Shattered

29

Once more Savana is standing in front of her window and staring unseeing at the garden that is so precious to Brice. She doesn't hear him knock or enter when she doesn't respond. She, therefore, gives a bit of a jump when he wraps his arms around her and pulls her to him. "You don't have to come. We might not get back before my jet lands. You and the boys should be here to welcome Mrs. Lewis here."

"Jasper is staying behind. He has been the longest without her. Grayson wanted to stay too, but Jasper convinced him that one of them needed to be with me."

Brice isn't sure if he should be amused or hurt that they don't trust him with her. "They don't trust me with you?"

"Hell, yeah, I told you, they approve of you. They don't trust that bitch and want to make sure that she won't hurt me." Savana says sadly. It had hurt her badly when she found out that Grayson had been with her.

"Savana, if she was so bad towards you, how did you not feel betrayed when Grayson started dating her?" Brice is very curious about that. He would feel like she should be very betrayed by that. He was beyond shocked when she wasn't.

"Oh, I was, very. He went to a party and she was there. They were both more than a little drunk. He was a senior and she was, well we were going to be freshmen. It was a party to celebrate the end of summer and the beginning to of the school year. 

"He said that he had gone to warn her off me. Somehow, he was never sure just how it started, they started kissing and ended up having sex. After that they started dating. I guess that is what you can call it.

"He sobered up and realized what he did. He came and looked for me. He knew that I would be upset. He was straight up with me. He told me that he was planning on continuing seeing her. He had already decided to continue being with her. If he had just fucked her and left her it wouldn't have hurt nearly as much.

"I ran from him and after that wouldn't acknowledge him. If he came into a room I would leave if I could, if I couldn't I just pretended that he wasn't there. He didn't really date her, just took her places and fucked her. Never really took her out. Never took her to dinner or to movies or to parties.

"For months that went on. Even after he broke it off with her after just a few weeks."

"How did you get back to being friends?" Brice asks fully entranced with the story.

"I was at the lake we used to go skinny dipping in. Jasper was gone by then. I didn't have any one other than my parents and his mother. I was feeling sorry for myself and crying a bit. He found me there and wouldn't let me leave until he apologized. He promised that he would never do anything like that again.

"I told him that words don't really mean much and it will take time for me to believe or trust him again. Then I left. He stayed behind and I went home and cried.

"He tried for months to prove to me that he won't betray me like that again. It hurt, Brice, it hurt seeing him with her at school. It hurt knowing that he was with her. He knew what she did to me and he was still with her. My own brother. He spent as much time with me as he could. He would ask me for help with his homework. Hell, I think he got his best grades that year, because he spent so much time trying to make things up with me that he actually studied.

"Then he was taken just days after graduation. Like Jasper, I thought I was never going to see him again. I was thankful that we were able to make up and overcome that betrayal before he was gone. It still didn't stop the pain, though. I had forgiven him shortly after he asked my forgiveness, but it was the trust that he broke that took all that time. I'm still not sure that I can fully trust him. Protect me? Absolutely, he'll never again be with some one that has hurt me, I think. It is that doubt that keeps me from fully trusting him again. I'm not sure that that doubt can ever be erased. I don't know how to fix that. Do you, Brice?"