Bralex

Bad condition

The three of them are still sitting in the living room. "Uhmm Alex." Lis stammers and Alex looks up. "Are you okay, because Kathy said you told her about abuse and traumas and such stuff." She continues. "Ummmm." Alex sighs. "No, I'm fine. I was just overreacting." Alex moves in her chair nervously and they all know she's lying. "You sure?" Lis asks. "Yes, I'm gonna go to bed now." Alex stands up and walks out of the room. "She's definitely not fine." Lis says. "Yeah, but what do you wanna do? She doesn't wanna tell, so we just let her in peace." Kathy casually says. "But what if it's true. Don't you care about her?!" "I do care about her, but if she has a problem she needs to talk. If you don't mind I'm going home now." Kathy leaves.
Upstairs Alex is calling Bradley...
"How did they react?" "I-I couldn't tell them. We just met for the first time in 25 years." "But they are you're sisters." Bradley says. "I know, but Kathy looked like she was judging me or something." Bradley sighs. "When are you coming home?" "Tomorrow." "Ok. Great. Now go to sleep it's almost twelve. I love you." "I love you too." Alex hangs up. "You're in a relationship?" A voice suddenly asks. It was Lis, she had listened through the door. "What are you doing here?" Alex asks. "I know, that you lied to us before and I care enough about you, that I wanna know what happened to you." Lis sits down next to Alex's feet on the bed and Alex sighs. "You really wanna know?" "Yes." "And you're not gonna tell mom or Kathy?" "I promise." "Ok, this is not gonna be easy so no hard reactions, ok?" "Ok." "So after I moved to New York I met Jason, my ex husband and 2 years later I was married and pregnant. Lizzy was 1 when I started working on the show. You know my co-anchor, right?" "Bradley Jackson?" "No. Mitch." "This Kessler guy?" "Yes, so we became really close friends over the first two years and Mitch had never been honest towards his wife, he was a cheater. He had affairs with so many different women. So one time we were on a remote in Berlin and I felt like shit, because something really bad happened. Mitch promised to take care of me and because I didn't know about everything back then I trusted him as a friend. Anyway, he got me really drunk that night and took advantage of that." "What do you mean?" "So I said I wanted to get back to my hotel room and he said he'll take me there. We really went to his room and as I started to realize what was about to happen it was already too late. I tried to leave, but somehow it ended with him inside of me." Alex takes a deep breath. "So this was going on for 15 fucking years. And if I didn't want to- he would throw glasses at me or hold guns to my head. Then my boss started to pressure me and threatened me with things that would happen if I didn't do what he wanted or follow his lead. So I got abused for 15 fucking years, constantly. Physically and Mentally. That already left scars. And 5 years ago we were in Tokyo and - you know what happened. So after 4 weeks or so I started to feel sick every morning and I ate a lot. Turns out I was pregnant. Of course I couldn't keep the child, because I never told anyone what happened, maybe out of embarrassment, I don't know. So I killed this innocent human, that was growing inside of me, who did nothing wrong." Alex starts to cry. "After the scandal last year and my divorce I finally found someone I could tell these things too, a person that didn't judge me, a person I trusted. Turned out that this person and I had a little more chemistry which led to this relationship. So at the beginning of last year I was supposed to fly away for work and I ended up in a plane crash. I'm the only survivor of this thing and after my injuries were away and I got to go home I kept having these panic attacks. I won't make this whole thing to long. I have PTSD and I was in therapy for over a year. So my life is pretty fucked up I think." Alex grabs her purse for a tissue paper. And Lis just crawls up next to her and wraps her arms around her. "I love you." She says and they both fall asleep like that. Like they used to. Lis always came crawling to Alex when she had nightmares or just couldn't sleep, that's when she used to crawl under Alex blanket, next to her and fall back asleep.

The next morning they both wake up from a knock on the door, it's their mom. "Omg. Did I sleep here?" Lis asks tired. "I think so." Alex rubs her eyes. "Can I come in?" The voice from outside asks. "Uhmm yeah of course." The door opens. "Lis what are you doing here?" their mom asks. "I don't know." "Well, I just wanted to say, that breakfast is ready." She smiles and leaves. Lis gets up and opens her ponytail. "About last night-" "Yeah?" "You can talk to me if you need anything, ok?" "I know Lis." They head downstairs.

3 hours later...
"You're gonna come back?" Lis asks as she hugs Alex. "I am. Bye mom!" "Goodbye." Alex gets into the cab and drives away. Her flight is pretty chilled and Alex's driver picks her up from the airport. "Hi John." She says to the receptionist of her building and gets into her elevator. On the way up she thinks about everything she told Lis. Then the door opens and Alex quietly walks into the living room where Bradley is sitting. She jumps up as she sees Alex and you could almost call it runs up to her and kisses her. "Hi, honey." Alex wraps her arms around her tiny body while Bradley has her head resting on Alex's shoulder. "I missed you." She talks into Alex's shoulders. "I missed you too." Alex smiles, kissing Bradley's hair. Bradley slowly pulls away. "And? How are they?" "I told Lis last night." Alex doesn't answer Bradley's question. "You did? How did she react?" "She cuddled up to me like we used to when we were kids." "See, I told you it's just your sister." "But I don't think Kathy was happy to see me there." "She wasn't?" "No, she always was jealous of my life, I don't know why." Alex walks into the kitchen, Bradley following her. "She told you this?" "In fact yes. She did." "Well, she's gonna get over it." "I wouldn't be so sure about that. She hasn't for 49 years."

Later that evening Alex is sitting on the bed with her computer, researching. "Do we have aspirin?" Bradley asks from the bathroom where she's going through the cabinet. "I think so." Bradley keeps going through the drawers until something falls into her hands. It's a box of antidepressants. Bradley walks into the bedroom. "Alex, what are these doing in the bathroom?" She has the pills in her hand. Alex sighs. "Have you been taking these?" Alex looks down on her lap. "Why didn't you tell me? Where did you even get these?" Bradley sits down on the bed, facing her. "I uhmm.." "Why didn't you tell me, that it got worse?" "I didn't want you to worry." "Well, Alex that is something I should be worrying about. Why are you taking these?" "I started doing something really, really bad." Alex looks down. "What did you do?" Alex rolls up her sleeve and reveals her wrist. It's full of scars and bruises. "Alex what is this?" Bradley is in shock. "How does it look to you?" "Have you been hurting yourself?" Bradley grabs Alex's wrist and strokes over the scars. "Ouch." Alex squints her eyes. "Look Bradley, im not gonna lie to you anymore. I'm in a really bad condition and I don't know how long I can keep doing this, so I tried to ease the pain." "By causing more pain?!" "No, it's different pain. Not more pain. It's just really hard for me right now." "But you're gonna fight through this, right?" Alex sighs. "I'm tired." She says and lays back. But Bradley is awake, thinking about Alex and how she can help her.