Liquid Diamond: Here's the Jay you asked for! :) Good suggestion on Brenn tracking her down and Jay beating him senseless, I sort of used it here, but opposite . . . enough, before I ruin the whole chapter. Enjoy!!
Thanks to: Bella47073, FriendzNlowPlacez, melodie568, and Truluvnvrfrgotn for taking the time to read and review, and for all the compliments. Enjoy!!
Choke on the Regrets
Stranger than your sympathy,
And this is my apology.
I'm killing myself from the inside out,
And all my fears have pushed you out.
And I wished for the things that I don't need
All I wanted,
And what I chase won't set me free,
It's all I wanted.
And I get scared, but I'm not crawling on my knees,
Oh yeah, everything's all wrong, yeah.
Everything's all wrong, yeah.
Who the hell did I think I was?
Stranger than your sympathy,
I take these things so I don't feel.
I'm killing myself from the inside out,
And now my head's been filled with doubt.
And it's hard to lead the life you chose,
All I wanted,
When all your luck's run out on you.
All I wanted.
And you can't see when all your dreams are coming true,
Oh yeah, it's easy to forget, yeah.
And you choke on the regrets, yeah.
Who the hell did I think I was?
And stranger than your sympathy,
And all these thoughts you stole from me,
And I'm not sure where I belong,
Nowhere's home and I'm all wrong.
And I wasn't all the things
I tried to make believe I was.
And I wouldn't be the one
To kneel before the dreams I wanted.
And all the talk,
And all the lies
Were all the empty things disguised as me
Yeah,
Stranger than your sympathy,
Stranger than your sympathy.
9:04 AM. Amanda stood in the bathroom, the steam from her shower still swirled around the room as she breathed it in. She grabbed a hairbrush, swiped it through her wet hair a few times, and then pulled it up into a ponytail. She dressed in a comfortable pair of yellow cotton shorts and a black short-sleeve shirt.
She stared at herself in the mirror and just thought. She wasn't aware of Bradin's suspicion that the abortion decision wasn't entirely her own, but if she had been, Amanda would have told him the truth.
She'd have told him that Brenn called her five days after she left, at the house in Playa Linda. That he'd threatened her into getting an abortion, and his father had sent money to do it. But she didn't. Because Brenn had threatened her with the lives of her new family . . . and Amanda knew that his father had the serious means to destroy those lives of anybody who helped her.
Amanda looked in the mirror and told herself, "You don't have any choice. You won't put yourself or anybody else in danger because of this one mistake."
It sounded unconvincing to her own ears, and she wondered how she'd managed to convince Bradin that this was the best thing to do.
The digital clock in her room now read 9:14 AM, and Amanda left to find Bradin. She found him standing with his back to the house, hands in his pockets. The ocean breeze ruffled his sandy blonde hair past his forehead. "Bradin?"
He turned at the soft sound of her voice, but looked away quickly when he saw who had greeted him. Amanda approached him. "Bradin, talk to me."
"What do you want me to say?"
"Anything. Everything. Tell me what you're thinking," Amanda pleaded.
"I'm thinking about you."
His answer was so honest and direct that it surprised her. "What about me?"
"How scared you must be right now."
"I am. But I think - I think it's the best thing," Amanda choked.
"It's your decision. You know how I feel," Bradin said coldly. He knew that he should put his own feelings aside and focus on getting Amanda through this, but he couldn't. He felt betrayed somehow by what she was doing.
"I do know how you feel, but I can't do anything about that."
"No, you can't. We better get going, you're supposed to be there twenty minutes early to fill out papers," Bradin said. Amanda nodded, and they went around front to climb in Jay's Jeep, again lent for the short drive to the doctor's office.
Amanda stared out the window for the ten minutes it took Bradin to drive them to their destination. She pushed open the familiar white- lettered doors and headed to the front desk. After filling out a stack of paperwork neatly clipped to a white clipboard, Amanda slouched tiredly in the chair with her head in her hands.
At 10:10, Joanna from the day before called her in. Bradin stood to follow her, but Amanda laid a hand on his shoulder and said, "I'll be fine by myself today. You don't have to come."
He didn't argue, so Amanda left through the same side-door as yesterday. Bradin watched as she looked back at him before disappearing. He sat there for a good twenty five minutes in silence, fidgeting. He stood up and paced for a while, then picked up a magazine and started to read it. He read the same line at least ten times before he flung it back on the table.
"Is that girl you were with yesterday in?" a soft voice broke Bradin's nervous actions. He turned to see a girl who looked the same age as himself, the one who had been the only other person in the waiting room yesterday. A small bump stuck out from under her white, sleeveless shirt.
"Yeah, she's um . . . "
"Not keeping the baby?" The girl finished his sentence. Her dark brown was held up with a clip, and her sparkling blue eyes read the anxiety in Bradin's face.
"Yeah. I'm Bradin, by the way." He stuck out his hand and the girl shook it.
"Morgan. My mom works here - that's why I'm always hanging around. "
They chatted about trivial things for another half hour, during which Bradin found out that her mother was none other than Joanna, until Amanda came back. Her face was blotchy and tear-stained, but she still wouldn't look directly at Bradin.
"I'll see you around," Bradin excused himself, then went to Amanda. He held her hand wordlessly as he led her outside.
"How you doing?" asked Bradin once they were in the Jeep.
Silence. "Amanda?"
"Can we not talk about this?" Amanda snapped.
"No. Are you still leaving?"
"Yes, Bradin, I have to leave."
"Do you have your plane ticket yet?" he asked.
"Yes. My flight leaves in three hours. You don't have to take me, I'll get a cab to the airport," Amanda protested, because she knew Bradin would offer to see her off.
He didn't respond until they reached home. "Do you have everything packed already?"
"Yes. I did it last night when everyone went to sleep. Speaking of, where is everyone?" asked Amanda. It was a Saturday, so she knew there would be people lingering around the house.
"You're lucky . . . they're drove up to North Playa Linda for the day."
"And left us alone?" Amanda asked in disbelief.
"I told them that you were still sick and needed me to stay with you," Bradin clarified.
"Thanks," Amanda said softly. She was touched that Bradin would lie for her, even though he disapproved of what she was doing.
By now, they were in their room and Amanda nodded toward the suitcases piled at the foot of her bed. "Do me a favor, okay? Get everything else shipped after I leave."
Bradin nodded grimly. "Yeah."
"Wanna take this stuff outside? I'll call a cab."
"I guess," Bradin said as he grabbed two cases. In fifteen minutes, Amanda was ready to leave. They stood outside of the house on the curb.
"Amanda - "
"Bradin, please don't do this again," Amanda whispered. Her eyes were closed tightly; it looked as if she were trying to memorize the exact image of everything she was leaving behind.
"Fine. When's the cab coming?" His tone had gotten a bit snippy at her brush-off.
Amanda didn't have to answer, because as soon as he'd said the words a yellow taxi pulled up in front of them. Bradin scowled and threw her bags in the trunk. Coming back around, Bradin looked at Amanda one last time. "I'm sorry you have to leave."
Amanda stood in front of him. "Yeah, me too." She moved closer and Bradin wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on the top of her head.
"Will you write to me? Call me?"
"Of course." Amanda looked up through tear-filled eyes. "I promise."
"And if you ever come across Brenn, give him a good punch in the face from me, okay? But - try not to come across him. Don't put up with anything," Bradin advised.
Amanda smiled weakly, and nodded. As she looked away at the waiting cab driver, Bradin reached over and turned her head back toward him. He kissed her long and good, memorizing the taste and feel of her lips, the way her hair brushed softly against his face. When he finally pulled away, Amanda kept her eyes closed for a few moments. She knew that the driver was getting impatient, so she hugged Bradin tightly for the last time and got in the backseat. As he pulled away, Bradin saw Amanda mouth "I'm sorry", and then she was out of sight.
########
The cab driver, a middle-aged man with a beer belly and balding grey hair, pulled up to the airport where Jay had picked her up. She handed him the fare, and accepted the suitcases he handed her from the trunk. As he pulled away from the curb, Amanda couldn't help but feel a strange sense of loss. It was real now, she was leaving.
She looked up at the board with departures, arrivals, and delays, realizing with some dismay that her flight was right on time. After checking her meager two suitcases, Amanda shouldered her backpack and went to find a seat to wait for her plane.
########
"What do you mean, she left?!"
The others had decided to come home early, unfortunately, and had found a very upset Bradin sitting in one of the wicker chairs at the kitchen counter.
Bradin furiously dug the heel of his hand into his eyes, embarrassed at having been found crying. Crying was something girls did, and it wasn't as if Amanda hadn't done enough crying for the both of them all day. "She - " Bradin cleared his throat. "She got an abortion, and went back to Australia."
The silence that followed his confession seemed to be an actual thing, looming ominous and threatening in the kitchen. Derrick was the only one absent from this conversation, having left for Martha's house the second he got home.
"She what?"
"You heard me. I took her back to the doctor this morning, Aunt Ava, and she left for the airport an hour ago."
"What time does her plane leave?" Jay asked softly. He had sunk down to rest against the kitchen cabinets.
"I don't know, she wouldn't tell me anything. She wouldn't even let me drop her off, she called a cab," Bradin explained.
"Why would she do something like this without talking to one of us first?" Susannah asked. She, too, was severely shocked by this sudden turn of events.
"I knew about it," Bradin said.
"And you didn't bother filling any of us in?" Jay growled from his place on the floor. "I don't believe you, Bradin, you should have told one of us."
"It was her decision! She was going to do it whether you knew or you didn't!"
"Fine, but she could have at least talked it over with all of us. That's the point of this, we're supposed to be a family," Johnny said.
"She was scared out of her mind - I don't think it was entirely her own decision," Bradin admitted.
"What do you mean? D'you think Brenn had something to do with this?" Jay asked in a dangerously calm voice.
"I think so, yeah."
"Johnny, get me the phone," Jay said as he stood up. Johnny tossed him the cordless. Jay dialed a few numbers, and then handed the phone back to Johnny. "Pretend to be somebody from the doctor's office checking on the payment for Amanda Robertson's - visit today." Jay could not bring himself to say the word.
Johnny waited while the phone rang four times. Finally, on the fifth ring, somebody with a gruff Australian accent picked up. "Hunter-Montgomery Law Firm."
"I'd like to speak with Mr. - " Jay mouthed the words 'Carl Hunter' and Johnny spoke them into the phone.
"Speaking," said Carl in a bored voice.
"This is uh . . . Shawn Williams from, um - Dr. Trudy's office. I was just calling to verify that you authorized a check to pay for Miss Amanda Robertson's abortion."
There was a long, tense pause on the other line until finally Carl said, "Yes, I did. Is there a problem?"
"Nope, no problem." Johnny hung up the phone quickly. "He sent her money to do it."
At that, Jay shot up from the floor and started pacing. "The bloody - "
"Jay! Calm down," Erika placed a calming hand on his back, but Jay shrugged it off.
"Calm down? My baby sister is going back to the man who knocked her up and then paid her to get rid of the kid? The same guy who beat her? I can't let her go back."
"What are you going to do about it?" Nikki asked tentatively. She hadn't ventured an opinion on the subject.
"I don't know, I just know that she can't go back. Even if my parents let her stay with them again, she'll be in danger because of Brenn and his asshole of a father."
"Why don't you call your parents and ask if they knew about this?" Susannah suggested. "I'm betting that they do, since they kicked her out when they found out about the baby. They probably jumped at the chance to join forces with the guy who's trying to get rid of it."
"That's true . . . " Jay trailed off thoughtfully. He strode to the phone on the kitchen wall and punched numbers into it. His mother, Donna, answered.
"Hullo?"
"Mum, it's Jay. I need to talk to you about Amanda."
His mother didn't say anything for a few seconds, Jay only heard her muffled voice calling "Jackson!" and then his father came on the line. "Is there something wrong?"
"Dad, did you know that Carl Hunter sent money here for Amanda to get an abortion?"
The absence of his father's voice on the other line was all he needed to confirm his suspicions, and then he exploded. "How can you treat your own daughter like that?! She needed help, not money to influence her decisions - she's scared out of her mind right now! What were you thinking?!"
Ava, Susannah, Johnny, Bradin and Nikki looked on as Jay continued yelling into the phone for another five minutes. When his voice had finally lowered to a bearable tone, they took their hands off their ears. "You listen to me, Dad," Jay said through gritted teeth. "You will send her on a plane back here the second - he hung up on me! I can't believe he hung up on me!"
"So, they knew about everything?" Erika asked quietly.
"Yeah, they knew it all. I'm just glad their 'brilliant' minds didn't come up with this plan before she came here, because then I never would have known anything and she would have continued seeing Brenn, letting him do God knows what to her - "
"Jay, stop it," said Erika soothingly. "You'll get her back here. I know you will."
At her words, the metaphorical lightbulb clicked on over Jay's head. "Yeah . . . yeah, we'll get her back."
"You're scaring me."
Jay's gaze turned to Bradin. "Go back some clothes, Bradin, at least enough for a couple nights."
"What are you talking about?" Ava intervened.
"We're taking ourselves a little trip."
"You don't mean - "
"I most certainly do. We're
going down under."
Bradin looked to Ava with a questioning expression. When she gave a swift nod of approval, he rushed off to his room to gather the few things he would need for their little 'excursion'. An hour later, all the arrangements had been made for Jay and Bradin to catch the 9:15 flight, directly to Melbourne, the nearest city with an airport to Jay's hometown of Copper Point. Somehow, Jay knew that Amanda had returned home.
Five and a half hours after Jay had made the decision to drop everything and drag Bradin to Australia in search of Amanda, he found himself on a plane, watching the monotonous dark sky out his window. To his right, Bradin was also awake. They didn't know exactly what time it was wherever they were, but their bodies were programmed to believe that it was somewhere around two in the morning.
A couple hours later, after Bradin had drifted off, Jay found himself deeply immersed in thoughts of his baby sister. Ever since they were little, Jay and Amanda had the typical brother-sister relationship. Altered a little, of course, by the fact that he was 10 years older than her. But that only served to make him even more protective. It seemed as if since she'd started middle school that he'd had to beat the boys back with a stick. A very large stick, considering there was an absurd amount of boys to beat back.
Looking over at the now still form of Bradin, Jay knew that there was something going on between the two. As much as he had tried to deny it, the fact was there smacking him repeatedly in the face. Jay found it strange that it didn't make him want to beat the bejesus out of Bradin as it had with Brenn. Brenn - well, that was a whole other story. The kid made Jay grit his teeth and clench his fists at the mere thought of him. Not just because of the current situation. He'd never liked him to begin with.
Bradin stirred and mumbled something under his breath, breaking Jay from his train of thought. The last thing that flitted across his mind before he himself dozed off was 'What if she doesn't want to come back?'
########
Amanda's flight landed at 3:30 PM Sunday afternoon. Jay and Bradin's would land at the same airport roughly seven hours later. She had contacted her parents and informed them that she'd gotten the abortion and was coming back to Copper Point, but hadn't let Brenn know. Her parents would take care of that for her. Besides, she didn't want to have anything to do with the creep anymore. She couldn't have anything to do with him.
After claiming her two suitcases from baggage claim, Amanda hailed a taxi and let her head rest against the window, muggy with late August heat. She had no idea what she'd done, or what she was going to do now.
########
"How do you plan on finding her, Jay? Do you think she went back to your parents' house?" Bradin asked through a yawn as they each grabbed their suitcases from the slowly revolving conveyer belt littered with luggage.
"I think we ought to have a chat with the junior Mr. Hunter, don't you?"
"Sounds good to me. I've got a few choice words for him myself," Bradin agreed.
Jay got them a cab and told the driver to take them to Copper Point. "We'll walk to my house from town, it's small," he told Bradin.
"Copper Point? Do you know a young blonde girl, 'bout his age?" The old cab driver with a Scottish accent nodded in Bradin's direction.
Bradin and Jay looked at each other, mouths agape in disbelief. This was too easy to be true. Jay stammered, "Yeah, we actually came here to look for her."
"Well, I do my shift around this airport from three to ten, and I picked her up earlier. Only reason I'm asking is because my sister lives out in Copper Point, and I don't get many people heading to that little dinghy of a town," the driver explained.
"She's my sister," Jay admitted. "We need to find her. Did you take her to Copper Point?"
"Well," the man hesitated, "she stopped there, but didn't stay. I took her to - wait a minute, how can I be sure that you're really her brother and not some psycho stalker?"
"Listen, man," Bradin growled, squeezing the back of the seat so hard his knuckles turned white. "We're talking about something serious here. She could be in danger if we don't find her right away. So you can either take us to where you dropped her off or dump us now."
Jay looked over at him impressed. "I'll take you there. Don't go mental on me."
Bradin relaxed back in his seat until they pulled up in front of a shoddy motel called 'Guru Jack's'. "She's staying here?" Jay asked incredulously.
"This is where I dropped her off," the cabbie insisted.
"Well, you can drop us here, too," Jay said. He and Bradin exited the car after paying the helpful man extra, and it peeled away from the curb the second they were gone.
"Why is she staying here and not in Copper Point with my Mum and Dad?" Jay wondered aloud. He stepped up to the front desk with Bradin in tow. "Excuse me," he greeted the receptionist. She was a small, mousy brunette woman with large glasses she wore on a chain. "Can you tell me if Amanda Robertson is staying here?"
"I'm afraid I'm not authorized to give out that information," the receptionist said, a shy blush creeping up her neck and cheeks.
"Oh, I'm sure you could work something out for me - Julie," Jay winked at her after reading her name tag.
The blush deepened to a dark shade of red on Julie's face. "Maybe . . . I don't know."
Jay really started laying it on thick. "Anyway, what's a beautiful woman like you doing working in a place like this?"
"I - well, I suppose I could help you out since you've been so terribly kind to me," Julie giggled, and typed a few numbers into her computer. "We have no Amanda Robertson here." Jay's heart sunk . . . she had to be here! "But we do have an Amanda Westerly staying in room 16, floor two."
Bradin's head shot up at the name. Amanda Westerly. She had used his name as her own. "Thank you. Thank you very much," Jay said sincerely. He grabbed Bradin's arm and dragged him toward the bank of elevators at the other side of the down-trodden lobby. "Can you believe we've already found her?"
"Yeah . . . "
While they waited for the elevator doors to open, Jay observed Bradin. He seemed to be dazed, out of it. "Bray . . . hello? Are you okay?"
"Huh? Oh, fine. I was just wondering why she used my name," Bradin confessed.
Jay smiled at the younger boy. "Isn't it obvious already?"
A perplexed look crossed Bradin's features. "No."
"It will be."
Finally, the elevators reached floor two. Bradin was the one who first spotted the faded black numbers that read '16'. "Jay - I found it."
The two of them stood before the door in complete silence. Jay knocked. Inside, someone called softly, "Who is it?"
"It's - "
Jay clapped a hand over Bradin's mouth and finished in a high-pitched voice, "Housekeeping!" In a low whisper he said, "Do you want to scare her off?"
The door opened and Amanda stood in front of them. It didn't escape Bradin's notice how terrible she looked. Her hair was knotty and hung in a tangled mess over her shoulders, her face was blotchy and red, she still wore the same clothes he'd last seen her in. When she realized it wasn't housekeeping, she almost slammed the door in their faces, but Jay objected. "Oh, no you don't. You're not escaping again." He pushed his way into the room and Bradin followed. "What do you think you're doing?"
When Amanda didn't answer, Jay continued. "Making decisions that big without consulting everyone involved? Leaving without talking it over with me?"
Amanda had her head down, not looking at either Bradin or Jay. "I'm sorry."
"You sure look sorry." Jay gave the room a cursory look. It was so small that it barely fit the three of them, with a bed against the east wall and a tiny television set with an antenna sticking from the top of it on a table at the foot of it. "This place is certainly no Hilton, but how are you affording to stay here? Did Brenn's father send you more money?" At her shocked face, Jay said, "Yeah, we know all about that."
Amanda looked down at the threadbare, stained carpet again. She found it hard to answer through the tears and shame that clogged her throat. "He only sent me one check."
"Then, how - "
Suddenly, Amanda snapped her head up and met Jay with a hard stare. "I'm still pregnant. I didn't get the abortion."
Thanks to: Bella47073, FriendzNlowPlacez, melodie568, and Truluvnvrfrgotn for taking the time to read and review, and for all the compliments. Enjoy!!
Choke on the Regrets
Stranger than your sympathy,
And this is my apology.
I'm killing myself from the inside out,
And all my fears have pushed you out.
And I wished for the things that I don't need
All I wanted,
And what I chase won't set me free,
It's all I wanted.
And I get scared, but I'm not crawling on my knees,
Oh yeah, everything's all wrong, yeah.
Everything's all wrong, yeah.
Who the hell did I think I was?
Stranger than your sympathy,
I take these things so I don't feel.
I'm killing myself from the inside out,
And now my head's been filled with doubt.
And it's hard to lead the life you chose,
All I wanted,
When all your luck's run out on you.
All I wanted.
And you can't see when all your dreams are coming true,
Oh yeah, it's easy to forget, yeah.
And you choke on the regrets, yeah.
Who the hell did I think I was?
And stranger than your sympathy,
And all these thoughts you stole from me,
And I'm not sure where I belong,
Nowhere's home and I'm all wrong.
And I wasn't all the things
I tried to make believe I was.
And I wouldn't be the one
To kneel before the dreams I wanted.
And all the talk,
And all the lies
Were all the empty things disguised as me
Yeah,
Stranger than your sympathy,
Stranger than your sympathy.
9:04 AM. Amanda stood in the bathroom, the steam from her shower still swirled around the room as she breathed it in. She grabbed a hairbrush, swiped it through her wet hair a few times, and then pulled it up into a ponytail. She dressed in a comfortable pair of yellow cotton shorts and a black short-sleeve shirt.
She stared at herself in the mirror and just thought. She wasn't aware of Bradin's suspicion that the abortion decision wasn't entirely her own, but if she had been, Amanda would have told him the truth.
She'd have told him that Brenn called her five days after she left, at the house in Playa Linda. That he'd threatened her into getting an abortion, and his father had sent money to do it. But she didn't. Because Brenn had threatened her with the lives of her new family . . . and Amanda knew that his father had the serious means to destroy those lives of anybody who helped her.
Amanda looked in the mirror and told herself, "You don't have any choice. You won't put yourself or anybody else in danger because of this one mistake."
It sounded unconvincing to her own ears, and she wondered how she'd managed to convince Bradin that this was the best thing to do.
The digital clock in her room now read 9:14 AM, and Amanda left to find Bradin. She found him standing with his back to the house, hands in his pockets. The ocean breeze ruffled his sandy blonde hair past his forehead. "Bradin?"
He turned at the soft sound of her voice, but looked away quickly when he saw who had greeted him. Amanda approached him. "Bradin, talk to me."
"What do you want me to say?"
"Anything. Everything. Tell me what you're thinking," Amanda pleaded.
"I'm thinking about you."
His answer was so honest and direct that it surprised her. "What about me?"
"How scared you must be right now."
"I am. But I think - I think it's the best thing," Amanda choked.
"It's your decision. You know how I feel," Bradin said coldly. He knew that he should put his own feelings aside and focus on getting Amanda through this, but he couldn't. He felt betrayed somehow by what she was doing.
"I do know how you feel, but I can't do anything about that."
"No, you can't. We better get going, you're supposed to be there twenty minutes early to fill out papers," Bradin said. Amanda nodded, and they went around front to climb in Jay's Jeep, again lent for the short drive to the doctor's office.
Amanda stared out the window for the ten minutes it took Bradin to drive them to their destination. She pushed open the familiar white- lettered doors and headed to the front desk. After filling out a stack of paperwork neatly clipped to a white clipboard, Amanda slouched tiredly in the chair with her head in her hands.
At 10:10, Joanna from the day before called her in. Bradin stood to follow her, but Amanda laid a hand on his shoulder and said, "I'll be fine by myself today. You don't have to come."
He didn't argue, so Amanda left through the same side-door as yesterday. Bradin watched as she looked back at him before disappearing. He sat there for a good twenty five minutes in silence, fidgeting. He stood up and paced for a while, then picked up a magazine and started to read it. He read the same line at least ten times before he flung it back on the table.
"Is that girl you were with yesterday in?" a soft voice broke Bradin's nervous actions. He turned to see a girl who looked the same age as himself, the one who had been the only other person in the waiting room yesterday. A small bump stuck out from under her white, sleeveless shirt.
"Yeah, she's um . . . "
"Not keeping the baby?" The girl finished his sentence. Her dark brown was held up with a clip, and her sparkling blue eyes read the anxiety in Bradin's face.
"Yeah. I'm Bradin, by the way." He stuck out his hand and the girl shook it.
"Morgan. My mom works here - that's why I'm always hanging around. "
They chatted about trivial things for another half hour, during which Bradin found out that her mother was none other than Joanna, until Amanda came back. Her face was blotchy and tear-stained, but she still wouldn't look directly at Bradin.
"I'll see you around," Bradin excused himself, then went to Amanda. He held her hand wordlessly as he led her outside.
"How you doing?" asked Bradin once they were in the Jeep.
Silence. "Amanda?"
"Can we not talk about this?" Amanda snapped.
"No. Are you still leaving?"
"Yes, Bradin, I have to leave."
"Do you have your plane ticket yet?" he asked.
"Yes. My flight leaves in three hours. You don't have to take me, I'll get a cab to the airport," Amanda protested, because she knew Bradin would offer to see her off.
He didn't respond until they reached home. "Do you have everything packed already?"
"Yes. I did it last night when everyone went to sleep. Speaking of, where is everyone?" asked Amanda. It was a Saturday, so she knew there would be people lingering around the house.
"You're lucky . . . they're drove up to North Playa Linda for the day."
"And left us alone?" Amanda asked in disbelief.
"I told them that you were still sick and needed me to stay with you," Bradin clarified.
"Thanks," Amanda said softly. She was touched that Bradin would lie for her, even though he disapproved of what she was doing.
By now, they were in their room and Amanda nodded toward the suitcases piled at the foot of her bed. "Do me a favor, okay? Get everything else shipped after I leave."
Bradin nodded grimly. "Yeah."
"Wanna take this stuff outside? I'll call a cab."
"I guess," Bradin said as he grabbed two cases. In fifteen minutes, Amanda was ready to leave. They stood outside of the house on the curb.
"Amanda - "
"Bradin, please don't do this again," Amanda whispered. Her eyes were closed tightly; it looked as if she were trying to memorize the exact image of everything she was leaving behind.
"Fine. When's the cab coming?" His tone had gotten a bit snippy at her brush-off.
Amanda didn't have to answer, because as soon as he'd said the words a yellow taxi pulled up in front of them. Bradin scowled and threw her bags in the trunk. Coming back around, Bradin looked at Amanda one last time. "I'm sorry you have to leave."
Amanda stood in front of him. "Yeah, me too." She moved closer and Bradin wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on the top of her head.
"Will you write to me? Call me?"
"Of course." Amanda looked up through tear-filled eyes. "I promise."
"And if you ever come across Brenn, give him a good punch in the face from me, okay? But - try not to come across him. Don't put up with anything," Bradin advised.
Amanda smiled weakly, and nodded. As she looked away at the waiting cab driver, Bradin reached over and turned her head back toward him. He kissed her long and good, memorizing the taste and feel of her lips, the way her hair brushed softly against his face. When he finally pulled away, Amanda kept her eyes closed for a few moments. She knew that the driver was getting impatient, so she hugged Bradin tightly for the last time and got in the backseat. As he pulled away, Bradin saw Amanda mouth "I'm sorry", and then she was out of sight.
########
The cab driver, a middle-aged man with a beer belly and balding grey hair, pulled up to the airport where Jay had picked her up. She handed him the fare, and accepted the suitcases he handed her from the trunk. As he pulled away from the curb, Amanda couldn't help but feel a strange sense of loss. It was real now, she was leaving.
She looked up at the board with departures, arrivals, and delays, realizing with some dismay that her flight was right on time. After checking her meager two suitcases, Amanda shouldered her backpack and went to find a seat to wait for her plane.
########
"What do you mean, she left?!"
The others had decided to come home early, unfortunately, and had found a very upset Bradin sitting in one of the wicker chairs at the kitchen counter.
Bradin furiously dug the heel of his hand into his eyes, embarrassed at having been found crying. Crying was something girls did, and it wasn't as if Amanda hadn't done enough crying for the both of them all day. "She - " Bradin cleared his throat. "She got an abortion, and went back to Australia."
The silence that followed his confession seemed to be an actual thing, looming ominous and threatening in the kitchen. Derrick was the only one absent from this conversation, having left for Martha's house the second he got home.
"She what?"
"You heard me. I took her back to the doctor this morning, Aunt Ava, and she left for the airport an hour ago."
"What time does her plane leave?" Jay asked softly. He had sunk down to rest against the kitchen cabinets.
"I don't know, she wouldn't tell me anything. She wouldn't even let me drop her off, she called a cab," Bradin explained.
"Why would she do something like this without talking to one of us first?" Susannah asked. She, too, was severely shocked by this sudden turn of events.
"I knew about it," Bradin said.
"And you didn't bother filling any of us in?" Jay growled from his place on the floor. "I don't believe you, Bradin, you should have told one of us."
"It was her decision! She was going to do it whether you knew or you didn't!"
"Fine, but she could have at least talked it over with all of us. That's the point of this, we're supposed to be a family," Johnny said.
"She was scared out of her mind - I don't think it was entirely her own decision," Bradin admitted.
"What do you mean? D'you think Brenn had something to do with this?" Jay asked in a dangerously calm voice.
"I think so, yeah."
"Johnny, get me the phone," Jay said as he stood up. Johnny tossed him the cordless. Jay dialed a few numbers, and then handed the phone back to Johnny. "Pretend to be somebody from the doctor's office checking on the payment for Amanda Robertson's - visit today." Jay could not bring himself to say the word.
Johnny waited while the phone rang four times. Finally, on the fifth ring, somebody with a gruff Australian accent picked up. "Hunter-Montgomery Law Firm."
"I'd like to speak with Mr. - " Jay mouthed the words 'Carl Hunter' and Johnny spoke them into the phone.
"Speaking," said Carl in a bored voice.
"This is uh . . . Shawn Williams from, um - Dr. Trudy's office. I was just calling to verify that you authorized a check to pay for Miss Amanda Robertson's abortion."
There was a long, tense pause on the other line until finally Carl said, "Yes, I did. Is there a problem?"
"Nope, no problem." Johnny hung up the phone quickly. "He sent her money to do it."
At that, Jay shot up from the floor and started pacing. "The bloody - "
"Jay! Calm down," Erika placed a calming hand on his back, but Jay shrugged it off.
"Calm down? My baby sister is going back to the man who knocked her up and then paid her to get rid of the kid? The same guy who beat her? I can't let her go back."
"What are you going to do about it?" Nikki asked tentatively. She hadn't ventured an opinion on the subject.
"I don't know, I just know that she can't go back. Even if my parents let her stay with them again, she'll be in danger because of Brenn and his asshole of a father."
"Why don't you call your parents and ask if they knew about this?" Susannah suggested. "I'm betting that they do, since they kicked her out when they found out about the baby. They probably jumped at the chance to join forces with the guy who's trying to get rid of it."
"That's true . . . " Jay trailed off thoughtfully. He strode to the phone on the kitchen wall and punched numbers into it. His mother, Donna, answered.
"Hullo?"
"Mum, it's Jay. I need to talk to you about Amanda."
His mother didn't say anything for a few seconds, Jay only heard her muffled voice calling "Jackson!" and then his father came on the line. "Is there something wrong?"
"Dad, did you know that Carl Hunter sent money here for Amanda to get an abortion?"
The absence of his father's voice on the other line was all he needed to confirm his suspicions, and then he exploded. "How can you treat your own daughter like that?! She needed help, not money to influence her decisions - she's scared out of her mind right now! What were you thinking?!"
Ava, Susannah, Johnny, Bradin and Nikki looked on as Jay continued yelling into the phone for another five minutes. When his voice had finally lowered to a bearable tone, they took their hands off their ears. "You listen to me, Dad," Jay said through gritted teeth. "You will send her on a plane back here the second - he hung up on me! I can't believe he hung up on me!"
"So, they knew about everything?" Erika asked quietly.
"Yeah, they knew it all. I'm just glad their 'brilliant' minds didn't come up with this plan before she came here, because then I never would have known anything and she would have continued seeing Brenn, letting him do God knows what to her - "
"Jay, stop it," said Erika soothingly. "You'll get her back here. I know you will."
At her words, the metaphorical lightbulb clicked on over Jay's head. "Yeah . . . yeah, we'll get her back."
"You're scaring me."
Jay's gaze turned to Bradin. "Go back some clothes, Bradin, at least enough for a couple nights."
"What are you talking about?" Ava intervened.
"We're taking ourselves a little trip."
"You don't mean - "
"I most certainly do. We're
going down under."
Bradin looked to Ava with a questioning expression. When she gave a swift nod of approval, he rushed off to his room to gather the few things he would need for their little 'excursion'. An hour later, all the arrangements had been made for Jay and Bradin to catch the 9:15 flight, directly to Melbourne, the nearest city with an airport to Jay's hometown of Copper Point. Somehow, Jay knew that Amanda had returned home.
Five and a half hours after Jay had made the decision to drop everything and drag Bradin to Australia in search of Amanda, he found himself on a plane, watching the monotonous dark sky out his window. To his right, Bradin was also awake. They didn't know exactly what time it was wherever they were, but their bodies were programmed to believe that it was somewhere around two in the morning.
A couple hours later, after Bradin had drifted off, Jay found himself deeply immersed in thoughts of his baby sister. Ever since they were little, Jay and Amanda had the typical brother-sister relationship. Altered a little, of course, by the fact that he was 10 years older than her. But that only served to make him even more protective. It seemed as if since she'd started middle school that he'd had to beat the boys back with a stick. A very large stick, considering there was an absurd amount of boys to beat back.
Looking over at the now still form of Bradin, Jay knew that there was something going on between the two. As much as he had tried to deny it, the fact was there smacking him repeatedly in the face. Jay found it strange that it didn't make him want to beat the bejesus out of Bradin as it had with Brenn. Brenn - well, that was a whole other story. The kid made Jay grit his teeth and clench his fists at the mere thought of him. Not just because of the current situation. He'd never liked him to begin with.
Bradin stirred and mumbled something under his breath, breaking Jay from his train of thought. The last thing that flitted across his mind before he himself dozed off was 'What if she doesn't want to come back?'
########
Amanda's flight landed at 3:30 PM Sunday afternoon. Jay and Bradin's would land at the same airport roughly seven hours later. She had contacted her parents and informed them that she'd gotten the abortion and was coming back to Copper Point, but hadn't let Brenn know. Her parents would take care of that for her. Besides, she didn't want to have anything to do with the creep anymore. She couldn't have anything to do with him.
After claiming her two suitcases from baggage claim, Amanda hailed a taxi and let her head rest against the window, muggy with late August heat. She had no idea what she'd done, or what she was going to do now.
########
"How do you plan on finding her, Jay? Do you think she went back to your parents' house?" Bradin asked through a yawn as they each grabbed their suitcases from the slowly revolving conveyer belt littered with luggage.
"I think we ought to have a chat with the junior Mr. Hunter, don't you?"
"Sounds good to me. I've got a few choice words for him myself," Bradin agreed.
Jay got them a cab and told the driver to take them to Copper Point. "We'll walk to my house from town, it's small," he told Bradin.
"Copper Point? Do you know a young blonde girl, 'bout his age?" The old cab driver with a Scottish accent nodded in Bradin's direction.
Bradin and Jay looked at each other, mouths agape in disbelief. This was too easy to be true. Jay stammered, "Yeah, we actually came here to look for her."
"Well, I do my shift around this airport from three to ten, and I picked her up earlier. Only reason I'm asking is because my sister lives out in Copper Point, and I don't get many people heading to that little dinghy of a town," the driver explained.
"She's my sister," Jay admitted. "We need to find her. Did you take her to Copper Point?"
"Well," the man hesitated, "she stopped there, but didn't stay. I took her to - wait a minute, how can I be sure that you're really her brother and not some psycho stalker?"
"Listen, man," Bradin growled, squeezing the back of the seat so hard his knuckles turned white. "We're talking about something serious here. She could be in danger if we don't find her right away. So you can either take us to where you dropped her off or dump us now."
Jay looked over at him impressed. "I'll take you there. Don't go mental on me."
Bradin relaxed back in his seat until they pulled up in front of a shoddy motel called 'Guru Jack's'. "She's staying here?" Jay asked incredulously.
"This is where I dropped her off," the cabbie insisted.
"Well, you can drop us here, too," Jay said. He and Bradin exited the car after paying the helpful man extra, and it peeled away from the curb the second they were gone.
"Why is she staying here and not in Copper Point with my Mum and Dad?" Jay wondered aloud. He stepped up to the front desk with Bradin in tow. "Excuse me," he greeted the receptionist. She was a small, mousy brunette woman with large glasses she wore on a chain. "Can you tell me if Amanda Robertson is staying here?"
"I'm afraid I'm not authorized to give out that information," the receptionist said, a shy blush creeping up her neck and cheeks.
"Oh, I'm sure you could work something out for me - Julie," Jay winked at her after reading her name tag.
The blush deepened to a dark shade of red on Julie's face. "Maybe . . . I don't know."
Jay really started laying it on thick. "Anyway, what's a beautiful woman like you doing working in a place like this?"
"I - well, I suppose I could help you out since you've been so terribly kind to me," Julie giggled, and typed a few numbers into her computer. "We have no Amanda Robertson here." Jay's heart sunk . . . she had to be here! "But we do have an Amanda Westerly staying in room 16, floor two."
Bradin's head shot up at the name. Amanda Westerly. She had used his name as her own. "Thank you. Thank you very much," Jay said sincerely. He grabbed Bradin's arm and dragged him toward the bank of elevators at the other side of the down-trodden lobby. "Can you believe we've already found her?"
"Yeah . . . "
While they waited for the elevator doors to open, Jay observed Bradin. He seemed to be dazed, out of it. "Bray . . . hello? Are you okay?"
"Huh? Oh, fine. I was just wondering why she used my name," Bradin confessed.
Jay smiled at the younger boy. "Isn't it obvious already?"
A perplexed look crossed Bradin's features. "No."
"It will be."
Finally, the elevators reached floor two. Bradin was the one who first spotted the faded black numbers that read '16'. "Jay - I found it."
The two of them stood before the door in complete silence. Jay knocked. Inside, someone called softly, "Who is it?"
"It's - "
Jay clapped a hand over Bradin's mouth and finished in a high-pitched voice, "Housekeeping!" In a low whisper he said, "Do you want to scare her off?"
The door opened and Amanda stood in front of them. It didn't escape Bradin's notice how terrible she looked. Her hair was knotty and hung in a tangled mess over her shoulders, her face was blotchy and red, she still wore the same clothes he'd last seen her in. When she realized it wasn't housekeeping, she almost slammed the door in their faces, but Jay objected. "Oh, no you don't. You're not escaping again." He pushed his way into the room and Bradin followed. "What do you think you're doing?"
When Amanda didn't answer, Jay continued. "Making decisions that big without consulting everyone involved? Leaving without talking it over with me?"
Amanda had her head down, not looking at either Bradin or Jay. "I'm sorry."
"You sure look sorry." Jay gave the room a cursory look. It was so small that it barely fit the three of them, with a bed against the east wall and a tiny television set with an antenna sticking from the top of it on a table at the foot of it. "This place is certainly no Hilton, but how are you affording to stay here? Did Brenn's father send you more money?" At her shocked face, Jay said, "Yeah, we know all about that."
Amanda looked down at the threadbare, stained carpet again. She found it hard to answer through the tears and shame that clogged her throat. "He only sent me one check."
"Then, how - "
Suddenly, Amanda snapped her head up and met Jay with a hard stare. "I'm still pregnant. I didn't get the abortion."