Breaking The Silence

It was almost twenty-four hours later, and Braelyn was now sitting in front of the church. It was exactly the same place when she over heard the conversation with Reverend Jackson and Carmella, and talking – or in her case, writing – to Nick. She had enjoyed the conversation with Nick so much that she did not want the conversation to end, making her forget what Carmella was hiding from everyone else.

Braelyn couldn’t figure out what Carmella’s problem was, and yet, Carmella had thought Braelyn had known. The topic was too broad for Braelyn to figure out. There were too many counters to it. What was it? Drug addiction? Sex addiction? Was she smoking?

Suddenly, Braelyn heard soft giggles from behind the large building. At first, Braelyn had thought it was just a part of her imagination, until the same feminine giggle she had heard the first time came again. She wondered, who was making the noise?

Braelyn got up from the steps of the church and made her way to the back. As soon as Braelyn saw the shocking image of a blonde haired girl, sculling a bottle of rum down all by herself, her eyes widened in shock. It was Carmella, the youth leader, and she certainly knew that you were not supposed to drink the whole bottle yourself! Heck, she wasn’t even allowed any.

Braelyn quickly recovered from the shocking image and forced her legs to walk straight up to Carmella. She hated being around drunk people. As soon as Carmella had spotted Braelyn, she grinned at her and spoke her drunken words.

“I swear these walls are moving,” she giggled, slurring her words slightly. “I’ve never seen walls move before…”

The silent brunette frowned. It was like she was on drugs, not drunk, yet she was drunk. She looked at the blonde disapprovingly. Carmella was under the eye of God, sinning, and one thing for sure, she was certainly not going to heaven if she continued on like this.

Braelyn knew she had to do something about this, so instead of standing there, she pulled the bottle of alcohol away from Carmella and quickly disposed of it, as she did that, the drunk yelped out.

“Hey – whatcha doing that for?” she said angrily. “Oh well, I think I have another one in my bag.” Carmella searched for bag for a moment, and frowned. “You wouldn’t happen to have some, would you?”

Braelyn nodded, indicating a ‘yes’ to the desperate drunk. If she had gotten Carmella to follow her to a safer environment, then no one would know about Carmella’s addiction to alcohol and her career wouldn’t be on the line.

“Where is it? I don’t see it with you,” Carmella said, referring to the bottle of alcohol.

The brunette grabbed the blonde’s arm and pressed her own index finger to her own lips, which Carmella understood. She led Carmella around the Church and in front of the front doors. She pressed her ears against the door, listening if anyone was inside. When she decided that it was empty, and pushed the doors open and dragged the drunken blonde into the Church and onto closest seats, even though Braelyn knew very well that she shouldn’t have dragged a drunk into a Church. Would she be forgiven?

“Where’s the alcohol?” Carmella slurred, as she lay down on her side on the bench seats.

Again, Braelyn pressed her index finger to her own lips and patiently waited for Carmella to fall into a deep slumber. But just as she had gotten used to the heavy breathing from Carmella, it was broken by a soft voice.

“Now you know my problem,” Carmella suddenly said as Braelyn looked at her. “But you’ve got to keep it a secret. I know you will. Keep it from everyone. I know I need help.”

Braelyn studied her, realizing that she wasn’t drunk at the moment. She found it strange that drunken people had their moments when they were intoxicated.

“Help me,” Carmella whispered softly. Then her eyes snapped shut and she was finally asleep.

Braelyn quietly let out air through her nose and stared down at Carmella. She had only met the girl yesterday, and now she was treating her like a good friend.

This was definitely a muddled up situation. Her life really was messed up. Braelyn didn’t even know how to help people with addictions, and the only time she saw how was in movies, but they didn’t give much detail into how. How was Braelyn supposed to help her when she couldn’t even talk herself?

But one question but that bugged Braelyn the most was, what kind of friend was she when she couldn’t even help herself?