Ripped and Stitched

38: Carry You

Brady was walking home from therapy to his house. While he didn't mind therapy as much as Alison did, he was still battling with his demons just as much as he was before.

He had a lot on his mind but he knew he had to go home. His mother would worry. She was always worrying these days. He was glad she didn't know about his rendezvous to go get Allison. Brady figured she would have lost it.

At home, things had gotten quiet, which was ironic since Brady was speaking again. However with Hayden at college, and his parents watching his every move, it made it hard to be normal. Something his parents didn't quite understand.

"I'm headed out," Brady said after dinner.

His father looked up at him. "Where to?" he asked.

"Ali's," he replied. "Don't worry, I have my location on, you can track me there," he said waving his phone back and forth in the air.

Brady had accidentally turned it off when he was "visiting his brother at NYU" and because his brother was covering for him, his parents believed him, but he had a feeling they were still a tad suspicious of the timing of his return and Alison's.

"All right, be back by nine," his mother said.

Brady nodded and walked into the garage. Before Hayden left, he had started to repair the Porsche. It was tediously awful work and Brady had questioned why Hayden was simply not paying to get it fixed and Hayden's reply was not easy for Brady to hear.

"Because I want to remember what it feels like to repair this damage."

Brady knew he wasn't just talking about the car. Still, Hayden had left for NYU and was not able to finish the car. As Brady got into his father's Audi, he debated whether he knew enough to fix the car himself.

When he arrived at Alison's house, he found her and her father in a heated debate on the front porch.

"You don't just get to run the show here, I'm your father. What I say goes!"

"Quite frankly," Alison said back, her voice filled with ice. "I don't care what you think. I left before and you didn't care. I was here and you didn't care. So it really doesn't matter what you say."

Her father looked upset. "So what then? We're just going to go back to the way it was before? You're going to live out in the guesthouse and pretend your family doesn't exist?"

Alison shrugged. "Even before Gabriella, we were never a family."

Her father sighed. He handed her the key and he walked back inside. Alison too looked a little upset but when she turned around, she hid her expression when she saw Brady.

"Hey," she said quietly. "Let's go."

Brady nodded and followed her inside the guesthouse, which was a bit of a mess.

Alison grumbled complaints as she balled up police tape and began cleaning up the downstairs area of the guesthouse. Brady got to work quietly in the kitchen while Alison cleaned the living area.

They finished putting things away and Brady threw out the trash for her. When he came back, he found Alison sitting on the couch looking just a bit upset.

"You don't have to have a relationship with your dad," he said quietly as he sat down next to her.

"He just makes it so hard," Alison mumbled. "He has these little redeeming acts but it's not enough to make me want him in my life."

Brady nodded. "No one will judge you for trying to make peace with them," he encouraged. "It's not a bad thing to want to grow as a person and change."

Alison chuckled lightly. "That's all they want, you know? Our families, friends, the cops. The whole world just wants us to move on from what happened, but I just can't. How can I? I still have nightmares because of it."