My heart was currently attempting to beat through my chest. I swear I wouldn't have been able to hear my own self think because the pounding was so loud in my ears.
Penelope Grace Kherrington...
Those three words NEVER brought good news with them, especially coming from Dana. Said brother was now waiting for me to respond.
"Well...um... not exactly?" my voice squeaked.
"Don't you DARE lie to me again," Dana said, his harsh whisper not getting any louder. "Did you know about the lunch detention? Yes? Or no?"
Well, since Owen (who probably hit his head too hard ... although I guess he didn't know that I was gonna lie, so it isn't really his fault ... but still) screwed up my perfect plan, I didn't really have any choice but to confess.
"... Yes."
"You better be in your room when I get home, do you understand me?" I was gonna be dead once he got home. No, I was gonna be worse than dead. I was gonna be a zombie that came back to life just so Dana could kill me again. "I said, do. You. Under. Stand. Me?"
"Yes, sir," I muttered, twisting my hair nervously around my finger.
"Good. And don't expect to see your phone for a while either." I could just imagine him pointing his finger into the phone, since we weren't face to face.
"What! That's not fair!" I exclaimed, growing angry because everything was going so completely wrong.
"Don't you dare raise your voice to me, Penelope, especially when you're already up a creek." My heart was beating again. This time, however, it was out of pure, unadulterated rage.
"What. Ever," I seethed, hanging up the phone on my most formidable brother.
Then my heart skipped a beat. Crap—did I really just hang up on Dana? I looked down at my phone, which was back at the home page. Let me rephrase that previous question: Crap, I really did just hang up on Dana! I suddenly dropped my phone on my bed as if it were hot to the touch. I can't believe I just hung up on Dana—how stupid could I be! He was already gonna cut out my tongue for lying to him...and now he would chop off my entire head too! I frantically picked up my phone and called back Cooper's phone.
"What in the world is wrong with you?" Cooper said, without even saying hello, after he picked up the phone. "Hanging up on Dana—"
"Is that Penny?" I heard Owen say in the background.
"Do you have a death wish or something, Pen? What the heck was that?"
"I know, I know," I told him. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to—I wasn't thinking! Can you just put him back on, please?"
"Dana and Ben already left," Cooper said. I gulped. "I have to finish up here and then Owen and I will be there shortly behind them."
"What do I do?" I mumbled, not actually expecting any help from my third oldest brother.
"I suggest you wait for Dana in your room, like he said," Cooper said. I figured he'd say something like that.
"We'll be there soon, Penny!" Owen said. "Be strong!"
I sighed. "Okay, bye." I waited for Cooper to say bye back before hanging up the phone this time.
My room was usually the place I went to escape from things. Now, it was my personal prison. The walls caved in, threatening to suffocate me. The door couldn't open soon enough- I was just ready to get this whole thing over with.
The sound of a car engine actually relieved me. At least that meant I was that much closer to the end of this whole mess. Voices sounded downstairs, one gruff and angry, one calm and reasonable. It doesn't take a genius to guess which voice was Ben's and which voice was Dana's. I heard loud, heavy footsteps on the stairs and gripped my sheet, preparing myself for the worst.
The door opened slowly, revealing my executioner. I was just waiting for him to say, "Penelope Grace Kherrington, do you have any last words?"
Instead, Dana came in, pulled out my desk chair, and sat down heavily. He rubbed his hand over his face for a moment, and for the first time that day I noticed how tired he looked.
"Penny..." he murmured, trailing off. Dana was never speechless. Tears flooded my eyes, and I tried futilely to will them away.
"I'm really sorry," I tried, pulling at a loose string on my bedspread.
"I ... I just ... ugh, where do I start," Dana said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm so disappointed in you right now."
I actually wasn't expecting Dana to come in here so, well, calm, after the hoopla I heard downstairs. "Dana, I—"
He held his hand up to stop my excuse, which was probably a good thing because I hadn't really thought of one. "No, I don't wanna hear it. I'm tired. I'm tired of your excuses, I'm tired of your lies, I'm tired of your ... I'm just tired, Penny." As Dana, took a couple deep breaths, I noticed that my tears had stained my sheet. Damn it. "What would possess you to do what you did today?"
I looked at him and noticed that he was now staring at me, awaiting my response. "I just, I was scared—"
"Of what!" Dana said, his voice getting louder. "What could you possibly be scared of?"
"I was scared of how you would react," Penny said. "You were already mad at me this morning."
"You're darn right I was mad at you---I was furious with you this morning. So why in the world would you think that skipping lunch detention with me, and then lying about it --TWICE-- would make things better?" I shrugged. "Huh? I want an answer now, Penelope."
He needed to make up his freaking mind—did he want me to sit here so he could lecture me, or did he want to hear what I had to say?
"I didn't want to get in trouble on the first day, okay?" I snapped at him. I wasn't tearing up anymore, but I was still a little emotional. "I was scared of getting in trouble."
"Well, how did that work out for you?" Dana said as he got up from the chair.
"Not very well," I admitted as I looked down at my sheet helplessly.
"That's right. Lying never works in this house, Penny- you should know that by now. It always gets back to me and your other brothers." I kept my mouth shut—there was no need to inform him of the two or three (or twenty) lies that I had gotten away with in the past couple months. My head jerked up when I heard the sound of his belt unbuckling. "Bend over the bed. Now."
I slowly got up and bent over the bed. I didn't fight it because the last thing I wanted to do was piss him off more and possibly get Ben involved.
"Dana, please—" I begged, grabbing the closest pillow to hold onto.
"You're getting twenty for the way you behaved today," Dana said. "Consider yourself lucky."
Lucky? How the hell was I lucky? Lucky would have been just getting grounded or something.
"Yeah, I'm so lucky," I mumbled sarcastically.
"Well if you'd rather I give you five for each infraction you've committed," Dana said as he doubled his belt into a loop. "What would that be ... thirty-five?"
My eyes widened. "No, no I was just kidding. I'm sorry. I'll take the twenty." At this point I just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.
"Good."
The next thing I heard was the sound of a belt whooshing through the air before making a loud crack-sound when it made contact with my ass. I bit my lower lip as Dana wasted no time following it up with another crack of the belt. And another. It hadn't been that long since I last got a spanking, but it'd been long enough to where I'd lost the resistance I'd built up when I was going through the worst part of my "rebellious stage" as my brothers liked to call it. Still, I didn't want to show Dana that he was seriously hurting me.
My butt felt like it was on fire by the time he landed the next ten whacks. Dana chose to then land the next four on the sensitive part right under the crease of my ass, making me wince and emit a small hissing sound as I inhaled.
I couldn't keep my breath from hitching when he landed the final three back on my rear end. He definitely made those hurt the most.
"Get up," Dana said as I heard him put his belt back through the loops.
I quickly stood up straight and wiped away the wetness that had formed in my eyes. Next thing I knew, Dana had turned me around and pulled me into a hug. Don't get me wrong; It felt good when my brothers comforted me after I got spanked—it actually made me feel like they really did care about me in some weird way—but this felt different. Sure, the hug felt sincere, but I was still pissed off at Dana because he took the belt to me. I didn't deserve the belt. Deserve to be punished? Yes. Get my butt beat with twenty whacks of a belt? No. I bit my tongue to keep myself from saying anything that I would regret (especially since I just got punished) and I didn't pull away because then he would be on my case about why I was upset with him and lecture about how "he wouldn't discipline me if he didn't care about me" and blah blah blah. Trust me, I'd learned that this was much easier.
So I just stood there and let him hug me so that he would feel better.
"I love you," Dana said as he let go of me.
"Mhm," I mumbled as I then walked over to my desk and slowly sat down in the chair so that I could finish the little homework I had left. I crossed one leg under my butt so that I wasn't actually making contact with the chair.
"Penny."
I stopped rummaging through the papers and looked at my brother. He was looking at me as if he was waiting for me to say something. "I'm sorry. I love you too," I said. I wasn't sure which one he was looking for—an apology or an appropriate response to his I love you—so I just said both. I then grabbed my backpack from off the floor and started rummaging through that. "I'm gonna finish my homework."
I kept Dana in my peripheral vision, waiting for him to leave. He lingered behind me for a few more moments before walking over to my bed and grabbing my phone. He then quietly left the room.
My little white lie this morning had completely ruined the whole day. Talk about the Snowball Effect.