Strength

    Sitting in a hotel room, in phoenix Arizona, I decided to sneak into my brother Brendan’s ex’s work office, and dig up some information on her. She’s been calling Brendan at odd hours, I made plans around five pm to drive over later that night. I would pick Brendan up first. Later that night I left my hotel room and went to Brendan’s, leaving my boyfriend and his sister at the hotel.

    Then I went to Jennifer’s, Brendan’s ex’s office, with Brendan. The janitor was working late for some reason, he let us in. now I’m in Jennifer’s office behind her desk, I don’t see anything but I keep looking. Then I see Brendan looking threw folders near Jennifer’s filing cabinet, I peek at what he’s looking at, standing on the balls of my feet, it says Jennifer over chargers her patients for her counseling, and I doubt she’s that good at her job.

    Then I notice a half crumbled up piece of paper in the trash with Brendan’s full name on it. I reach down, pick it up, and open it. Its got Brendan’s uncle’s address on it “what does she need that for?” I think out loud. Brendan’s face turns a light shade of his skin tone as a bad memory flashes before his face.

    “Brendan” I say as I hug him, trying to bring him out of his thoughts. He hugs back and I tell him “I love you” he smiles and says “lets go”. he was his normal shade of skin tone when he smiled back, that made me smile. But as we left the janitor gave us a creepy look and the ghost from Brendan’s past was back on his face.

    He’s frozen In place, stuck in his past, I tug on Brendan’s arm trying to get him to move but he’s not budging. As I step forward something catches my foot, I fall forward landing on my arm. When I landed I let out a scream, as I felt my arm snap in two, my scream melted Brendan and he bent over to help me up.

    I stood up and Brendan lifted my arm from my side lightly, the look on his face was almost as pained as my arm felt. “its broken” he confirmed. Then his phone rang, his concerned wife on the other end. “where are you?” she said when she woke up and he wasn’t in bed with her. “I went to see what Jennifer was hiding with Ashley” he replied.

    “oh” Sarah his wife said thoughtfully. Brendan let my arm go and nudged me lightly to head for the door, walking slowly as we watched the janitor walk away, in a creepy way. I didn’t hear him breath for a while and Sarah responded for me. “Brendan?” she said. With a far away look on his face he responded. “I saw my uncle” Sarah quit breathing herself, for a minute.

    Just then my phone went off, it was Kyle, my boyfriend, I answered it with my good hand. “hello..?” I said with a pained tone, “Ashley, your not here where are you? Oh my gosh, you sound hurt. Are you ok?” Kyle said. “well that depends on what you think is “good”” I joked in dark humor. “what happened?” I heard rose say from the other end, rose is my boyfriends sister.

    “Brendan’s uncle apparently works at the school here, we snuck in to get some “dirt” on Jennifer. We were leaving when Brendan’s uncle tripped me. My arms broken” I heard rose gasp from the other side, “hold on Sarah, Ashley’s talking to Kyle, I need to tell him something” Brendan said and held out his hand for my phone.

    “yeah, I knew that was my uncle when he looked at me, I’ll never forget that look. Evil demented man..” Brendan said slightly angry now, “what exactly happened? I’ll meet you guys at the hospital with rose” Kyle said. “Brendan, I need to go to the hospital” I said when we were outside and he handed me my phone back. “right” he said still half lost in thought.

    “why does she need to go to the hospital?” Sarah asked sounding worried. “she broke her arm” Brendan answered. “I didn’t, he did. He tripped me and I landed on my arm” I said towards Brendan’s phone. “oh my gosh!” I heard Sarah say. “Kyle, Brendan froze when that..” I said stopping myself mid sentence not saying the words I wanted to say.