Page 54 of False Idols

Sunny falls silent and I know she isn’t going to push it. I’m glad for it, but I don’t want to go to the party alone, so I force a smile onto my face. “Hey, you know where you want to eat?”

“We don’t have to go to the party,” she tells me with a worried look.

“Sure we do. I promised we would.” It’s true. I did promise, but Sunny thinks it’s to her and her alone.

She sucks in a deep breath and shakes her head again. “Let’s stay in the dorm. You can put on a scary movie or something.”

I wrinkle my nose at her suggestion. “A scary movie? Really?”

“Sure, one of those slashers where the dumb kids don’t just run out of the house and keep running up the stairs.”

“Those are the movies with the rules, right?” I laugh and look up at the sky. It’s dark now that we’re in the parking lot. We didn’t drive because we’re so close to the stadium in our dorms, so we walk past it and keep heading towards our dorms. There’s people here, they’re laughing and running by on their way to parties. The energy is back again. I can feel the excitement over the win bubbling up and it feels nice after my run in with Jordan. I rub my stomach where he punched me and bite my lip. How is that when I think of tonight, Jordan is what makes it bad for me?

Not Beau. When I think of being with Beau again, I don’t know what I’m feeling. But I want it to happen again.

“Duh. There’s always rules to survive a horror movie. Everyone knows this.” Sunny looks around us and tugs me closer to her. “Sometimes I feel like we’re in a scary movie, Nev.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, because I know I should. I know what she means. The Reaper is back. I’m being terrorized at school. I just ran from Jordan because I was sure he was about to hurt me and Beau…every dark and twisted encounter with Beau leaves me feeling more confused about who I am. And on top of that, I’m taking eighteen credit hours.

Sunny’s right. Life does feel like a scary movie right now.

“I mean, all of this.” Sunny sweeps a hand out to the street and people around us. She gets a funny look from someone walking past but ignores them as we walk. “There’s a literal killer on the loose and a girl was murdered on the first day of classes. Don’t you think that’s pretty fucking scary movie-ish?”

I tuck my hands in my jeans and shrug. “A little…” I hedge. I don’t want to think too hard on the reasons she’s right. The girls in those movies are brave and smart. They aren’t girls like me that mess up over and over again. I’m not the kind of girl that makes it to the end. Or at least, I wasn’t until Beau came back.

“A little? It’s literally the script for a horror movie because of how everyone is being with you, too. You know, maybe it isn’t a bad idea if we stay in and watch some scary movies. Get some tips on how to survive all this shit, you know?”

I smile. Sunny would think a slasher movie marathon would be the answer to keeping us safe. “I thought the rules were just like, don’t say you’ll be right back and stay out of the basement. Seems pretty straight forward.”

“You forgot no sex or drugs and definitely no splitting up.”

I’ve had sex twice and I wouldn’t have ended up with Jordan chasing me down if I hadn’t been on my own. I clear my throat.

“Totally doable,” I lie.

Sunny hums in agreement. “I think we can do this if we stick to the rules. We can make it to the end of the year.” She sounds earnest, like she really believes it. People deal with trauma in different ways and all I’ve known Sunny to be is strong and brave. She doesn’t care what anyone thinks and that’s why she’s my only friend. That doesn’t mean she isn’t scared by what’s happening either.

“Sunny, this isn’t a movie,” I say quietly, because I don’t want to take the only hope she might have to make sense of what’s happening all around us.

She looks at me and I see her eyes shine with tears before she inhales deeply and nods. “Yeah, I know but…it would be nice to think it was, right?”

“It would,” I agree.

“If there were rules, i-if there were rules then we could stay safe. If there were rules it would make sense why this is happening.”

“We haven’t heard from The Reaper for a while.”

“It’s been two weeks. That’s nothing.”

“He was gone for four years, maybe that’s it for another four years,” I point out before Sunny can go on. She looks like she’s ready to tell me I’m wrong but I don’t like seeing the tears shining in her eyes. The tears she hasn’t let go, so I clear my throat and point ahead of us.

“There’s a Chinese place up the road that’s really good. Let’s go there before the party.”

“Nev, I don’t-”

“Listen, life isn’t a movie and there aren’t any rules right now. I know that’s really scary but you were right before. We have to live and we have to enjoy school. I don’t care if it’s The Reaper or if it’s bullies. No one is going to take this from us. That means we’re going to go eat potstickers and then we’re going to make terrible decisions at a party.”

If I didn’t know better, I’d think I meant what I was saying. But I’m terrified. I’m only putting on a brave face because I hate seeing Sunny look scared. She’s not supposed to look like that.

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