BrookLyn's Journey (35 page)

BrookLyn
hugged Gabby
,
and kissed her
—t
his memory was hard for her.
BrookLyn had
thought
that
Gabby
had never felt pain
,
other than the loss of her parents.
She had
thought
Gabby’s
world was perfect
,
but the more
she
got to know her
, she
realized it wasn’t.
Gabby
often said that pain
is pain
.
BrookLyn
was beginning to understand that
.
Her
pain was different than
Gabby’s
but as sure as rain, it was still pain
.

Chapter
Fourteen

Before
she
knew it Monday
arrived.
BrookLyn
wasn’t eager to get up and leave the house
, but she
had to go and meet with the guidance counselor at Middletown High School.
N
o matter how much
she
didn’t want to go,
she
had to get out of this bed. No matter how much pain
she
was in
,
she
had to go back to school
—her
life was not over.

Gabby woke
her
up and then went into the other bathroom to get in the shower.
Then BrookLyn
went into
Gabby’s
bathroom, took a shower
,
and for the first time wore nice clothes to school. This was something new
.
As nervous as
she
was about the unknown
, she
was
at least
somewhat ready to face it. If
she
didn’t
,
then
her
parents would still be controlling
her
future.
She couldn’t let them have that power.

They
went to school
together and
Gabby introduced
BrookLyn
to her counselor, Ms. Evans.
BrookLyn
explained enough
t
o Ms. Evans
about where
she
was at this point in
her
life
,
without providing all of the details that led to this day.

Ms. Evans
told her
that because
she
was eighteen
she
didn’t need
her
parents
’
permission
to transfer from Pine Bush to Middletown High School. She would contact
BrookLyn’s old school
counselor for
her
records to prevent
her
from having to go over there.

That was a breath of fresh air. Gabby
had
told
her
that Ms. Evans would handle it
,
and she did. She was the
second
adult
, Ms.
Cora was the first,
to ever help
BrookLyn
,
and
she was very appreciative of that.
Now
she
just hoped no one told
her
parents where
she
was going to school and where
she
was living.

She wasn’t able to
start school
yet
because
she
wasn’t officially enrolled
, so she
waited in the guidance office until lunchtime.
Then she had lunch with Gabby, met some of her school friends, and
then
spent the afternoon reading in the library until school was out.

After school, Gabby picked her up in the library and
they
went back to Gabby’s house and ordered some pizza.

While Gabby was on the phone, BrookLyn wondered about her new life.
She
felt better today than
she
had in weeks.
Maybe
things were changing for
her
.
She
wasn’t sure if
she
was ready to live on
her
own
,
but
she
was ready to live free of abuse.
She
wouldn’t be free if
she
went back home.

“
Pizza will
be here in a half an hour
.
” Gabby
hung up the phone.

“Gabby
,
I was wondering something.”

“What?”

“What are your plans for next year?”

“What do you mean?”
She went and
put the menu back in the kitchen drawer.

“Do you plan on going to college?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Well do you have a plan?”
She sat down ne
xt to her.

Gabby
shrugged.
“I don’t know where I want to go
,
but I have the grades to
get there
.”

“What do you want to be?”

“I want to be a counselor. I want to help kids like me
, the
kids that no one else
cares about.
”

“People care about you
,
”
BrookLyn said.

“Not really. My aunt cares only because she
thinks she deserves
some of my check
for taking care of me
.
”

“
Your cousins care.”

“
Money makes some people care
.”
She shrugged her shoulders.

“
Y
ou always want to be a counselor?”

“
I don’t know.
I
guess since I
used to be that kid
,
I think I’ll know how to help them.”

“What do you mean?”
BrookLyn sat
down at the table.

“After my
mother
died
,
I went to live with my aunt. All of her kids were older with their own families. I knew them but didn’t really
know
them. I lived with my aunt and uncle who weren’t really interested in me. I would overhear them complaining about having to take care of me, and about me being different than their kids. I was gay and in the way, I guess.”

“Feeling like you’re in the way isn’t a fun place to be.”
She knew this
feeling intimately too.

“No, it isn’t. Knowing that people don’t want you in their space makes you feel like running away. My aunt even tried forcing me to wear dresses to church. She tried to change everything about me. I was a kid that always had a voice and it was taken away when I first moved
with her
.
The bigger my checks got
,
the more they always needed.
It was hard
to say no at first.
But then
I found my voice and vowed to never let anyone steal it again. I can’t help who I am. She did so much to block that. My aunt used to try and keep me off of the phone if it was a girl. She would tell them I wasn’t here
,
or that I had moved. It was a little crazy for a while.”

“It got better though, right?”

“Doesn’t it always? It’s never been perfect but it is definitely
been
better
since I moved out
.” She
wanted to get to a place where she
was completely hap
py and not worried about what her family thought. She
knew it wouldn’t come today
,
or tomorrow. She
knew it was a process
,
but deep inside BrookLyn
knew happiness would eventually come.

T
he delivery guy pull
ed
up. His car was loud. Gabby got up from the table to go answer the door.

BrookLyn stood up too.
“I’ll grab the plates and stuff
.
”

It felt good to feel good.
Although BrookLyn
was still sad about
everything,
each day
she
felt a little better.
Writing in her journal periodically was just the therapy she needed.
She
was moving toward the person that
she
wanted to be.
She
wanted to leave the scared little girl behind when
she
left for college in a few months.
I ha
ve
to leave that shy, timid little girl here.
W
ill
I have to leave Gabby behind too?
That thought made
her
sad.

Gabby put
their
food on
the plates
and BrookLyn
grabbed the drinks.
They
sat down at the table.
It
was nice.
She and Gabby
didn’t always eat at the table
,
but when
they
did
, BrookLyn always
liked it.

“Gabby, I was thinking about making a call
.
”
BrookLyn took a bite of
pizza. “I want to call my sister, Ebonee.”

“There’s the phone
.
”
She gestured
to the cordless phone.

“Do you think I should?”

“Sure
.
”
She shrugged.

“Not sure I know what to say. I just want them to know I’m safe
.
”
She
hadn’t contacted anyone in
her
family since
she
left.
She
wasn’t even sure if
her
brother and sisters even knew
she was gone.

“Let’s call her now
.
” Gabby
got up and grabbed
the phone.

“I guess now is a
s
good a time as any
.
”
BrookLyn’s stomach tightened,
but it had to be done. If
she
was going to live like an adult
, she
had to act like one.
She wouldn’t
tell them the details about Gabby
,
but
at least she
would let them know
she
was alive.
She
opened
her
bag to get
the
number out of
her
book.

“That’s interesting,”
she
said.

“What?”

“I
had some journals that I recently started writing in
. I thought
they
w
ere both
in the bottom of my bag. I don’t see
the other one
but this
one
is here
.
”
BrookLyn brought out
the
blue
journal
that she’d been writing in earlier
.

“Maybe you packed it in your other bag.”

“
Maybe.
I’ll che
ck later
,
but I
’m pretty sure
it was here
.
T
hat’s
where I hid it.”
Had her
mother found it
?
My love story
about Bryson
was in there
.

BrookLyn
dialed the phone to call Ebonee
.