Page 84 of The Dirty Saint

“You think this is it,” Briggs asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know.”

But I can’t envision coming back from this.

“You’re a saint,” I say as Brianne hands me my daily coffee.

“Only the best for my baby cousin.”

I take a sip and then place my mug down. “I’m really not much younger than you, you know?”

Briggs makes the letter V with her fingers. “What is it, two years, give or take?”

I scoff at her, and she smiles.

I take another sip.

“Noah’s babysitter Addison’s funeral was yesterday, but I couldn’t bring myself to go.”

“I’m sure her family understands.”

I let out a huff.

“Yeah.”

Briggs takes my hand and forces me to look up at her. “Tell me what you’re thinking right now, Ez.”

“I’m thinking that I should get a better security system to keep you the fuck out of my house.”

“No, seriously, Ez. What’s running through your mind?”

Lana.

Addison.

Joey.

Everything.

“I should’ve confessed right then and there.”

“Ezra—”

“If I had just given him when he wanted, then Lana never would have had to die.”

“You don’t know that.”

But I do.

Because I lived in that cell, too.

I was beaten by the same men.

I was raped by the same monsters.

There was no mercy. And the only reason I survived was because the man I cared about died.

“You have survivor’s guilt, Ez.”

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