Page 6 of False Idols

There was no room for redemption or the softness that came with life on the outside. You had to forget who you’d been before, what you’d thought your life would be, before the walls closed in around you and you simply existed. I made it for months without losing who I was before. The Beau Du Pont from Bloom, the small town idiot boy that went out of his way to be kind, giving and gracious. I was so fucking stupid playing the part of town hero that my family laid out for me. I was the star quarterback, the homecoming king. I was set for a full ride at Bloom State and even though I probably should have set my aims higher, I didn’t.

Why would I, when I was a king in my hometown? Everyone knew me. Everyone loved my family and thought we walked on water. We’d been in the area for as long as the town had been in existence. That’s well over 150 years in one place. With that much living and dying, our roots ran deep in Bloom. But all of that meant nothing when Nevaeh Santiago opened her fucking mouth.

The girl that cleaned my goddamn toilet is the one that ruined my life. I’m going to destroy her the second I’m free. Because what no one else but my family and our lawyers know is that come this fall semester, I am going to be right there with Nevaeh when she starts her freshman year. Nevaeh has haunted me every day for the past four years and now it is going to be my turn to return the favor.

There won’t be a safe place for her in Bloom and she’s going to wish I’d died in here. She is going to wish that the fucking Reaper had killed her instead of Carrie. I’m going to make sure of it.

4

NEVAEH

Beau Du Pont didn’t kill Carrie Salt. That was her name. Carrie Salt. The girl I didn’t save, the one that was murdered on the Mineral Belt Trail while I puked all over myself.

Not a day has gone by that I haven’t dreamed of Carrie the way she was that night. I can see her standing perfect and beautiful outside of Beau’s jeep. When I remember Carrie Salt that way, her dress is spotless, so white and bright it shines in the moonlight. Sometimes in my dreams, Carrie looks at me, sometimes she talks to me, but I can never hear what she’s saying. When she opens her mouth it’s like a wave of static, a rushing sound that muffles every word that Carrie is saying to me. I don’t need to know what she’s saying to know that she wants me to follow her, though. Every time Carrie talks to me, she goes into the woods and I follow her. I’m helpless when she steps into the woods and I’m instantly the fifteen year old girl that didn’t know evil was real and the devil wasn’t only something I heard about at church.

No, the devil was real and he was The Reaper. He killed and cut his way through pretty girls like Carrie and I told everyone the devil was Beau. Beau. I loved him, or at least I thought I did. He was the only boy I’ve ever wanted, even after I sent him to prison—I still wanted Beau.

No one else compared to him. No one ever has.

It’s fucked up to still want the man you put away for murder, right? It is. I know it is, because for four years I have been in love with a murderer. One that I put behind bars. Now that they’re saying he’s innocent I don’t know which part of it is worse. The fact that I still want him, or that I always did. Even when everyone in Bloom said he was The Reaper and told me how brave I was, there was the fear—the thing that’s kept me up alongside the ghost of Carrie Salt. That maybe I fucked up and got it wrong. Maybe Beau didn’t do it. He was drunk when they found him, high too. The news I’ve read said that he was too fucked up to know what was going on when we ran into each other. That I got it wrong and he was barely keeping it together. I’ve replayed that night so many times in my mind over the past four years and every time it’s a little different.

Now I know the truth about three things in life.

I got it wrong. I ruined Beau’s fucking life. I still love him.

“Nevaeh! For the last damn time, hurry up, girl!”

I wince at my mom’s shrill scream from downstairs. I’m supposed to be packing for my move to Bloom State, but I keep stopping. I can’t keep packing. Every shirt that I fold or box that I tape up feels like a death sentence. A week ago, I had friends. Friends and even a boy that I flirted with sometimes, even if I didn’t mean it. They were all excited to have me at Bloom State with them. I took the year off after college to work for my mother. I always knew I would go to Bloom State eventually on account of the scholarship that was waiting on me. The town started a trust the same summer Beau went away and my living nightmare started. Even with a fully paid ride, I put off going, though. I said it was because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to major in, but that’s not true. I didn’t know what to do with myself because my life was picture perfect. The summer I survived the Mineral Belt, I went from a poor, awkward and quiet kid no one noticed to someone people went out of their way to talk to.

I didn’t deserve that. Not while Beau rotted away in prison and Carrie Salt was dead and buried. I couldn’t bring myself to go off to Bloom State with my friends and pretend none of it happened. That I didn’t lay in bed at night and stare at the ceiling replaying that hour over and over again until I wasn’t sure what I saw. Until the doubt creeped in and made me sick with the fear that I had done the unthinkable.

What if I put an innocent man away for life? I’d wondered about it since they took Beau away and I was forced into my new life where people called me a hero and gave me everything I wanted, just because of what I saw. All of that changed when Beau Du Pont’s release was announced at a press conference one Tuesday morning—but it was a day I’d been waiting on.

I never thought I was going to be able to keep the dream life I landed in. I didn’t deserve it. Neither did my mom, but that didn’t stop her from trying to hold on to what she could. But even though I expected it, having it all crash down around me was surreal.

I didn’t know how to feel standing in the middle of Rosie’s—the sort of run down but tried and true diner everyone went to for greasy chili cheese fries or coffee, depending on the time of day. It was the sort of place that opened up at 3 AM which made it early enough to attract the farmers setting out for the day and late enough to catch the college crowd rolling in from the bars just down the street. I went there with my friends because even if we couldn’t get into the bars, we liked to be around the college kids that could.

Minnie said they had the best weed, but I didn’t know because I was too scared to try any after I did and threw up one summer at Minnie’s party when I was sixteen. Now Minnie didn’t even text me. I think she blocked me on socials, pretty much everyone did, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t kept up with me if the burner accounts calling me a lying whore or threatening me with eternal damnation are anything to go by. Somebody said they would gut me like a fish. I think I liked that better than the damnation threat, even though I don’t go to church anymore.

That happened last week when they let Beau out. I had already been thinking of not going once I was in college, but Beau’s release forced my hand. I couldn’t walk in there with the Du Ponts waiting for me. Not with Pastor Mike, who I know would tell me not to be too hard on myself like he did when he came by after the Du Ponts’ press conference.

“A lot of people are going to be angry with you, Nevaeh. But it’s important to remember that they’re scared. They’re hurt by what they thought was the end of The Reaper. Now that Beau is out, they know the truth.”

“What? That I’m a liar?” I’d been crying. Hardly able to see Pastor Mike through my tears. But I felt his hand when he put it on my shoulder.

“No, sweetie. That The Reaper is still out there. It’s not over and people are going to blame you for losing that peace.”

I understood what Pastor Mike was saying even if it didn’t make sense. Not logically, anyhow. I thought they were mad at me for what I did to Beau. But what the hell do I know? I put the wrong man in prison.

“Nevaeh!” My mom screams and I hear her footsteps start pounding up the stairs. She’s been after me nonstop since the news broke. She swears I’ve ruined her life with all the clients she’s lost and is worried about the house. That’s why she’s scared. It’s why she’s always angry with me.

I tear off a strip of tape and put it on a box before I move on to the next. My door flies open and my mom only stops because she sees me with the new box in my hand.

“You hurry up and get out of my damn house, Nevaeh. The sooner you’re gone, the better.”

I open my mouth to tell her I’m sorry. That I didn’t mean it, but she’s gone. She didn’t say she hates me this time, but I know she does. I can’t blame her, I guess. I fucking hate me too. I deserve whatever is coming to me and I have no right to run from it. Beau couldn’t run from it in prison, so why should I? I deserve it. Every bit of hate and vitriol I’m going to get from my classmates, the anger my mother hurls at me, it’s nothing that I haven’t earned.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to me at Bloom State, but I know I deserve it for what I’ve done to Beau Du Pont.

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