Misplaced Trust (Misjudged) (18 page)

“Please stay with me.”

I can’t believe it has been five years.

It feels like it was only yesterday since we spoke our last words to each other, and although I was told it gets
much easier as the more time passes by, I still don’t see how that can be true. It hurts like hell. In fact, it hurts just as much as it did on that very day. Time heals the pain they say. To hell it does.

After taking a final sip of my coffee and placing the empty mug in the sink, I grab the two sprays o
f flowers from the dining table and head into the hallway.

“Mommy, wh
en are we going to see daddy?” a sweet and angelic voice to my right asks. “I wish he was here with us.”

She inherited her father’s sparkling bright blue eyes and raven black hair. She’s beautiful. Shaking my head a little at that word
, while crouching down in front of her, I stroke a stray strand of her hair away from her face and smile as she begins pulling me towards the front door.

“I just need to grab my purse and we’ll
go, okay?” she nods, and then flashes her wide smile at me while waiting over by the shoe stand.

***

It’s a Sunday, so it’s quiet as we head onto Beck Hill. Autumn has set in and the surrounding trees are a bright shade of auburn, with the wind holding a slight chill.

Clutching my hand tightly as we cross the street, I smile down at my daughter as I
watch a beaming smile beginning to cross over her lips. Her eyes begin to sparkle when she sees the cemetery gates up ahead, and before I know it, she’s already let go of my hand and has started running in the direction we were heading.

As I approach the entrance
gates, a smile of my own creeps over my lips when I see him. He’s embracing her tightly and throwing his amazing smile right over at me as I go to step beside them, “Hey, beautiful,” he greets me as he lifts her up, while leaning over to me and placing a warm, lingering kiss on my lips.

That smile gets me every time. Those eyes get me every time. Who am I kidding? He gets me every time, “Somebody was missing you,” I tell him, as he
reaches over and takes the flowers from me with his free hand, with our daughter now perching happily on his left hip. We make our way along the pathway so that we can lay flowers down for both my mom, and Holly, like we do on every Sunday morning.

“Holly, tell grandma how well you did in your singing lessons on Friday,” he tells her as h
e places the calla lilies down on the ground, beside her head stone.

She kneels down on the grass and begins chattering away, with Brandon sitting by her side, watching and listening
to her as she speaks.

I can’t believe we made it. After everything that happened four years ago, we’re here, together, and have the sweetest little girl, Holly Rose Taylor.

We chose to name her Holly, because even after learning about what had happened between her and Neil, and even though it hurt him, he has never displayed even a single moment of bitterness towards her. Brandon once loved her, and she loved him. At the end of the day, that’s all that really matters. We both realize that after everything we’ve been though, and how easily it could have been ripped away from us, life it far too short to hold any grudges.

We chose Holly’s middle name to be
Rose, after my mom. The woman who believed this truly remarkable man was innocent right from the beginning. She was so brave as she fought to try and let the truth be known, even when she knew there could be severe consequences. Consequences that resulted in her life being taken away in a sudden, tragic, and highly unnecessary way.

If I’m honest, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to forget everything that we’ve been through, it’s not something you can easily put to rest.

I really thought I’d lost him that day. Lost him in the exact same way that he had lost Holly, but he was lucky. I was lucky.
We were lucky.

The co
ps tracked Neil down not long after he ran from the small building by the lake, while I was on my way to the hospital, unwilling to leave Brandon’s side as he laid there, fighting for his life.

I thought that was it that day, but here we are. A happy little family of three, with all the love we will ever need.

“Hey,” Brandon’s voice brings me back from my thoughts, and I watch him stand and step over to me, before wrapping his arms around me tightly. “What are you thinking about?” he looks concerned, but he really has no reason to be.

“Us and how happy I am
...” I tell him as he stares deeply into my eyes. “I love you.” Nestling into him, he brings one of his hands up to my chin, and tilts by head back until I’m gazing right into him again.

Stroking my cheek as he keeps his eyes firmly on mine, an in
tensity fills them as he smiles, “I love you too, beautiful … forever.”

Due for release January 2014!

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18193635-untiltled

Prologue.

Dinner and a movie. That’s how we’re supposed to be spending our first evening together in almost a week. Instead, I got a call from some good friends of mine this afternoon, asking me to help them out with a gig they’ve got going on in Seattle tonight. Their lead singer got hit with a throat infection and so they asked me to step in and replace him.

“Don’t feel bad, Brandon,” her voice captivates me every time she speaks. “We can always do something together afterwards, or
even tomorrow.” She smiles, placing her hand on my leg as I take the final exit, before we hit the outskirts of the city. Her smile is even more mesmerizing than her voice, and I know I’ve already fallen hard for this girl.

“I know Holls, I just don’t want you thinking that I’m bailing on you again,” taking my focus off of the road for a split second, I notice her face fall slightly before she directs her gaze away from me completely, and back out of the passenger side window.

She’s been pretty quiet for the past couple of weeks, and although she keeps telling me she’s okay that I started up a new band outside of college, meaning I don’t get to spend as much time with her as we’d both like, I can sense she’s not overly thrilled by it.

See, that’s the thing with Holly. She puts everyone else before herself and doesn’t have a selfish bone in her body. Not a single one. We’ve known each other since the beginning of high school, but only started dating a couple of months back in the summer, before I began studying at the College of Olympia. If truth be known, I’ve been into her for a lot longer than that, I just didn’t know how to go about telling her.

“There it is,” she taps my leg and I slow the car, parking it just outside the small bar on Benson Avenue. “Are you excited?” Her smile is back as she steps out onto the sidewalk and begins walkin’ around to where I’m now standing.

While locking the car, I place my free arm around her waist and pull her into me, giving her a kiss on her sweet and soft lips as she wraps her arms around my neck and nestles in, “Eight songs, and then we’ll have some time. Just you and me,” I tell her, inhaling the strawberry scent in her hair, and thinking right now that I’m the luckiest guy alive.

After a few moments, we step out of our embrace and head into the busy bar, seeing Ike and Thomas sitting beside the bands equipment that’s set up in the far left corner of the room. Before we even have a chance to order ourselves a soda, they summon us over to their spot, with both of them wearing expressively wide grins over the faces, “Bro!”

“Ike,” I chuckle as he shakes my hand, before he stands and gives Holly a kiss on the cheek and a welcoming smile. “What time are we up?”

“Right about … now,” he replies, checking and tapping his watch, with the excited smile he was wearing being replaced with a more nervous one. “Shit, I hope we can pull this off.”

Shaking my head at his reaction, I turn to Holly, “I want you right up front. If I’m gonna be singing, I’m gonna be singing to you.” Brushing my fingers lightly across her cheek, I stare into her eyes and see small creases forming on the side of hers as she nods. “I love you.”

“And I love you,” she answers, before stepping back a couple of spaces as I head over to the mic.

Yeah, I’ve got it bad. Real bad.

Reaching the middle of the sixth song, there’s a large gathering of people standing around the makeshift stage, and if I’m completely honest, tonight couldn’t have gone any better. Because I hang with these guys a lot while they practice back home, I know the songs like I know my own.

It’s almost ten thirty and as I glance over towards Holly. I see her smiling at me as I sing the final words of the slow song we’re playin’ out about love. Yes. Love. This is what it feels like, and I don’t think that I would have it any other way.

Glancing around the room and seeing people dancing and having a good time, I look back over to Holly and see her fiddling with her cell. I laugh inwardly to myself as we begin the seventh song. It’s most likely to be her father. Where she’s out late on a Friday night, even though she tells me I’ve been given both her mother and fathers full seal of approval, they still worry about her. I’m actually surprised they didn’t give her a curfew tonight. If they had have, it would probably mean she wouldn’t have been able to come with us.

***

“Bro, that was fucking awesome!” Ike steps over the guitar lead and pats me on the back as the set draws to a close. “It’s a shame we can’t make this a more permanent thing, huh?”

“Sure is man. It sure is,” I retaliate his enthusiasm and ruffle his hair as I look around for Holly. “Dude, did you see where Holly went?” She was standing right by the side of the stage a few minutes ago.

Trying to look over and around the dispersing crowd, she’s still nowhere in my sight, “She probably went to the bathroom, Brandy, come get a drink from the bar. It’s on me,” Thomas pushes me forward and over to the now vacant bar area. “You know what chicks are like, gotta make themselves all pretty…” shaking his head, he summons the bartender over and orders a couple of beers.

Well I guess o
nes not gonna hurt.

After several more minutes and still no sign of Holly, I call her cell, and because the place is still filled with people, I head out onto the sidewalk. She wouldn’t have gotten far.

Dialing her number and holding my cell up to my ear, I hear the sound of her ringtone and turn in the direction of the Justin Timberlake song that’s beginning to play out. That’s weird.

Walking over to the small and really dark alleyway, the music’s getting louder. “Holly?” I call out, a little surprised she would’ve come out here on her own, especially this late at night and of all places an alleyway.

Stepping inside the dark space, I hear a small sound. Something like a whimper, and then I see her.

“Holly?” My blood runs cold as I step in front of the limp body that’s slumped against the wall to my right. “HOLLY!”

1.
       
Look In My Eyes                                          Rains

2.
      
My Last Breath                                          Evanescence

3.
      
50 Ways to Say Goodbye                            Train

4.
     
Secrets                                                                      One Republic

5.
      
How to Save a Life                                          The Fray

6.
      
Alone In This Bed                                          Framing Hanley

7.
      
What About Now                                          Daughtry

8.
     
Stay                                                                      Hurts

9.
      
Let Her Go                                                        Passenger

10.
   
Broken                                                                      Seether ft. Amy Lee

11.
    
Forever                                                        Papa Roach

12.
   
The Last Goodbye                                          David Cook

13.
   
Unsaid                                                                      Angelsfall

Thanks so much for reading Misplaced Trust!

I hope you enjoyed reading Brandon and Alexis’ story as much as I loved every moment writing it.