Betrayal: Brianna's Secret (The Betrayal Series) (7 page)

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 without 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.”

 “Ever since the day my father whipped me and locked me up, Kyle had not been allowed to be alone with me in the house. Kyle told me how our parents forbade him to come home after school. They had instructed him to go to our uncle’s house every day after school and stay there until our mother could pick him up.”

 “Kyle said he broke the rule because he missed me and wanted to talk to me. He expected to get in trouble for disobeying our father, but he didn’t care.”

“‘What did you do, Brianna? When are they letting you out?’ He kept asking over and over through the door. He was so sweet. I could hear it in his sweet voice how worried he was about me. I told him I’d explain later, but first I needed him to deliver a message to my friend Billy who lived about three miles away from our house.”

 “I wrote on a piece of paper that my parents had locked me up in my bedroom for over a month and wouldn’t let me out. I folded the piece of paper and slipped it under the door. I instructed Kyle to get the note to Billy and no one else. Kyle took the piece of paper, got his bike out of the garage and rushed to deliver the note to Billy.”

 “About half an hour later, I heard the sound of a truck pulling into our driveway. It was Billy and Kyle. Within seconds, Billy was on the other side of my door asking me why I had been locked up and if I was okay. I told him I’d explain later and begged him to get me out of there. I was afraid either one of my parents would come home early. I could only imagine the punishment I would’ve received if that had happened.”

“Billy tried to pick the lock, but being the hot head that he was, he gave that up pretty quickly. He told me to get away from the door and just shot the lock open with his hunting rifle.”

“After Billy busted the door open, Kyle ran in to hug me. It felt so good to see him again. He was a little shaken up from the gun shots but very happy to see me. I sent Kyle out of the room so I could tell Billy why my parents had locked me up.”

 “Billy was furious when I told him. He had always known I was gay and had been very supportive. I told Billy why I was locked up, but didn’t tell him what Pastor Miller had been doing to me. I couldn’t tell him. Billy was in love with me. Had been since we met in grade school and still is, I think. If I had told him everything, he’d be in prison right now for murder.”

 “I did tell Billy I needed to disappear before my parents showed up. Billy helped me stuff some of my things in a suitcase and drove me to his house. Before I left, I wrote a note to my parents. I simply told them to stay away from me. I warned them not to come looking for me and try to bring me back because if they did, everyone was going to know what Dad and Pastor Miller had done to me.”

 “I was very explicit in the note about what Dad and Pastor Miller did to me. I was already eighteen so they had no legal power to track me down and bring me back against my will. But that hadn’t stopped my father from locking me up in the first place, so I needed to threaten them with a scandal to ensure they wouldn’t look for me, find me, and lock me up again.”

“I told Kyle I needed to go away, but that I’d try to keep in touch. He began to cry and begged me to stay. He was so confused and scared, it broke my heart. He was only thirteen years old. I was sad to leave him. He was the only one in that house who cared about me. I was not worried about him getting in trouble with my parents. Kyle was my parent’s favorite. He was the apple of their eye. I knew they wouldn’t punish him for letting me out.”

“Before I left the house for good, I gave Kyle the note I had written for my parents and told him to give it to them when they got home. I told Kyle not to read the note, but he probably read it anyway. My guess is he asked my parents to explain the note, and they denied everything I had written and trashed me to Kyle.”

 “That’s why he hates me, Abby. My father convinced him I made up what I wrote in the note. Kyle could not wrap his head around the fact that our father, who he considered his hero and the most honorable man he knew, could be capable of plotting with Miller and allowing the bastard to do the heinous things he did to me. So he chose to believe my parents and not me.”

“It’s okay, though. I understand. He was just a kid. He did not know the side of my parents that I knew. My parents went out of their way to hide their heartless treatment of me from Kyle. They loved Kyle and hated me. Kyle was their pride and joy and wasn’t suffering from any ‘sickness’ like I was.”

 “He was the all-American boy: straight-A student, captain of the football team, God fearing boy. I was the C student, forever-in-detention, deviant freak who seduced and corrupted innocent high school girls.”

 “I used to resent Kyle for getting all the love and understanding my parents withheld from me, but I don’t anymore. It wasn’t his fault. I don’t resent him for believing my father and not me either. He was just a kid at the time, an innocent kid who had been brainwashed by his simple-minded, fanatical parents.”

 “I don’t hate him, Abby. Never have. It pisses me off that as an adult, he still chooses to cling to outdated beliefs. It frustrates me that a grown man who is as intelligent and rational as him can still be so closed minded, but I don’t hate him. I can’t hate him. I owe him my life. I probably wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for him. Who knows what I would’ve done if he hadn’t come home that day and helped me escape?”

Abby unwrapped her arms from Brianna’s shoulders and reached for Brianna’s head. She cradled Brianna’s head with both hands and pulled it down towards her waist. With Brianna’s head gently resting on her lap, Abby untied the bun on top of Brianna’s head and began to massage her scalp.

“What happened after you left the house? Where did you go?” Abby asked.

Brianna let out a soft moan and closed her eyes, almost losing herself in the feel of Abby’s fingers stroking her scalp. After a brief break, she continued with her story.

“After I wrote the note, I left Kyle at our house and drove with Billy to his with my suitcase. Billy and I both knew I couldn’t stay at his house. He was my best friend. His house would have been the first place my parents would have gone looking for me.”

 “I couldn’t go stay with any of my relatives either. After my parents explained to them why they had locked me up, all of my relatives would have sided with my parents and given me up. So Billy called a cousin of his who lived in L.A. and asked her to take me in for a few days. Billy took whatever little savings he had, bought me a one-way ticket and put me in the first bus to L.A. By the time my parents learned I had broken out of the room, I was miles away from them.”

“You must have been really scared,” Abby remarked, still running her fingers through Brianna’s untamable hair.

“I was. I mean, one day I’m a high school student without a care in the world, the next I’m running for my life with no money and going to live in another state with someone I’d never met. But what else could I do? I had no other options.”