Chapter 21

Back at Kelly's house, Brandon goes to find Sammy's door closed with him inside playing with a toy car. As Brandon knocks and opens the door, "Hey buddy, can we talk?"

Sammy shrugs his shoulders without giving a response, so Brandon goes to sit on the floor across from him. "Can you tell me why you don't want to see your mom?" Brandon asks.

"Because she was mean last night," Sammy responds.

Brandon continues, "How was she mean last night?"

"She put me in the corner for everything last night, she didn't let me play with you or watch TV!" Sammy says angry.

"Sammy, do you know why she put you in the corner?" Brandon asks.

"Because she felt like it!" Sammy exclaims.

Brandon takes a deep breathe, "She told me it was because you wouldn't listen to a thing she asked you to do last night," Brandon reveals.

"Mommy did not! YOU'RE LYING!" Sammy protest and then runs out of the room.

Brandon gets up and follows him downstairs into the living room as Sammy tries to turn on the TV, but Brandon takes the remote out of his hand, "Sammy, you know you have to have permission to turn on the TV. It is also disrespectful to run out of the room when someone is talking to you," Brandon says forcefully.

Brandon then squats down to look at him in the eye, "You are going to listen, okay," Brandon waits for Sammy to look at him, but he doesn't so instead he tried, "Say, 'yes, daddy."

"Yes, daddy," Sammy quietly says, still not looking Brandon in the eye.

"Good, now you are going to go put on your shoes and get into your car seat without any complaints, okay."

Sammy obeys but doesn't say anything while he is still pouting. When they get into the car Brandon decides to stop by the school anyways to leave Kelly a note and otherwise she wouldn't have a lunch for the day. After they arrive at the school, Sammy is still frowning and pouting as Brandon holds his hand across the parking lot.

Before they go inside, Brandon squats down to Sammy's level, "Earlier when the phone rang that was your mom saying that she had to cancel because something very important came up. But I still wanted to drop off her lunch so she had something to eat. I would like for you to write an apology on this piece of paper for your behavior last night and this morning. Did you know that she was very hurt when you wouldn't give her a hug and kiss goodbye this morning?"

"No," Sammy says in a small and quiet voice, "how do I apologize?"

"Well, I think if you just write that you're sorry and that you still love her that it would be enough. I can help you," Brandon offers.

"Okay," Sammy says as he takes the pen and paper out of Brandon's hand, "how do you spell 'sorry'?"

After they are finished, they go inside to find the secretary. "Hi, I was hoping we could leave this here for Kelly Taylor."

"Sure thing sir, I'll give it to her once she and Mr. Wilson return," the secretary tells him.

"Thank you very much," Brandon says and then turns to leave while holding Sammy's hand again.

When Harry and Kelly return to the school, the secretary hands her the note and paper sack, "here, a kind gentlemen and your son dropped this off for you about an hour ago."

Kelly says, "thank you" and continues to walk towards her office as she opens up the note, and saw in big letters, "I'm sorry, I love you Mommy! Love, Sammy."And Brandon also wrote a line in his usual handwriting in the corner, "Hey Kel, wanted to make sure that you ate something today. Hope everything is going alright. Love, Brandon." Kelly smiled the most she has all week.

Once she reaches her desk, her smile slightly disappeared because she realizes how much work she needs to catch up on that she will have to work late now. After work, Kelly is still feeling overwhelmed with everything that is going on with Brandon coming back into her life, Sammy being upset with her, and memories of her rape. She decides that she would rather skip out on dinner with Donna, Andrea, and Janet to go somewhere to be by herself to work through some of her feelings and emotions.

Before she leaves the school parking lot at 5:30, she calls Donna.

"Hey Kelly, what's up," Donna greets her over the phone.

"Hey Don, I'm not really feeling well, I think I'm going to skip out of dinner this week; I'm sorry," Kelly apologies.

"Oh hey, it's no problem, you go let Brandon take care of you," Donna says.

"I will thanks. I'll see you later, bye," Kelly says.

Kelly leaves the high school, but instead of going home or picking up Sammy, she decides to drive to the beach and sit in the old abandoned lifeguard station that she likes to go to from time to time to think.

As she is watching the sun settle down into its western horizon, she is trying to figure out why the nightmares are coming back. She has hated the constant struggle of learning how to live with herself after knowing she has taken away a human life. She doesn't understand why things had to turn out the way they did when she was raped. She doesn't even understand why she had to be raped and endure this pain that she is feeling so strongly inside of her even at this moment. She remembers the days when she felt so depressed because there is so much evil located on this earth and how her hands and fingers contributed to that evil. She remembers how quickly she pulled the trigger that happened within a matter of seconds. Within the few seconds the only thing she remembers running through her head was to protect herself from this monster who touched her in the same places as Brandon once did so gracefully, gentle, and loving. She didn't want her memories of intimacy with Brandon be stripped away further because she knew she need to hold onto them. This brings her to thinking about how she can share her ugly past with Brandon. When it happened, she couldn't bare the thought of ever telling him it happened because of how ashamed she was for allowing someone to hurt her. She also didn't want him to run back to LA for the wrong reasons just to realize that he needed to leave again without her. Right now, she is scared to tell him because she feels she doesn't know how he will react, what he will say, and most of all what if he leaves again because she has killed a human life.

After Brandon and Sammy stopped by the school, they head over to Casa Walsh for the rest of the day. As the evening progresses, Sammy decides that he wants to watch TV, which happened to be right before dinner. Brandon walks into the living room looking for Sammy, when he notices the TV on.

"Sammy, did you ask for permission to turn on the TV?" Brandon asks.

Sammy decides to not to answer while still staring at the TV, forcing Brandon to try something else. Brandon turns the TV off without the remote and squats directly in front of Sammy as Sammy whines, "Daddy!"

"This is the second time today you didn't ask for permission to turn on the TV," Brandon says.

"So," Sammy talks back surprising Brandon.

"Go to the corner in the kitchen, dinner is almost ready," Brandon tells him.

Sammy reluctantly goes to the corner. After Brandon lets him out of the corner after five minutes they all sit down at the table eating their meal and Sammy remains kind of quiet, only speaking when Jim or Cindy spoke to him.

After dinner Sammy is helping Cindy putting dishes away and asks, "Grandma, when is Mommy coming? I wanna go home," Sammy says as Brandon walks into the kitchen behind him.

Cindy first notices the disappointment on her sons face and then looks at the clock and notices that Kelly should have been here by now, "it'll be soon Sammy; I'm sure. Why don't you see what Grandpa is doing?"

Once Cindy is out of Sammy's earshot she asks Brandon, "Hey you okay?"

"Yeah I'll be fine, I'm sure Sammy is missing Kelly now that he has figured out that I'm going to discipline him too," Brandon replies.

Cindy sympathizes with her son, "it's the life of a parent. You think your father and I always enjoyed disciplining you and Brenda, but we did it because we love you."

"I know mom, thanks. Well, I should go call Kelly see what's taking so long," Brandon says as he grabs the phone. Cindy leaves to give him some privacy.

Kelly is still at the lifeguard tower as her phone interrupts her thoughts, she sees it is Brandon calling and knows she needs to answers it, "Hello."

"Hey Kel, it's me Brandon."

"Hi…Brandon….I…I love you," Kelly says wanting to tell him everything, but something inside of her tells her it's not time yet.

"I love you too, Kel. Hey, we were just wondering where you were. My mom said you are normally here by now." Kelly looked at her watch, "Yeah, I guess I lost track of time…it's alright if Sammy stays there tonight." Kelly is actually hoping he would stay at Casa Walsh in case she has another nightmare; she doesn't want to worry about accidently waking him up.

"Well Kel, he was actually wanting to go home, I think he misses you, and plus he might be a little mad at me now," Brandon says.

"Why, what happened," Kelly asks concerned, but not angry.

"He turned on the TV again for the third time without permission, so I sent him to the corner. And I was strict with him before we left to leave you your lunch and the note because he yelled at me and ran out of the room as I was trying to find out why he wouldn't give you a hug and kiss goodbye this morning. As well as not doing as I asked him to do," Brandon finally finished.

"Brandon, it'll be okay. It's the joys of parenthood that we need to learn how to cope with. He's been doing better with listening and doing the things that I ask. But he is also at the point where he is starting to try to do things that he knows he shouldn't, just to see if he can get away with it or not. So Brandon you just need to have a bit of patience with him….and me," Kelly explains.

"Oh, I have patience he will learn that," Brandon says with a small laugh, "and Kel, we have the rest of our lives."

Kelly smiles a little, "Good and thanks, I'll be there in about 15 minutes to pick him up."

"Okay bye," Brandon says before he hangs up.