Page 43 of False Idols

The work is selfless to the core.

The names and families we preserve and serve are already gone. Their souls forgotten to another time. All the work we do is for the joy of it. For a job well done and the preservation of Bloom’s history. That feeds me on a level I never knew existed. But even with loving Professor Mrose and the class as much as I do, I’ve still thought about dropping the class but I can’t bring myself to do it. I don't want to let Beau win. So I don’t drop any of my classes, which is stupid. So very fucking stupid. I don’t know if I’ll have the same bravado in three months as I do right now, but I’m hopeful. It seems possible. At least, it is when I don’t think about Beau using his belt to tie my hands while he fucked me and came all over me.

“So you really just went to bed with that party going on?” Sunny asks me. We’re in the quad and she’s eating fries while I try to get some homework done. The party she’s talking about is the only night that I think about anymore. It’s been two weeks since then and I look up from my homework to look at her. I don’t know why she’s bringing that party up now. Sunny throws a fry at me and I clear my throat.

“Yeah, I did. Why?”

“You didn’t even talk to that cute boy?” she asks and flicks another fry at me.

I bat her fry away and raise an eyebrow. “Where is this going, Sunny?”

“Look, Nev. I just think a nice guy like that is a good move for you this year.”

“Playing matchmaker?” I ask with a smile. It’s nice that Sunny wants to try and give me something normal this year, but Dean isn’t for me. The only normal thing I want from Sunny is her friendship. That’s worth everything to me.

“A little,” she sighs and slumps forward on the table and picks up her phone. “But also he found me this week and was asking about you.”

“Why would he do that?” I ask and look back down at my paper and start to write again. I’m working on a headstone engraving that I did a rub of yesterday. Bloom is unique in its history. So many homesteaders and pioneers came through here when it was a trading post, and they either settled or kept moving on towards California or Utah. The ones that settled made the foundation for what Bloom is now, but so many pioneers were never given the chance to make Bloom their home. At least not while they were alive.

Our town has six cemeteries. All but two were founded with the settling of the town in 1803. That being said, there's a lot of graves no one has paid attention to and our class was given a map with over five hundred headstones that haven’t been cataloged yet. We are supposed to do fifty of them this semester. We will catalog the names and dates along with any details that stand out and input them into a shared database. It’s interesting, even if it’s depressing when I really stop and look at the dates for birth and death.

I frown and run a finger over the rice paper I used. Maxwell. That’s the only name for the one I have right now. I don’t know if it's their first name or their last. It’s for an infant, just a few months old. The headstone was so small when I did the rubbing. There wasn’t much else to it and I didn’t see any headstones marked mother or father near it, which makes it all the more heartbreaking. I don’t like to think of the baby being all alone. Where did their family go? Did they stay in Bloom or did they move on?

“Ummm, helloooo. Because he likes you!” Sunny exclaims and breaks through my brooding session over Baby Maxwell.

“I don’t think that’s true,” I lie and tuck Maxwell’s paper into my binder before I close it. A gust of wind blows hard and kicks leaves up around us. I shove my hair out of my face while Sunny scowls at me.

“He is so into you and you know it. He said that you have a class together.”

I nod. “We do.”

“Okay, so why haven’t I heard anything about him?”

I shrug and lean back to stretch my arms over my head and turn my face up to the sky. It’s a nice day. The sun is out and the weather is perfect. It’s easy to feel normal sitting here with Sunny talking about boys, but there’s a feeling I can’t shake that comes with Dean.

Talking about Dean unnerves me.

“There’s not much to tell. Dean is my friend. He’s a nice guy.” Again, I lie. Dean seems like he’s a nice guy. He hasn’t done anything weird or made any moves, but it feels like he’s waiting for something. He watches me almost as much as Beau does, too.

“You don’t think it’s weird that he found you on socials?” I ask her. Dean found me and I didn’t give it much thought. Not until he showed up at the party. He’s been nice in class too. Sticking by my side in Psych while Beau pretends I don’t exist, while the blonde girl I’ve seen with him giggles and leans into his side. My fingers clench. I hate that girl.

“Nah, he said I had Algebra with him, but I guess I didn’t notice. That class is really, really, huge, though,” she tells me and I pause. Sunny doesn’t sound worried. She’s a lot more normal than me and she didn’t let the guy she put in prison cut her and take her virginity, but then again…I don’t think many people can relate to what I’ve done with Beau, so being more normal than me is pretty easy. In any case, she’s not worried about Dean, so maybe I’m just overreacting.

“Dean is just a friend and I’d like him to stay that way,” I tell her.

Sunny looks like she might throw another fry at me but when she takes in the look on my face she stops and straightens up. “Oh, wow, you’re serious, huh?” She shoves the fry in her mouth and chews with a nod. “Okay, I’ll stop playing matchmaker, even if I think you two would be cute.”

I let out a sigh of relief. Sunny is actually going to listen to me. I’m not used to anyone listening to me. Not my mom, not the cops when I wasn’t sure about that night, not Beau when I tried to say I was sorry.

I smile at Sunny. It’s nice to be listened to. “Thank you for listening to me.”

She gives me a salute with one of her fries. “Of course. That’s what friends do. Speaking of friends…how is everyone else? People leaving you alone?”

“They are. I think they’re too excited for the football game to care about me right now.” I tell her and close my binder and put it in my backpack.

“Yeah, I kind of don’t get that.”

“What do you mean?”

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