BrookLyn's Journey (41 page)

“Go home
,
little girl.”
Shante sneered at BrookLyn as she snapped the words out.

BrookLyn
responded by
mov
ing
out onto the porch
too.
“I am home.”

“Not if I can help it.” Sh
ant
e roared like a lion.
They were
all
standing in a small sp
ace knowing something big was getting ready to happen.

“You’
re not catching on
,
Shante. It’
s over. If BrookLyn wasn’t here, you still wouldn’t be.”

“It’s over when I say so.”

“Go home
, Shante
. BrookLyn, let’s go.” Gabby reached out to guide BrookLyn
back
into the house.

Shante reached into the pit of her stomach, and launched a ball of spit onto BrookLyn.

“Oh, I know you did not just do that.” Gabby turned to push Shante, but BrookLyn grabbed her arm.

BrookLyn had already slain the biggest monster
s in her life. In her mind
that meant
t
he one
on the porch would fall just as easy.
“No, this is my fight.”

Shante stepped up like she was ready to rumble.
“Oh
,
you think so?”

The color on Shante’s face changed
as her arms flailed
toward BrookLyn
.
Gabby tried blocking he
r
just
when BrookLyn ducked
and
instead land
ed
an uppercut on the edge of Shante’s
chin.
Keeping with momentum, she
followe
d with a right hook catching
Shante
in the side of her head.

Once she hit the porch, BrookLyn jumped on top of her
,
offering a
barrage of blows
until
Gabby grabbed her yelling, “BrookLyn. BrookLyn. Stop
!
It’s over.”

BrookLyn was breathing heavy when she was
startled
back to reality.

Gabby looked at her with compassion.
“You’re better than this.”

BrookLyn got up off Shante.
“Spit brings me down to her level.”
BrookLyn
had never hit anyone in her life
, but the
pent
-up
anger that lived inside
of her came to the surface when the spit hit her shoulder
.

Gabby grabbed Shante
,
lifting her up
. Then she guided her toward her car
.
S
he called her cousin, and he came to drive her home.

BrookLyn and Gabby went inside the house to wait until the car drove away with Shante.

“Any
more ex-girlfriends for me to worry about, huh?”

“Nope. No others to bother us.
And hopefully this is the end of that.
”

“Agreed.” BrookLyn
loved Gabby and this was where
she
wanted to be.
She
came to a realization
now,
that
since
Shante put
her
business out there
,
it was now time for
her
to deal with it.
She
couldn’t spend
her
days crying and living in fear.
She
had to face what
she
feared the most
—she
had to face
her
family.
BrookLyn
couldn’t hide forever.
Her
plans were still intact to leave Middletown after graduation
, but she
wanted to leave no stones unturned when
she
left.
She
was going to leave with the truth out in the open. Shante shared her story and
now
BrookLyn would
tell
hers.

They sat down and held hands. BrookLyn looked into Gabby’s eyes.
She
wanted this to work out.
She might not
know what would happen tomorrow
,
but
she
knew what
she
wanted at th
at
very moment.

“Gabby,”
BrookLyn
said
,
touching her face, “
t
hank you.”

“Thank you for what?” she said
,
smiling rays of sunshine
straight to BrookLyn’s heart
.

“For being you
,
for putting up with me and the drama that is a part of me. I love you. No one has ever been to me what you have become. I can’t promise you anything more than what we have now
,
but wherever we end up, whether together or apart, I will always hold you right here in my heart. No one could ever take your place.”

“Thanks, Sweets
.
”
S
he pull
ed
BrookLyn
closer
and
kissed
her
forehead.

Shante put
her
life into overdrive and
now BrookLyn
had to handle it.
“Can you believe I had a fight? I can’t.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

Chapter
Seventeen

When she
’d
woke
n
up the next
day
,
a
fter
they
had dealt
with Shante
, BrookLyn’s
spirit
had
calmed down
, but even in the
bright
light of the morning, she
still couldn’t believe that
she
had be
en spit on and had fought back.

She
’d
got
ten
out of bed and somehow her
stride was different.
Her eyes
had
open
ed
that morning
to a completely different world.
Before
leaving for
school, she
had written
in
her journal about how her life had come full circle
, how
for the first time in eighteen years
she
had a voice.
She
realized that she
needed to make changes within
herself now
for change to come into
her
life.
She was ready to
get
her life sorted out
before
she
left Middletown for college
.

The last thing she
had written
before closing
her journal
and leaving with Gabby was
a saying she
’d
thought of.
Everywhere you go, you take you with you.
She
had
wanted to make sure she remembered that one.
BrookLyn
had been
forced
to grow up all at once
in much the same way that
Gabby
had been
the night her mom died. So, BrookLyn
had
wipe
d
her
tears and
done
just that.

***

The s
chool
day had gone
by pretty fast
and
it had been good for both BrookLyn
and
Gabby
.
They
were barely
home for an hour before
the doorbell rang.

Gabby w
ent
to the door
,
but looked out of the window first
this time
.
They did not
want
any more surprises or
another fight on the porch.
They had been looking forward to a peaceful evening.

Gabby turned and her expression told BrookLyn it would be anything but
,
and her words confirmed it.
“It’s the cops
,
”
she said.

BrookLyn
froze and didn’t join
Gabby
at the door.
She
stood out of sight in the hallway
.
Thump. Thump
.
Her
heart
pounded a
beat into
her
ears
,
forcing
her
to gasp for air
.

Gabby opened the door.
“Hi,” she
said casually, as if
it was
just a delivery guy bringing her a package
. She was just that confident, or at least, she appeared that way to BrookLyn.

“Are you Gabriella Michaels?”

“Yes
,
sir.”

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen.
I have
ID
.
”

BrookLyn could hear the nervousness creeping into Gabby’s voice now. She peeked at the reflection of the door in the hall mirror. She saw the cop extend his hand waiting for Gabby to produce her ID.

“What’s going on
,
sir?”

He glanced down at her ID
and an indecipherable look spread across his face.
“We need to come in
.
”
He
ducked
,
entering the foyer
.

BrookLyn stepped back so he wouldn’t notice her,
but
almost lost her balance because of her
buckling knees.

Still
seeming to be
unaware of what was going on, Gabby
just
moved out of his way. He came into the house, and the officer behind him did as well.

“I
’m
Officer Thomas. This is my partner
, Officer Allyn.”

Gabby
nodded.

Officer Thomas was as tall as Officer Allyn was short
.
Not good cop, bad cop. More like tall cop
,
short cop
, BrookLyn thought
and tried not to smile. There was nothing funny about this. She was just nervous.
Officer Thomas had a
softer and
more
inviting
face while
Officer Allyn’s eyes darted around the room as if he was searching for trouble.
Maybe they are good cop. Bad cop.

“We
’re
looking for a runawa
y
.”

“
Okay
.”

Is he referring to me?
Am I the runaway?
BrookLyn’s heart beat even louder and her knees felt even weaker.

“Are you here alone
, M
iss
Michaels
?”

“No, my friend is here.”

“BrookLyn Scott?”

“Yes. She didn’t run
away
,
sir.”

“We heard
that
she did and that you were keeping her here against her will.”

BrookLyn
noticed
Gabby’s shoulders slump
when the
words
rolled off Officer Allyn’s lips
.
I can’t
hide
back here and
let her go through this
alone
.
BrookLyn
slowly
and
quietly walked into the room
.