Part 2
~
There you
were, wild and free
Reaching
out like you needed me
A helping hand to make it right
I am
holding you all through the night
~
Four years
later
“Hey, Bri, you’re up to bat,” my friend Chris said, giving me a
shove towards the plate.
I was now nine, and my heart problems were a thing of the
past. My mom still always worried
about me, especially when I wanted to play sports, but she tried not to stop me
from having fun.
That summer had been a good one so far. My days were usually spent just like this,
shooting hoops or playing baseball with the other boys in the
neighborhood.
I grabbed the bat and stepped up the plate, squinting to keep the
sun out of my eyes. The pitcher through
the ball, and I swung with all my might.
“Strike one!” our umpire yelled.
“Come on, Bri!” Chris shouted.
“You can go it!”
I hit the next pitch, a grounder that went a ways before getting
scooped up, allowing me to get to first base.
As I was waiting to run to second, I saw someone come up to the batting
line and talk to Chris. It was Grace.
“Hey, what’s she doing here?!” the pitcher, a kid named David,
demanded.
“I just wanted to know if I could play with you guys!” Grace
called back. “Can I?”
“No way! You’re a
girl! Get lost!” David shouted back.
“Hey!” I yelled from the base.
“What’s that got to do with anything?
Why can’t she play?”
“Cause she’s a girl, that’s why!
Girls stink at baseball!”
“That’s not true! Grace
doesn’t stink!” I yelled back.
“Aw, you’re just tryin’ to defend her cause she’s your
girlfriend,” he said. “Brian and Grace,
sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! First
comes love, then-“
David didn’t get to finish his taunt. While he had been facing me, Grace had
stalked up behind him. Before he knew
what was happening, she had shoved him hard from behind, sending him sprawling
face-first into the dirt of the pitcher’s mound.
“He’s not my boyfriend, you jerk!” she yelled.
“Oooh!” the other boys shouted, circling around Grace and
David.
“Hey, Dave, you gonna let a girl push you around?”
“You can’t hit her, man, she’s a girl!”
David stood up, wiping dirt from his clothes. He glared at Grace. “I’ll hit her if I want to,” he retorted,
holding up his fist.
“Don’t you dare!” I shouted, leaving the base and storming over to
him. “You hit her, and you’ll pay!”
“Oooh, Littrell, you really scare me. Like I’d be afraid of a little wimp like
you. You probably would rather be off
playing dollies with your girlfriend here,” David said.
That did it. I did not
play “dollies” with Grace, and she was not my girlfriend. I had had enough. Mom always told me not to fight, to talk it
out instead, but there was no way I could just “talk it out” with David. This required some action.
“Oh yeah?” I asked.
“Yeah,” David started to say, but before he could get it all the
way out, I punched him. Hard. Right in the face.
“Fight, fight, fight!” the boys started to chant, clumping around
us.
David grabbed my shoulder, and before I knew it, his fist was in
my face. I pushed him back hard, but he
was bigger and stronger than I was, and soon I was the one on the ground.
The rest of the events were a whirlwind of blood and fists. Pretty soon, I found myself limping home,
Grace walking beside me.
“Oh my God, Bri, are you okay?” she asked, her face creased with
worry.
“I’m fine,” I said, trying to act like a man, but really, I was in
total pain. My ankle was throbbing as I
tried to walk; I had twisted it when David had pushed me. My nose was bleeding, and I was scared to
look in a mirror for fear I had a black eye.
I could clean up the blood and make up a lie about the ankle, but a
black eye was bad. My mom would know
right away that I had been fighting.
“How about you come to my house and get cleaned up before you go
home?” Grace suggested. “I know your
mom will kill you if she finds out you got in a fight.”
It was like she had read my mind.
“Okay, Grace, thanks,” I said, offering her a slight smile.
She smiled back sympathetically, as we walked the rest of the way
to her house.
“Okay, be quiet and hurry upstairs so my mom won’t see you,” Grace
said, as we reached her back door.
“’Kay,” I replied. Grace
opened the door, and we tip-toed in through the kitchen and darted up the
stairs to the bathroom.
Grace took a washcloth out of one of the cabinets and ran it under
the faucet. “Here,” she said, handing
it to me. I took it and gently started
wiping the blood off of my face. My
nose had stopped bleeding, and luckily, my eye didn’t look swollen.
“Thanks, Grace,” I said when I was done.
“No problem,” she replied.
“Well, I guess I should be getting home now,” I said.
“Alright,” said Grace, looking slightly disappointed. She walked me to the door and let me
out. “See ya,” she said.
“Bye,” I replied, and headed for home.
***
“Brian, what happened?” my mom asked, as soon as I walked in the
house.
“What do you mean?” I asked, knowing full-well what she meant.
“You’re limping. And…” She
squinted at me. “Your nose looks
swollen. Brian Thomas Littrell, have
you been fighting?”
I hung my head and slowly nodded, unable to lie to my mother. “I’m sorry, Mom. But, see, the guys were making fun of Grace,
especially David, and I had to stick up for her. He was gonna hit her!”
Mom smiled at me. “Well,
that still doesn’t make it right, you know, but I’m glad you were trying to
watch out for Grace.”
I smiled back, relieved that I wasn’t going to get punished. “I’m sorry,” I said again, figuring another
apology wouldn’t hurt.
“It’s okay, honey,” she said.
“Come here and let me take a look at your nose. It’s not broken, is it?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“It was bleeding, but I cleaned it up at Grace’s house. It doesn’t really hurt that much anymore.”
Still, she had to inspect my nose and then my ankle to make sure I
hadn’t sprained it or something.
“I just twisted it. It’ll
be fine,” I insisted.
“Okay. Well, why don’t you go up to your room for
awhile. Dad will be home in about an
hour, and then we’ll go out to eat, so you might want to start getting cleaned
up soon,” she said.
It was a Friday, and we always went out to eat on Friday nights
and then usually rented a movie or something afterwards. It had been a Littrell family tradition for
as long as I could remember.
I nodded. “Okay, Mom,” I
replied and headed upstairs.
***
We ended up going out for pizza that night, and on the way home,
we stopped at the video store and rented Return of the Jedi, the third Star
Wars movie. I had seen it already,
when it was in the theaters the year before, but the Star Wars movies
were Harry’s and my favorites, so we both wanted to see it again.
It was around ten that night when the movie got over. As the ending credits started rolling, there
was a knock on our back door.
“I’ll get it!” I called, running into the kitchen to get the
door.
I flung it open to see Grace standing there in her nightgown,
barefoot. She clutched a flashlight in
her hand, which illuminated her face, making the tearstains on her cheeks
visible.
“Hey, Grace. Is it your
dad?” I asked. She nodded wordlessly,
and I stood back to let her in.
Grace’s dad was an okay man… as long as he wasn’t drunk. But every Friday night, after work, he went
out and drank, and every Friday night, he came home late, drunk and angry.
This had been going on for
a few years. Sometimes in the summer,
when I had my windows open, I could hear Grace’s parents yelling at each other
while I was trying to sleep. Many
times, when the fighting got really bad, Grace would run over to my house, like
she had just done.
Her mom knew she did it and didn’t mind; she probably was glad
Grace wasn’t in the house when her father was acting like that. He had never hurt Grace, but from what Grace
had told me, he had hit her mom before, and she was terrified of him.
So I wasn’t surprised to see Grace there. Neither was my mom, when she came into the
kitchen.
“Hi, sweetie,” she said sympathetically to Grace. “Are your parents arguing again?”
“Yeah,” Grace said. “It’s
real bad this time. Do you mind if I
stay over here tonight?”
“Oh, not at all, honey,” Mom replied. She never minded, but Grace was always
polite and asked every time anyway.
“Brian was just about to go get ready for bed. You two go up to his room, and I’ll be up to
tuck you in pretty soon.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Littrell,” Grace said and followed me upstairs to my
room. Grace had slept over at my house
lots of times before, even though she was a girl, and I was a boy. I never told any of my boy friends about it
because I knew they would just tease us.
But truthfully, I liked having Grace there. She was easy to talk to, and even thought I
would never admit it, she was probably by best friend.
I hauled a pile of blankets out of the linen closet in the hall
and dragged them into my room to make a bed on the floor for myself. I always let her sleep in my bed when she
came over because she was a girl and my guest, and I knew I was supposed to
make her comfortable. I didn’t mind
sleeping on the floor anyway though.
I changed into my pajamas and brushed my teeth, while Grace hung
around in my room. Then I came back and
lay down on my makeshift bed, and Grace lay in my bed, and we waited for my mom
to come in.
“Goodnight, guys,” she said when she did, tucking each of us in
and kissing me on the cheek. “I’ll see
you in the morning.”
She turned off the light and closed the door and left. Once we heard her footsteps disappear down
the stairs, Grace flipped on her flashlight and got out of bed, crawling over
to where I was lying.
She lay down next to me, just like I knew she would. We never went to bed after my mom tucked us
in; we just lay next to each other and talked.
We could talk for hours before actually going to sleep.
“I’m scared, Brian,” Grace whispered.
“I know,” I said. “But
don’t be scared. It’ll be alright in the
morning.”
“I dunno,” she said. “It
was really bad this time. He… he hit
her, Brian. She was crying and
screaming at him when I left. He’s done
that before, and she’s been okay, but I dunno… he was just so mad tonight.”
I felt horrible for Grace, and I knew there really wasn’t anything
I could say to make her feel better. I
couldn’t change what went on at her house.
I couldn’t stop it. I was only
nine. She was only eight. We were both just kids. Neither of us should have had to deal with
problems like that.
“Don’t worry, Grace. I’m
sure everything will be okay,” I said hopefully.
“I hope so.” She
sighed. “Why does he have to be like
this? Why does he have to drink? Why can’t he be like your dad, Brian?”
I wished I could answer those questions. I often wondered the same thing. How could her dad let himself act like
that? My dad would never do anything
like that. He and my mom rarely even
argued, and I’d never heard them have a screaming fight like Grace’s parents
did. I couldn’t even imagine what it
would be like for him to come drunk and hit my mom. Yet for Grace, it was a weekly event.
“I don’t know, Grace,” I said.
“I wish it wasn’t like this either.”
“Oh well,” she sighed. “At
least I’ve got somewhere nice like this to go.
I’m glad you’re my friend, Bri.”
I smiled. “Me too, Grace,”
I said.
“And thanks for sticking up for me this afternoon. I don’t think I ever thanked you for that.”
“Aw, it’s okay. I couldn’t
let that jerk David hit you,” I said modestly.
She smiled at me. “You
know, Brian, you’re my best friend.”
I smiled back. “You’re my
best friend too, Grace,” I admitted.
“Will you promise me something?” she asked.
“What?”
“Promise that we’ll always stay best friends, no matter what.”
I nodded. “I promise,” I
said.
“Pinkie swear?” she asked, holding up her pinkie finger.
I nodded and looped my pinkie through hers. “Pinkie swear.”
***
The next morning, after breakfast, I walked Grace home. She went around back to get in through the
back door like she always did.
“Thanks for letting me stay over, Bri,” she said, as she opened
the door.
“No prob, Grace,” I replied.
“See ya later.”
“Okay. Bye,” she said, and
went inside. I turned around and
started for home.
Half an hour later, there was a knock on the back door again. And again, when I opened it up, there stood
Grace.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, seeing the worried expression on her
face.
“My mom just called. She’s
at the hospital. She said Daddy hit her
with a beer bottle, and she has a concussion.
She had to stay there all night.”
Grace looked about ready to cry.
“Oh, Grace, I’m sorry,” I said, putting an arm lightly around her
shoulders. “Is she gonna be okay?” I was thinking about when they thought I had
a concussion. I had ended up staying in
the hospital for two whole months.
“Yeah, she said she was gonna come home today. But Daddy’s gone, and she doesn’t know where
he is, so she was wondering if I could stay over here for awhile, until she
gets home.”
“Oh, sure, that’s fine,” I said.
“So your dad is gone?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. He wasn’t there when I came home. Who knows where he went.”
“I’m glad he’s gone,” I said.
“I can’t believe he would do that to your mom!”
“I know,” she said softly.
Her chin began to quiver.
“Oh, don’t cry, Gracie,” I said.
“It’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”
She nodded, wiping her eyes.
“So what do you wanna do?
Maybe we could get my mom to take us to see a movie. Ghostbusters is playing,” I
said. (AN: I even did the research on this so it would
be accurate. Ghostbusters came out in
June of 1984. lol)
“Okay, that sounds good,” she said.
“Okay, cool. Let’s go ask,”
I said, and we went to find my mom.
***
“So, did you like it, Grace?” I asked, as we came out of the movie
theater later that afternoon.
“Yeah, it was great. Did
you?”
“Yup,” I replied.
“Hey, Littrell!”
I turned around to see David walking towards us. “What?” I asked, sighing heavily.
“You on a date with your girlfriend?” he teased.
“I told you, she’s not my girlfriend,” I hissed.
“Yeah, we’re just friends!” Grace added angrily. “So leave us alone!”
“Fine,” David said. He
walking off, softly chanting, “Brian and Grace, sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G…”
“Just ignore him, Bri,” Grace said, rolling her eyes.
“Brian? What was that all
about?” my mom asked.
“Nothing,” I muttered. “Let’s
go home now.” So we did.
***
When we got home, Dad told us that Grace’s mom had called to tell
him that she was home.
“I’ll walk ya home, Grace,” I offered.
“Okay,” she said, and we headed out the back door and walked
through the grass to her house.
“Thanks, Brian,” she said when we got to the door. “For the movie, and letting me stay at your
house, and everything.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
“I’ll see ya later, okay?”
“Okay. Bye,” she said,
smiling.
“Bye,” I replied, returning her smile. Then I turned and slowly walked home.
***
Lyrics
taken from Backstreet Boys’ “The One”
