I Won't Let You Close Enough to Hurt Me

Chapter 14

     Brooke woke up to 3 new text messages. One was from Nick, one was from Maddie, and one was from Brandon. She decided to open Nick's message first.

Nick: Hey, thanks for coming over yesterday. I had a great time :)

Brooke: I did too!

Nick: Want to get ice cream after practice tomorrow?

     Brooke smiled. She loved that Nick wanted to spend time with her. Even though she didn't know exactly how she felt about him, she loved how sweet he was. She responded, "Of course!", and then moved on to Maddie's message.

Maddie: Brooke and Nick sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g!!!

     Brooke rolled her eyes. Paige could be such a blabber-mouth. She decided that she could talk to Maddie about this at dance later, so she didn't respond. Without even reading Brandon's message, she deleted it. Brooke knew that it would be immature and hurtful, and that wasn't how she wanted to start her day.

     Brooke took a quick shower, crimped her hair, and did her make-up in about 30 minutes. Then, she picked out her outfit. She decided on a white and pink cheetah print romper with her Birkenstock sandals. She was much happier with her outfit today that she was with yesterday's.

     When she walked downstairs for breakfast, she saw that her dad was sitting at the kitchen table. Normally, he leaves for work before Brooke is even up, so she was confused. "Why are you still here, dad?"

     "I have a meeting at 8:00, and my boss told me that I didn't have to come in until then. You ready for school?" he asked as Brooke sat down at the table with a pop-tart.

     "Yep," she responded. She silently prayed that he dad wouldn't ask her about the kiss that had been mentioned the night before.

     "So, about what your mom told me last night," Randy started.

     Brooke groaned. She didn't want to have this talk again. It was awkward enough to discuss with her mom, let alone her dad. But before Randy could say anything else, Brooke saw Claudia's brother pull up in the driveway.

     "Sorry dad, my ride is here! We can talk about this later," Brooke said as she rushed out the door.

     As Brooke hopped in the car, Casey laughed. "Jeez Brooke, Claudia didn't even get a chance to text you before you ran outside. You must have really wanted to get out of your house."

     "You have no idea," Brooke muttered.

     Later that day at school, Brooke was stopped by Brandon when she was on her way to the cafeteria.

     "Thanks for responding to my message this morning," Brandon said sarcastically.

     "Why can't you understand that I want nothing to do with you?" Brooke hissed.

     "Oh come on, I know that's not true. You love me," he said while shooting Brooke an evil grin. "Besides, my message wasn't mean at all. I was just curious as to how your date with Nick was."

     "Fine," Brooke said sharply. She tried to walk around him, but he pinned her to the wall.

     "Honestly Brooke, you've been such a bitch to me lately. I apologized, what more do you want from me? I'm just trying to be a good person," he barked.

     She tried to wiggle out of his grasp, but it was no use. Tears started to form in her eyes. Everyone passing by was staring at them, which only made her feel more uncomfortable. But suddenly, she saw a hand tap Brandon on the shoulder. He released Brooke's arms and spun around to see that he was face to face with the principal.

     "I think that the three of us need to take a trip down to my office," he instructed. Brooke sighed, but followed him down the hall with Brandon.

     The principal had called their parents, and Kelly and Diane were there within 10 minutes. They entered the office and sat down next to their children.

     "Now I don't know what was happening in the hallway today, but I don't ever want to see it again. Brandon seemed to be viciously talking to Ms. Hyland, and that is not behavior that will be tolerated in this school," the principal warned.

     "What exactly happened?" Diane asked.

     "Well, Brandon had Brooke backed into a wall, and it looked as if he was yelling at her. He had a pretty tight grip on Brooke's arms, as well," he explained. Then, everyone in the room turned their attention to Brooke, to notice that her arms were already starting to bruise.

     Kelly's eyes began to well up when she saw what Brandon had done to her daughter. She couldn't believe what a monster he had become.

     "Brooke, why don't you take the rest of the day off. Brandon, you can expect to be serving a month of detention for this display. Now, I have a few other matters to take care of, so I will talk to you all soon," he said as he opened up the door to his office.

     Brooke and Kelly headed to the car. On the way, Brooke's phone vibrated. It was Claudia.

Claudia: Hey, where are you?!

Brooke: I left. Long story.

     After responding, Brooke turned her phone off. She didn't want to talk about this anymore. She just wanted to forget everything that had happened today.

     "Brooke, are you okay?" Kelly questioned before they left the parking lot. Brooke responded with a nod, but a tear rolled down her cheek. Her mom started rubbing her arm in an attempt to soothe her, but it didn't work. She still felt awful.

     When they got home, Brooke started working on her homework. Maybe for once she could get it all done before she had to go to dance. After two hours had passed, she heard her mom say, "I'll see you later Brookie. I'm going to go pick up Paige and take her to dance."

     "What about me?" Brooke demanded.

     Kelly looked shocked. "Well, I figured that you wouldn't want to go."

     "Well, I do," Brooke said as she ran upstairs to grab her dance bag. She knew that going to dance meant seeing Brandon, but it also meant seeing Nick. She loved this duet, and she knew if she wasn't there, it would be given to Maddie or Chloe.

     Two minutes later, Kelly and Brooke were on their way to pick up Paige.