Page 16 of False Idols

“Yeah, what’s up?”

I turn to look at her and see an expectant smile on Sunny’s face. Next to Pastor Mike, it’s been the only friendly face I’ve seen today and I smile back at her. “Thanks for today. For, you know, sticking up for me.”

“That’s what friends do, Nev.”

“Thanks for being my friend, Sunny.”

“Always.”

I leave the room and head for the bathrooms. Sunny was right that it’s quiet. I only see a couple of girls on my way to the showers. When I enter the bathroom, it reminds me of summer camp. It’s muggy and I almost trip over a forgotten shower shoe. I see a few toiletry items and towels scattered at the sinks to the right of the door. Ahead of me, I see the row of shower stalls. There's someone else here, from the sound of the shower that’s running, but other than that I think it’s empty.

Guess I’ll be showering at night to avoid the crowd. I don’t really think I’d get a lot of peace showering in a bathroom full of people that hate me. Anxiety hits me just thinking about it, but I keep walking forward with a tight grip on my shower caddy. I can do this. I deserve this. I put an innocent man behind bars and now he wants his revenge.

Maybe this is all a part of it.

I should pay for what I’ve done, whether or not it’s Beau that does it. That means I can’t leave Bloom State. I drop my shower caddy on the little bench inside of the stall, pull the outer curtain closed and start to get undressed. I’m glad this shower isn’t like the ones at summer camp and actually is divided into two spaces. There’s a part with a bench and a hook that will keep my stuff dry and beyond that is the actual shower. I step into the shower and frown as I turn on the taps. At home I had a bluetooth speaker I used to play music on, but I’ll have to get used to the silence if I want to fly under the radar while I’m here. It takes a second for the water to heat up but finally it does and I step under the spray. I take in one deep breath and then another while I count to twenty, I hold my breath for a beat and then repeat the cycle. It helps with my anxiety—at least somewhat, and after a few minutes it slows down my heart rate enough that I can relax under the hot water beating down on me. It’s then that I start to cry.

I’m homeless.

My mom definitely kicked me out. I don’t even have to call her to find out.

I put Beau in prison. I stole four years of his life and now he’s going to take that from me. What that means, I don’t know, but I don’t think I’ll be able to stay at school if he doesn’t let me. How am I supposed to stay here with him threatening me the way he is?

I press my hands to my forehead and fight back a wave of nausea. I love Beau. How could I have done this to him? He’s not the kind of man that’s going to hurt me. Or at least, he wasn’t. He wasn’t before I put him away for a murder he didn’t commit.

My thoughts come faster and faster until there’s nothing but worry and fear in my brain and no breath work in the whole world will slow it down, so I turn the shower off and towel off. I can hear the other shower still going and try to stay quiet. I don’t want the other girls on the floor to know that I’m falling apart, not when Beau put on the show that he did today. There’s a reason for it. I think I owe him enough to play the hand he has stacked against me. It’s the least I can do after what I did to him, even if it hurts.

I deserve it.

There’s a bang and I jump, but it must have just been the door slamming shut behind the other person that was just in here. The other shower is off now. I wrap my towel around myself and reach for the curtain but the second that I do, someone rips it out of my hand. I scream and try to back away from them but they’re faster and the curtain ends up wrapped around my head.

“You’re trash, you lying bitch!” The voice is a girl’s, but I’ve never heard it before.

I swing the shower caddy out at them but I know it misses when it doesn’t hit anything. There’s a laugh before I’m shoved and I fall back and hit my face against the shower wall. My shower caddy hits the floor and I hear the sound of my shampoo and conditioner rolling away on the floor. I try to rip the shower curtain off of me, but I freeze when they speak again.

“No one wants you here. You should kill yourself for what you did.”

I half expect my attackers to hit me again, but they don’t. When I rip the shower curtain off my face there’s no one there. I can hear someone running and the lights turn off before the door bangs shut again. Even though whoever just hit me knows where I am, I can’t move. I’m paralyzed where I’m laying in the dark and it’s a long time before I force myself to get up. I almost slip a few times on my way to the door and when I finally get the lights on, I know I’m alone.

“Fuck,” I whisper and then wince, because I’m not someone that cusses. I can’t think of anything else to say, though, when I see my reflection in the mirrors above the sinks closest to the doors. I have a busted lip and I can feel a bruise forming on the side of my face. I touch it gingerly and start to walk towards the sink but stop and lock the door before I do. Whoever was here is gone, but I’m not going to be an idiot and let them have another go at me while I’m still in here. I wash the blood from my lip. Thankfully it stops bleeding when I hold a wad of paper towels to it. I pick up my shower caddy and get my shampoo and body wash back from where they went.

There’s already going to be questions from Sunny when I go back to the room. I don’t need her to know I’m absolutely lying to her when I tell her I slipped and fell. Once I’ve got my things together I look myself over in the mirror again. My lip is definitely busted, but it’s stopped bleeding and there’s a scrape on my knee and one on my elbow, but other than that I seem okay. I don’t know how big of a bruise the one I know I’ll have on the side of my face will be, but I’ll try and cover that with makeup as best I can so no one talks too much about it. I stop in front of the door but my hand hovers above the lock and I swallow hard.

If they’re out there…what if they’re waiting? What if, when I open the door, someone is going to swing on me again? My hand shakes and I don’t know what to do. I can’t stand here all night, but the risk of my attacker being on the other side of the door is pretty damn high.

If they’re there, you fight them. The lights are on in the hallway, so you’ll see them coming.

Fight them.

My hand curls in a fist. I don’t know what this urge is. Where the thought that I can fight anyone is coming from is beyond me. I don’t fight. I’ve never even thrown a punch in my life. But I know without a shadow of a doubt that if someone is on the other side of the door, I’ll hit them.

I will fight them.

I turn the lock and jerk the door open, but there’s no one in the hallway. I hurry back to my room on shaky legs and with a clenched fist that I don’t know how to use. When I get back to the room, the lights are off. There’s a nightlight Sunny must have plugged in by the door and its soft light is enough for me to get dressed for bed and put my things away without making too much of a racket. When I climb into bed, I don’t sleep.

I cry.

7

---