Chapter 2

"So that brings us to your assignment. You'll be pairing up with someone else in the class and you'll need to interview people about a topic the two of you will choose together. The topic should be something relating to current events or a current event. You should be prepared to create a 15-minute video about your topic, in which you will actually interview your subjects. The school has video equipment which you may borrow for this purpose if you need it. Your topics are due by Friday. If there are two groups with the same topic, whoever got their idea to me first is the group that gets to do it. You'll also need to hand in a list of at least five interview questions on Friday. Any questions please see me. I'm now going to give you the remainder of the class period to choose your partner and start thinking about topics." Mr. Reynolds, the Current Events teacher said.

Everyone moved. Sarai picked up her stuff and went to the back of the room, where Brandon was.

"You wanna work with me?" She asked.

"I'd love to." Brandon replied.

"Great!" Sarai said as she sat down at the empty desk next to him. "So, any ideas? I was thinking about wage and gender discrimination."

"That's good." Brandon said. "I'll start making a list of ideas." He said as he flipped open his notebook and wrote Sarai's idea down. The he thought for a minute.

"What about race discrimination? We could see how people feel about that and what they think should be done about it." He suggested.

"That's good, too."

Brandon thought for a little bit longer. "Brenda helped a girl last year who was a victim of date rape." He said. "It would be really interesting to see what people think of how the criminal justice system handles sex offenders and what they think they could improve upon. It'd also be cool to learn about how they handle things for the victims."

Sarai started to get nervous. "Um, yeah." She said.

"Does that sound like a good topic?" Brandon asked.

"Uh, sounds great." Sarai replied. "Oh no!" She thought in her mind. "This isn't good! What if everyone finds out?"

"OK, then." Brandon said. "We've got our topic. Now we need to come up with some interview questions."'

The bell rang for class to be over with. Everyone got up.

"Are you free tonight?" Brandon asked as he picked up his stuff.

"Yeah." Sarai said as she picked up hers.

"Do you wanna meet to create those questions?"

"Sounds cool to me." Sarai replied. "Where do you wanna meet at?"

"My house or yours." Brandon said. "It doesn't matter to me."

Sarai thought for a minute. She definitely didn't want him coming over to her house. She'd be there alone with him again that night and she didn't need Brandon to find out anything that had been happening.

"Let's meet at your house." She said.

"Great! Here's my address." Brandon said as he scribbled it down on a piece of paper. "7 o'clock OK?"

"Yeah, it's fine." Sarai said. "I'll see you then."

After Sarai had finished her homework from her other classes and gotten something to eat, she packed up her backpack and headed downstairs so she could go to Brandon's house. It was already 6:30. Her dad was sitting in the living room watching TV. He looked up at her when he heard her come down.

"You look really nice." He said. "Where ya goin'?"

"Over to a friend's house to work on an assignment." Sarai said as gulped. She felt like she had a lump in her throat. "I'll be back before 10." She said as she turned to walk out the front door.

"Listen!" Sarai's dad said as he grabbed her firmly by the arm. "You better not tell any of your friends about me, you got it? If you do, you can mark my words that I'll make your life a living Hell!" He then let go of her arm.

"Uh huh." Sarai quietly said as she walked out.

When she got to the car, Sarai started crying. "Damn!" She yelled when she got in the car, tears streaming down her face. "Make my life a living Hell? How could he possibly do that any more than he already has?" She yelled again.

Sarai knew she needed to tell someone about her problem, but she was scared to.

"Come on Sarai, talk to someone! Anyone!" She told herself. "You can do it, I know you can!"

Sarai took a deep breath before she backed out the driveway. She knew just who she needed to tell, and she hoped that person would listen to her and still be her friend.

Sarai had no trouble finding the Walsh home. She parked her car in the driveway and walked up to the front door. She took a deep breath again. "Everything's gonna be just fine." She told herself.

Sarai rang the doorbell and waited for a few seconds. A woman answered it.

"Hello. Can I help you?" The woman asked.

"Yeah. Is Brandon home?" Sarai asked.

"You must be Sarai." The woman said, smiling. "I'm Brandon's mom. Come on in."

Brenda, who was sitting on the couch reading a magazine, looked up.

"Hi, Sarai." She said.

"Hi." Sarai answered.

"He's upstairs, Sarai. You can go on up. It's the third door on the left." Mrs. Walsh said, pointing Sarai in the direction of the stairs.

"Thank you." Sarai said as she headed toward the stairs.

Sarai walked up the stairs to Brandon's room. She could hear music playing. She knocked on the door.

"Come in!" Brandon yelled.

Sarai opened the door.

"Oh hey, Sarai." Brandon said as he threw a Nerf football at her. "Think fast!"

Sarai caught the ball and threw it back at him, then walked in the room.

"You ready to get started?" He asked.

"Um, yeah." Sarai said as she sat down next to him on the bed. "But first, I have to tell you something. You have to swear on your own grave that you won't tell anyone else about this!"

"I promise I won't tell a soul. Now spill it." Brandon said as he shut off the stereo.

Sarai took a deep breath. "There's no easy way to say this, and I hope you'll still want to be friends with me after I tell you this, but here goes. My dad. . ." She started.

"Your dad, what?"

"I'm sorry. I. . .I'm just having a hard time saying this and I. . .I can't." Sarai said as she got up from the bed, tears streaming down her face.

"Well please try to, because you're scaring me to death. Come on," Brandon said as he got up and walked Sarai back over to the bed. "Just sit down and tell me what's up. It's just you and I in here and I promise anything you say won't go past that door."

Sarai started crying harder. "My dad. He. . .he's been molesting me since I was 12."

Brandon put his arm around her. "I'm so sorry." He said.

"That's not even the worst of it." Sarai cried, even harder. "Two months ago, he raped me."

"Are you OK? I mean, did you go see a doctor after it happened?" Brandon asked.

Sarai wiped away the tears from her eyes. "Yeah," she nodded. "I went to a non-profit women's clinic in Minneapolis. They said I was fine, but I didn't tell them what I was really there for. I told them I was just there for a physical, because I was afraid that if I told them about what had happened they'd call the cops and then he'd really come after me. Brandon, I'm so scared to be left alone with him that most nights when I do have to be alone in that house with him I sneak out of my bedroom window to leave that house and I don't come back until I know my mom's home. He won't try anything with someone else in the house. I have nightmares about him doing it and when I have them I wake up in cold sweats."

"Have you told your mom about what's going on or anyone else in your family?"

"I've tried telling Mom and Matt about it, but they won't believe me. Every time I bring it up it just causes an argument. They think he's perfect." Sarai said.

"Sarai, have you gotten any help at all with this? I think you really need help." Brandon said, still keeping his arm around her.

"No. I can handle it." Sarai said, still crying.

"Sarai, you need help." Brandon replied.

"No I don't!" Sarai exclaimed.

"Sarai, he's really going to hurt you one of these days if you don't get help." Brandon said. "Didn't you say that your mom usually works until 8 PM on Wednesdays showing houses?"

"Yeah." Sarai replied.

"I tell you what, give me your address and phone number. I have to work tomorrow night at The Peach Pit until 7:45, but I'm coming over tomorrow night after I get out of work to check on you. If I find that he's done anything else to you, I'm calling the cops, do you understand? You can't live like this. I promise you that if that does happen, I'll come up with a way to get you to safety before he even has another chance to hurt you. Nobody messes around with Brandon Walsh or his friends because I won't let them. Here." He said, handing Sarai a pad of paper and a pen from his desk.

"Thanks." Sarai said as she wrote down her address and phone number. "Do you mind if I just hang out for a little while, until about 10, and not do any homework? I don't really feel like doing any right now, especially not if it's something that I'm a victim of. It's also been a really long time since I've actually had any real, good friends to hang out with. They all kinda got cut out of my life when I started having all of these problems."

"Sure!" Brandon replied. "But do you still want to do our topic?"

"You know what? I think it's an excellent topic and we should most definitely do it. Talking to someone about my experiences with it has definitely made me feel a lot better, and maybe if we stress that it's not such a taboo subject, more people will be willing to talk about it and get help if they need it." Sarai said.

Brandon smiled. The two of them got up off of the bed.

"Did you really mean that, about me being a good friend?" Brandon asked.

"Of course." Sarai replied. "In fact, you're probably my only friend right now."

"What about Brenda?" Brandon asked.

"Yeah, but I haven't talked to her as much as I have you." Sarai said.

"You should. She's a great friend to have. I should know, I've known her since I was 30 seconds old.

Sarai let out a little laugh.

"If you want more friends, I'll have to introduce you to the rest of my crew. There's Dylan, that's my best friend, Steve and David, although I'm not as good of friends with David as I am with the others. You might like him, though. You'll have to meet Kelly, Donna and Andrea, too." Brandon said as they walked out of the room. "C'mon, let's go see what Brenda's up to."