Page 35 of Sinner’s Torment

The third day was harder.

My body ached everywhere. My car was making new and concerning noises. And the reality of what I was doing—running away, abandoning the only support system I had, fleeing to a place I’d sworn I’d never return to—was starting to sink in.

I crossed into New York and the thought occurred to me that I was so close to him. I could stop in the city, call him, tell him where I was.

It made my chest ache.

Instead, I stopped at another truck stop and bought more water, more snacks I wouldn’t eat, more gas to keep my dying car moving. I called my parents from a payphone outside, my hands shaking as I dialed the number I’d memorized as a child.

My mother answered on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Mom,” I said, my voice cracking. “It’s me. It’s Brandy.”

There was a long pause. Then her soft voice asked, “Brandy? Honey, where are you? Are you okay?”

“I’m... I’m coming home,” I said, the words feeling strange in my mouth. “I’ll be there tonight. Is that... is that okay?”

Another pause. Longer this time. I could hear my father’s voice in the background, asking who it was.

“Of course it’s okay,” my mother said finally, and I could hear the worry in her voice, the questions she wasn’t asking. “We’ll be here. Drive safe, honey.”

I hung up before she could say anything else, before I could break down completely.

By the time I crossed into Connecticut, I was running on fumes—both literally and figuratively. My gas tank was nearly empty. My body felt like it was held together with duct tape and sheer stubbornness. My mind was a fog of exhaustion and fear and desperate, clawing anxiety.

The landscape had changed completely now. Gone were the flat plains of Nebraska, the agricultural fields of Iowa and Illinois. Here, the world was green and hilly, thick with forests that crowded close to the highway. The roads curved and wound through the terrain, following the natural contours of the land. Small towns dotted the landscape, each one looking like something out of a postcard with their white church steeples and meticulous stone walls.

It was nothing like Diamond Creek. Nothing like the wide-open spaces of Nebraska.

It felt claustrophobic. Closed in. Like the trees were pressing in on me from all sides.

My stomach churned with nausea that had nothing to do with morning sickness and everything to do with fear—raw, primal fear of what I was walking into, what I was returning to, who I might become if I stayed.

What the hell was I doing?

I didn’t have an answer. Not a good one, anyway. Just a vague sense that I had no other options, nowhere else to turn, no one else to ask for help.

The miles stretched out endlessly, even as they counted down. Exit numbers ticked by. The world felt both impossibly vast and claustrophobically small.

I just kept driving, watching the mile markers count down the distance to a place I’d hoped I’d never see again. Toward a past I’d spent years trying to outrun.

And with every mile, the weight in my chest grew heavier.

Bethlehem, Connecticut looked exactly the same as it had the day I’d left.

Small. Quiet. Nestled in the rolling hills of central Connecticut like a secret the world had forgotten.

The main street was lined with old brick buildings—a hardware store, a diner, a post office, a church with a white steeple that reached toward the sky like a prayer. American flags hung from every lamppost. Hand-painted signs advertised local businesses: Betty’s Bakery. Joe’s Auto Repair. Bethlehem Feed & Seed.

It was the kind of place where people worked hard for everything they had. Where family meant something. Where community meant something. Where the saying God, Family, Country wasn’t just words—it was a way of life.

It was also the place where my wild teenage years had become the topic of Sunday church conversations. Where rumors about me had spread like wildfire until I couldn’t walk down the street without feeling the weight of everyone’s judgment pressing down on me. Where I’d been labeled a lost cause, a cautionary tale, a girl who’d never amount to anything.

And now I was coming back.

Pregnant. Unmarried. Exactly as everyone had predicted.