Looking up to his face, I could see the hurt in his eyes. He knew I was keeping something from him.
I ended up telling him anyway. “You told that girl about the real reason why we got married. You told her about me being abused and how you only married me to keep me safe.”
“I never told anyone about you being abused, Kami,” he clarified. “Those who have asked, I simply told them it doesn’t concern them why we got married. Why would you believe them and not trust me?”
“Because she said you were together in the janitor closet right before it happened.” I might as well just let it all out in the open. “You were with another girl the same day you told your father you would be faithful, but that’s not why I’m upset. I could care less who you’re sleeping with. I’m just disappointed that you would tell them about my personal life.”
His eyebrows met in concentration. “Kami, I haven’t been with anyone in about two weeks. If I have to do the math for you, that’s about four days before we got married. So yes, I have been faithful. Stop and think for a moment about the past week and a half and how I’ve yet to leave your side, aside from the times when you ran off without me. When you disappeared that day in the bathroom, I went looking for you. When my cousin April, Louis’ niece, showed up saying there was a girl unconscious in the bathroom, I ran in there and I saw you on the floor looking pale like the life had been drained from your body. I picked you up and took you to the nurse’s office and you know the rest from there.”
I just looked at him, thinking about how everything Jasmine had told me could be a lie. She was just trying to get the best of me, to put distance between me and Brandon. “I’m sorry. I should have talked to you about it first and not just assume you would tell someone.”
“It’s fine, but next time you need to talk to me about things. I can’t read minds, but sometimes I wish I could when it comes to what you’re thinking. It would make this marriage a lot easier.” He laughed, lying back down on the bed and looking up at the ceiling. “So much for sleeping in. What do you want to do today?”
Before I could answer, there was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Brandon said, looking at the door. His mother walked in holding a blue dress in her hand. “What do you need?”
“I need Kami. I want to help her get ready for Emily’s wedding this afternoon. Did you forget?” she asked him with a raised eyebrow. “She’s only your godmother and my dearest friend. Plus, it would be good showing Kami around to some of our family.”
“Whatever, mom. You know I wouldn’t miss Aunt Emily’s wedding, but do we even know the man she’s marrying?” he asked, getting out of bed. “I’ve never met him.”
“No, I haven’t either. Every time we go out there to visit, he’s always away on some business trip, but I can tell she loves him when she talks about him,” she answered as she walked around the bed to stand at the foot of it. I felt embarrassed to still be lying on the bed. “Have you guys consummated the marriage yet?”
With that question, I flew out of the bed. Brandon and I have never spoken about doing anything like that. If I had problems with the kiss on the day we got married, then I knew I wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment.
“Mom, please don’t ask questions like that,” Brandon said, slamming the bathroom door.
His mother only smiled. “Don’t worry, dear. It took Louis and me about three months to get used to one another till we finally consummated our marriage. Just give it some time.” She handed over the dress. “Come, I want to help you get ready so you can look lovely when you meet some of our closest family and friends.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I let her drag me out of the room to a side bathroom to get ready.
So here I was in this blue dress in a guest room of the Mitchell home getting ready. Don’t ask me why I shared a room with Brandon if they had a guest room. I remembered him saying before that they had a guestroom, but he would be able to sleep better if I was in the same room as him. Now that I thought back to the past week and a half, maybe it would have been best if I had stayed in this room.
“You look lovely, dear,” Melinda said. “The dress fits you perfectly, just like how I hoped it would.”
I just looked at myself in the mirror, feeling clueless about fixing my hair or even putting on any kind of makeup.
“Thanks, but I’m not sure how to do my hair and stuff,” I replied, still looking at myself wondering what it was that Brandon saw in me.
“Don’t worry about that, dear. I can help you. Once Brandon sees you, he won’t be able to take his eyes off you.” She started fixing my hair with a curling iron that was plugged in next to me.
After she was done with it, she started adding some makeup. She told me that she became an expert at hiding bruises, that it still looked natural to everyone else. By the end, she had my hair half way up and out of my face, twisting it together in the back and the bottom of it was curled. She had covered the bruises that were still there, but you couldn’t see it clearly anymore. She also added some light blue eye shadow with a little black eyeliner to make my eyes pop. Looking back at myself, I was reminded me of the day I got married.
“Come. We have to get going. We’re running late,” I heard Mr. Mitchell say from out in the hall.
When we got outside, the Mitchell men were there holding the car doors open for us. I walked over to Brandon and raised an eyebrow at him. His normal black jeans and fitted top that always showed off his perfect body were traded in for a suit and tie.
I smiled at him as he closed the door for me and walked around to get in. As he opened his door, he yelled out, “Race you there!” and he didn’t waste any time as he started the car and sped off down the driveway and onto the main road.
I wasn’t a fan of racing so I was holding onto my seat for dear life as Brandon zipped through traffic. Was this necessary to go to a wedding? I’m really starting to think he was trying to kill us when he turned and missed hitting a car by an inch.
When we pulled up to the country club next to a beach, I remembered my father bringing me here when I was little. What a simpler time that was for me, before the beatings and abuse, when I believed in myself and felt loved.
“You ok?” I heard Brandon ask. I nodded my head, not wanting to tell him I was thinking about my past and how I was missing my dad. He sighed and got out of the car to go around and opened my door, holding out his hand for me. As he pulled me out, he wrapped his arm around my waist and whispered in my ear, “By the way, you look really gorgeous in that dress.”
I looked down at the strapless dress and saw how it hugged my chest, but flowed out and was loose the rest of the way down to my knees.
“Thanks. Where are your mom and dad?” I looked around and didn’t see them.
“Oh, I lost them a while back. Come on, let’s go in and find some seats before the wedding starts,” he said, pulling me inside the building. It was the same as all those years back, but before I could fully get a view of everything, Brandon tugged me to the side to where the wedding was being held.
The room had rows of seats with white flower petals running down the center aisle. Each seat had pink covers with white bows on them. At the altar, the minister was talking to the groom, whose back was turned to us. Brandon led us to the fourth row and sat down, pulling me down next to him, making me save the two seats next to me for his parents.
Soon after, Brandon’s dad came shouting in that his son cheated during the race. Really? Racing was dangerous, yet the elder Mitchell was complaining about his son’s cheating, not how dangerous it was. I could stop and think if there wasn’t some other ways these two could have raced against each other without me and Melinda being involved.
I shook my head at them and returned my attention to the front of the room, particularly to the groom, and my breath got caught in my throat. His sandy blond hair and clear blue eyes, the same eyes I have. I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be seeing him again, a
nd marrying another woman after leaving me to my mother and horrible stepfather.
I had to take my eyes away from him. I was scared of what would happen if he saw me. It’s been eight years since he walked away from me. All I wanted to do was get up and run away from him, like he did to me. I put my hands in my lap and looked down, hoping he wouldn’t see me here.
I felt Brandon put his hand on top of mine, making me look up at him. “What's wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, giving him a shy smile. Right then the wedding march song started. I kept still in my seat, trying not to think that the man standing up front was my father.
10
All I could do was sit there and watch him. Was she the reason he had left me all those years ago? No, that couldn’t be. What kind of a father leaves his daughter just so he can be with another woman?
I’ve always thought that he had left me because of the money my grandmother had left me. It only made sense, since I never saw him after her funeral. It was like one day he was there and the next he was gone. This was all too confusing to think about as I watched him smiling down at that woman.
“What’s wrong?” Brandon whispered into my ear, grabbing hold of my hand and stroking his thumb along it. I know he was trying to calm me down, but it really wasn’t helping at the moment. It was only making me more nervous about having to confront the man who left me to live in that house of hell.
“Nothing,” I told him, tearing my eyes away from my father for the first time in the past fifteen minutes. I just couldn’t tell him that the guy standing there marrying his mother’s best friend was the man who left me to rot in hell. Even though I had grown to despise the man, I wasn’t about to trash his wedding day. I know I would have to tell Brandon eventually, but I would wait till before the reception because if I told him now, there was a chance of him causing a big scene about it.
“Kami, don’t give me that shit. I can tell something’s been bothering you since we sat down,” he said with anger in his voice.
I knew he was distressed because I was not being open with him from the very beginning with the whole bathroom thing and now I was keeping this from him, which would only provoke him more.
I looked over into his brown eyes and I could see the concern within them. What changed from this morning until now that he was concerned about my feelings? “This isn’t really the time or the place to talk about it, but I’ll tell you after the ceremony. I promise.”
He didn’t say anything after that. All he did was grip onto my hand tighter and shake his head.
Looking back at my father, I wondered what was going to happen once he saw me. Would he even notice me? I hope he would just look over me and not try to talk to me. If he did, I didn’t think I could really stand there and listen to him talk to me like I was still his ten-year-old daughter or act like he’s always been there for me. I felt a tear run down my cheek as I thought back on the memory of him leaving me and never caring to see if I turned out alright.
When I was young, I would lie in bed crying because I wanted to see my father’s smiling face, the way he always did when he picked me up from school on Fridays, or have him take me to get ice cream on Sundays before we went home. I didn’t have a father for the father-daughter dance in school and had to hide away at home. I didn’t have him there to take me away from the abuse I lived through before Brandon stepped in and did something about it.
I turned and found Brandon watching me with sadness in his eyes. Oh, how thankful I was for him coming into my life. Something inside told me I could trust him if I just let him in. When I gave him a lopsided smile, he ran his finger down my cheek to wipe the tears off my face. “Come on, let’s go outside.”
He stood up, and taking my hand in his, pulled me up with him. We walked to the back of the room and told his parents we would be back.
We got out of the room and back in the lobby. Brandon wasted no time in wrapping me in his arms in a bone-crushing hug. I felt safe here and as long as his arms were around me, no one could harm me.
After a while, he pulled away and looked at me. “What happened in there? Why are you and my mom crying? You look sadder, but it’s weird.” I had to laugh at how he was comparing me to his mother just because we were both crying. “Kami, it’s not funny. I never understood why girls cry at weddings. Hell, you didn’t when we got married.”
“Yeah, that’s because our marriage is fake.” I laughed at him now, totally forgetting why I was sad in the first place. Then I remembered how when we first met he was trying everything in his power to make me smile, but all I did was push him away. I noticed that the harder I pushed him away, he would take a step closer to me.
“Fake or not, we’re still married, buttercup.” He winked at me and leaned down and kissed my cheek. I could feel the blood rushing to my face, making me blush. “Now, would you like to tell me why you were crying and looking so sad before I dragged you out here?”
“Well, you see…” I started, but was cut off by the doors opening and my father and his new wife walking out.
“Kami?” He asked.
I went to hide behind Brandon. So he had recognized me. I felt like I was going to break down.
Brandon was acting a little protective over me as his back stiffened up and he wrapped one arm behind him to pull me closer to him. “Who are you? How do you know my wife?”
“Wife? What the hell are you talking about? My daughter can’t be married to you,” my father yelled. I hadn’t even thought about the fact I was married to Brandon and how he would take it if he knew who I was. This wasn’t that great of an outcome with the anger coming from my father’s voice.
“Honey, calm down. We don’t need to make a scene here in front of the guests. Maybe we can go to a more private room and talk,” his wife told him in a calm voice as I buried my face in Brandon’s back. “Look, you’re scaring her.”
“You’re right, Emily,” I heard my father telling her. “Kami, come here and let your father see how much you’ve grown up.” There he was, acting like the caring father when in reality he was a deadbeat. I let go of Brandon and ran away. When I got closer to the doors, I heard him calling my name, but I didn’t stop. Right before I was outside, I heard my father ask, “What the fuck did you hit me for?”
I ran down the walk away to the beach hoping to get far away from that man as I could until someone grabbed my shoulder and turned me around to face a pair of raging brown eyes. “You need to stop running away from me. How am I going to keep you safe if all you do is run away from me?” he yelled in my face as the tears of heartache ran down my cheeks.
“I understand that bastard who just married my mother’s best friend is your father. For the love of God, don’t run away like that from me again.”
“Brandon, I’m sorry. I wasn’t running away from you. I was running away from him. I wanted him to feel the same pain he put me through when he walked away from me.”
Brandon didn’t say anything else. He just wrapped me back in his embrace until his mother showed up looking madder than hell. “What’s going on? Why did you hit Emily’s husband?” she was questioning him.
“Mom, I promise I did what was needed at the time. We will explain everything once we get home.” Brandon tried to explain as he walked us back to where the wedding reception was being held and sat us down at a table where Mr. Mitchell was sitting, plus a few other guests.
We sat there in silence as we ate our dinner and tried not to think about what was going on between us and the newly married couple. At one pointed I looked up to see my father was watching me with resentment in his eyes. I guess me running away made him feel the pain he had put me through, but that didn’t mean I forgave him for the trouble he gave me.
After dinner and the first dance were over and the bride was dancing with her father, I saw my father walking over to us.
“Brandon, I need to get out of here, now.”
Brandon looked up an
d saw my father coming to us and stood up and grabbed my hand, but was too late as my father put his hand on his shoulder. “Son, I don’t want any trouble. I just want to dance with my daughter.”
The way he was talking like he had never left me and was still this loving father was really starting to get on my last nerve. When I stood up and looked at him in the eyes, I just let it all go.
“You lost the right to call me your daughter when you vanished all those years ago. You’re welcome to take that dance you wanted from me and shove it up your ass. I’m also willing to bet that your wife didn’t even know you had a daughter.” I yelled, not caring who overheard me as I poked him with my finger.
Looking around the room, I could see people were watching us now. Even his new bride stopped dancing to see what the commotion was about. Brandon laughing next to me didn’t really help the situation, but it brought a smile to my face to know he didn’t leave me alone. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I think my husband and I were about to dance.” I grabbed Brandon’s hand and pulled him to the dance floor.
“That was great.” Brandon laughed, pulling me to him, leaning down and kissing my cheek. “It’s great seeing you go off on someone else who isn’t me. You need to do that more often and not run away from the problem at hand.”
“Brandon, please don’t start. I just couldn’t stand it how he stood there acting like he has done nothing wrong. I don’t know what came over me, but I felt like I had to put him in his place. So can we please just dance and forget what I did?”
He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Yeah, but I’ll tell you this. That was a big turn on. If only we could do something about it.”
I just stared at him as he leaned back up and turned me in a circle before pulling me closer to him. “Kami,” I heard him speak as I looked back up at him and smiled. He was smiling back at me, and he leaned down and gave me a soft kiss on the lips.