Chapter 24
After Kelly is finished for the day, she meets Brandon and Sammy at the Peach Pit for dinner at 5:00. Throughout dinner, Brandon is still getting the vibe that Kelly is hiding something from him but he still can't place it especially since Kelly is acting normal around Sammy and asking tons of questions about their day.
As they are getting ready to leave, Sammy runs up to Nat to say goodbye Brandon takes the chance to ask Kelly, "You up for reading some more of our journals. We haven't had the chance in the last couple of nights."
Kelly turns her eyes from Sammy and Nat to Brandon completely caught off guard from Brandon's question, "uh…I was actually hoping to call in an early night and going to bed as soon as Sammy is sleeping. I'm sorry."
"Oh…hmm yeah, hey that's okay. Don't worry about it, get some more rest tonight, you still seem pretty tired," Brandon says.
"Yeah, I am still, thanks for understanding," Kelly says looking down.
"Yeah, it's no problem. If you're up for it tomorrow, how about we take Sammy to the fair?"
"Yeah, he would like that," Kelly replies because she feels guilty saying she's going to bed early.
"Good, well I'll see you guys tomorrow then," Brandon says.
But Kelly stops him, "Brandon, you can at least to come over so you can tuck Sammy in, you would really be doing me a favor actually."
"Yeah, I can do that," Brandon comments as Sammy runs back over to them and then they both wave bye to Nat and head to Kelly's house.
That evening Kelly is trying to avoid falling asleep again. She is staring at her phone thinking about calling Brandon because she is driving herself crazy with her memories in her head. She wants them to released, but she still feels unsure about telling Brandon everything. She remembers how much Brandon drove himself crazy after she was shot that drove her crazy as well and it really put a strain on their relationship. She eventually decides against calling Brandon at this late hour and puts an old movie on instead to distract herself.
After Kelly finally falls asleep after trying to avoid it again, her screams wakes up Sammy again. But this time he decides that he should go wake up Silver in the garage apartment. He was afraid since he has never been outside late at night by himself before, but he knew that his mom needed help and Aunt Silver was the closest adult.
Silver saw him coming because she just got back from a night with Teddy, "Sammy, what are you doing out here?" when he opens the door.
"Mommy is having her bad dream again, it woke me up," Sammy says scared.
"What dream?" Silver asks while kneeling down to his level.
Sammy replies, "She said last night there's a really bad man trying to hurt her and I'm really scared, can you help her?"
"Yeah, I'll see what I can do. Come on, I'll tuck you back into bed and go check on her," she says as she stands back up.
When Silver takes Sammy upstairs in the house, she notices that Kelly's light on before she tucks Sammy back into bed.
After she closes Sammy's door all of the way, she goes to knock on Kelly's door and opens it slightly, "Kel, you wake?"
Kelly comes out of her bathroom, "Hey, what are you doing up, everything okay?" She asks.
"Everything was okay, until Sammy came to the apartment. He was scared; he said you were having a bad dream again. Is that true?"
"Is he okay, I should go check on him," Kelly says moving towards the hallway.
"Kelly, stop. He's fine. But I can tell that you're not! What's going on? Does it have something to do with today at school?" Silver asks.
Kelly replies with her arms crossed, trying to protect herself, "No, it's nothing for you or Sammy to worry about, okay, so just go back to bed, please. Everything will be fine."
"Kelly, you always make me tell you."
"Well, you're not the older sister, now are you? Just go back to bed please," Kelly says angrily.
"Just because you're older, doesn't mean that you don't need help," Silver says angrily as well and as she goes back to the garage apartment she makes a mental note to mention this to Brandon.
Instead of going back to sleep, Kelly decides to go down to the kitchen to make coffee and read some new articles in the Journal of Psychology.
That morning, Kelly is hyped up on coffee and really jumpy once again when Brandon comes to pick them up so they can go to the fair.
As they are eating breakfast Silver walks into the house, "Morning everyone," she says as she ruffles the top of Sammy's hair.
"Go ahead and help yourself to some of the pancakes and sausage on the countertop," Kelly tells her.
"Uh thanks Kel, but actually I was really hoping that Brandon could help me move a really big piece of furniture up in the apartment. Wha'cha say, Brandon?" Silver asks looking at Brandon.
Brandon wipes his face with a napkin, "hmm, yeah sure. We'll be back."
He then follows Silver outside, once they are out of sight, Silver turns around, "okay actually there's no furniture to be moved, I need to talk to you about Kelly."
"Hmm okay, what about?" Brandon asks.
"Well, you've noticed how jumpy and tired she's been right?" Silver begins.
"Yeah I keep on asking, but she always says that she's just fine and making up excuses. Something is going on but I don't know what, you think you know?" Brandon asks hopeful.
"Well, I'm not entirely certain, but I might have idea. I was hoping you might have a bit more of a clue since you have known her longer. Okay she's been having some sort of nightmare for the last couple of nights. I just found out in the middle of last night when Sammy came up to the apartment saying she had a bad dream again and that he was really scared. He told me that she told him the night before that her dream was about a bad man trying to hurt her. And I'm almost wondering if it has something similar to do with what happened with Naomi a few weeks ago," Silver explains her theory.
"Well, I don't know what was happened with Naomi because she won't tell me anything," Brandon says.
Silver continues to explain, "On prom night a couple of weeks ago, one of the teachers, Mr. Cannon raped Naomi and if she didn't follow me Tuesday night then he would have forced himself on me also. It was the police station that we went to that night to make a report. He was arrested yesterday at school. So I was wondering if you knew if she has ever been raped or anything like that."
"Oh wow," Brandon thinks for a moment a bit shocked and utterly sickened by the possibility of Kelly ever being raped, "I honesty don't really know. The only thing I can think of was one Halloween, her costume was a bit relieving and some guy tried to force himself on her, but I think it was Steve or Dylan walked into the room at the right time. I can't think of a time in college. And I really don't know since I've been gone. I might be able to talk to Steve or Donna about it though. I'll try talking to her first though, thanks for telling me."
"Just please help her. She wouldn't talk to me last night because I'm the younger sister or something stupid like that," Silver saying the last part irritated.
"I will, we probably should get back inside before she starts to look for us," Brandon says.
When they enter back into the kitchen Silver acts like her goofy self asking Sammy a millions of questions about what he wants to do at the fair so he wouldn't have a chance to think about the middle of the night. But Brandon can't help to think about the information that Silver just told him and Kelly notices that he is quieter than he was before he went outside.
As Silver goes into another room with Sammy, Kelly asks Brandon, "Hey everything alright? You've been quieter since you went to help Silver."
Brandon quickly thinks of the top of his head, "Yeah, I'm just trying to think of how to make this one of the most prefect days for Sammy," he says with a smile.
"Well, you probably don't have to worry about that because so far everyday that he has got to spend with you has been prefect," Kelly tells him, relieved that Silver didn't tell him anything about her behavior in the middle of the night.
