Spilled Milk: Based on a true story (22 page)

Silent tears
slid down my face and by the time Jason realized I was crying he was leaning
over me, rubbing them away with his finger. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

“I need to tell
you something. But I don’t know how to tell you.”

He brought his
face closer to mine, a whispered voice soothed me. “Tell me.”

“I don’t know
how.”

“Just try.”

“Doesn’t it
seem weird that I’m the only one who has to go to court all the time? Adam,
Thomas and Kat don’t.”

“I’ve thought
about that.” His arms encased my body. “I thought it was because of your
parents’ divorce.”

“I miss so much
school. Isn’t it weird that I have to miss that much school for court? For a
divorce?”

He was silent
for a minute. “Brooke, I know you want to tell me something. It’s okay. I’m
here to listen. You don’t have to cry.”

“My dad,
David.” I realized that Jason probably didn’t even know that my dad’s name was
David since we’ve never talked about it. I shifted and leaned against him, face
to face. I had to see his reaction when I told him. I needed to know what he
felt the second I said it.

“He raped me. I
have to go to court because of the things he did to me.”

Jason’s
expression was agonizing. His grip tightened on my sides as he blinked. “I’m
sorry, Brooke. Baby I’m so sorry.” He picked up my face. “Why are you crying?
Did you think that anything you just said would change anything?”

“It’s not up to
me if things change.” I remembered Paul’s face in the hallway. The hurtful
comments he said before turning his back on me, again. “It’s up to you if you
want things to change.”

I held my
breath as Jason thought for a minute. He always needed a minute to gather his
thoughts, almost as if he considered every viable consequence before he would
speak.

“That isn’t
going to change anything at all.” His gaze shifted from somewhere off in the
distance to my face. “It wasn’t your fault. What kind of person would I be to
leave you for something so…so…” He lifted a hand to exemplify his loss of
words. “Stupid. Something like that would
never
change how I feel about
you, because that’s something that happened to you, it’s not who you are. I
love you, Brooke. I’ll always love you.”

“Are you sure?”
Jason’s reaction was so completely opposite of Paul’s I thought for a second he
was being sarcastic. His eyes told me differently. They were hurt for me,
trying to figure out who in this world would make me feel like something like
that would be held against me.

“I’m gonna
marry you one day, Brooke. I’m sure of that. And I’m sure that there is nothing
about your past that would make me love you less.”

Exhausted from
crying and the emotional rollercoaster of the preliminary hearing I settled
into Jason’s arms. Relief rushed from my veins and drowsiness crept in.

“I have to tell
you one more thing,” I whispered.

“Anything.”

“I love you,
Jason.”

“Brooke Nolan,
can you please stand up?”

Hearing my name
evaporated the daydream I was in as I looked around Mr. Heinz’s history class.
There were two weeks left until graduation and after the parade of court
hearings I’d been through the last few weeks I had a hard time making it to
class, never mind actually paying attention to what was going on.

“Up, up. On
your feet.” His white moustache bounced all over his lips as he used an index
finger to visually make me rise from my seat.

“Now that
you’re standing, could you please inform the class, just what is so important
that you consistently feel the need to skip my class?”

Chuckles from
the back of the room flooded my face with heat. “I don’t believe the answer is
in your textbook, Miss Nolan, no need to look down. Look at me. That’s better.
Now, if it’s not too much to ask, as soon as we get your response we can
continue today’s lesson. Unless you planned on not being here for that either.”

Judd gripped
the sides of his desk and I knew it would be a matter of seconds before he
erupted in Mr. Heinz’s face if I didn’t respond. “I’m sorry if asking a
classmate for the notes I missed was disrupting your lesson. I’ll wait until
after class next time.”

“No no, don’t
sit down. I appreciate the apology but you still haven’t told the class exactly
what it is you’re skipping my class for.”

“I have notes.”

“You have
notes? So now as long as you have a note from mommy or daddy it’s okay to skip
school?”

“It’s none of
your business.”

Mumbled
laughter and whooping noises rose from the crowd behind me. Exhaustion had a
way of making me care less about what other people thought, and his persistence
crawled under my skin in a way I normally wouldn’t have cared before.

“
Excuse
me? This class
is
my business young lady, your
grades
are my
business, so you can pick up your things and head to the principal’s office.” A
finger jabbed in my face.

My book bag was
over my shoulder before he finished his sentence. Judd started packing up his
things too, in an act of solidarity and support.

“And
you
can add some more wax to that bald head of yours and go to hell, Mr. Heinz.”

Judd raced down
the hallway after me and as we turned the corner we could still hear the
chaotic laughter echoing from the classroom. “That was
amazing
,” Judd
said. “Did you see his face? You know you’re getting at least a week of
in-school for that right? No one will be able to take that guy seriously for
the rest of the year now. Ah man I wish I recorded that.”

“I won’t get
any in-school, I
am
going to the principal’s office.”

After talking
with the principal about what happened he had a sit down with Mr. Heinz. He
apologized for outing me in class. “I uh, didn’t realize your situation. I’ll
be a little more discreet next time.”

Heather called
as I was leaving school, and I fumbled to pick up when I heard her ringtone go
off in my bag. She got right to the point. “Hey Brooke, got a minute?”

“Yea, go
ahead.”

“You okay? You
sound…”

“Rough day at
school. It’s okay.”

“I bet. Hang in
there. Anyway, you know the defense has asked for a continuance for a fourth
time with the preliminary hearing. They’re really trying to drag it out since
they probably don’t have much to go off of as far as any kind of defense is
concerned.”

“What do they
keep continuing for? How long can they keep doing that?”

“Who knows?
They say they need time to gather more evidence for the defense. And it can go
on as long as the judge allows it. But we had a hearing this morning, you know
you didn’t have to be there, and the judge decided that they won’t move ahead
until you undergo a psychiatric evaluation and a physical. The defense
requested it.”

“
I’m
the
one that needs a psychiatric evaluation?”

“I know. We
have thirty days to complete it, so I have a few calls out. We’ll try and get
this done as soon as possible okay?”

“What’s the
physical for?”

“They want to
check for STD’s.”

“What? What
for? Heather, did he have STD’s? Did he give me something?”

“Calm down,
sweetie. We don’t know. All we know is that they want to have you tested.”

An
uncomfortable silence traveled through the lines before anyone spoke.

“Did you find
out your ranking yet?” Heather changed the subject; she never liked to hang up
until we talked about something other than the trial. I liked that she tried to
distract me from the weight of our conversations.

“Yea, I did
actually. I’m thirty two out of four hundred fifteen. Nowhere close to
valedictorian anyway.”

“That’s great
Brooke, Penn State would be crazy not to take you.” Her enthusiasm was genuine.

“They did.”

“They did? Oh
honey congratulations. Did you tell your mom yet?”

“Not yet.”

I hung up with
Heather realizing that I hadn’t told Jason I was accepted to Penn State either.
College meant I would be leaving town, but he knew how much it meant to me. Now
that I got my acceptance letter, it was something we would need to talk about.

Jason threw his
uniform on the floor and flopped onto the bed staring at the ceiling. “I can’t
believe the people who own this house are making us move out. It’s not our
fault Jersey schools suck and they wanna move their kids to P.A instead.”

“How much time
are they giving us?”

“Barely thirty
days, which I don’t think is legal. We’ll have time to graduate and go on
vacation with my mom to Canada, but we’ll only have about a week after we get
back to move.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know,
Brooke.” He covered his face with his hand. “I can’t work more than I already
do. My brother is moving in with his girlfriend and my mom has a friend she can
stay with but she won’t go unless she knows I have a place to stay too.”

“Do you?”

“I’m not going
anywhere without you. Come here.”

My head was on
his chest and I could feel the frustration building up inside of him. It seemed
like an ideal time to bring up my acceptance letter. I had an idea.

“Well, maybe we
can move. Together.”

“Where?”

“Two hours from
here?”

Jason let out a
long breath before replying.“What are you not telling me?”

I sighed and
sat up. “I got accepted to Penn State.”

He moved his
hand from his face and the pools of chocolate in his eyes softened. “Are you
leaving me?”

“I don’t want
to.”

“Then why are
you crying?”

“Come with me.”

“I can’t live
with you at college.”

“We’ll get an
apartment. I don’t want to live in the dorms anyway.”

“We haven’t
even slept together yet and you want to get an apartment two hours from here,
not knowing anybody, so you can go to school?”

“Yes?”

He had moved
from the bed to the wall length dresser and was staring at his reflection while
he tapped his fingers. He had four inches on me, the perfect height to rest my
head against his chest when I wanted to but still be able to kiss him without
going up on tip toes. Leather hands brushed over his crew cut and rubbed the
stubble that covered his neck.

The corner of
his mouth turned up as he looked at me. “All right, baby. I’m in.”

“Yea?” I
uncrossed my legs and wrapped my arms around his waist, bringing my face up to
his.

“Yea, are you
crazy? I’m not letting you go. So stop crying.”

***

Heather’s phone
call about getting a physical to check for STD’s crept into my mind every
waking second, so I made an appointment at Planned Parenthood for Jason and I
to get tested. I told him it was the responsible thing to do if we were going
to plan on being sexually active, which was true, but I had to know.

Both of us got
a clean bill and a week before high school ended we made fun of each other over
our inexperience since we both only had one other partner. We held hands under
tangled sheets and whispered in excited voices about living together in an
apartment all of our own.

Graduation was
moved inside as the sky threatened to rain all morning. Paper fans littered the
stands as we filed to the front of the gymnasium to claim our fake diplomas and
return to our seats.

They mailed the
real ones a few weeks later, just after I got a call from Heather telling me
that my psych evaluation was flawless, and enough evidence was finally
submitted to bind the case over to criminal court.

“They’ll have a
formal arraignment now. David will have to enter his plea. He could plead
guilty and there would be no trial, but I wouldn’t count on it. They pushed too
hard during the preliminary hearing.”

Earl entered a
not guilty plea, and a trial date was set for three months later. I realized I
would be in the middle of my freshman year of college when it started, but I
tried to focus on vacation, work and packing instead.

“It’s called
Bridal Veil falls. You can walk behind it you know.” Jason’s mom, Laura, held
hands with her boyfriend Sam.

“How long have
you guys been dating?” I asked

“About five
months now, right?” Sam motioned to Laura and she nodded. “Yea, about that.”

“How did you
find this place Sam? It’s breath taking.”

“It’s an Indian
Reserve, you can only get on if you have the proper I.D, which I do. I wanted
to bring you guys here. It’s one of the most peaceful places I know.”

“Brooke, follow
me.” Jason descended the boulder encrusted path leading to the waterfall.

Serenity
penetrated my bones the farther we drove away from Pennsylvania. I needed to
get away, even if only for a short time. By the time we planted foot on
Manitoulin Island I was coaxed into a dreamland. Jason pointed. “Let’s go
behind the waterfall.”

“Have you ever
seen something like this?” I yelled. Blankets of water cascaded over the ledge
in front of us. Specks danced on my face and I beamed at Jason.

“It’s
beautiful. Just like you.”

A marquise cut
diamond was perched on my ring finger when I examined my hand after Jason had
been holding it. “Is this for real?” I asked.

“I want to
know, if you’ll be mine forever. It was my mom’s ring. I’ll get you your own,
when we have the money. It’s my promise to you, Brooke. I want to marry you one
day. Will you wear it?”

His body
pressed to mine, I steadied my feet on the rocks and kissed him in response.

“I can’t
believe this. Does your mom know?”

His eyes
smiled. “Turn around.”

Laura and Sam
had followed us down to the water’s edge and were snapping pictures of us.
Laura noticed we looked up and shook her left hand at me. “Hello lovebirds, smile
here!”