Wounded; A Brallie Fan Fiction *EDITING*

Chapter Eight: Broken Home

Brandon's POV
The next morning, I woke up, having barely slept at all through out the night. Moms had bickered at each other for hours on end, angrily debating whether or not they should report Callie missing. Lena wanted to; she thought it was the only way we'd get her back. But Mom wanted to do everything in her power to restrict jeopardizing Callie's adoption, which meant keeping her disappearance off the record.

When I walked into the kitchen, the table wasn't perky or chatty as usual. Everyone was quiet, isolated from one another, some of them just staring at the food on their plates, seemingly without any intention of eating it.

As soon as my presence was so critically acknowledged, Mom and Lena both stiffened and gave me glances of disapproval. That meant only one thing; that sometime last night, beneath the bickering and the twisted arguing, Mom had told Lena about where Callie and I really were yesterday, and what we had done the night before.

"Hey, why don't you guys go up to your rooms and finish your breakfast," Mom said to Mariana, Jude and A.J., "Mama and I need to talk to Brandon for a few minutes."

Skeptical and hesitant, they all got up and headed for the staircase, but not without leaving us with several confused expressions and stares. I could feel my face getting hot as the room cleared out, and I had to face not one, but two disappointed mothers.

I stood at the end of the table, gripping the edges nervously. Mom took a last swig of coffee like it was alcohol, and Lena folded her arms in front of her.

"Why don't you tell us exactly what happened the night before last, B," Mom said in a calm, unkempt tone. Her blonde hair was twisted into a tight bun at the back of her head, which only made her approach more stern and intense.

I gulped, and pulled out a chair farthest from them. Beads of sweat moistened my hairline, and I bounced my foot up and down against the chair in anticipation. This was worse than the interview with the social worker.

"Well . . . I guess I-I realized that I'm not- That I was never over-r Callie," my tongue stumbled gracefully across her name, and it felt good just to have it leave my lips. "So I went over to Rita's. And I waited for Callie to see me outside. And she came out, a-and we ended up . . . . Well I told her I still loved her, and she said it back. And we ended up kissing. And then we went to my friend's house . . . . His parents were out, and he let us use it as a motel kind of. And after a while, we kind of just . . . "

Though a majority of what I told them was entirely untrue, they seemed to buy it. They certainly weren't happy about it, but still, they bought it unexceptionally with flying colors.

They looked at each other with worry apparent on their faces, as well as indecision and fear. I knew that Callie and I had put them in a terrible position, and they were sifting through the mistake of it right now.

"Look, B, we've had a lot of time to think about this," Mom said. "And I realize that you do love Callie. So I don't blame you for doing what you did with her . . . But you put this family in grave danger."

"I know," I admitted, nodding shamefully.

"So here's what we're gonna do," she continued, setting her hands on the table as though she was unrolling a royal map of the future. "We're not going to tell anybody about this. We can't lose Callie. So we act like this never happened."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Was mom really insisting that we violate the law? Has it really come to this point? Was this the line she was willing to cross to protect her daughter, and overall, her family?

"And that means that when Callie comes home, you two will not communicate in any way," Lena explained with authority in her tone. "You will not be alone together, you won't sit near each other at dinner, you won't brush your teeth at the same time, you will not have anything to do with each other. Understand?"

They looked at me expectantly, as I knit-picked every last one of the consequences in my head. Under their terms and conditions, Callie and I would be strangers. And that would kill me. That would tear me apart and break me down in the most significant, undyingly painful ways.

But that's what being selfless is; this was the sacrifice I had to make in order for Callie to have a family, in order for her to be happy. So be it.

So I looked them in the eyes and told them what they wanted to hear, as much as I didn't want to say it, nor believe it.

"Yes," I said with cold eyes and a hard voice. The word cut my tongue and pushed me into an unwanted anger that began to boil to the surface. I didn't have anything else to say, and I didn't want to hear anything else from them, and so without a single word, gesture or glance, I walked out.

And on the staircase I found two of my eavesdropping siblings, staring at me with open mouths and round eyes. Jude and Mariana. They were both speechless at the least, their expressions empty and unreadable.

"You had sex with our sister?!" Mariana whispered furiously. "Brandon, gross!"

"No," I said, "I had sex with your sister. Now will you move please? I'd like to go upstairs."

Mariana ignored me. "I can't believe you. We were so close to adopting her. So close! And you screwed it up!"

She was shouting now, and by the time Moms came over to investigate the yelling, my top had blown through the roof and steam had come blundering out of my ears.

"It takes two to tango, Mariana!" I yelled. "I did not have sex with Callie, we had sex with each other. Why does nobody see it that way?!"

At the top of the staircase, A.J. appeared, having caught the last part of what I said. A part of me felt considerate, and a part of me felt smug and careless. He needed to know- he needed to know that Callie would never be his the way she was mine.

"Because if you really loved her as much as you say you do you would have never let this happen!" Mariana fired back.

"How would you know if I love her, Mariana?! Huh? Did you ever ask me how I felt? Did anybody ever ask me how I felt about Callie? Did none of you see that it killed me when she came back from Girls United, and I had to act like I didn't love her? Can none of you see that it kills me now that she's gone?!"

Nobody had any response. Worn across all their faces were looks of shock and dismay, sympathy and guilt. I'd done it. I'd finally gotten them to see it my way.

"Of coarse not," I scoffed. I pursed my lips and shook my head, followed by a deep, wavering breath. "I know you guys all hate me now. But in the process of that, try to consider how much I hate me right now, too."