“Good. Make sure she gets something sparkly… and pink… It fits her…” she mumbled her eyes glazing over. The meds must be kicking in.
“Don’t worry about her, Bree. you know how she gets once the meds start working.” Dad smiled, the warmth of it alone radiated to me as I gently lay her hand beside her and stood from my seat.
“Do you think she’ll be okay?” I asked, looking at her and then back to him. The way mom had been acting lately made it seem like she wouldn’t make it. Though, I never would say it out loud.
“Bree…” Dad came to stand next to me, his hand landing on my shoulder as he turned me in toward his chest. Without hesitation, I wrapped my arms around him.
“I will always be here for you. I will always care for you, and I will always provide you with the things you need and want. You will always be Daddy’s little girl.”
I smiled against his chest as I hugged him a little tighter.
“Turn around. I have something for you,” he said softly as I turned around while he reached into his pocket.
Forcing myself to stay put, I waited as he placed a small pendant against my chest. It was a gold plated heart with little words scribbled across it.
“What does it say, Daddy?” I asked with excitement and curiosity in my voice.
“It says ‘You can always count on me.’ Things are going to get bad with Mom, but I want you always to remember, no matter how bad they get you can always count on me. Always.” His voice cracked as he turned me back around. This time it was he pulling me into an embrace.
“Always, Bree.”
I allowed his words to soothe me as I took every single one of them in—and they did.
I pulled myself from the memories, no longer able to digest what had happened. If John was really so bad, then why did he act like he cared? All those years he pretended to be something he wasn’t.
Picking up soap, I vigorously scrubbed my body, trying to rid myself of the emotions swirling within me. I wanted every memory of who he was scrubbed from my mind. I wanted Zerro gone. I wanted the pain to go away. It was completely consuming me. I should’ve known it was all too good to be true.
*
Four days had passed since I even uttered a word to Jared or Zerro. I refused to talk to the very people who told me the things that had ripped my world apart. It was bad enough both of them played a part in the mix somehow. Zerro had killed my father, and I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to handle it.
I had just walked into the bedroom we were supposed to be sharing though we weren’t. I made him sleep on the couch, too afraid I might slit his throat at night while he was sleeping.
Stripping off my shirt and shorts, I stood before him in my bra and panties. I turned around narrowing my eyes, ready to head into the bathroom. Was I ready to talk about this? Ready to let it go? All I had done for the past four days was to think. Think about all the fucked up things in my life. I was being pulled in five different directions. Part of me said it was okay to love Zerro and that he had been the good guy in killing John, but there was another part of me. Part saying it was wrong, and even though he wasn’t my father, I should love him regardless simply because he was there for me when no one else was.
“Bree, we should talk. Talk about everything,” Zerro said. His voice was full of pain, and I’m sure if I looked at him, he would be pained by everything I was going through. It wasn’t the point though. He was the cause of the pain. It didn’t matter if John wasn’t my dad. He had still killed someone who had raised me my entire life. He had still killed the last breathing person who loved and cared about me as much as my mother had. I had lost so much, and for what?
Turning on my heels, I looked at him. Really looked at him. “There is nothing to talk about. The pain I see in your eyes is for yourself. For once in your life, you did something you might actually regret. You did something that broke me and ripped me from you.”
I had been nothing but understanding of his need for vengeance, but somewhere inside of me, I hoped and prayed he could let it go and hoped his need for love was more than his need to shed blood. I was wrong.
Removing my bra and panties, I watched them fall to the floor, and his eyes grew wide with unknown desires. The man I had loved was standing before me… and I was bare to him as I was. Yet I still knew I would never be enough.
“We can fix this, Bree. We can be whole.” His voice was pleading with me. Was he trying to save us after he had shoved us head first into this world of blood? Once something was broken, it would never be as strong as it once was. I turned the faucet on to scolding hot and jumped into the shower ignoring him.