with Grayson, and I’ve started talking to people at school again. Surprisingly, Sade has become my best friend. I didn’t trust her at first, but she slowly proved to me that she could keep things to herself. I think she surprised herself by how much she likes keeping things just between us two. I haven’t told her everything that’s happened to me. She knows I was raped, but I can’t share the details with anyone.
I can’t even share the complete details with the therapist that the Goths make me go see. Instead of talking about that, I allow her to help me with my issues about Dad hitting me, my mother standing aside and letting him, not knowing my little brother and being disturbed that I don’t care, my anger towards my older sister for both abandoning me and failing to protect me, and anything else that doesn’t directly involve what Fred did to me.
Sade does a good job of keeping me from dwelling on it and reminding me what it’s like to just be a teen. We go shopping a bunch. I get a large allowance from the Goths, and Bella loves it when I happily model for her all my purchases.
Today, I’m shopping by myself. Sade is busy this afternoon, but I decided I could use a little ‘alone’ time.
I’m walking down the sidewalk downtown when I see a very unexpected sight: Graham. I haven’t seen him in forever, not since he mysteriously vanished during that fiasco. I’ve thought over and over about contacting him in some way, but I figured that if he wanted to see me, he’d find a way to do it.
“Imagine my…surprise,” I hear Graham’s voice say in my head, remembering his reaction to hearing about Grayson being my boyfriend.
I take in a hitched breath and stare at the two of them. Maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me and it’s just a look-a-like, not Graham.
The woman giggles at whatever it was he spoke into her ear. Looking at her, I’d guess she’s older than him. That, or she just looks old. He didn’t care about age difference before…
I wish, kinda, that he’d turn his head my way so that I could make sure it was actually him. Bravely or stupidly, I walk towards the couple.
He laughs deep in his chest, completely amused. It’s him. Graham!
They look at one another like they’re conveying a message that can only be said through the eyes, like they know each other that well. Graham puts his hand on her leg, and I want to die.
The woman notices me first. She looks over at me and asks, “Is there anything we can help you with, sweetie?” Her tone is demeaning, belittling, like she sees me as a child.
Still smiling, Graham turns his face towards me. When he sees me, his smile quickly vanishes to a look of shock. “Brielle,” he gasps out.
“But I will.”
“You…won’t,” I tell him, and I have to work to keep my voice calm and even. “You…didn’t.” I refer back to when he said he’d wait for me to turn eighteen. Guess that promise flew out the window. I broke up with Grayson; I’ve held Alex at arm’s length…all for nothing, an empty promise.
“I’m sorry?” the old lady asks, confused. “Were you asking for help?”
I want to throw up in her lap.
“Kristy,” Graham says gently, “I know her. Let me talk to her, and I might be a while. I’ll call you, okay?”
“Don’t believe him,” I tell her a falsely-strong voice as she gets up from the bench.
She merely smiles condescendingly at me as she turns around and says to Graham, “I’ll go to the cafe and get a cup of coffee while you talk to her.” Then she affectionately kisses him on the cheek while I watch. With all the other emotions going through me, I find myself ironically entertained as I watch Graham try to act like he likes her kissing him but not let me see it too much.
I look down at Graham and harshly whisper, “Liar.” His mouth opens in shock, and I turn and walk away.
“Excuse me?!” he calls after me, getting up from the bench. “You sure are one to talk, accusing me of being a liar.”
“So my lie makes yours okay? Is that how it works?” I throw over my shoulder. “She shouldn’t believe a word you say because you don’t keep your promises!”
Another lady and I almost collide on the sidewalk, and after each of us say excuse me, we do that little dancing thing back and forth, each trying to pass the other one. It slows me down, and Graham starts catching up to me. When I glance back at him to see just how much he’s caught up, I see him smiling enigmatically.
“Good to see you so happy about being a big fat liar,” I snarl back at him and get around the woman to continue down the sidewalk.
“How was I lying, Brielle? What was the lie?”
“Leave me alone,” I say in a mild panic, not answering him. He’s catching up fast, and he’ll soon pass me since I can’t walk rapidly enough in my heels.
“Yeah. About that… I have a court order to do so, but since you approached me, I’m going to say this is a gray area,” he tells me, and I stop in my tracks in shock.
What?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. I mean for it to sound accusatory, but it comes out as a gasp.
He circles around in front of me. “I was right; nobody told you. Nobody told you about Mortimer Goth’s threat, did they?”
“He threatened you? He wouldn’t hurt a fly,” I argue just to argue. I’m pretty sure Mr. Goth could be devious if he wanted to be.
“He put out a restraining order on me, Brielle, when I asked him for his permission to date you.”
Mr. Goth did WHAT?
Graham asked permission?
He still cared. He still wanted to see me. He thought he’d found a way, but Mr. Goth shot him down and took it a step further with a restraining order.
His brown eyes pierce into me, gauging the depth of my surprise. “He told me I was the last thing you needed and that if I didn’t leave you alone, he’d press charges.”
“He… He can’t,” I argue, my voice sounding breathless. Varying instances from the past couple of months swirl around and around in my head, not forming any lasting piece of logic. I never have much to do with Mr. Goth. He’s a dad, and I have trouble trusting dads. Now, I have more reason to. He put out a restraining order?!
“Of course he can. He’s your legal guardian.”
“He never mentioned anything about this to me.” I usually steer clear of Mortimer, preferring to have most of my interactions with Bella and Alex.
Graham shrugs. “Why would he? It would’ve made him look like a bad guy. Doing it his way makes me look like the bad one.” He pauses to let what he said sink in even more. “You changed your phone number again.”
I nod dumbly. “I threw my old one down in the woods after… after you called. Mr. Goth didn’t transfer the number over to my new one.”
“Gee, I wonder why,” Graham sneers sarcastically.
“This makes no sense!” I cry out in frustration. There’s a puzzle piece in all this that screams in my face, but I can’t hear what it says.
“What doesn’t?” he asks gently.
“Why would he deliberately do something that would make me miserable? All this time, they’ve all been talking about how much they want to help me.”
He sighs sadly. “In their minds, they are. Brielle, I wanted to call you. I wanted to see you. I’ve been in agony for months. Fear of what he’d do kept me back. I kept telling myself to wait for next September, when he can’t control you anymore.” He pauses while I work on stopping the emotional whirlwind whipping around me. Then, his voice drops to a whisper, “I’ve missed you.”
That does it. I can’t hold it in any longer, and I hide my face in my hands to try and hide my crying. The past few months stretch out in my mind, and I see each happening with new eyes. The Goths have been purposefully keeping me from Graham ‘for my own good.’ I’ve been miserable wondering if he stopped caring ‘for my own good.’ I take in a hiccuped breath and let out another cry.
Graham begs, “Brielle, please don’t cry. I couldn’t do anything about you being miserable.”
I shake my head no and keep crying.
He reaches out and grasps my arms, and I drop my hands helplessly. Tears continue streaming down my face while it barely registers that he’s touching me.
“It’s only ten more months, Brielle, and then they can’t stop me. I’m so sorry that you thought I stopped caring. It killed me when I found out what happened to you! It was me that raised hell at the police station to find you. I did whatever I could, and, at first, I thought you going to the Goths was a good thing, not that I had any say. Then, I spoke to him, begging him to let me see you, but I was in for a big surprise when he vehemently gave me a no, no way in hell. He was very vicious about it.”
I sniff, and Graham’s thumbs start rubbing my arms. Strange, I think when I consider that Graham touching me feels odd instead of making me sick. That makes me think of Grayson trying to hug me that day I broke up with him. “I broke up with Grayson,” I tell him in what he might think is a random sort of way. When I look up at him, I see a smile flit across his face.
“Ten months,” he tells me encouragingly. “I have a countdown on my phone. Speaking of phone, could I please have your new number?”
He asked me for my phone number, I think numbly, remembering that first night, the night we met in the park when he’d asked for my number. I picture the countdown on his phone and wonder how prominent a place it has, wondering if that means he’s thought about me every day.
Wait a minute! I suddenly scream in my head, and I glare at him. “I wonder what Kristy’s thought of the countdown, if she’s seen it.” Talking about how much he misses me and cares about me when minutes ago he had his hand on another woman’s leg after whispering flirtatious things in her ear! My cheeks start turning red.
Guilt riddles his beautiful voice when he says, “This was only our second date. We met at work. She’s another professor.”
Second?!
I shove him back with all the strength I have. He takes a step backwards and tries to reclaim the lost space. I put out my hand to stop him. “Second,” I say, echoing my thought.
“I was… I needed to…” He tries to find a good explanation and can’t. Then, he scowls and asks, “Oh? So you’re the only one that gets to have someone on the side while we wait for next year?”
“I don’t!” I snap.
“You don’t?!” he argues. “So, Grayson wasn’t your boyfriend?”
“That was after we broke up, and I broke up with him,” I snarl.
“Eventually! And what about the Goth kid? Alex?! Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I don’t see why the Goths didn’t outright adopt you?! Because it would be too weird for Alex to marry his adopted sister! Don’t you see that’s what they’re doing? They’re grooming you, Brielle! Don’t you know that keeps me up at night, worrying?! What if I lose before I get another chance?! I was stressing out over it, and Kristy was there… She didn’t know why, but…”
He exhales all in a rush and places his hand on his forehead. I stay quiet. I don’t have to say anything; he knows.
“I’m sorry. I’m just a man. I lost hope for a little while, thinking you’d forget about me,” he quietly admits.
My heart cracks, yet I feel strangely numb. “Go ahead, Graham. This is ridiculous.”
“What?” he quietly asks in a hurt shock.
I kick a leaf on the sidewalk. Deja vu of sorts. “This can’t happen. It was a nice fantasy, but it won’t work.” Pretty much the same thing I told Grayson, but this time, it hurts more. I know I can’t expect Graham to wait like he said he would. After all this time of wondering whether or not he still cared, seeing him with another woman hurt much more than I thought it would. I have no right to expect him to sit around and do nothing, not to date someone else. He’s a grown man that shouldn’t waste his time on a teenager like me. Sure, his original intentions sounded wonderful at the time, but that was before we both had to live those intentions. I couldn’t let go of Grayson as soon as I should have; he couldn’t keep from dating someone else.
“Brielle, don’t do this. Our only enemy is time.”
“I think a history professor would understand how time can change things,” I say with a sad smile. “And we only had a small amount of ‘time’ together anyway, so it’s ridiculous to try and hang onto that, hang onto it so hard that we strangle it to death.”
“I don’t see it as strangling anything. I see it as me cradling it, protecting it so that it doesn’t get hurt,” he says in a very pained voice.
“Well, it did.”
“No,” he whispers.
“I’m setting you free, Graham.”
“No!” He reaches for me, but I immediately throw up a hand in defense, making him stop.
“You obviously aren’t getting what you need by waiting around. Kristy is proof of that.”
“Brielle,” he says sadly, and I see his hand shake. “Please. I’m sorry. Don’t do this. I’ll break everything off with her. She was nothing but a crutch, a quick-fix band-aid, like you did with Grayson.”
I shake my head no. “No. There’s something between you two.”
“An advanced friendship. Please, Brielle. I love you.” He moves as if to reach for me again, but he stops himself.
I shake my head no.
“You don’t know me,” I tell him, swallowing back more tears.
His jaw drops. I’m sure he remembers telling me that and knows why I’m using it now. I walk around him, heading towards the road.
“Wait!” he calls out desperately when he can find his voice.
“No,” I reply over my shoulder. “And you need to stay back. Don’t forget your restraining order.” And KRISTY’S waiting in the cafe for you.
My hand reaches up to wipe away few recent tears, and I don’t hear him call out to me again.
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