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Never Said Goodbye Chapter 7
by Rebel Goddess (no login)
I disclaim. Written while Brady was still in his Scary Barry stage.
Chapter 7
The lake was cold and the water bitter. It nipped at his skin and bit into his bones. Shawn could have sworn that no one knew where he had gone, but Belle had. She was angry with him of course, angry at him for running off first to New York and then here, but she couldn’t stay that way. He climbed out of the water, fully clothed and soaking wet. She grimaced as he began wringing out his shirt and walked closer to him.
“Shawn, you can’t keep doing this.” Belle was on the verge of tears. She didn’t want to cry, but she felt so sorry for her best friend that she felt she must.
“Doing what?” Shawn didn’t look at her. He felt guilty and betrayed at the same time.
“Running away from me.” Shawn felt horrible. He wanted to cry out that he wasn’t running away from her, but away from his screwed up family. “Don’t say it isn’t me. It is, I know that.”
Shawn started to laugh, but the sound that came out was bitter and harsh. “You don’t honestly think that I’ve been trying to get away from you, do you Belle? Cristo! If you only knew! It isn’t you, Belle. You’re wonderful, perfect even and you’re my best friend, it’s just that…” He took a deep breath, watching as her face changed from teary eyed to expectantly hopeful, “It’s our family.”
How could he tell her? He had begun, and now he couldn’t stop. “Belle, I found something out the day I left, and it’s taken me this long to come back to face it.”
“What?” Belle seemed stronger now, less fragile than she had a moment ago. She was privately wondering about the ‘our family’ remark.
“It’s about JT. His father really,” again Belle was confused by him, then light dawned.
“Oh God, you know.” Shawn could have cried, he almost did. His bright, perky Belle had been lying to him as well. “Oh, Shawn, was that why you left?”
He nodded. Belle’s voice trembled, he couldn’t tell if it was with pity or anger though. “My mother told me.” She said slowly. “Three weeks after you left, I heard my Dad talking on the phone with someone, and he said ‘They can’t ever know about baby Johnny. It wouldn’t be fair on them, I know, but I have to see him.’ I asked Mom and she told me, when I threatened to walk out and never come back.”
Shawn was laughing again. Almost rolling on the ground in his pain. “You didn’t know? Oh, Christ, Belle, I thought you knew!”
Belle reached out for her broken spirited dripping friend and hugged him to her. “I wanted to talk to you, Shawn, so badly and I couldn’t.”
Shawn almost lifted her off her feet. He had three people he could rely on, now, and that was two more than yesterday. Megan, Belle and his father, he could trust them properly, without doubt to their honesty.
“What happened when you found out?” They were sitting side by side, slowly drying in the sun.
“Brady and I walked out.” That had been one of the worst days of Belle’s life. As soon as Brady knew what had happened, he gave up any thought of staying with his father, and they had run out of the building, hand in hand, finding their only solace in each other. “We went to a motel and stayed there for a few days. Dad tried to convince us to go back to the penthouse after Mom moved out, but we moved in with her after a bit. We bought a house just down the street from your new place. The one good thing to come out of this whole mess is that Brady is finally getting along with Mom.”
Shawn put his arm around her, wondering if she could have possibly been so calm at the time, or if she had raged as he had raged.
“Belle, you know what?”
“What?” Belle turned her face to him, smiling now.
“I’m glad I came back.” Shawn risked a smile. “I forgot how much I liked talking to you. What happened to your Dad?”
Belle drew back a little and stared at him, then relaxed again. “Of course, you don’t know. Dad is still in the penthouse, but now he’s working for Stefano. Mom says that if he doesn’t, Stefano would kill him, but I think he does it because he likes it. He enjoys being a soldier rather than a father. He’s even found himself some rich European woman to look after him.”
“I’m so sorry, Belle.” Shawn could tell that she couldn’t be so calm now without having suffered terrible pain earlier. “No one told me.”
“Yeah, well, it could have been worse. At least they broke up quickly, no messing about.”
Shawn didn’t say anything, remembering his own parents’ messy love lives. It was because Hope had believed that she was Princess Gina that the situation had come up at all. “When did the truth finally come out?”
“It didn’t. Everybody thinks that Dad had an affair with his European woman, and that’s why we walked out on him. They don’t know that he’s Johnny’s father. I think your Grandfather knows, but most of Salem is in ignorance.” Belle turned to watch Shawn walk across to the lake and throw stones in. The water splashed loudly with each throw, and it took a moment before Shawn could collect himself to speak.
“Why did you think I left?”
Belle squirmed uncomfortably. “At first I thought it was something to do with our fight, and Philip and Chloe blanking you in Dot.Com. Then your Mom said that you had been upset before that, and I didn’t know what to think.” She was still feeling guilty for having read Shawn’s private letters, but decided confessing was better than keeping secrets. Secrets were damaging, worse if they came out later than now, and she didn’t want Shawn to think she kept anything from him. “Your Mom and I were in your room.”
Shawn’s back stiffened perceptibly, but Belle went on. “We found some letters, in a box under your bed. They were from someone called Star Child. We read them.”
Shawn didn’t say anything. “I’m sorry that we did Shawn, but we were desperate to know where you had gone. We thought that maybe you had gone to stay with Star Child, but we didn’t have an address so we couldn’t find out.” Belle was becoming more upset, hoping that Shawn didn’t think they had betrayed him in this new way or had hurt him deliberately. She hated to think that he wouldn’t trust her anymore.
Shawn almost chuckled, but the sound came out strangled. “I did, in a way. Star Child is Megan. It’s my nickname for her. She was in the hospital, and I only found out that she had been hurt on the last day of school. Then I overheard my Mom arguing with John about JT and I knew I had to get out. I was going before that, but I would have told someone first if I hadn’t heard them.” He spat the final words.
“Shawn, I’m sorry. I was so mad at you, and I didn’t realise that you just found out what I didn’t know until later. How are you coping?” She could see that he wasn’t, that there was more pain and anger in his Tough Guy rebel act than had ever been in her brother’s. He actually made Brady look fairly well adjusted and content. Well, not totally psychotic anyway.
“As long as I don’t have to talk to either of them, I’m fine.” He was lying. There was no fine anymore. There was just about hanging on by the tips of your fingers, but no fine.
“Where are you going to stay?” Belle wondered, almost selfishly, if Megan would be staying with him, or if she was only passing through.
“Is my mother still at the house?” Shawn turned back to Belle, his face grim and grey.
“Yeah. Your Dad moved out for a month or so when he found out that John was JT’s dad, but he moved back two weeks ago and they seem to be alright again.” Belle felt strange talking to Shawn about his parents in the way they were. It was beyond bizarre, and into not possibly happening.
“Where did he stay?” Shawn wondered if Philip would have him, or if he was better off on the Fancy Face 2.
“He stayed for a week with your Uncle Roman, and then he went onto the boat. Your mother was really upset by that. JT seemed to miss him. I don’t know everything, but I think that’s what happened.” Belle stood up and dusted her shorts off, wishing that the past summer had never happened, that they could go back to before her parents had been married and JT was conceived. To when she and Shawn had been friends, bound together by long term friendship and hopes of becoming more (how many times had she dreamed of marrying him? She couldn’t remember anymore, but every notebook she owned was covered with his name and ‘Mrs Isabella Brady’) and not sharing a sibling.
“We ought to go back now.” Shawn’s voice was dead and emotionless. She wished he would do something now, even run off or start screaming. “They’ll be wondering where we are.”
“Sure, Shawn. Then you can tell me all about New York and Megan.” She noticed a flicker of indefinable emotion cross his face at the mention of her name, and hoped that it wasn’t love. No matter how hopeless their future was, she didn’t think she could accept Shawn being with someone else. That seemed too cruel.
“Not now, Belle. Soon, but not now.” He held out his hand to her and taking it, they went silently back to the Brady Pub.
