Page 62 of False Idols

“Why does that matter? You love to make me upset.”

Beau snorts. “No, I like to fuck with you. I love to fuck you, but I don’t want you upset.”

My mouth drops open. “Then why have you been torturing me? That’s fuck ing with me. You’ve been-I-you’re hunting me! I’m a pariah at school! How is that just fucking with me?”

Beau raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms. “I don’t know if I like it when you cuss,” he says.

“Beau, what are you-”

He snaps his fingers, silencing me. “I mean, I like it when you cuss at me, but not when you cuss. You don’t cuss. Stop fucking doing it.”

“You don’t tell me what to do.”

“I do. You’re mine. That’s how this works. That brings me back to the fucking douchebag you let put his hands all over you while I watched. You’re lucky I didn’t gut him right there in front of you.”

“You were getting another girl off, Beau. I think what I did was fine.”

“It wasn’t fine, Nevaeh. You don’t let anyone touch what’s mine or there’s going to be a price to pay, because I’m not going to let them live.”

I lift my chin and stare at Beau. “No you won't. You're not a killer.”

“And why do you think that?”

I hesitate. I don’t know if I want to tell him why I know, but I do anyway, because Beau wants the answer from me. I always do what Beau wants.

“I’m not scared of you.”

Beau snorts and shakes his head. “That’s not saying much, angel. Maybe it’s not that you feel safe with me. Maybe it’s that you just have no sense of self preservation. You ever thought of that?”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” Beau asks and looks up at the moon shining down on us. He’s so achingly beautiful. His inky dark hair is darker now, the sharp line of his jaw and at odds with his lush mouth. He’s breathtaking. How is this man in my life? How are we tangled up the way we are? “You came to school this year when any sane person would have left town, but you didn’t.”

He’s right, but he’s also not.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” I confess and Beau looks away from the moon to me.

“What do you mean?”

I clear my throat and wrap my arms around my chest. I want to get out of here. Away. The weight of what my life is feels too heavy right now. There’s a door at the far end of the screen porch and I take a step in that direction as I speak.

“My mom kicked me out. On the first day of classes she sent Pastor Mike with all my stuff and I haven’t heard from her since. If I didn’t come to school here, I’d be homeless.”

“You could go stay with other family,” Beau counters. “Bloom is nothing but some shit town. You could go anywhere.”

I give him a sad smile and keep going towards the door that leads to the backyard. “There is no other family. I have no one. That isn’t the only reason I stayed here, though. I knew what was going to happen if I came to school here but-” I stop, swallow past the lump in my throat and then continue on, “I came here because I owed you. I did you wrong and this is my penance. Every terrible thing you or anyone does to me because of what I did to you, I’ve earned. I’ll give you the four years you want, Beau. It’s the only thing I want to do with my life. Whatever you want to do to me? I want that too. I want you to punish me. I want to earn your forgiveness, even if it ends with me in hell. Because you’ll have put me there.” My voice shakes and it’s difficult to speak, but I’m not done.

“I love you, Beau. I always have.”

Beau’s eyes widen slightly when I say that. We stare at each other in silence for a second and then another, before I unlatch the door, push it open, and slip out into the night without looking back.

23

BEAU

“Hurry up in there!” There’s a bang against the door. Someone is drunk and screaming in the hallway, but I ignore them. I’m washing my hands. Meticulously scrubbing them under scalding hot water. I have to get every trace of Ali off of my skin. My hands are calloused and rough from the years I fought to stay alive, but my skin is red from the burning hot water. I turn them again and add more soap while I wash them one more time.

I don’t want a fucking centimeter of my flesh to be tainted by Ali’s body. I’m not touching Nevaeh with another woman on my hands again.

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