Page 91 of Break Me (Brayshaw High 5)

“Zoey is too much like us, loyal to a fault. Honest. She doesn’t realize it yet because she’s not around anyone to hear the word mom, we have no mothers, but she’ll see it soon, with Raven, and then who knows what will follow. But it’s just a word.” He shakes his head fiercely. “That girl right there.” He speaks of Victoria. “She’s the reason Zoey was born.”

I expect him to stop there, but Captain opens himself up a little more.

“It doesn’t matter what she calls her, what that little girl feels is the love of a mother. Victoria is her mother, in every way that counts, and more.” Captain looks my way.

The corner of my mouth lifts, and my nostrils flare so I don’t tear up in front of him. “She’s very lucky.”

“I’m lucky,” he replies instantly. “We’re lucky. She’s just a child, getting what every child should. There should be no luck in that.” The despondency in his tone is easily deciphered.

“And yet places like Brayshaw, and the Brayshaw group home exists. Because even though no child should be raised in hate or anger or pain... we are.” I don’t realize I was whispering until the last word leaves and I force a laugh.

I stand, but Captain doesn’t let me pass. I look up and he gives a small smile.

“You’ve been through some shit, more than I know, but you’re not hardened or bitter.” He shakes his head, true, honest perplexity clear in his tone. “How?”

“If you’re worried your little girl will grow and—”

“I’m not,” he cuts me off. “I know she’ll be okay, better than. I want to know about you. How are you... you? Caring and gentle. Good.”

My lips pinch into a tight smile as my shoulders lift and hold. “I had a brother who loved me, who I loved back. He told me our life was not what life was about, that we’d have more. I don’t think he believed it, but I believed him, and when things were dark, his words gave me light,” I share.

“That’s not all,” he guesses.

I hesitate at first, and then decide I want to share. He cares enough to ask, so that’s something.

“It would have been easy to fall into the ugly surrounding us, and sometimes it took a lot of self-convincing to remember my brother’s promises, but living with what we did, it made the world around me so much clearer. It only took one glance or one nervous conversation of no importance with kids at school or wherever, to know they lived with darkness, too.” I look off. “Their eyes were a little dead, and I realized they didn’t have a brother like mine, someone to give them hope... a North Star to believe in, to... seek out for guidance when they felt lost.”

“So you gave them one.” Understanding, maybe a bit of realization, brings creases to his forehead. “You were strong for strangers. You helped them see there’s more. You were the hope to lost souls.”

An unexpected stir builds beneath my ribs, and I meet Captain’s gaze again.

“I tried.” My lips pull into a one-sided smile. “It was only words, a smile or someone to sit with at lunch, play with at recess.”

“And the idea of more, the possibility of hope not lost. You gave them something they could reach for in the dark if all they had was themselves and the sky above them. That’s a fucking lot, Brielle.”

“It wasn’t really,” I say quietly. “But it was all I had to offer.”

Captain nods, his expression tight, a richer sentiment flashing across him, one I have no idea how to read it’s so profound. “I know you could be happy here. Do you?”

“That’s all I wanted.”

Concern draws his brows together, and he inches closer. “Wanted?”

I open my mouth, but close it.

Why did I say wanted?

Do I not want that?

Do I want more?

Captain’s face grows serious. “I can see what’s happening, Brielle. We all can.”

Tension buds low in my stomach, seeking a place on the surface as the flowers in the garden before us.

“As far as what?”

His eyes cut across the place where Maddoc and Royce are waiting in a long line at a snack shack.

“He’s not easy to handle.” Captain’s tone is firm, but worry weighs heavy in his words. “He’s the toughest person I know. The bravest, boldest, but he’s... not easy to handle. He fucks up when he feels.”

I shift in the seat, my eyes sliding to Raven who sits only a space away, focused on us.

I look back to Captain. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because there’ll be a time when you need to remember it.”

Is that not what I’ve been doing?

Not that he’s aware.

Or maybe he is.

No secrets among them, right?

“You sound so sure, Captain.”

“That’s because I am.” His response is instant. “I need you to understand that what feels like the end, is always the beginning. It’s where he has to be pushed back, or he’ll get lost.”