Seen The Light?

After the night with Crazy, I was so happy to get into my car and drive home where the world makes a little more sense. Plus there are no psychos in my house, so that's always a bonus.

My parents were still at home when I got there, which wasn't really unusual because some mornings they don't leave until 8. When 8 came around, my father went off to the store but mom stayed home, which again wasn't that surprising, she normally runs some errands and stuff before going in.

Before I headed off to bed to see if I could get a couple hours of sleep, mom asked me when the funeral was and what time I was leaving to go to Lakeland. "It's at 2," I told her. "But I want to talk to Sara before, or try too." All mom did was nod and tell me to have a good rest.

The buzzing of my alarm clock woke me from my sleep at noon but that wasn't what made me jump out of bed and run downstairs; hearing my parents voices did that.

"What are you two doing home?" I demanded as I ran into the kitchen where they were getting something to eat. "You are never home at this time! What's wrong?" I gave them both a good once over, they didn't look sick or anything.

"Tanner really! You almost gave me a heart attack!" Mom held her hand over her chest. "We are home to get ready for the funeral," she told me. "You did say you were leaving at one, didn't you?"

I stared at my parents in shock, I didn't know they were planning on going to the funeral, they barely even knew Sara. When I mentioned that to them, mom told me that she only thought it was right since Sara was a friend of mine and she would need all the support she could get.

We arrived at the church a half hour before the funeral was to start, I was happy to see that there were quite a few people already there but I was even happier to see that Sara was there. She was standing off to one side of the church's front yard with an older woman who looked like she was on the verge of losing it; Sara looked like she was trying to calm the woman, who I assumed was her mom, they looked a lot alike. I don't think Sara's attempt at calming her mom worked because she seemed to be a little lost for what to do when she happened to turn to say something to the bastard, who was standing a couple feet away from them, smoking. When she spotted me, she gave me a smile and a little wave.

My parents insisted on going with me when I started to walk over to Sara. "Hey Tanner," she was smiling but the smile wasn't reaching her eyes; she looked so tired and stressed, I just wanted to take her in my arms and tell her that everything would be ok. Of course, I couldn't really do that, not with the bastard and her mother watching. But it turned out, I didn't need too, she came to me and hugged me. "I'm so glad to see you," she whispered before she pulled back to speak to my parents.

After introducing everyone around her, Sara told us that her mom and her had to go deal with something. Soon my parents and I were standing alone with the bastard. Thankfully he didn't stick around long, he mumbled something about someone he had to talk too.

Before we went into the church, I heard someone call out to me. Turning I saw Billy crossing the grass and then noticed that there were a few other people from work with him; including Judy, our manager. I wished that Sara was there at that moment, just to see how many people were there for her, to support her through this or any other situation she found herself in. I introduced my parents to Billy and the others, then we all made our way into the church to find a place to sit down.

By the time the funeral actually started, there was barely any room left in the church for any one else to squeeze in, I was starting to wonder if Sara's parents knew this many people or... "Tanner!" Mom poked me in the side and held out the little paper program thing with a picture of Sara's father on the front cover. "You didn't tell me Sara's father was the owner of TireWorld!"

"What?" I snatched the thing from mom and read it for myself. "Huh, that explains the crowd."

I won't get into the details of the funeral because I was too busy trying not to see Sara's father's body in the open casket at the front of the church to really pay much attention to what was being said or done. But a couple times, I noticed Sara looking back over the crowd like she was looking for someone but every time she did that, the bastard would turn to her and she would turn back around.

We joined the funeral possession as it made it's way to the cemetery. As everyone else was watching the minister, I was watching Sara as she stood beside her mother's chair with the bastard standing beside her, his arm was around her waist but she seemed to be distancing herself from him, she wasn't touching him. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest and she was staring at the casket in front of her; she wasn't crying, she wasn't showing any emotion at all.

Once the casket was lowered into the ground, the crowd started to break up and head to the church hall where everyone who hadn't had a chance to pass on their condolences seemed to swarm around Sara and her mom the second they walked into the building.

It was a half hour before Sara was alone and I took that opportunity to talk to her. Grabbing a glass of water from the table, I made my way over to her. She was standing back on to me but when I said her name she turned around.

"Oh," she smiled and took the glass I held out to her. "Thank you." She didn't drink from it, I didn't actually expect her too. "I hate funerals," she told me. "Everyone expects me to cry and I can't Tanner."

We talked for a few minutes and then she told me she had to go talk to some one for a moment. "Can you do me a favor?" She asked before she left by side. I told her I would try and she gave me an address.

"What is that for?"

"It's my parent's address," she told me. "When I leave here to take mom home, she's going to take a couple pills that the doctor prescribed for her and they will knock her out. I don't want to sit at home alone, I want you to come over..." she followed my gaze to where the bastard was talking with some guys and she sighed. "He will make an excuse to leave after he brings us home, he doesn't like being around mom right now, he says he can't handle her depression."

As much as I wanted to go over to her place, I wasn't sure I should. "Sara I don't think..." She grabbed my arm, giving me a pleading look. "Ok," I told her. "I'll come over."

"Alone?" She asked as she glanced at my parents.

"Sure," I told her. "They wanted me to bring them to Travis' anyway, so I can come alone."

An hour later, I dropped my parents off at my brother's house and drove to Sara's. When I got there she was sitting on the porch swing, covered in a blanket even though it was 24 degrees in the shade. We didn't talk as we sat side by side on the swing. In fact, I wasn't so sure she really knew I was there.

Twenty minutes passed and finally she moved, she stood up, held out her hand to me. I took her hand and she led me into the cool house, down a hallway to a set of stairs and then into what I could only assume was her room.

She dropped my hand and took a couple steps away from me before turning around to face me. I was frozen in place I watched her lift her hands to her shirt, unbuttoning it slowly as she stared at me. I knew I shouldn't be watching but as each button slipped from it's hole, I couldn't take my eyes off her.

When the last button was free and she stood there with her shirt hanging open, I went to her. My hands slipped under her shirt onto her bare back, her skin was so smooth and warm to the touch. I felt her lips on my neck and it took all the will power I had to speak, to tell her she really didn't want to do this.

"Yes I do," she kissed my neck again. "I want to feel you Tanner; I want you to make love to me."

"Sara," I groaned, it was pure agony to hear her say those words and know she would regret it afterwards; I almost gave in to her, especially when she slipped her hand between us to stroke my stiff cock through my pants. "You have a boyfriend," I groaned, trying to reason with her. "You just buried your father, you aren't thinking clearly."

She stopped touching me and I gazed down at her upturned face. "I'm a horrible person," she whispered as she threw her arms around my waist, burying her face against my chest. I was so sure she could hear as well as feel how hard my heart was beating from being this close to her. I tried to tell her she wasn't a horrible person but she insisted that she was. "I wished for this," she said.

"You wished for what?"

She moved back to stare up at me, "I wished for my dad to die." She started to cry, "I'm going to hell for that, this is all my fault!"

Over the next hour, I held her as she cried and told me the story of her life; it seems that the bastard wasn't the only one who was abusive towards her, Sara's father was physically and mentally abusive to her all her life. "He's the reason I moved out of here," she told me. "I didn't want to feel like that anymore but I'm so stupid and I ran right into the arms of a man that treats me the same way. What's wrong with me Tanner? Why can't I get out?"

"You can get out," I told her. "You need to get out, you don't deserve to be treated this way."

It was late when I left her parent's house on Wednesday to head to work. She promised me that she would take the steps to ensure her safety and end things with the bastard. "You have to do this for you," I told her before I left. "If you need any help at all, you know where to reach me and you know where you can go if I'm not around. You have lots of people who care about you and love you Sara, they'll do anything to help you."

I talked to her for a couple hours before I went to work last night, she seemed better but this morning when I called her, her mother told me that she didn't come home from the bastard's place last night.

She called me an hour ago to tell me that she did it, she spoke to the bastard and told him that she couldn't see him anymore. "I told him that I needed to be here for my mom and between her and work, I wouldn't have time to give him the attention he deserves." She sighed, "It was almost too easy Tanner."