Never Judge a Book By Its Cover
Chapter 6

***15 minutes later***

"How is this?" asked Erika walking into my room for the 4 billionth time with a different outfit on again. She had on a pair of short jean shorts and a yellow Roxy shirt.
"That looks good. Can we please go now?"
"Yeah yeah. We can go now!"
"Thank the good lord! The sooner we get there, the sooner we can leave!" I pulled myself off my bed and got my shoes out of my closet and pulled them onto my feet. I walked downstairs and grabbed my purse, said goodbye to Kaleb, and headed out to the car.
Brian surprisingly didn't live very far away, but the directions that he gave me took me forever to figure out. I pulled up into his driveway and parked the car.
"You ready there Erika?" I asked. She looked like she was about to throw-up.
"Yeah, just a little overly excited! I can't believe that I'm about to meet my future husband."
"Future husband? Oh child please don't say that in front of him!"
"Do you really think I'm that stupid?"
I just laughed. She was a little weird when she got around guys, so she very well could. We walked up the stairs until we came to the door of Brian's apartment.
"I can't do this," said Erika as she started to go back to the stairs.
"Oh no you don't! You're meeting this guy if its the last thing I do! Now come on!" I said pulling her back to the door. I knocked on the door and soon we were greeted by Brian.
"Hello ladies," he said opening the door for us to come in.
"Hey Brian!" I said slipping past him. I could feel his eyes travel down my body checking me out. "Erika, come in!" I yelled. She was so out of it, I knew it was going to be a long night. She snapped out of it and walked through the door. Brian lead us into the living room where 4 guys were sitting around and talking. Erika almost colapsed.
"Okay guys, turn off the TV, we have company," said Brian as we walked into the room. "This is Kaitlyn and Erika," he said pointing at each of us. "Ladies, this is Howie, AJ, Nick, and of course Kevin," he said pointing to each of them.
"What's up?" I asked shaking each of their hands.
Erika just stood behind me and stared with her mouth wide open. "Hello?" I said waving my hand in front of her face.
"Wha-What? Oh sorry. Hi," she said shyly. Nick stood up and walked over to her.
"Hey," he said smiling at her.
"Wow...um...hi."
"Come on, you can sit by me." He took her hand and lead her to a spot on the couch between himself and AJ.
'That was really nice of him.' I thought to myself.
Erika looked like she was about to pass out. I smiled to myself. I was really happy that she was enjoying this trip so much.
"So..." I said, not really knowing what to say to these people. "How have you all been?"
"Tired" seemed to be the most popular response. I nodded my head.
"Come here, I'll give you the grand tour!" said Brian taking my hand.
"Uh, okay." He showed me all the rooms. When we were done with the tour we ended up staying in his room and talking.
"So you live in Chicago?"
"Yeah. It sucks, but its the only place that we're safe," I said. I regreted saying it the second the words came out of my mouth.
"What do you mean 'the only place that you're safe'?" he asked looking at me worried.
"Nothing...forget it."
"No, I'm not going to forget it. Tell me, maybe I can help."
I took a deep breath and sighed. "Look, there's a lot you don't know about me. Like the reason that I was so rude to you earlier." Brian just nodded. "I'm scared of getting close to guys. I haven't really had the best of luck in that department."
"What do you mean?"
"Well...where do I start? I guess the begining, huh? Okay, here goes...my father used to beat me, and when I told my mom, she didn't believe that her husband would ever do something like that. Then he started to beat her, too. Thats when we moved the first time. I was only 8 years old. We moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, but after about 3 years, he found us and tried to hurt us again so we were forced to move again. That time we moved to Houston, Texas. By then I was almost 12 and I already was dating. When I was 13 the guy I was dating raped me and I got pregnant. Being only 13, there was no way I could possibly take care of the baby so I had an abortion. Thats when we moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. There, I met Dan. Dan and I dated for about a year until he started taking things to fast for me. He too raped me. I got pregnant again, but this time I decided to keep the baby. About 3 months into the pregnancy, my unborn child died inside of me. That's when my dad found us again. I ended up in the hospital for about a month. They weren't sure if I would live or not. That's when we moved to Chicago. We haven't had any problems, yet, and I really like it there." When I was done with my story, I looked up to see Brian staring at me in shock.
"Wow, I didn't know...I'm so sorry."
"There's no way you could have known. You don't have to be sorry either, thats in the past...I need to move on."
"Your a very strong person, you know that? If something like that happened to me, I don't know how I would go on."
"Well thank you. You know, I'm glad I told you. I mean, even Erika, my best friend in the whole world doesn't know about any of that. Only my mom and I, and now you do. Thank you for listening."
"It's not a problem. I'll always be here if you ever need to talk about anything."
"Thank you." I leaned up and lightly kissed his lips. "I'm sorry...I shouldn't have-" He interupted me by pressing his lips back against mine.
"Hey guys! I wondered where you-" said AJ. When he saw us kissing, he stopped dead in his tracks and turned back around.
Brian and I pulled away from each other smiling. "I'll always be here," he repeated. I smiled at him and stood up.
"Maybe we should see how everyone is. We've been in here for a while."
"Okay," he said standing up.


-=Chapter Seven=-
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