I could see how much Robert wanted me to help Bruno. I took one look in those helpless eyes and knew I had to do something. But what? Oh, I know that I have managed to attract my share of camp followers. People have even been known to look up to me upon occasion. What can I say? I inspire a kind of reverence.

If you asked Curt, he would tell you that I had more than a little to do with resolving his problems with Brian. If you asked Brian, he would tell you the same thing. That was as flattering as it was true. But this...this was different. This wasn't the case of a love gone astray. This was dire.

And I had no bloody idea what to do about it.

Bruno was admittedly in a bad way. Unfortunately, Robert wasn't very far behind. Robert knelt on the floor beside Bruno, and it was truly heartbreaking to watch how valiantly he struggled to contain his own misery.

"I killed him," Bruno repeated, his voice sounding like it had been ripped from his chest.

"You didn't. You couldn't kill anybody. Right, Jack?" Robert turned to me with something like fear in his blue-gray eyes and I didn't have the heart to contradict him. But I think he saw the truth in my face.

I wasn't sure at all that Bruno hadn't killed someone.

Now that I had admitted that possibility, I was suddenly able to take action. "Help Bruno up off the floor, Robert."

"What are you going to do, Jack?" I could tell what Robert was thinking. I could at least reassure him that much.

"I'm not taking him to the police, if that's what you mean, Robert."

Robert sighed. Bruno was in real danger of falling apart, and it was killing him not to be able to do anything constructive.

"I want you to pick out one of Bruno's favorite shirts, Robert. Can you do that for me?"

Robert nodded slowly, hope beginning to shine once again in those wounded eyes. "Something he likes. I can do that."

While Robert busied himself looking through Bruno's meager belongings in the closet, I wrapped my arms around Bruno, who didn't look terribly steady now. I wasn't a bit surprised to find that Bruno flinched from my touch, and he would have gotten away completely if not for my steadfast grip on his shoulders.

"Ssh...I'm just trying to keep you warm, Bruno. You look so awfully cold. Are you cold, sweetie?"

He stopped shivering abruptly and stared at me, his luminous blue eyes glistening with tears. "Not as cold as Paul."

Robert froze where he was rummaging through Bruno's things and did a slow turn. "Paul? Wasn't that the name of the guy you-"

"Yeah. I killed the man I loved. You feel like running yet, Robert?" Bruno sounded whipped, as if he expected Robert's censure, and eventually, the loss of his love.

"No! I wouldn't! I mean, I wouldn't," Robert repeated, this time more softly. He was the very picture of anguish, and I wondered if I wasn't holding the wrong person now.

"Funny. You're better 'n me," Bruno said bitterly. "He was better 'n me, too," he added, his voice trailing off as though he were listening to something we couldn't hear.

That made Robert angry. I could see the carefully banked fire in his eyes spring to life. "He was not! No one who beats the shite out of you could be better than you!"

"You don't know what I did," Bruno protested.

"Neither do you, I think. You told me how he treated you. Abused you. Made you do degrading things. All because you had the bloody bad luck to fall in love with him."

"You don't know everything," Bruno whimpered.

"Then tell me. Tell me all of it," Robert pleaded.

*****

"Some people love each other. We didn't seem to know how. So we fought. Over and over. The last fight we had..." Bruno's voice grew hushed, his eyes distant again. Staring at something we couldn't see.

"Please don't kick me out, Paul. I've got no place to go." Bruno whimpered deep in his throat. Robert glanced at me anxiously, and I nodded imperceptibly. Bruno was indeed lost, somewhere between where we were and where he'd been.

"I hated myself for begging. You shouldn't have to beg someone to love you." Robert's face turned grim, his mouth a taut line.

"I ended up in some guy's flat. He liked something to suck before he went to sleep," Bruno said, his sensual lips twisting in a caricature of carnality.

I thought I was going to have to restrain Robert. He clearly objected to Bruno's subjugation at the hands of this faceless nobody. But I could have told him, we do what we must sometimes...just to survive.

"Paul owed money to a lot of bad people. A lot of very bad people," Bruno emphasized with a grimace. "I should know. We worked for some of them.," he said quietly.

"God, if it hadn't been for the fucking drugs...but it always came down to the drugs. Paul pissed away the money...and then he pissed off the wrong people."

"That's when Frank made me an offer I couldn't refuse," he said bleakly.

Bruno closed his eyes, so still that it frightened me, but then, a muscle jerked in his cheek, stimulated by memories too terrible to tell. "Paul?"

Bruno reached out and picked up something that wasn't there. What was it? He raised his fingers to his nose and sniffed. "Still smoking the same cigarettes," he said almost dreamily. Sense memory could indeed be a treacherous thing, especially if it led to a re-enactment of the tragedy that shaped his young life.

He dropped whatever it was. "Have to do it, Paul. Have to. They're watching. Always watching."

He picked up something else that we couldn't hope to identify. "Cheers, Paul. Thanks for the phone number."

Ah, a phone. Bruno was searching for someone. But who? The elusive Paul? Or someone else?

As if he were sleepwalking, Bruno reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter. Robert tried to grab it out of his hands, but I held him back. This could be important.

Bruno flicked his lighter, the flame flaring brightly in the dimly lit bedroom. He pantomimed setting fire to something and stood back, as if to watch it burn. "Ashes to ashes, Paul." Papers? Pictures?

"You and B were my best friends," Bruno said, the strain of whatever he was reliving beginning to show.

"What are you doing, baby?" Robert couldn't help but whisper.

"I had to burn the picture," he replied, his eyes blind to us. "It was the only one I had. You and B. I loved you both...and I couldn't look at you anymore. Not now. Not when he asked me to-"

Bruno stopped suddenly, his entire body rigid. Robert cried out, "Asked you to what?"

"Frank wants you dead, Paul. You and B. You didn't go far enough, and you led us right to B, you stupid git! How could you do that to her?" Bruno dropped to his knees on the carpet, again addressing someone more real to him than we were. "How could you do that to me?"

"You should've said something, Paul. You should've said anything. Why the fuck didn't you tell me you loved me?"

*****

"Hello, lover. Long time no see."

Paul was sitting in a chair in front of the window. He didn't seem surprised to see me at all. Maybe he wasn't. I crouched down in front of him and picked up the cigarette lying in his lap. He didn't look well.

I placed the cigarette between Paul's lips and patted his cheek. The room was so fucking quiet, I could hear the leather of my jacket creak.  "You're pathetic. You know that, don't you?"

Paul laughed, but it was more like a sniff, really. Damn him for being so fucking aristo, even to the end. "Yes, it had begun to dawn on me."

He cupped his hands and lit his cigarette. "Thanks. So..." He blew smoke out through his mouth, managing to look like Joe At Home instead of the lazy sod that he really was. "...you're moving up in the world."

I couldn't help myself. I placed my hand over his, needing to make contact, needing to make him feel something. Instead he ignored me, opting to blow another fucking smoke ring in my direction. "Well, Bruno," he drawled, "I'd hoped for something better for you, true."

I didn't give him a bit of warning. I drew back my hand and hit him, catching the same side of his face that I'd caressed so tenderly moments before. That about summed us up, didn't it? Our whole relationship was love-hate. I loved him, but I couldn't stand what he'd become. Or what he was making me become.

I got to my feet and stalked away, intending to let him go. Let some other poor bastard deal with his crap. But he couldn't keep his fucking mouth shut.

"Oh, déjà vu." I turned my head so sharply, I almost got whiplash. "I'd been missing these little bouts with pain."

I flew across the room in a fury and punched him in the gut. He doubled over with a gasp.

That should have been the fucking end of it. But it wasn't.

*****

Bruno came back to us, albeit briefly, his breathing erratic and painful to hear. "B's teacher friend, Alan, the one she'd moved up to the north country with, was holding a shotgun on Frank at one end of the hallway. That fucking thug Steve was holding B at knifepoint, licking the side of her neck like she was a side of beef, at the other end."

"I should have let him go. He'd hit me before. So many times I lost count. But I should have let him go," Bruno sobbed.

"What did you do, Bruno?" Robert whispered. I gave him full marks for not judging Bruno without the rest of the story. He was doing better than I was with Bruno's tortured revelations.

*****

The bullet zinged through the air and slammed into the opposite wall of the dark corridor. B screamed Paul's name when he stumbled through the doorway, the hole in his chest leaking blood all over his white shirt.

"I'm awfully sorry, love."

Those were the last words he ever said. Paul slid down the wall, blood bubbling over his lips.

I stepped into the hallway, brandishing my gun, and pointed it right at Alan. "Drop the gun, Alan."

B cried, "No!" Shit, she had tears in her eyes, too, but I couldn't let that distract me. She couldn't choose the teacher over me. She loved me.

Problem was, she loved him, too. More. Different.

Steve, low-life loser that he was, must've thought he was on my side. "Put it down or she's dead."

I didn't even think. I whirled around and shot him dead. I watched him fall, but it didn't feel real. I didn't feel real anymore.

I vaguely registered Alan saying, "Shit!" Right before Frank turned on me.

"I'll fuck you, you fucking twisted little prick!"

He wanted to take me out, but I got to him first. I shot him. Twice. I wasn't thinking at all now. Just feeling. This incredible grief took over, and I could feel my throat close up. Alan wasn't about to let me forget that he was there. "Bruno, look, I'm putting my gun down." He slowly lowered his shotgun to the floor, but he never took his eyes off me.

Choking back a sob, I turned to face B.  "I love you, B. You and me, all right?"

I aimed my gun at Alan. But B shrieked and leaped in front of him, shielding him with her body. Now the barrel of my gun was practically in B's face. She was crying, but she didn't flinch.

"Don't stand there, B. That's a stupid fucking place to stand."

I could barely see for the tears that stood in my eyes. I felt my gun hand drop bit by bit until it was down. I couldn't kill B. I loved her.

Then I thought, I loved Paul...and I killed him. Oh, God, Paul. I started to cry silently, the cords in my neck straining to contain the pain that was like a living thing inside of me. I knelt down beside Paul. So still. So fucking still. I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

I really did love him. But now it was time to say goodbye...and leave him behind. I thought, he looks so cold. He ought to have his coat.

Then I remembered. He wasn't going to need anything ever again.

I was almost out the door when B called me. "Bruno, wait. Where're you going?"

Suddenly I was shaking, a wretched combination of rage and fear and sadness. I turned on my heel and aimed my gun at Alan again. Poor stupid Alan. He wasn't good enough for B. No one was. Not even me. But that didn't stop me from wanting to take her away.

"Teacher!" I screamed, my voice hoarse from crying. Tears streamed from my eyes, but I didn't care. Alan was coming closer...

"Give me the gun, Bruno." Oh, he was good. His voice was so soft. That must be his teacher voice. The one that lets him talk to the poor, psychotic kids in his class.

"Shut up! B, tell him you're coming with me-"

"I'm not letting her go anywhere, Bruno."

"B, you tell him!" I was nearly hysterical with grief now. Paul was lying dead on the floor a few feet away, his still-open eyes accusing me. Just the way they always did. Not good enough. Nothing I did was good enough.

"Not with you. Not with anyone," Alan continued quietly.

"B, please!" I wailed. Dammit, how could she choose him over me? How could she leave me alone, like Paul did? Why the hell didn't anyone want me? Choose me? Keep me?

"Never again," Alan vowed.

Now we were face to face, him and me. My gun was aimed right between his eyes. He must have been scared shitless, but he didn't move. "You'll never understand her," I wept.

"Maybe," Alan admitted. "But I'll die before I let anything happen to her. I promise you. Help us."

It took everything I had to resist shooting him. I could have. So easily. I could have shot him dead and taken B against her will. But she would have hated me. She, who once treated me like her personal pet, would have taken her revenge...by taking back her love.

I needed that. Even if I never saw her again.

I released the hammer of the gun and lowered it. Once and for all. It was over. I was over. I had just turned eighteen a few weeks ago, but I'd managed to fuck up my entire life.

*****

"Did you ever see her again?" Robert asked.

"No," Bruno replied, chewing on his bottom lip. "So now you know. Don't you want to get the hell out?"

Robert shook his head. "No."

Bruno took a deep breath that made his chest hurt. "Why?"

"Cause I love you."