I want him to be angry. To yell and scream and tell me what a terrible person I am and justify the self-hatred growing inside me.
But he doesn’t.
He kneels there and picks up a soft sponge, then begins to bathe me like he’s some kind of master at it. As soft as the sponge is, it oddly grates against my skin, but Bradley follows every swipe ofthe sponge with a caress of his own hand and that’s much nicer to handle.
Maybe he knows. Maybe he can see everything I’m trying to hide because I don’t have the strength anymore.
The numbness in my chest, a black, weighted cloud that crushes my lungs and heart, suddenly starts to ease. It’s like the heat from the water has wormed its way into me and is picking apart the knot of anger and grief, allowing my breath to come easier and each heartbeat to feel a little less like it’s just a rock rattling around a cavern.
“Your brother,” Bradley says softly. “Tell me what you meant by he’s dead.”
I blink slowly, and tears I hadn’t even registered suddenly roll down my cheeks. “He’s dead,” I repeat in a voice so cracked and dry, it’s hard to believe it’s my own.
“At the house?” Bradley asks.
Slowly, I shake my head. “They swapped masks,” I murmur, and pain lances right up my breastbone. “They swapped…”
I close my eyes, saving myself from Bradley’s flicker of confusion. He continues to wash me slowly, one arm at a time, and then across my shoulders and slowly down my back.
“Who swapped?” Bradley asks after he finishes washing every delicate inch of my back.
“Harris.” My eyes open and I gaze down at the bubbles, hoping to find an answer in each one I pop with a pass of my fingers. Sadly, I don’t, but now that I’ve started talking, it’s harder to stop. The pain in my chest floods upward as if trying to claw out of me and the only relief I get is to talk.
“I knew Harris before, did you know that?”
Bradley shakes his head. “No. I didn’t. You knew him before the robberies?”
I nod shakily. “We dated when I was young. Too young.” I swallow my disgust. “But I was lonely and he was there and it was nice to be taken care of for once, so I didn’t care. He’d pay some of my bills, get me food, take me to school.”
Bradley’s face remains expressionless, but there’s a flicker of something dark in his eye.
“It was fine. I liked it. But then someone else caught his eye and he left me, and I missed him terribly and did everything I could to get him back. Threw myself at him, and even though he was happy to fuck me, it didn’t matter. Eventually, I moved on. Peter and I got a new apartment, I focused on him and helping him, and…”
Trailing off, the tears well up back in my eyes.
Bradley moves on to my legs and takes extra care while massaging my feet and easing some of the tension I carry there.
“Harris,” I choke out. “W-When I found out Peter owed him money, I was so angry. I thought we’d left him behind, but he was still in our lives. He was feeding into Peter’s addictions and reversing all the work I did to help him, and then when the debt got so big, Harris came to me and he told me if I slept with him for every grand Peter owed, he’d forget the debt. That was the price of Peter’s freedom.”
Bradley’s hands pause on my knee and they tighten briefly, then they continue up my thigh, but he never reaches too high. The sponge cleans and his hands soothe right after.
“I said no,” I whisper. “Told him I’d never touch him ever again, and he hit me and told me I’d made a mistake. I couldn’t imagine what he was going to do, but then Peter was gone and suddenly, the only way to save him was the robberies.”
I lift both hands to my face, curling my fingers together into a fist and pressing it to my mouth. Glancing up, I meet Bradley’s concerned gaze.
“That was an impossible choice,” Bradley says quietly. “You were given an impossible choice and I’m so sorry.”
I shake my head back and forth. “No, because if I’d just swallowed my pride, swallowed this idea that I was better, then none of this would have happened. No robberies, no shooting…” I glance down to the pink scars on Bradley’s chest. “No running with the diamonds, and my brother wouldn’t be dead.” A sob surges out of me, but no more tears come. Clutching at my chest, I gasp deeply. “Oh, my God.”
“Zira, I don’t think that’s true. Harris would have found a way to lock you into that disgusting deal for the rest of your life. You did what you had to do.”
“Did I?” I gasp weakly. “B-Because I still got screwed and Peter’s…” Closing my eyes, another dry sob rises in my chest.
“What happened to Peter at the house?”
Of course. Bradley has no idea what really happened. To him, it probably looks like Peter killed Adam and then died or something worse.
“Not the house.” Opening my eyes, I lock onto Bradley’s grounding gray eyes. “That was Harris.”
