Brad’s Girl
A Borderhouse Short
By Shay Collins
Copyright 2013 by Shay Collins
Cover Design: Sandra Peoples
License Notes:
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was purchased for your use only, then please purchase a copy for yourself. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to a real person, place or thing is purely incidental and the result of the creative mind of this author.
Chapter 1
I was so lucky to be Brad’s girl. Bradley Jennings was his name. Brad was the boy that had managed to steal my heart.
He was also the boy who would kill me.
Brad was tall and very handsome.
He was the kind of guy most girls would die for.
He had curly jet black hair and killer grey eyes.
It was as if his eyes were hypnotic. Once you gazed into them, there was no way you could even think about focusing on anything else except him.
He had an athletic build, with muscles in all the right places.
To simply say that he was popular would be an understatement. In fact, he had to be thee most popular boy in school. Everyone who was anyone knew Brad. Every girl at McKinley High hoped to one day have the privilege of sinking their teeth into him.
Too bad they were out of luck. I held the coveted spot of being the lucky girl that got to hang on his arm. To be his girl meant you were the envy of every girl alive. Brad was a prized possession. If you were lucky enough to snag him, you had definitely won the trophy of being the luckiest girl in the entire school.
Or so I thought.
My name was Jennifer Duncan.
From the moment Brad and I started going out, I was told that I wasn’t his type.
Maybe I wasn’t. I mean, I wasn’t a cheerleader. I didn’t belong to any sorority. I was just a normal girl who went to class everyday and tried to get good grades so that I could make my parents proud of me.
He asked me to help him with his homework.
Well actually, he had asked me to write his history term paper for him in exchange for dinner and a movie.
I eagerly agreed. I mean, what girl in her right mind could say no to Bradley Jennings?
When I gave him his paper, seven typed and double spaced pages on ‘The Civil War’, he kept his end of the bargain by taking me out on a date.
The movie was nice and dinner was excellent.
But it didn’t just stop there, like I thought it was going to.
Instead, Brad and I continued to see each other.
First, it started out as a few movie dates with a few of his friends from the football team and their dates.
Then, it grew into him carrying my books to class and sitting with me at lunch.
When we shared our first kiss under the bleachers at school, I knew that I had fallen head over heels for Brad; and he for me.
I was what you might call short and shapely. I only stood five feet three, but I had curves in all the right places. I think that’s where the shapely part came from. Brad towered over me at nearly six feet tall.
I had always been into tall guys. There was something about being able to look up into your man’s eyes just before he planted a soft and gentle kiss on your lips.
I loved kissing Brad’s lips. It was as if his lips dripped with honey.
Kissing him was so addictive. Once you started, there was no way you could stop.
You didn’t want to stop.
I had never been afraid of Brad.
I never had a reason to believe that he would ever hurt me.
At least, not until that night.
The first time he hit me was after the Varsity football game. We had beat Cummings, our biggest rival, 10 to 6. You would think that Brad would have been happy. No, more than happy: super excited maybe.
But that one night changed the way I saw Brad forever.
Megan Taylor had thrown an after party at her house.
This girl was known for throwing big, out of this world parties, complete with all the liquor you could stand. I wasn’t a big drinker, but Brad was. And he didn't just get drunk. When he drank, he made sure to get totally wasted. So every time we would attend a party together, I made sure to get wasted right along with my man.
I felt as if that was my duty in order to uphold the title of being ‘Brad’s Girl’.
And this night was no exception.
Megan and I had never really gotten along. She was completely jealous of the fact that Brad and I was an item. She was the head varsity cheerleader after all. It was like there was some sort of rule where varsity jocks and varsity cheerleaders were automatically supposed to date.
I was glad that Brad thought outside the box.
I already knew that the only reason why Megan wanted Brad was so that she could add him to her collection of bedroom buddies. I could tell that by the way she always looked at him. She always stared at him with those big blue lusty eyes. And she would lick her lips seductively anytime he was near. All he had to do was walk past her in the hallway at school and she would go to licking those big Angelina Jolie lips.
No, Megan wasn’t a friend of mine. But she was a friend of Brad’s, which meant she had to be in our circle. And I had to learn to tolerate her and all of her silly antics.
Brad and Megan had dated for a while, but they would always get into a fight about something minor and would end up breaking up.
At least, that’s what I always heard through the school grapevine.
This time, I guess Brad wanted a change of scenery.
So he chose me.
Brad and I had only been dating for a few months and already I was planning our wedding. I had ordered wedding gown books, and started an online bridal registry for the two of us.
I just knew in my heart that Brad was the one whom I would spend forever with.
We were both seniors in high school. I was planning to go away to Michigan State for college. I was going to study nursing and maybe even become a nurse practitioner. Brad was undecided about what school he wanted to attend. He had his heart set on going pro, but his ‘just in case’ plan was to become a history teacher. I couldn’t exactly picture Brad being a teacher of any kind.
He had quite a few college recruiters hoping to add him to their rosters, which would bring his pro dreams a little closer to reality.
It seemed as if the whole world was at his fingertips.
And I got to bask in the limelight of it all.
Brad and I had partied hard that night. I could tell that he had reached the point of being totally wasted and I wasn’t far behind. It had to have been about three in the morning when he decided that it was time for us to leave. Megan looked disappointed that we were leaving, begging Brad to stay. I didn’t care. My stomach hurt and I felt like at any minute I was going to hurl.
“See you later Brad,” Megan said seductively as she leaned up on the door, realizing that no amount of begging was going to convince him to stay.
Brad gave her a hug.
“Be good,” he told her, rubbing her arm.
I bet she never washed that arm.
Brad threw his arm around my neck and we walked out to his sporty red Volkswagen Beetle.
I always teased him about that car. He looked like more of a BMW type of a guy. We all knew that his parents could definitely afford it. But, his parents wanted to get him ‘a nice reliable car to drive back and forth to school.’
<
br /> Translation: they didn’t want to get him a car that brought with it the risk of their son acting too irresponsible.
Besides, the little Beetle was actually pretty roomy on the inside.
He opened the door for me to step inside and closed it behind me. I buckled my seatbelt, fighting back the waves of nausea that were rushing through my body every time I even thought about moving.
Brad stepped inside the car and slammed the door. His hands shook as he placed the key in the ignition.
He laughed.
“I shouldn’t be driving,” he joked as he started up the car and pulled away from the curb.
He was right. He shouldn’t have been driving.
But neither one of us were actually in the best condition to be behind the wheel.
I rested my hand on my forehead and let the seat back.
Brad glanced over at me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, resting his hand on my thigh.
“I don’t feel good,” I told him, closing my eyes tight to shut out the light from the moon. It was so bright tonight.
Brighter than usual.
He began to rub my thigh. Now at any other time, this would have felt good. But at this moment, it hurt to be touched.
The smell of his skin made my nausea even worse.
“Brad, pull over,” I told him, my stomach churning, “pull over now.”
He looked over at me and laughed.
“You’re not gonna hurl,” he teased as I covered my mouth.
I could almost taste the vomit.
“Brad, pull over,” I told him again, this time hitting the switch to unlock the door.
He laughed again.
“If you puke in my fucking car, I’m going to slap the hell out of you,” he said, matter of factly.
I didn’t believe him. Brad would never hit me. Besides, he was such a prankster.
I could feel it rising. If we didn’t pull over in the next two seconds, Brad’s car interior was going to get it.
He sped up. Why was he speeding up? Why wasn’t he pulling over?
“Brad,” I cried, my head racing; stomach churning.
I tried to let the window down, but it was too late.
Every ounce of beer and alcohol, that I had chugged down that night, along with all the food I had eaten, came up in the front seat of Brad’s car.
He immediately swerved to the side of the road and cut the engine.
“Bitch! That shit’s never going to come out!” he screamed at me, throwing open the driver’s side door and stepping out.
I didn’t know what he was going to do. I just knew that I was a little relieved now, but not much.
He walked around to my side of the car and snatched open the door.
“Get out!” he screamed, yanking on my arm as I struggled to undo the seatbelt.
I looked up at him, hoping that he wasn’t serious.
“I said get the hell out!” he snapped at me again.
He wasn’t playing.
I was finally able to get the seatbelt loose, then stepped out of the car, into the night.
I didn’t know where we were. I just knew that there were a bunch of trees and woods.
Brad glanced down at the floor board at the pile of crap in his car.
“Why’d you have to go and do that, Jennifer?”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Because you wouldn’t pull over, Brad. I warned you.”
I could tell that Brad was angry; very angry.
He stood over me, his fists balled at his sides.
“You wanna be a smart ass, huh?”
I shook my head.
"No, I wasn’t trying to be a smart anything."
“You’re going to clean that shit up,” he began, pulling at my shirt.
“What are you doing?” I asked, as he yanked my shirt off over my head and threw into the mound of puke.
“Use that rag you call a shirt and clean every bit of that crap out of my car.”
I was furious.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked, folding my arms and staring at him in disbelief.
“You think this is a joke,” he asked, pulling me by my hair, “I’ll show you that I’m not playing.”
Before I had a chance to say or do anything, my face was buried in my own vomit.
I wanted to cry.
How could Brad do this to me?
I took my shirt and started scrubbing, still fighting back waves of nausea and tears.
After what seemed like hours, Brad finally let me get up.
Really, only a half an hour had passed.
“I bet next time you’ll move a little quicker to get the window down rather than puke in my car. Now I have to spend money to have my carpet shampooed.”
He folded his arms.
“Did you learn your lesson?”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Who did he think he was? My dad?
I didn’t know how to answer that.
Brad was obviously out his mind.
I shook my head.
“Yes. Yes I learned my lesson. It won’t happen again.”
He laughed. It was an annoyingly loud, hysterical laugh.
I swear I had never heard Brad laugh like that before.
Then, as if out of nowhere, he slapped me.
Hard. Right across my face. So hard he left a welt.
I immediately grabbed the side of my face and stared at him in awe.
This was the guy I loved.
So why would he allow himself to hit me like that?
I felt the tears well up in the corners of my eyes.
He laughed again.
“Get in the car,” he told me as he made his way around to the driver’s side.
I wasn’t sure I even wanted to get in the car with him after that. I probably would have been better off walking.
“Get in the fucking car!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.
I could tell from the sound of his voice that it would be in my best interest to get in the car with him.
Once inside, he looked over at me.
I could tell from the look in his eyes that he didn’t mean to do what he had just done.
“Look, I’m sorry. I just had one too many drinks, that’s all. I will never hit you again, Jennifer. I promise. I love you.”
By now, my bottom lip quivered as I tried hard to fight back tears.
“Do you forgive me?” he asked.
He already knew I would say yes.
I guess I loved him that much.
The drive to my place was long and quiet.
I was at a loss for words. I was in such shock, such disbelief.
It was best for me to just sit there, be quiet and say a prayer that I could just make it home in one piece.
I could feel him glancing over at me every so often.
Maybe he was checking to see if I was still breathing.
“I really didn’t mean to hit you babe,” he said, looking at me as if he were waiting on me to say the slightest little thing out of line.
“I know,” I managed to whisper, hoping that he could hear the calmness in my voice.
I didn’t want to be hit again.
“Don’t tell anybody about this, especially not that nosey sister of yours.”
He was talking about my big sister Jamie.
Jamie hated Brad’s guts.
She was a sophomore in college, studying premed.
Jamie was the apple of my mom and dad’s eye.
I guess that’s why I was able to spend so much time with Brad.
He had become more than the love of my life, he was the center of my life.
My mom worked full time as a pediatric nurse at Stone Brook Medical Centre. My dad was a biology professor at Brentwood University.
They both spent long hours away from each other as well as away from me.
I pretty much did whatever I wanted to do, whenever I wanted to do it.
Brad had spent many nig
hts in my bed because of that very fact.
I always made sure to have him out of the house before daybreak so that he could get home in time to shower and change for school.
I nodded my head.
“I won’t say anything Brad, I promise.”
He smiled.
I loved Brad’s smile. He had a gorgeous toothy white grin.
“Good, ‘cause if you do, next time I won’t be as friendly.”
Those words sent intense chills up and down my spine.
Next time?
I didn’t think there would be one.
But I was wrong.