Our Bruised Bodies | Bradley Bradshaw

ACT THREE - PART TWELVE

Here is one more chapter for you. Cheers!

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"You're welcome." Grace muttered sarcastically, her eyes fluttering open into the dark room after the light from under the door had vanished too. She sat up in bed and threw the blanket back, before letting her legs slip out to touch down on the ground.

Her room was still the same, navigating it in the dark wasn't difficult, especially because Maverick didn't think about closing the curtains in the first place. Her fingers brushed over shelf, her eyes moved past framed pictures, books, little souvenirs her father had send her or brought home himself. The wall behind her office desk in the corner was made up just of postcards, the colour of the wall behind could only be guessed.

Moving over to the window, Grace sat down on the pillowed bench there, more a sideboard really. Maverick had built it for her, after she pleaded with him for months after seeing it at one of her friend's houses. Even the milky white curtains to be a bit hidden should someone enter the room, were still in place, another set of curtains right in front of the actual window. She had pulled the milky white curtains to the side a bit, only to lift her legs onto the pillowed sideboard too. One leg pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around it, while the other rested on the soft pillows.

The moon was high in the sky, illuminating the side of her face in a harsh and clinical white light. Somehow, she felt it fitting. Maybe she was like the moon a bit, cold and unforgiving. Driven by rules, clinical in her execution. Unmoved. She gave nothing and all she offered to the world truly is a pale imitation of something that once brought life, that was alive once. Grace felt rotten on the inside, how should she ever create something that wasn't rotten at core too. Her heart was baren like the surface of the moon. Grace was that kind of person that would outlive everything and everyone, while wanting nothing more than to finally die too.

Maybe she was doomed with being the one that survived, the one that had to watch everyone she loved die and maybe, just maybe she knew it since the day she was born. Grace was this hopeless and clinical mask of something long dead. Destined to keep chasing but never truly reaching it. Destined to fall just as Icarus did.

I am my own corruption. I did this to myself. I blindly followed orders, followed the rules and that was what came of it. I killed merciless. Like a feral animal. Four people.

I'm an awarded murderer. Each ribbon, each medal they were covered in blood, dripping down on my no longer spotless white uniform. Each ribbon, each medal, they represented a life that was taken rather than protected. I carry all my fault on my chest, for the world to see. But it wasn't enough. It would never be enough.

Four people. They left a mark on her soul, why not on her body for everyone to see too? Was it vain, to not allowing these people to mark her scarless milky white skin, to not allow them to forever stay with her visible for the world. Was it vain to try and hide how it had scared her soul by leaving her body spotless. Was she hiding those four people like a dirty little secret to be shamed off when she wasn't carrying their mark for the world to see. Did they deserve to be seen?

Grace wondered if she was vain. There was denying that she was fond of her long blond hair, or her icy blue eyes. Those sharp eyes and that shaped jaw line. There was no denying that she kept her body in shape, quiet liking her long legs and her tiny waist.

She wondered if one could be vain, and disgusted with the rot of her own soul, the corruption of her very being at the same time.

As if on autopilot, Grace pulled the curtains to the side and got up from the bench Maverick had build for her. She moved slowly through her room on her way over to the door, opening it so quietly, no one would hear it. Stepping out into the corridor, Grace considered going to Bradley's room, to have one last look, but in the end, she just loved over to the stairs. One step after the next, planting her feet down carefully, she knew that the stairs made sounds when one walked down too quickly, but she didn't want to wake anyone.