You Saved Me

The rest of the day Sunday was brutally long, and so was the following week of school.

Brittany couldn’t decide which part of school she hated more.

Gym class, Economics or play practice.

And the one common factor for the reason that she hated them all?

A boy named Joseph Adam Jonas.

He’d give her glares and say snide remarks to her whenever she was talking to someone about something and he happened to overhear.

And when they had to do scenes together for the play since it was coming to an end in a little over a month, thank goodness, it was only getting worse.

And Wednesday after school during play practice was probably the worst yet because he almost made her cry right there. In front of everyone. But she tried to not have it look like it got her and pretended to not have heard it in the first place.

She still liked him, despite him being a jerk to her for the last week. And maybe, sure, she understood why he was mad, but still, he could at least lay off during play practice. And things weren’t going to change because she was too stubborn to talk to him. She was also kinda scared, seeing as how the only things he seemed to be saying to her was to piss her off…what if he blew her off and completely ignored her apology?

No. That wasn’t going to happen. Before she came to this place, she was strong and independent. She didn’t apologize to anyone for anything. She never had anything to apologize for to begin with. She just was another nobody for a few months until she moved again and it was going to stay that way. When he was ready to talk to her and clear this whole thing up, that was when she would apologize for what she did. But until then, nothing was going to change.

“I just don’t get the feeling that you two are in love…you need to…I don’t know…” Mrs. Creole said, throwing her hands up into the air to show her frustration with the two.

“Maybe because she’s in love with someone else.” she heard, yet another one of his snide remarks that was clearly only loud enough for her to hear.

“Give it a rest Joe. It’s a frickin’ dance. Big whoop-di-do.” she said back to him, trying to make her quick side glare inconspicuous.

She could see him roll his eyes and take a step away from her.

“Maybe you two should spend more time together…connect on a deeper level. Find something you both love and have in common and that might help make it look better. I don’t get it. You two had it the beginning, but now…it’s like you lost it. Maybe this is just getting to me. I’ll be right back. I need some fresh air!” she said, throwing her arms up again and then made her way toward the side exit.

Brittany and Joe scoffed at the idea of spending more time together and quickly got off the stage to go their opposite directions.

“FRIDAY! You know that means right?! Football! You coming?” Steph asked excitedly with a little bit of a jump and clap combination.

Thank you God! Now there’s something I’m actually looking forward to!

“I will defiantly be there. I need something fun to help me forget about all this past weeks crap.” she sighed out, sparing a glance at Joe to see him talking quickly to Mark and Jacob.

“What happened between you two anyways? I mean, you two were like this…” Steph said, crossing her index and middle finger over each other in a criss cross pattern.

“I don’t know. A stupid misunderstanding and games. At least, that’s as much of it as I know. The only things he’ll say to me is stupid little remarks that piss me off even more and make me want to talk to him less.”

“Is this about homecoming?” Steph asked randomly, making Brittany’s stomach lurch forward at the word.

“Yeah.” was all she was able to respond with before having to sit down and grab her head from her dizziness.

She didn’t know why, but the more she thought of homecoming, the more sick she felt. Maybe it was because she did have a guilty conscious or something, but either way, she didn’t want to talk about it.

Truthfully, she wanted to duck out of homecoming. Maybe the night before she could say she got sick and then not have to go. Or maybe say she sprained her ankle. Sure, Will would be upset and sad, but it would be better than having to go through all the girl talk and gossip for hours, trying to find a dress and then pretend to have fun at homecoming while she was thinking about Joe sitting at home being pissed off at her.

“Maybe we should skip the game tonight and have girl talk at my house.” Steph suggested, taking a seat next to Brittany on the ugly dark tan carpet and leaning her back up against the wall.

“No. That’s ok. I know how excited you get about these games. It wouldn’t be fair for you to sit there and be pulled into my crazy and messed up life.” Brittany said, taking a deep breath, trying to settle her stomach from all the tossing and turning it was doing.

“No, really. It’s fine. I’m really not that interested anymore. And even if I went, how am I supposed to have fun knowing one of my best friends is at home, wallowing in her self pity. Seriously, it’ll be fun. It’ll just be us two. That way you don’t have to explain everything to Katie and Jess, and plus, I know Joe better than them. I might be able to help. Come on Trish. I hate seeing you like this.”
“Seeing me like what exactly?” Brittany asked out of slight confusion.

She didn’t know that she was acting differently towards other people. She was so good at hiding how she really felt about situations, she wanted know how she was coming off to others about this particular one.

“Ya know. All sad and depressed. I’ve never seen you like that before. Jess and Katie are too scared to ask you what’s going on cuz they think you’ll get mad at them. But either way, we’re all worried about you Trish and hate seeing you so sad.” she explained, looking at Brittany with sympathy filled eyes.

What is it with this place?! Since when do people actually care about me and want to make things better?!

“Fine. Girl talk tonight will be ok. But please just make it us two. I can’t really talk about stuff when there’s 5 pairs of eyes staring back at me.” Brittany whined out, knowing that she was making a mistake by agreeing to this, but at the same time somewhat happy.

She actually had someone outside of the W.P.P. and Joe, for the time being, that she felt like she could trust and that she really just wanted to vent to and get it all out instead of bottling it up.

“Great! I know exactly what we’re going to do tonight too. It’ll help you. Trust me. I do it all the time when I’m upset and it always works, so hopefully it’ll help you just as much as it helps me.” she said while pulling Brittany in for a side hug.

And for the first time ever, since her parents murder, she whole heartedly hugged someone else back.
It was more of thank you hug than anything, but either way it felt good to actually have someone to hug for a few seconds.

Sure, it might be weird that it was with a girl, but hey, she was closer to Brittany than anyone else at the moment and she genuinely wanted to help her. How could she not want to hug the person who was going to be her savior throughout all of this?

“Thanks Steph. You really….you have….” she started to choke out from feeling her eyes well up a little bit from all of her emotions on edge and then having the opportunity later to be released. They wanted to come out now, but they would have to wait.

She took a deep breath to steady her nerves and compose herself before continuing.

“You’re the greatest friend I’ve ever had. Really. I’ve never met someone like you before. If I could right now, I’d ramble on about how great of person you and thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”

“What are you talking about? I haven’t done anything for you. I just tried being there for you at your most weakest point. That’s what friends do Trish. Help friends out when they need it the most and right now, it looks like you need it right now.” Steph said while giving Brittany a small smile.

Where was this girl my whole life? I could’ve defiantly used her 9 years ago…

“I’ll explain later.” Brittany said quickly, hearing the exit door open swiftly and then Mrs. Creole walk through it looking a little less flustered than before.

“Alright everyone! Let’s pick up from where we left off. Cinderella?! Prince Charming?! On stage please.” she called, clapping her hands together twice, in a chop chop attitude, to speed up the process a little.

Brittany’s eyes widened a little bit at the fact that she had to do all that mushy gushy stuff with Joe again, and Steph seemed to notice.

“Mrs. Creole?! Can we do the scolding scene? I really want to get it right and I’m sure I’ll be able to do it correctly this time. Please?” she begged, getting up quickly from the floor and making her way
towards the teacher.

That girl is an angel in a human disguise!

Brittany let out a sigh of relief from hearing Mrs. Creole sigh and say fine and then called the stage crew to set up the stage.

She rushed her way over towards her savior and engulfed her in another hug quickly while saying a quick thank you to her before they started the scene.

* * * * *

“Thanks Bobby. I’ll see you later. OH! And I know that it might get brought up, cuz let’s face it, it’s Steph, but in case she asks, is it ok if sleep over?” Brittany asked, after asking if it was ok for her to go out tonight.

“Yeah that’s fine. Wow, for someone who said that she would be here all the time when she first got here, you haven’t been around much.” Bobby said with a slight laugh as he turned his head to from the living room to look at the stairs she was currently climbing.

“I know. I wasn’t expecting people to actually talk to me. It’s crazy. I’m still trying to figure it out.” she said with a small laugh before continuing.

“How about…tomorrow, if you have the day off, we’ll spend the day together? We can do whatever you want. It’ll be B & T day.”

“That sounds like fun. We can go mini golfing if you want. Or bowling….if you like either of those. Either way we’ll figure it out tomorrow. Go have fun tonight with Steph.” he said, waving her to finish going up the stairs while he turned in his seat to watch the rest of the football game.

She laughed a little as she continued on her way up the stairs and decided to pack a bag just incase Steph did ask her to sleep over.

She heard her cell phone ring from her back pocket of her jeans, yeah, she changed the second she got home, and read that it was Steph calling her.

“Hey. What’s up?” she asked as she pulled on the strings of her drawstring back pack.

“I’m outside.” was all she said.

“Ok. I’ll be right out.” and with that she hung up her phone, threw her bag over her shoulder and
proceeded down the stairs.

“Bye Bobby! And I can’t wait for our bonding time tomorrow!” she said with a laugh.

She heard him laugh too followed by a “Have fun!” before she shut the door behind her and ran to Steph’s car that was parked in the driveway, still running.

“So, what’s first on the list of things to do tonight?” Brittany asked while buckling up and throwing her bag into the back seat.

“We have to stop at the grocery store, we didn’t have anything at my house to eat for tonight.” she said while putting the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway.

“That’s cool. What did you want to get? Pizza? That always seems to be the choice of food for things like this.” she suggested.

“I was thinking more of cookie dough and cake batter. Maybe something healthy like…well no. This is girls night. We can eat all the crap we want.” she said with a laugh as she started her way towards the grocery store.

“Cake batter and cookie dough? Isn’t that kinda unhealthy?” Brittany asked in a worried voice while watching everything pass by her.

“What are you talking about? It’s what us girls do whenever we’re gonna be talking about our feelings. Comfort food girl! Have you never done this before?” she asked with a laugh but stopped when Brittany didn’t answer her for a few seconds.

“Have you really never done this before? Girls night and stuff?” she asked, sparing a quick glance towards her before averting them back to the road.

“No. I’ve never really had a friend to do any of it with.” Brittany said, somewhat ashamed.

“Well, there’s a first for everything. And don’t worry. I’m a pro at this. We’re gonna have so much fun!” Steph said enthusiastically with a giant smile on her face.

Good. Cuz something fun is what I need the most right now!

* * * * *

“Come on Trish! Just do it! You’ll feel so much better afterwards! I promise!!” Steph whined with somewhat of a laugh over the crashing waves on the beach.

“Won’t someone hear me? What if they think someone’s dying and come rushing over here to see if their alright?” Brittany asked, whining somewhat.

And right then, Steph let out a loud and long yell but then started laughing at the end.

Brittany stood there in horror for the next few minutes, waiting for police or innocent bystanders to come running towards them on the beach to see what was going on, but as the minutes passed by and nobody came, her horror started to disappear.

“Do it with me! Come on! Just let it all out!” Steph said with excitement and she ran into the water, sending the perfectly crashing waves into a frenzy now that it had something breaking it’s waters.

This girl ate way to much cookie dough…

“Come on Trish! It’s the first step! Don’t you want to feel better and have people stop pitying you?!” she called from the ocean, water now up to her knees.

They were both in the pajamas and it was getting close to 11.

After they went to the grocery store and picked out a whole bunch of junk food, they drove around for an hour, windows down and screaming the music out the windows. They actually made a guy on a bike fall over when he turned his head to see what the noise was.

Then it was back to Steph’s house where Brittany met her parents for the first time, briefly, because Steph pulled her up to her room and opened up the cookie dough and they started eating that.
They talked, listened to music, each cried a little bit, which was a first for Brittany. To cry, voluntarily in front of someone and not wanting to beat herself up for it later.

Brittany found out why Steph was so…happy. Why she lived everyday to the fullest and never was really mad about anything.

Her best friend from childhood got killed in a car accident when she was 14. Ever since then, she decided that since life can be taken away from you so quickly, you gotta live life to fullest and enjoy every second. That was why she never had a frown on her face. Plus, she said that Kelly, her friend, wouldn’t have wanted her to sulk around and be miserable. Which, when Brittany thought about it more, her parents would have hated the way she turned out to be.

Always so negative and pessimistic about everything. Until she came here. And that’s why she decided that she too, would try to live life to the fullest. She also told Steph the truth about her parents. Well, not the horrible truth about them. That would be going against the rules of the program she was enlisted in, but she figured it was the least she could do when Steph, so willingly, told her about her best friend’s death.

All she told her was that her parents were killed on her birthday. Now she knew just as much as Joe did. And a little more with knowing Bobby wasn’t her Uncle, but a foster parent. Which then brought a whole new conversation.

But Steph could see that Brittany didn’t want to talk about Joe at all, or not at that moment and that’s when she decided that they go to the beach and scream their bloody heads off to let it all out before actually talking about it.

She squeezed her eyes together, as tight as she could, and sucked in big deep breath before screaming at the top of her lungs, letting out an anguished, angry yell into the night.

“Feel better?”

“Not yet.” Brittany said to her while a smile made it’s way over her face.

She then let out another loud yell while she ran towards the water, letting it hit her and wash away all the pain, sadness, anger and guilt as it lapped up her legs and then receded back into the big ocean blue.

“I told you you would feel better.” Steph said with a laugh and then let out her own yell right afterwards followed by Brittany’s as well.

The two stood there, doing circles in the water while spinning and yelling, sometimes laughing a little bit…well Steph laughed more than Brittany did.

It was finally all coming out of her. After 9 years of bottled up emotions and not being able to share anything with anyone…it felt amazing. Like something was preventing her heart from beating as well it should and when she screamed and yelled, it seemed to disintegrate it. Making it easier for her to breath and seem a little bit more happy.

And that’s when she practically signed herself over to her parent’s killer.

“Steph…can I tell you something?” she asked, after standing there for a few minutes, deliberating if she really wanted to do this.

She did.

“Yeah. Anything.” she said with a laugh as a wave came and splashed her.

“Good. And I know that it may seem stupid to you, but really, I’m practically asking myself to be killed here once I tell you.”

“Oh my gosh. You killed someone didn’t you? Or you stole a car? Rob a bank?” Steph asked while taking a few steps closer to Brittany to get a better look at her face.

“Not exactly. But I will be breaking a lot of rules. And I mean a lot!” Brittany said, emphasizing the word.

“What is it Trisha? You can tell me anything. You know I won’t judge you.” Steph said, taking a few extra steps and putting her hand gently on one of Brittany’s shoulders, hoping that it might supply some type of comfort.

“Let’s sit. You may need to and I really don’t feel like doing CPR on you if you drown in knee deep water.” she said, trying to lighten the mood for herself since she realized the reality of what she was about to do.

If the W.P.P. ever, EVER, found out that she told someone outside of them what happened to her and that she was even in the program, they would immediately drop her and she’d have to fend for herself until her parents killer found her.

Her heart beat like crazy against her chest and she felt her hands and the back of her neck starting to sweat.

Oh my god. I can’t believe I’m about to do this…

“What is it Trish? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Steph said, taking a seat next to Brittany on the sand by the shoreline so the water could still hit her feet every once in a while.

“You have to swear on your life, and mine, and on your parents and anyone else that you care about, that you will never repeat any of this information unless it’s to me and only me.” Brittany said in an authortive voice.

Wow…I sound like one of the agents…

“I swear. I promise on my parents and my life and yours, I will never say any of the information you
are about to tell me.” she said back clearly. Not a moment of hesitation or an ounce of panic in her voice.

Brittany took a deep sigh and looked down at her hands that were currently wrapping and re-wrapping themselves around each other and then did a long hard look around the two of them, trying to see if anyone was around that could possibly hear her life threatening information she was about to tell.

It’s now or never. Do it quick. Like ripping off a band-aid…there’s only brief seconds of pain and then it’s fine after that.

“My name isn’t Trisha Coppers. My real name is Brittany Elizabeth Shay. I was born in St. Paul , Minnesota. My parents names were Karen and James and they were murdered on September 20th, 1999 by a man named John Gables. He’s still looking for me and I’m currently in the Witness Protection Program, hiding from him. I don’t have any brothers or sisters and like I said before, Bobby is not my Uncle. I haven’t seen any of my other family members in 9 years because it would mean death for them. John would kill them if he thought they knew about my whereabouts.”

It was quiet and tense for the next couple minutes between the two of them as the they sat there on the beach, listening only to the waves crash the shoreline loudly.

Brittany’s heart started working double time now, afraid of what might happen.

She had no idea what to expect from Steph. She never had told anyone before and since Steph was the first person she told, she didn’t know how she would react.

She was starting to wish she could just say, “Just Kidding” and make the tension slowly fade away, passing it off as a joke, but this was no joke. The information that Steph knew to begin with and then now, it all connected and made perfect sense. She would know it wasn’t a joke no matter how Brittany played it off. She would probably get mad at her for attempting that. And that’s not what she wanted to do. To tell the one person, after you shared your deepest, darkest secret, that it was a joke would for sure piss them off. No way Jose. That wasn’t going happen.

As the minutes ticked by in silence, Brittany’s started thinking that she made a huge mistake telling Steph. It was wrong of her to bear that big a secret on someone. It was selfish of her to want that feeling of happiness for a few seconds while endangering that person’s life.

But all the doubt and worry washed away when Steph pulled her into a giant hug and started crying into
Brittany’s shoulder.

“I’m so sorry Tri-Brittany. I’m so sorry that that had to happen to you. You don’t deserve that at all. I’m so sorry.”

Brittany slowly wrapped her arms around Steph and started to cry to, tears of sadness, from having to re-live some of the pain. It was like losing her parents all over again. Tears of happiness, being able to share her secret with someone and have them take it well.

Well, she didn’t know if this was well, but it was better than her getting up and running away screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Don’t feel bad for me. I hate that. I just thought you should know. You’ve been amazing to me for the last 2 months I’ve been here. You’ve been a true friend to me, when I never thought that I would be able to have friends because I was always moving around every 3 months. You saved a part of me that I didn’t know was there to save. Thank you so much. You honestly have no idea how much your friendship means to me.” Brittany choked out through her tears and she clung to Steph as much as Steph clung to her.

“You don’t deserve this. You’re a great person. You don’t deserve what happened to you.”

“No one deserves what happened to me. No one. But that’s just the way life goes I guess. I’ve come to accept it. I can’t do anything about it now except pray that the bastard who kills my parents gets run over by a car or shoots his brains out.”

“Personally, I hope it’s the second one.” Steph’s muffled voice said while she slowly pulled away from Brittany and wiped away her tears as Brittany did the same with a small laugh while saying, “Me too.”
She heard Steph choke on her tears a little bit from with a small laugh and continued to wipe her tears away.

As soon as they were each composed enough, tension completely gone between the two, Steph asked if Brittany wanted to sleep over.

“That’d be great. I was kinda planning on it anyways.” she answered with a small laugh.

Steph nodded her head once, as in to finalize an unspoken agreement, but then her eyes got wide and she looked at Brittany.

“Does Joe know about all this? Is that why he always calls you Brittany?”

“No…he knows some of it. Just that my parents died on my birthday. But that’s it. He just got lucky with the name.” Brittany answered her, taking a deep breath and looking up at the moon and then at the reflection it cast on the water.

“What do you mean, likehe guessed or something?” Steph asked confused as ever but looking out over the ocean with Brittany.

She took in another big sigh, having to remember the days when her and Joe were still on talking terms, which killed her to think about, but she owed it Steph to fill in any of the gaps that she didn’t understand. After all, she practically had Brittany’s life in the palm of her hand.

“When I drove him home, he told me I didn’t look like a Trisha and started listing off names to see which one fight me better. Naturally, Brittany sounded right to him and he’s called me that ever since. Well, not anymore…but…you know what I mean.”

“To be honest. No I don’t. What happened between you two? It’s like someone flipped the switch and now you two hate each other.”

“I don’t hate him. I don’t think I ever could. I just…it’s complicated. But it doesn’t matter. There’s no hope anymore for us. We were both at fault. Him playing his little games and taking to long and me saying yes to Will kinda put an end to whatever we had.” she said while squeezing her eyes together and taking in another deep breath.

“I’m sorry Tris-Brittany. Man, it’s gonna take some getting used to.” Steph said with a slight laugh, trying to lighten the mood.

“You can call me Trisha if you want. I think it would be weird if you all of a sudden started calling me Brittany…Joe might get jealous that you’re using my nickname from him.”

“I don’t care what Joe thinks. You’re name is Brittany. Not Trisha. So that is what I will call you. And now that I think about it, you really don’t look like a Trisha. I can’t believe I didn’t see that before.”

“Don’t worry about it too much. But I think it’s time for more cookie dough. Plus, you’re parents might be wondering where we are.” Brittany said, getting up from the sand and brushing it off of her.

“I think we moved up to cake batter. But if you want the cookie dough, that’s ok by me.” Steph said with a laugh as she took got up and started brushing the sand off of her.

“Cookie dough sounds good. Although, I may have to try just a little bit of the cake batter.” she said a laugh as the two made their way back towards the car that was parked a few feet away.

Steph threw one of her arms over Brittany’s shoulders as they were half way towards the car and said,
“This is the beginning of an already great friendship. Kelly would be happy.”

“I don’t want to take Kelly’s place. I hope you know that. I’m not trying to make you forget about your best friend.” Brittany said quickly, taking a step away from Steph to look at her better.

“I know. And you’re not. You’re just like her in a way. Just that she’s up there, looking down on me, helping me through things that I can’t even see while you’re here, helping me through things that I can. I’m blessed.” she said with a smile as she took her key out of her pajamas shorts pocket and unlocked her car.

If anything, I’m the one who’s blessed. Having you as a friend and my parents looking down on me.