Don't Tell Daddy (20 page)

“You know what, it’s your business. Would you like a ride home, Pamela?”

She shook her head no. “Thank you, though.”

He gave her an unsure look, but he left. She sat on the hood of her car, holding her head. Heather hated her and she couldn’t blame her. Not in the least. Because she hated herself. Her father had called her a slut.

She called a cab, making her way home to wallow in her self-pity.

***

Bryan got himself together before he left his office. When he saw his car, the windows were all busted out, and the body was smashed in. “What the—”

His mind formulated a million ways to kill Pamela, not realizing that his wife saw him orally stimulating their goddaughter.

He wondered why Pamela had gotten angry and fucked up his car. He was sure he hadn’t done anything to her but try to comfort her.

He caught the bus home, deciding not to stress about it. He’d see her little ass later.

When Bryan walked into the house, Heather sat on the couch, waiting for him. He tried to kiss her, and she turned her head. “Heather—”

“Weren’t you just eating pussy with those same lips? Then you try to put them on mine? You disgusting, trifling, pedophilia diseased son-of-a-bitch,” she spit, shaking her head, holding back tears. “I gave you over thirty years of my life, Bryan; and this is what you do to it? How many times have you slept with her? Put your mouth on her and come home and kissed me? How many nights at the office were nights at the office with Pamela? How many at her house? Then you just come back to me after you’ve had your fun with that little girl like everything is all good. Have her coming into our home and call me her madrina. How could you do this to us, Bryan?”

He said nothing for a long time, just staring at her. “How do you know about that?” he finally asked. There was no more need to lie. Everyone already was going to know because he was sure Jonta was not going to keep that to himself.

“How do I know?” she asked, laughing without humor. “I walked into my husband’s office this afternoon. To just say hello to him. Tell him I love him. Maybe invite our goddaughter for some cake or something later, right? But what do I see when I walk in? That same husband with his head between that same goddaughter’s legs and Pamela saw me. But you kept right on going.”

Bryan realized that might have been what Pamela was trying to tell him. But he wouldn’t let her speak.

“It doesn’t matter, Bryan. Our marriage didn’t mean enough to you to keep it between just us two. It doesn’t mean enough to me to stay. Go and be with her. That’s where you can sleep tonight. I want you and all your shit out my house. I hope you two are happy together. But let me tell you this one thing, Bryan: she’s a child. She’s never going to be on your level. You’ll always be wiser, more experienced, less naïve than she is. You’ll never have enough in common with her. She’ll never be enough for you. She’ll never be able to last with you. She’ll leave you for someone her age; and when that shit happens, do not come back to me.”

“Heather—”             

She pointed to the stairs. “I don’t want to hear it. Pack your shit. Go. I hope she lets you in her house because you are no longer welcome in mine.”

Bryan started up the stairs, and he saw his daughter there. She looked up at him. “Is it true?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, Jae,” he mumbled, sitting beside her.

She got up, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you. That was you that day in Pamela’s condo.” Her voice quavered, looking up at her father, tears in her eyes. “It was you.”

Bryan reached out to embrace Jada, and she pushed his hands away from her, mouth turned down in a frown. In her eyes, he saw a hatred he would have never imagined in his baby. Especially for him.

Bryan would have given anything to not have his baby girl standing before him looking so distraught. The last thing he wanted to ever do was hurt his wife and Jada.

She went into her room and slammed the door shut. Sighing, slumping his shoulders in defeat, Bryan went to pack himself a duffle bag, calling a cab. “I’ll be back for the rest of my stuff,” he told Heather.

“Make sure I am not here,” she said simply.

Bryan went outside and waited for his cab, sitting on the porch and looking at the door as if he had x-ray vision. He had been so caught up in having his cake and eating it too that he’d never thought of this occurrence, never dreamed this day would come. He’d never thought of how anyone would feel because he’d never counted on being caught. He loved his wife, and he didn’t want to hurt her; but he had done just that.

He went to Pamela’s house, and it was dark. He could hear her on the sofa whimpering and sniffling as he walked into the house and found her lying across her sofa, face down. “Pamela—”

“Why did you come here?”

“I’m getting a divorce.”

At this news, Pamela broke down, hot tears sliding down her cheeks into her pillows. Bryan sat down and rubbed her back in soothing circles.

“This is all my fault,” she sobbed.

“No it’s not,” he whispered, pulling her into his arms. “I did this too, baby.”

She sat in his lap, her head on his chest, crying her heart out and choking on her sorrows.

Pamela fell asleep in Bryan’s arms and woke up with a dry mouth and burning eyes from the salty tears trapped there. She pulled away and went to the bathroom to shower. When she got out, she wiped the mirror and looked at herself. Who was she? What had she done? She had helped to break a marriage.

When she got dressed, Pamela went to the front and saw Bryan still asleep. She kneeled down beside him, studying his face, her fingers hovering above the deep, bluish clot forming around his right eye while the left was purple and swollen nearly shut. She traced her fingers over the swell in his bottom lips, feeling the broken skin on his otherwise soft lips.

She shook him gently awake. “Go shower,” she whispered. “I’ll make breakfast.”

This was their aftermath. Now she had Bryan to herself, but at what price?

There was a knock at her door, and as soon as she opened it, Jada lunged for her, her fist connecting with her mouth in a powerful landing.

Pamela stumbled backwards and held her hands out in front of herself to try to hold Jada off, but Jada just came for her again. She just tried to push her off.

“You bitch! You stupid bitch! How could you fuck my father! You’re a whore, Pamela Torres!” she shouted, pulling her hair and tossing her into the wall.

Jada was stronger than Pamela thought. She dug her feet into the floor, willing her weight to hold her from the attack, trying to free herself.

“Let me go!”

“You stupid fucking whore!”

Pamela could feel hair loosening from her scalp, her eye feeling as if it was being pulled through her socket and out with her hair. With each blow to her body from being thrown into the wall, she could feel bruises forming on her ribs and sides. Her mouth went numb as her lips began to swell, being covered in the blood and snot trickling down from her nose and tears.

“And you fucked my father with me in the same apartment, too! You slut! I thought we was better than that. I fucking hate you.”

Jada slammed Pamela into her couch, causing Pamela’s body to flip over the piece of furniture and land in a heap on the floor.

Pamela just lie there, sobbing. She had just taken a brutal beating without a fight in her own defense.

“Every time I see you, I’m going to beat your ass,” Jada promised, her breathing labored, glowering at the girl she had called her best friend her whole life.

Bryan came out of Pamela’s bedroom, fully clothed, his eyes surveying the damage with furrowed brows and his mouth open. Jada glared at him. “Figures you’d be here. With your little harlot. I hope the two of you have fun. I don’t know either of you. Whores!”

Jada left the house, slamming the door so hard, the walls shook. Bryan went to Pamela, lifting her up off the floor. Her face looked exactly like she had just received the beating she received, bruises littering her cheeks and forehead.

When Pamela moved, a pain wrecked her side and Bryan went into the kitchen and got bags of frozen vegetables. “Where does it hurt the most?” he asked.

“Everywhere!” she sobbed, holding a protective hand over her abdomen.

“I’m taking you to the hospital.”

Bryan lifted her up, and she groaned and winced, hissing. He tried to handle her carefully, doing his best to avoid the bigger bruises.

When they got to the hospital, Pamela had no broken bones, but her right wrist was sprained, and the doctor wrapped it, telling her to leave it alone. Naturally, police were called and they asked if Pamela wanted to press charges on Bryan.

“Why would I press charges on my boyfriend?” she asked, shifting her position in the bed, her breath labored from the effort it took.

“Your boyfriend?” the female officer asked.

“Yes, my boyfriend.”

The officers exchanged looks and looked back at Pamela. That she was a teenager was immediately obviously.

“How old are you, Miss Torres?”

“Eighteen.”

“How long have you been seeing your… er…boyfriend?”

“For about three months.”

“How long have you been eighteen?”

“Four months.”

“Did he do this to you?” the male officer questioned.

“No,” she said, looking between the two detectives before she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Miss Torres, it’s crucial that you are honest with us so that we can help you.”

Pamela wanted to roll her eyes. She didn’t ask for their help. She wasn’t the one who’d called them.

“His daughter did it, and I don’t want to press charges.”

She left it at that and said that she was done answering questions. She’d done nothing illegal. Immoral? Certainly. Adulterous? Sinful? Ghastly? There wasn’t a doubt in her mind. But nothing illegal had happened.

When she went home that night, she was still in a considerable amount of pain. Bryan, on the other hand, looked much better. His black eyes were better. One bruise was completely gone, and the other was getting there. “I’m sorry Jada did that,” he told Pamela as she lay in bed with an icepack over her face, stroking her hair.

“Me too.”

“Are you hungry?” he asked. She shook her head no. “You need to eat.”

“I can’t eat,” she whined. “My face hurts.”

“I’ll make you a smoothie, okay?”

She simply nodded, and Bryan went to make her a fruit smoothie. She heard a knock at her door, and she heard Bryan answer it. “Where is mi hija?” she asked him.

“In her room.”

“You and I are going to talk later.”

Carmella brushed past him and went to Pamela’s room and sat down. She moved the icepack and saw that Pamela’s eyes were both swollen. Her bottom lip was split, and her cheeks and forehead had bruises all over.

“You’re lucky you still have your teeth. You’re lucky Heather didn’t have it in her heart to harm your person and only your car. I don’t understand, Pamela. It’s one thing to have a crush on your godfather. We all have crushes on someone that much older than at us at one point or another in our lives. I just… How could you allow yourself to betray your own godmother like that? To cause her that pain? Pamela, you don’t understand how it feels to be in real true love yet.”

“You don’t know that,” Pamela mumbled.

“You think you’re in love with Bryan? Honey, sex is not love. Possession is not love. Do you think he loves you?”

“Yes,” Pamela said with conviction.

Carmella frowned and pushed her daughter’s hair back. “How would you feel if you were married for nearly three decades and then you discovered some young girl with your husband? Worse, some young girl you had raised? Think about that, Pamela. For your whole life, you’ve grown up with two sets of parents loving you and caring for you, and Heather was always there when I couldn’t be. Your repayment was to sleep with her husband? You hurt her heart, Pamela. You hurt my heart.”

“I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want anyone to know.”

“Everything done in the dark will come to light.”

Carmella looked down at her wounded daughter, rubbing her hair back soothingly. She was always going to love her daughter unconditionally. That could never change. It was what unconditional meant. She couldn’t lie and say she wasn’t disappointed, though. She couldn’t even keep her silence.

“Your father came home and called you a whore and I got really upset about it, Pamela. I hated that Jonta would ever say something like that about our very own little girl. Our only baby. And then he explained to me that you were pregnant, and even then, I thought that was no reason to get all indignant and call you names and insult you the way he did. Then he started going off about Bryan, and I understood. My heart broke for Heather. When I went to see her, there was something wrong. Her husband wasn’t there anymore. She was taking down wedding pictures. She was crying, Pamela, when she told me the only thing standing between her beating your ass like the grown woman you want to be and just letting it ride was the fact that you are my daughter. But you know what, cariña, as much as I love you, if she did, she wouldn’t be wrong; and if you were in Jada’s shoes, if Jada had slept with Jonta, and it broke my heart, and our family was being torn apart, what would you do?”