Page 43 of My Vows Are Sealed

“How—” I started to ask.

“Mr. Overstreet likes me,” he chuckled nervously. “I might have asked him this morning if I could use this room to talk to you at lunch, since I knew it’d be empty.”

I walked around the classroom, looking at all of the partially finished projects that were lining the work tables and lamenting that there was nothing like this class for girls. We got Home Economics and learned how to make cookies. The guys? They got to learn how to make and build things. I would have loved to take a class like this, but that would have made me even more of an outcast than I was already. Theonegirl who took Carpentry.

“What are these going to be?” I asked.

“Cabinets,” he told me, then pointed to one of the barely-started wood structures. “This one’s mine. I promised Nate that when I get to take it home, he can help me paint it.”

I chuckled, just imagining the mess that would make. “I’m sure your mom’s thrilled with that idea.”

He snorted. “Yeah, not so much. I’ve already been told it’s my job to give him a bath when we’re done. But he’ll have fun with it, and that’s what matters.”

That made me smile. “You’re an amazing big brother. He’s lucky to have you.”

“He’s lucky to have you too, you know,” he said, putting a hand on my good shoulder. “So, are you actually going to look at me at some point?”

As I turned to face him, a knot twisted in my stomach in anticipation of what he was about to say, and I swallowed hard to keep the tears that were lurking beneath the surface from shedding. He was about to tell me he didn’t want to be my friend anymore. I knew it. He had to be. That was the only reason I could think of why he’d want this kind of privacy. So the whole school wouldn’t see him break my heart the way I’d broken his.

He gave me a sad half-smile. “We’re not going to talk about what happened at the dance, Dar. Because I think I know why it happened. I just want you to answer my questions honestly. Can you do that?”

I nodded. Honesty. I could do that. Iwantedto do that.

“You didn’t hurt your arm falling out of bed, did you?”

All the turning gears in my brain came to a grinding halt.

I wasn’t even sure why I was surprised that he was asking me that. I could tell yesterday at church that he didn’t buy that stupid explanation. But out of everything that was going on between us,thatwas what he wanted to talk about? Really?

“Your dad did it. After I dropped you off at home,” he continued.

I was sure my eyes got as big as saucers.

He knew? How? For how long?

I couldn’t help the few tears that leaked out of my eyes. “The second I walked in the door, he started laying into me because I’d gotten into a car with a boy, and even after I told him it was you and that you took me home because I wasn’t feeling well, he took off his belt and started hitting me with it. On my legs, my arms, my chest, my stomach. Then he threw me against the door, jamming my ribs into the doorknob, and started whipping my back, like he was flogging me. When I tried to get away because I couldn’t take the pain anymore, he grabbed my arm and pulled me backward. And it’s not my arm that he hurt. He dislocated my shoulder.”

Brendan’s eyes started to tear up as his lips parted on a horrified gasp. “Oh, my God, Dar. Why didn’t…why didn’t you say something? Call someone?”

“I wanted to. My mom wouldn’t let me. She told me that we couldn’t afford to live on just her disability check alone if my dad got arrested because he lost control this one time. And before you ask, yes, this is the first time he’s lost the plot like that. He’s hit me before, more times than I can count, but never like that. Anyway, since she used to be a nurse, she set my shoulder herself and she had this sling lying around for some reason. She’s been icing it when I’m home, and just giving me double doses of Tylenol for the pain. But she’d have to send it to the school and have the nurse dispense it here, so I’m just going without, because she doesn’t want the nurse asking questions.”

He sucked a breath in and pinched his nose, closing his eyes like he was trying to control his anger. I could tell it wasn’t anger at me, though. It was anger at the situation I’d found myself in.

“That’s such crap,” he muttered, then looked back up at me, his eyes a lot softer than I was expecting. “Can I ask you something else?”

I nodded.

“Is your dad the reason you told me you couldn’t keep having that conversation on Saturday?”

I nodded again. “I think it was around the time that I started watching Disney movies and my dad would turn them off just before the kiss at the end when he started telling me I was never allowed to do what they were showing because it was a sin. And as I got older, he told me that if he ever caught me partaking in sins of the flesh, he’d punish me and the boy I was with in the way the Lord commanded adulterers and fornicators to be punished. It’s not just about me, Brendan. It’s about you too. I can’t let you get hurt because of me. Not when I can stop it.”

By the time I was done explaining to him why I could never be what he wanted, I could barely get the words out through my tears. He dropped both of our bags to the floor and cleared the distance between us in two strides as he caught me up in a gentle, but firm embrace.

“I wish I knew what to say to you,” he sighed. “‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t even come close. I wish I’d had this conversation with you years ago. I’ve known for a long time that something wasn’t right between you and your dad, but I just didn’t know how to talk to you about it. I wish I’d found a way to. I wish…God, I wish I could kill him. I know it’s wrong to say that, or even think it, but I don’t care. He wants to talk about you being a sinner if you kiss someone, but he doesn’t see anything wrong with whipping his own daughter with a belt and dislocating her shoulder just because she got a ride home from a guy she’s known for her entire life. Literally the only thing that’s stopping me from telling someone what he’s doing to you is that I know you don’t want me to, and I love you more than I hate him.”

I pulled back and looked at him, and he let out a soft chuckle as he put a hand on my face, stroking my cheek with his thumb and wiping away some of my tears.

“You heard me, Dar,” he murmured. “I love you. There’s never been anyone else for me, and there never will be. The only person I’ve ever wanted in the whole world is you. But what I want doesn’t matter. What matters is whatyouwant.”

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