Devoid [Bruno Mars]

Chapter twenty-five

“I didn't love her,” Bruno said, seemingly out of nowhere. It took a second to realize he was speaking about Josephine. “What I felt for her, it was more like seeing a homeless person on the street. You care for them, wish they had a better life, but you don't necessarily love them, you know? She had dreams, reminding me of when I was young. She wanted to be anything where there was no studying involved.”

“What, a home body?”

“Yeah, actually.” He smiled faintly. “She was tired of researching, and just wanted to stop. Take a moments break. She told me there was nothing as great as the mind, and to control it was sickening. She knew a way to escape Grim.” He stopped.

“She knew how to get out of there?”

“She wouldn't tell me how until I agreed to it. But we couldn't bring you. Joseph was watching you very closely, whether you knew it or not.” His lip curled when he said Joseph's name, like it left a bitter taste in his mouth. “Joseph loved Grim. We couldn't risk escaping without him ratting us out to the Incurses or stopping us. But I wouldn't leave without you.” His voice softened at the last sentence.

My eyes widened at the realization. “I was standing in her way. That's why she gave me hell.”

“Partly,” he said, a bit of amusement coming into his tone. His eyes gleamed over, as though he was remembering a distant memory. “But there was something she wanted more than to leave Grim. She wanted to love someone.”

“And she loved you.” I thought about how she only paid attention to him, only him. It all made sense.

“Not really,” Bruno said, surprising me. “At least, not to me. She loved the idea of me. She wanted so badly to connect with someone, she actually would have with any man that came along.”

“That doesn't make sense,” I controverted. “They had other—male I'm sure—celebrities there before you, why couldn't she connect with them?”

The low, softness of his voice returned, “Remember ours was a special case.”

That was true. Grim's hostages usually were there for only a couple of days but me and Bruno—we stayed there for perhaps months. Plenty enough time for Josephine's dream of love to blossom into a flower of reality, and for her to despise the one who was stealing what she waited so long for.

“She said I was gifted. Other than to make girls swoon with my looks and voice,” he grinned sideways, “I can. . . feel future things.”

“What?” I jerked his arm. We stopped underneath a streetlamp which veiled us in an orange light. Bruno faced me with raised eyebrows. I studied him. He was serious.

“It's sort of like foreboding,” he told me. “In Grim, I always had the feeling that you and I would get out. I didn't know how or when, but it just felt that way to me.” He stepped closer to me. “In the club, the reason why I was so protective over you—how I had Phil keep an eye on you and everything—I felt like something was going to happen. I didn't know what exactly but it's just this weird sense I get. And when I thought you left me, I thought that was what that weird sense meant. You walking out my life. But now I know it wasn't. It meant Joseph's return.” 

I remembered in Grim Bruno had always spoke about the end of things, how he seemed so sure about something so unpredictable. “Do you feel something right now?”

He shook his head. “It comes and goes.” 

As we continued our walk, he told me other instances of his strange sixth sense. His earliest memory of it was how this feeling had helped him move to California from Hawaii. He always knew, in the back of his mind, that he would make it. But of course it was blurred by human emotion: doubts, second guesses, failure.