Chapter 14
Bria
I woke up feeling different today. Clearheaded.
I sat up slowly, testing myself. No tremors. No nausea. No feigning.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood. The floor was cool beneath my bare feet. I walked to the window and looked out at the mangroves.
I wanted to go outside.
I wanted to feel the sun on my face.
I almost forgot the door was open. After the Lena incident, Kael had allowed me access to the rest of the house under the condition that I didn't try to leave the property. I was fine with that.
I bounced down the stairs, made my way down a long hallway, and walked through the huge living room. Kael's place was a mansion. After a good three-minute walk, I found Kael in the kitchen, right where I knew he’d be. He always brought me breakfast around this time. Rosa didn't arrive until lunch.
He was standing at the counter, pouring coffee into a mug, his back to me. He wore a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, exposing his forearms. The scratches I'd left on him weeks ago had faded to thin white lines.
He turned when he heard my footsteps.
"Morning," he said, his voice neutral. "You're up early."
"I want to go outside."
He paused, mug halfway to his lips. "Outside?"
"To the dock. Just for a little while." I crossed my arms, trying to look confident. "I need air. Real air. Not just open windows."
Kael studied me for a long moment. "You're sure you're ready?"
"I'm sure."
He set down the mug and walked toward me. His hand came up, and I flinched slightly—old habit—but he just tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
"Alright," he said softly.
He walked over and opened the double doors that led to the backyard with no further argument.
I hesitated, wondering if he would close the door before I could step out, but Kael wasn't like that. Not with me.
The sun hit my face like a warm hand.
I closed my eyes and let myself feel it. The breeze off the water carried the smell of salt, earth, and green foliage. I could hear birds in the mangroves and the gentle lap of waves against the dock.
I opened my eyes and walked to the end of the dock, Kael following a few steps behind.
I sat on the bench. He sat beside me.
We were quiet for a long moment.
"I forgot what this felt like," I said finally.
"What?"
"Being... normal. Just sitting outside enjoying the breeze without feeling like there's a monkey on my back."
Kael didn't say anything. He just watched the water.
I turned to look at him. "Really, I think I asked you this before, but why are you so good to me?" I felt my throat tightening at the question.
He stared into my eyes for a second. He was so intense. "Because I saw you laughing at a gas station with Maya once, and I couldn't forget you."
I stared at him. "That's it? That's your reason?"
"That's the beginning of it." He turned to look at me. "The rest is... watching you fight. Watching you survive. I can see you feel weak, but you keep going. You're not weak, Bria. You're the strongest person I've ever met."
I felt tears prick my eyes. "I'm not strong. I'm a mess. I'm—"
"Everybody is a fucking mess."
I watched the water for a long time before I spoke again.
"I wasn't always like this, if that isn't obvious. I'm smart. My parents were loving. I had a good childhood," I said, breaking the silence. I picked at a splinter in the dock beneath my hand. "I didn't wake up one day and decide I wanted to be an addict."
He stayed quiet.
"Darius liked to party. I met him when I was seventeen. Every weekend there was a club, somebody's birthday, somebody renting a section, somebody with money to blow." I laughed, but there wasn't anything funny about it. "The first time he offered me cocaine, I told him no."
I smiled faintly. "He called me scared. Said I needed to loosen up. So I did."
I shrugged one shoulder. "It wasn't even that great the first time. It just made me feel... uncontrolled. I didn't like the feeling of not being able to catch my own thoughts in my head."
The breeze lifted my hair across my face.
"Then it became every party." I swallowed hard. "Then it stopped being just parties. He started cheating. I kept catching him texting girls. Finding pictures. Lipstick on his shirts. Then he'd swear I was crazy."
Kael's jaw tightened, but he didn't interrupt.
"After that... he started hitting me for not knowing my place.
The first time, he cried afterward. Bought flowers.
Promised it'd never happen again." I smiled to myself.
"I actually believed him. The cocaine changed, too.
It stopped being something we did together. It became something I did by myself."
I stared at the water until it blurred.
"Every time he cheated... I'd use. Every time he hit me... I'd use. Every time I hated myself for staying... I'd use."
I wiped quickly at my eyes before the tears could fall. "It was the only time my head got quiet. For a little while, I couldn't feel embarrassed. I couldn't feel stupid. I couldn't feel ugly. I couldn't feel anything."
I laughed softly through my nose. "You know what's crazy? I don't even remember when I stopped getting high because I wanted to." I looked over at him. "I just remember getting high because I didn't want to be me anymore. It gets real easy to lose yourself when you don't know who you are yet."
A sob escaped my throat before I knew it was coming.
"I hurt so many people. My parents. Maya, my best friend. Sometimes I purposely drew her back into the dark with me so it wouldn't feel so lonely. What kind of person does that make me?"
"You fucked up, yeah," Kael said without sugarcoating it, and somehow that made me feel better.
A broken laugh slipped out of me. "Damn. Tell me how you really feel."
I wiped my wet face.
He watched me quietly for a moment before speaking again. "Okay. Since you need to hear it: it makes you selfish. It makes you weak sometimes. Manipulative. Cruel, even. Those things done because of your addiction don't magically erase the damage you caused, Bunny."
Every word landed like another stone in my chest. "I know."
He continued. "But as long as you wake up every day wanting to be different..." His voice softened. "That's not who you have to stay."
I stared at him.
"You don't get to erase what you did." He reached over and took my hand, rubbing his calloused thumb across my skin. "But you do get to decide whether it was the last episode or the whole story."
I stared at him for a long time—the man who had choked a woman in front of me, who had killed without flinching, who had built an empire on blood and fear. And yet here he was, sitting on a dock in the morning sun, holding my hand like I was something precious, telling me I could rewrite my story.
"I've watched you brutally murder people," I said slowly, my voice barely above a whisper.
"I've seen you choke a woman. I've seen you threaten to cut off someone's face and send it to their mother.
How can you be this, too?" My voice cracked.
"This gentle. This patient. This kind. How can both of those things exist in the same person? "
"Monsters have duality, too, Bunny." He looked out at the water. "They're not just one thing. They're not just the ugly parts. They're the beauty in horror, the tenderness in violence, all tangled up together."
I shook my head. "I wouldn't call you a monster."
"I am." He said it without shame or apology. "I've done monstrous things. I will probably do them again. I like doing them. I have blood on my hands that will never wash off. I'll just never be that way with you."
I simply nodded because I didn't have the words to respond to that. Not yet. But I had another question. "Can I ask you something else?"
"Anything."
"Are you ever going to let me go?"
He was silent for a moment. Then he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. "I don't know if I can."
I didn't know how to feel about that, so I just let it be. I closed my eyes, shut off my brain, and enjoyed the feeling of the sun on my face while sober.