BrookLyn's Journey (5 page)

She snapped out of her little world and
noticed Gabriella rummaging through her neatly filled dresser drawers. She laid a pair of Victoria Secret shorts and a matching t-shirt on the bed.
BrookLyn
assumed they were for
her
.

Gabriella began
undressing as she
nodd
ed
toward the clothes on the bed.
“Th
ose
are for you,” she said
.

“Thank you
.
”
BrookLyn
smiled
, feeling
uncomfortabl
e,
trying not to stare at
Gabriella’s
perfect body while she undressed
and
put on her black gym shorts. The only girls
she
had seen naked before were
her
sisters. In gym
they
didn’t have to wear uniforms so
they
didn’t have to change for class.
BrookLyn
forced her eyes away.

Gabriella was taller than
BrookLyn and
she played sports
,
so her body was firm and her arms were
muscular but
feminine. Looking at her gave
BrookLyn
a warm feeling that
she
didn’t understand.

As
she
turned away
,
she
caught a glimpse of a tattoo written in cursive on the right side of
Gabriella’s
back
, causing her to
look closer
.
It said
The one I will love forever
, and it had
a
blank ribbon wrapped around a heart
—there was no name
.
I
s she waiting to add
one
?

BrookLyn
put
the
phone on the bed
and
grabbed the clothes
.
She
quickly went into the bathroom to change
,
forcing
her
self to stop
staring
at
Gabriella
.
She
was becoming more
and more
nervous about spending the night out
, and about spending the night here
.

She
barely knew
Gabriella
,
yet she
kept feeling something
deep
within
her
each time
they
were close
.
She
hadn’t
ever noticed it in church
,
but tonight something was different.

BrookLyn
dressed
and folded
her own
clothes into a
neat
pile
.
She
laid them on the toilet and looked at
her
self in the mirror.
“Breathe,”
she
reminded herself
,
but her thumping
heart chose to ignore
her
desire to relax
.
She
took a few
more
deep breaths, grabbed
her
clothes and went back into
Gabriella’s
bedroom.

“You okay?
”
asked Gabriella.
“
You look a little pale
.
”

“I’m
just stressed that
I couldn’t get in. Th
ere’s
going to be trouble.”

“Even though you left a message?”
How could Gabriella understand?
No one
outside of their family
knew Brook
L
yn’s
father like
they
did.

“My father will erupt
.
”
BrookLyn
didn’t know how else to put it. When her father got angry, it just spilled over onto everyone else, but mostly her, now that she was the last one left at home.

“Maybe not,”
Gabby
said softly.

She shook her head.
“You don’t know my
father
.
”
BrookLyn had already determined
that
she
’d be grounded until graduation
,
even if they listened to
her
message.

Her
parents blame
d their strictness
on their
own
upbringing in the West Indies. They
thought that
American kids have it too easy.
Her
parents
told
her
many
stories about what was done to them as kids. They were made to stand in the corner facing the wall for hours, or
forced
to kneel down on grains of rice until they were told to get up.
Although her
life
wasn’t
great
, at least, she supposed,
it
was
better than they had it
.

“Do you want to watch TV?”

“Sure,”
she
said.
“
I
can’t fall
a
sleep.
”

“We can watch videos.”

“I don’t get to watch them at home. My dad says the rappers have no respect for women calling them the B-word all the time. He hates the way the girls dress in the videos and the rappers
with their boxers hanging out,
showing
off
big cars, drugs, and money
.
”
BrookLyn’s
father never let
her
do anything. If it were up to him
she
would be a little kid forever stuck in his house. That wasn’t
her
plan.

“Parents think they know all
,
but they don’t.
”

“Mine think they know everything
,
for sure.”

“
Although
...
I must agree, those women in this video are almost naked
.
”
Gabriella
giggled
and
point
ed
to the half
-
dressed girls
shaking their butts
in the video.

Then
Gabriella moved closer to where
BrookLyn
was sitting on the bed.
She
didn’t know what
Gabriella
was trying to do
, so she scooted
over a little
,
giving her more room
,
hoping she was just trying to get comfortable.
BrookLyn kept
her
eyes
focused on
the video as
she
felt
Ga
briella
shifting closer to
her
again.

She
lean
ed
in so close
that BrookLyn
got lost for a second in the smell of her sweet breath.
“Would you be mad at me if I kissed you?”

BrookLyn
hesitated
.
She
couldn’t focus as
Gabriella’s
question bounced around
her
head.
She struggled to regain her composure.
“
What?
Why would you want to kiss me? I’m a girl
.
”

“I don’t like boys. I like you. Your skin is so soft
.
”
Gabriella
rubbed
her
hand gently
down BrookLyn’s arm,
sending small tingling shocks throughout
her
body again.

She had never had a boy
ask if he could kiss
her
, now a girl was
.
Why did she?

B
utterflies danced in
BrookLyn’s
belly.
She couldn’t tell if time was speeding up or slowing down, but she
surprised
her
self
with her reply.
“Well, if you want to kiss me, I guess you can.”

Before she knew what she had agreed to,
Gabriella pulled
her
close
,
covering
BrookLyn’s
nervous lips with her soft relaxed ones.

BrookLyn
had never been kissed on the lips by anybody and definitely not like this.
She
was feeling a little weird but good at the same time.
Her
entire body was tingling.
Part of her
wanted
Gabriella
to stop
,
but
she
didn’t push her away.
She
lost track of
time, not knowing
how long
they
kissed before
Gabriella
slowly pushed
her
down on the bed.

Oh God
.

Gabriella lay next to
her
kissing
her
softly and rubbing
her
thighs with her long fingers.
BrookLyn
may have been
eighteen
,
but
she
had no idea whatsoever what two girls were supposed to do. As
Gabriella
moved her hands to the top of
BrookLyn’s
shorts,
she
finally
pushed her away.
She
wasn’t ready for whatever it was
Gabriella
was getting ready to do.
She
sat up quickly
,
trying to catch
her
breath.

“What’s wrong?”
Gabriella
’s
clear blue
eyes
stared at BrookLyn
.

“Nothing
.
”
S
he
fixed
her
clothes
and
look
ed
away
. Those
eyes were trying to draw
her
in.
She
felt warm inside and
her
heart was beating really fast.
BrookLyn’s
body was responding to
Gabriella’s
touch
, but
her
head was telling
her
to stop.

She had
never been like this with anyone. Some of the girls in
her
class
had
already been with boys. They bragged about it all the time.
BrookLyn had
never had the option to be this close with anyone.
Her
stomach turned as
her
head and body
competed.

Gabriella
rubb
ed
her
hand.
“I’m not going to hurt you
.
”

BrookLyn looked toward the floor.
“I’m not ready for this
.
”
She
was embarrassed because
,
although
she
was eighteen,
she
was clueless.
BrookLyn
didn’t even know what
this
was.

“I’ll take it slow. We don’t have to do anything tonight. Can I keep kissing you?”

“Why me?” Everyone called
her
ugly
,
even
her
parents
—maybe especially them
.