Page 49 of False Idols

Beau clicks his tongue and walks towards me. He rolls his sleeves up as he does and looks completely at ease. He looks like we’re just having a pleasant chat and not like I’m considering the best way to shimmy out of a window to get away from him.

“Oh Nevaeh. You really shouldn’t have, but I’m glad you did.”

I take a step back, it’s a miracle I don’t hit anything, because I’m not looking. My eyes are on Beau. My only thought is to get as far back as I can and then make a break for the windows.

“What? But you’re mad.”

“Doesn’t mean my dick isn’t hard.”

I gasp at his words and I can’t help the blush that makes my face hot. “Beau…”

“What? Don’t use that language?” He laughs. The sound of it is bitter and sharp. It cuts me just like his words do. “I already fucked you raw. What’s the point in pretending you’re a lady, Nevaeh? You’re not a lady, angel. You’re just my dirty whore now.”

Tears sting my eyes and I have to bite my cheek from telling him to go to hell. “No, that’s not true.” My voice shakes. I don’t even sound like I believe it.

What if he’s right?

“Nevaeh, that pussy has been mine since you put me away.”

What if I want him to be right?

“Every day I did behind bars was another day I earned in breeding you so fucking full of my cum that I’m going to have you pregnant and shamed like the slut everyone knows you are.”

“No!” I point a finger at him.

“Everyone is going to see it when your belly gets round with my baby. They’re going to know you let someone fuck you. I’m not going to claim you or the bastard you’re going to push out.” He takes another step towards me and gives me a mean smile. “You’re going to give me that baby and another and another, angel. What you did to me is going to be your very own fucking Scarlet Letter. What do you think your dear mommy and the church elders are going to think of that? I don’t see you getting to stay here, trying to take care of a baby on your own. Do you?”

I should be sick to my stomach with what he’s saying but, like usual, all logic leaves my body when it’s Beau saying these terrible things to me. When I take another two hurried steps back from him, I can feel my panties starting to get damp.

“I-I’ll leave!” I shout at him. I don’t think anyone is going to hear me, no matter how hard I yell, but I want to do it. I’m angry with him. I’m so fucking mad.

“Where are you gonna go, Nevaeh? I’m not going to let you take my baby from me.”

“You’re not doing that to me!” I scream at him, even though my body is screaming for him to do exactly what he’s threatening me with. I can’t be doing this. I have to get away from him. I wanted to talk to Beau to find out what he meant to do with me and I’ve done that.

He just told me his plans for me. He’s going to make me a single mother. Someone that’s scorned and shunned. A girl that has to drop out of college with nowhere to go. He knows that’s what would happen and he loves it.

Beau shrugs and tucks his hands into his pants. He doesn’t come forward but he watches me bang into another sign as I make a blind turn and try to run for the wall of windows. I only make it a few steps when he speaks and I almost trip and go flying into a table. The volleyball net that’s leaning against the wall wobbles and falls forward, crashing onto the table with a bang. The windows aren’t that far away from me, but I don’t go for them. I can’t. Not when the words Beau says are ringing in my ears.

“How do you know I haven’t already done it?”

Jesus. No.

I spin to face him. “What are you talking about?”

Beau examines his sleeves and makes a show of smoothing them just so, holding them at his forearms as he speaks. “Biology 101, Nevaeh. Even a girl that took a purity pledge should know what happens when you get fucked like you did. I didn’t use protection. I know you’re not on the pill. Good girls don’t need it, right?”

I bite my tongue. I wanted to be on the pill, but my mother didn’t let me. She swore that I was going to start having sex if I had protection, so she kept me off of it.

“Try that shit without the pill. You’ll get exactly what’s coming to you acting like a whore.”

Odd that she talked to me like that when her own pregnancy brought her to Bloom. She was accusing me of the very thing she did. Blaming me for future wrongs when I hadn’t so much as kissed a boy before Beau took my virginity. And now he’s threatening to make me into my mother. But when he does it to me it’ll be so much worse. There won’t be any escape or starting over. I won’t even be able to carve out a little place for myself to hide in and grow bitter like my mother did. He intends to keep me right here in Bloom, with my shame and powerlessness on full display to everyone in town.

If I let him, he’ll make me into my mother’s daughter.

Beau laughs and something snaps in me. All I’ve done is try to keep the peace. I want to make it through my days without feeling like I’m a prisoner in my own home. My own body. I want to be happy and free. I want to love myself. Why does it always seem so far away?

“Get away from me!” I scream and reach out blindly to the table I ended up falling into. There’s a collection of old helmets there. They look vintage or antique or whatever it is that a football helmet is when it’s old. I grab one by the face mask and throw it at Beau as hard as I can. It hits his shoulder. He laughs again and I grab another helmet and throw it at him.

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