| This is a work in progress: I will be adding more pages as they become available... |
| Have you ever had one of those moments when you rise up out of your body and survey the setting you're in as though you were someone else? You may realize you've taken this aerial view because you're not happy with the situation, and you're wondering just how you got there. Of all the places you could be at that moment in time, this is not one you would have chosen for yourself. Brenya was having just such a moment. Yes, this was her home, where she sat on the sofa in the living room. Yes, the dark-haired fellow at the dining room table was Dylan, the man who lived there with her. So, it wasn't the place that seemed foreign or objectionable. What made this scene surreal was knowing that the suited man across from her boyfriend was Detective Barnes, an FBI agent. Despite his imposing stature, the detective spoke in a calm assuring tone as he jotted on his notepad. "You seem like a very bright young man, Dylan. You're not the type of person we usually deal with in these matters. How did you get involved with these people?" "Thank you," Brenya thought to herself. Sometimes she felt she was the only one who recognized Dylan's intellect. Most people wouldn't look past his faults to see the underlying sincerity and amazing knowledge he possessed. Detective Barnes had confirmed her observation about Dylan's intelligence, even though he knew of the misguided actions that had brought them together in this meeting. "It all started when I was in college," Dylan answered. "One of my buddies there introduced me to it." Dylan was being interviewed by the detective for the purpose of doing undercover work. By helping the local authorities bust a couple of crack dealers, Dylan would be absolved of charges for possession of marijuana. That was the element of the scene that had Brenya floating above herself in disbelief. How had she allowed her life to become surrounded by the jargon and the players of the drug underworld? Just a few years earlier, Brenya had been one of the voices, known as the Faithful Five, singing from the loft of her church. She missed those days sometimes, but not enough to go back there. What she didn't miss was the bustle of the ultra-busy members who seemed frightened that the devil may find them idle at some moment. She also wasn't fond of the gossip mill that fueled so many "concerned" personal questions in the vestibule. She could be forgiving of those people, but they were not so forgiving of others. That was an environment she chose to remove herself from. She sometimes wondered if her current situation was some cosmic punishment for walking away from the church. At other times, she felt as though she was placed in Dylan's life as an earthly guardian angel in order to help him out of this mess he was in. She was convinced he would someday turn away from his self-destructive path of drug addiction and realize the potential she saw in him. (Later, she would admit she merely suffered from a neurotic need to be needed.) For now, she drifted through her days as someone living a double life. To her family and co-workers, she was still the same respectable woman they'd always known. At home, she was the acquiescent girlfriend, the classic enabler. She didn't dare admit to anyone the things he had gotten away with at her expense. It was too shameful. Countless stolen items; some recovered from pawn shops, some not. The many times she bought his lies - literally. She'd be in debt for a long time after this. |
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