The Mass Murderer Who Loved Me

Chapter 22..

I knocked on the door of Brian's 'office' before letting myself in to the room, that was a little bigger than a janitors closet.

"Hey," I muttered, sitting down on the floor across from him.

"Hi!" he said happily, kissing my cheek, and shoving papers aside. "How was Menson today?" he asked.

"Pretty miserable...." I said, thinking back to those drawings he had shown me. "As usual."

"Aw," he said in a pitiful tone, "I'm sorry."

"Me too." I said with a sigh, putting my back to the wall. I closed my eyes for a few moments, and saw, like a flash, a man in his fifties, laying face up on a desk in a pool of blood, and a little boy looking on with a grin.... Damn Dr. Menson for showing me those pictures.

I took in a shaky breathe, realizing that the boy who had drawn that picture was sitting right in front of me, with a happy little smile as he took my hand in his, before flicking his black hair out of his eyes. He kissed the back of my hand seductively.

"Brian?" I breathed, closing my eyes again.

"Hm?" he mumbled. "I.... need to talk to you." I said. "What is it?" he asked, pulling his lips away from my hand, and looking at me quizzically.

"Well, Dr. Menson got to talking today and.... he showed me some things. And...." I didn't know what to say. The honest, terrible truth was, I wasn't really concerned if Brian DID murdered Dr. Nikolai. I knew, if he had, he did it for the right reasons....The only thing I was concerned about, was getting those kinds of dark images out of Brian's mind, so he could just be happy. So we could both be happy, Dr. Menson be damned.

"What did he show you?" Brian asked, sliding next to me, leaning his head against the wall, and staring into my eyes with his big blue ones.

"Y-your...." I looked into his eyes, and I felt more than concern. I felt love. It resonated so deep in his eyes I wondered how his hands could ever draw such images as the ones Menson showed me. "Drawings." I blurted, and I watched the expression on his face go from mildly pleasant, to crushed.

"Oh," he muttered. He turned his eyes away from me, and looked down at himself, and stayed silent.

"Brian?" I asked. "Are you okay?"

"No." he said. He sounded more upset than I had ever heard him before. He sounded almost on the brink of tears.

"I--I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up!" I said, trying to take that hopeless look out of his eyes. "It's just, Menson thought you were.... were really messed up, and I was concerned that you were maybe depressed or something, and--"

"Jo, it's fine. It's fine. I'm not depressed, or upset, or angry with you." He said, although he still sounded miserable. "Those drawings they.... they were private." He said at last.

"Well, Menson didn't think so...." I said. "I think he thinks you killed the man in them." I said, and Brian's expression didn't change. "Dr. Nikolai." I stated.

"Dr. Menson is an idiot." He said coldly.

"I- I know." I said. "It's just, that's what Menson thinks.... he thinks you killed him. D-did you?" I stuttered. He looked at me. His eyes were wracked with pain and guilt.

"No!" he said defensively.

"W-well then.... how did you know where he died? And how he died?"

"Because I was there." Brian stated simply. He looked away from me again.

"You were there?" I asked breathlessly. "Brian, look, I love you, you know that. I'm not trying to accuse you. I just.... have to know." I begged. "Please explain this to me."

"I...." he said slowly. "I don't want to keep secrets from you." He said. "I'm sorry. It's just, what happened to Dr. Nikolai was really.... it was really hard for me." I nodded, and I took his hand.

"You can trust me." I said quietly. He smiled weakly. "Okay." Brian whispered.

"I was there the night Dr. Nikolai killed himself." Brian said. "I was there, because he was my foster father. "He took me in, after I came to this school, and over this past summer he killed himself. I didn't know how to take it.. I blamed myself."

He continued, "I came down stairs one night, and he was in his office. I went in, to ask him if he wanted to toss a football out back. He had a big yard. He liked football...." Brian trailed off. His hand was really cold, and clammy, and shaking a bit. "When I opened the door, he was sitting behind his desk, and holding a switchblade.... and he was staring at me. Just staring. I didn't know what to say, or to do. I didn't know how to stop him. He just said, 'I'm sorry. So, so sorry....' "And then he cut himself. He didn't scream. He didn't make a sound. He just sat there, and did it again. And again. I screamed. But he just slumped down in his chair, blinking slowly, and barely breathing. I called the ambulance, because that's all I knew how to do, but by the time they came it was too late, and they came in to find me sitting there, with him. They thought I killed him at first, but they found a suicide note in his desk, in his handwriting, and they decided that was enough to get me off the hook. In the note he apologized to me. He said he wasn't doing it to hurt me, and he wasn't doing it because of me. It was just something he needed to do. That he couldn't take the pain anymore. His wife had died only six months before, and I had always thought he had coped so well, but.... apparently...."

Brian trailed off, but then picked up again. "I drew the pictures to try and cope with it all. To try and sort out the feelings of guilt, and pain. But eventually looking at the drawings stared to hurt, more than it helped. I threw them all away about two weeks ago. That must have been how Menson got his hands on them. I guess he goes threw the trash or something...." Brian finished.

It made sense. It really did. Nikolai taking in a poor parentless boy like Brian, and trying to give him a home, and then realizing it was all too much, and taking his own life. But what didn't make sense was how Christine came into the whole thing. If Brian drew the pictures over the summer, then how had Christine ever seen them? School wasn't in session.

"Brian?" I asked.

"Huh?" he mumbled, toying with my hand in his lap.

"Christine was the one who first mentioned the pictures.... how did she get the chance to see them, if it happened over summer?" Brian got a confused look on his face. I know Christine had never brought it up with him, so this probably new news. "Well, Christine and I did date over the summer. The school's open all year round. Some kids live here after the school year ends. That's what Christine did. And after Nikolai died, I came back here, because I had no where else to go. That's when we started dating. We broke up about two weeks before you came here." Said Brian. "I suppose that's why. She must have seen my drawings, and gotten spooked."

"I guess so." I said. I felt a little relieved. Things made sense now, and Brian wasn't a psycho killer.

"I guess it was for the best." He said, laughingly, giving my hand a little squeeze.

"Yeah." I said grinning as much as I could, after getting so shaken up about the 'murder' of Dr. Nikolai.

"Want to go get something to eat?" he asked. "I'm really hungry." He said, patting his tummy.

"Yeah, sure." I said, laughing. And just like that the confusion was over, and we got back to being our normal selves again.

But I still have the feeling something bad will happen...

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