BrookLyn's Journey (25 page)

Yes, BrookLyn, rise up.

Being with
Gabby
made her want to do just that.
She
watched herself
brushing
her
teeth
,
lost in
her
thoughts
until
the bathroom door
pushed
open
and startled her.
BrookLyn almost choked on the toothpaste, leaned over and spit in the sink. In her haste, some of it
splatter
ed
on
her
shirt and
the
mirror.

Her mother stood in the doorway,
her nose
turned up
in disgust.
BrookLyn
wished
she
could
flash the same look toward her mother’s reflection in the mirror,
but instead
she just
grabbed a towel
and
wet the corner to clean
her
shirt
then
used the dry end to clean the mirror.

“What were you daydreaming about
,
girl?”
her mother
asked.

BrookLyn
swished mouthwash around in
her
mouth
and
spit it into the sink
, being more careful this time
.
“I was brushing my teeth. That’s all. I wasn’t thinking about anything.”

“You looked like you were lost in space
, huh.
You
were
thinking about someone.”

Are you kidding me? I so hate my life right now
.

“I was brushing my teeth and thinking about brushing them
.
”
BrookLyn was careful to try
to ditch the attitude and sarcasm
she felt
.

“Lies you tell,” she said.

D
oes
it show on my face that I was really thinking about something or someone good
? It didn’t matter
,
because
her mother would
always find something to call
her
out on.
At least she doesn’t seem to have any idea I was gone.
BrookLyn didn’t speak, but stifled a yawn with her hand.

“Why were you sleeping? You think you can sleep the day away because it’s the weekend?”

I didn’t sleep the day away. I napped for a half an hour
.
S
ince when does that equate to all day?
“No. I wasn’t feeling well so I decided to lie down for a minute.”
Right then
she wished she were at Gabby’s. She sighed at the comforting thought.
Ms. Cora
allowed
her
a
glimpse of what could be. Unfortunately now, she had a clear
, yet disparaging,
view of what was
and is
.

“What’s wrong with you?
Are y
ou pregnant?
That’s why you sleeping, huh?
”

“Pregnant? I’m tired. How could I be pregnant?”
She
didn’t hold back on
her
sarcasm
that time.
Her mother
never ceased to amaze
her
with the mess that came out of her mouth. Yet this was one of her craziest moments by far.

“What you do
all
weekend, girl?”

“Studied
,
like always. Nothing else.”

“You better not have let one of those nasty boys touch you.”

“I was here alone studying.”
All this l
ying was making her squirm
. What if Ms. Cora told?

“You sure about that?”

“Yes. It’s not like I have any friends.”

BrookLyn
stared at her
mother,
disgusted with the ridiculous accusations that she was spewing.
She
was always being accused of something
,
but pregnant?
The longer
she
stood
in front of her mother
, the angrier
she
became
.
A
volcano was beginning to erupt inside of
her.

Her mother
had always called
her
ugly
and
stupid
,
and on occasion an imbecile
,
but never pregnant. She was really reaching down deep into her insanity arsenal
now.

Her
father pok
ed
his head into
the
bathroom
.
“What’s going on in here?”
There was definitely an extreme shortage of privacy in this place.

“This girl
.
”
H
er mother
point
ed
at her
as if
she
were a stranger.

“What about her? What’s she done now?”
He
star
ed
angrily
at BrookLyn.

“She’s sleeping in the middle of the day like she pregnant.”

BrookLyn’s
stomach turned with anger and disgust.
Her mother really seemed to
love hanging
her
out to dry.
“I was tired and I didn’t feel good. So, I took a nap. I’m not pregnant.”
She forced calmness into her voice. She
didn’t
want
to feel his belt today.
Her eyes pleaded with him
to believe
her.

“That better be it
,
because won’t no babies be coming in this house unless you got a husband to go with them.”

God, take me away from here, please.
BrookLyn knew better tha
n
to
answer
.
I
t wouldn’t do
her
any good. They had both lost their minds and weren’t listening to
her at all.

She
didn’t know that much about sex
,
since
they had
never had
the
sex
talk
,
and a boy had never been interested
her.
She
did know that a boy and girl had to have sex in order to get pregnant.
Maybe they’d feel good about that once they found out I was with Gabby
. The thought made
BrookLyn
chuckle.
She
thought
she had done
it inside
her head,
but soon realized
she hadn’t
as the whites of
her father’s
big eyes
seemed to
turn red.

“This is funny to you?’ he yelled into
her
face
,
spit
flying
on
her
top lip.

Nice.
“No,”
she
said.
As much as she
wanted this confrontation to end
, she
knew
she
had just forced it into overtime.

“Most people don’t laugh if they don’t think something is funny.” His large hands
gripped her
bathroom door. His tight grip
seemed to
leav
e
dents in the door
,
as it had so many times on
her.

“I didn’t mean to laugh. There wasn’t anything funny. I wasn’t with a boy. I’m not pregnant. I wasn’t feeling well, that’s all.”
Her
bathroom was too small for three people to be in it at the same time.
She
was starting to feel a little claustrophobic.

“Are you raising your voice at me?”

“No, I’m just explaining
—
”

Before
she
could get the last word out of
her
mouth
she
felt his hand snatch it
.
He slapped
her
so hard that
she
almost lost
her
footing.
BrookLyn
grabbed onto the countertop and didn’t look in his direction as the fire inside of
her
raged.
She
hated them more each day
,
and although he was the one who did the hitting,
she
hated her
mother
more. She was
her
mother
,
and she encouraged
her father
to hit
her
so
that
she could rest easy.
BrookLyn
refused to cry
,
still
look
ing
away from him.

“Get in that room, clean it up and get ready for dinner,” he said.

BrookLyn
didn’t answer him and continued looking in the opposite direction from where they stood.
Like a flash,
he grabbed
her
by
the
shirt and picked
her
up off of the ground
.
It felt as if her
eyes
were
bulg
ing
out of
her
head. H
er father’s
full eyebrows
furrowed in,
almost touching each other
, as
he held
her
in his grip
. She
notice
d
that
her
mother had managed to slip out.
Coward
.

Her reflection in the mirror showed f
ear written all over
her
ashen face as
she
tried gasping for air.
Her
heart raced while
she
hung in the air wondering what he was going to do next.
BrookLyn
couldn’t hear his words,
they
were masked by
her
fear. All
she
could do was pray silently
.
Please, don’t let this man kill me.
Please!

She
tried fighting it
,
but
she
started to cry.
Maybe I would be better off dead.
..

She
couldn’t breathe and he knew it.

His face looked as if he enjoyed every moment
,
despite
the look of horror she wore
. Tears started rolling down
her
face as
she turned away from her reflection and
looked into his hateful eyes
,
wondering what
she
had done in life to deserve this abuse.
The only crime
she had
committed was being born and
she
had nothing to do with that. All
she
did was show up when it was time for
her
to arrive.

“Now, did you hear what I told you to do?”
His face was inches from hers
.

She
sniffled
,
trying not to fall apart
.
“Yes,”
she replied,
knowing that
she
had heard nothing.

“Yes what?” he said
,
spewing spit in
her
face once again.

“Yes
,
sir,”
she croaked out
through
her
tears.
She
was crying for so many reasons
,
and
she
desperately wanted
her
dangling feet back on the ground.