‘Stupid, Trivial Little Things’

Civilians in general are often so rude, disagreeable, and bad-mannered. Rudeness bothers me, really upsets me. It’s painful to meet people who aren’t as considerate, or as kind and polite, as they might be.—masha prozorova

Derek’s campaign for Mr. 37th Ward was in full swing by Monday morning. The crowd that usually walked with him up to campus at 8:45 had at least doubled in size since he had announced his candidacy with a few other ward attention-seekers at ward prayer. Most of the newcomers to his group were female. I tried to catch Derek’s attention through the throng of admirers, but he was too busy flirting. Professor Allred even offered me a reprieve from facing Chris on Monday. We were working on act 2, in which Kulygin only speaks six times at the very end, to inquire where Masha has gone.

Marianne and Trevor were talking when I ran into them in Brigham Square at 11:50. Trevor ignored me for the most part, but I gathered that Trevor was angry because Marianne had refused to let him come to our condo all weekend. He accused her of not loving him enough, he told her it wasn’t a crime to want to be with her, and he stalked off. So all in all, it was a typical morning. In fact, it was easy to follow my usual routine without thinking about what had almost happened the morning before, so I was unprepared for the wave of nausea that shocked through me when a large hand grabbed my shoulder from behind.

“You look good today, Bekah,” came Cole’s easy western twang.

Praying for Marianne to stay beside me, I turned to face my attacker. “Oh?” I mumbled. From what I had seen in the mirror that morning, I looked horrible—pale, with dark circles under my eyes, wild hair, and an unusual amount of foundation covering the parts of the bruise on my jaw that my grey turtleneck did not reach.

Cole flashed me his usual confident grin, “Yeah.” I wavered between making a scene and just letting him talk. Cole leaned in towards my ear, his hot breath on my neck like panic-fire. “Didja have a good weekend, or didja just read the whole time?”

“Mmm . . . how ’bout you?”

He laughed, “I guess it was good—I don’t remember much.” He scratched the top of his head where I knew the goat-shaped birthmark was. “The house was trashed on Sunday, so our party musta been tight! You shoulda been there, Beki.”

I willed my eyes from the ground and discovered a large red lump on the side of Cole’s skull. His nose was looking a little bulbous as well. A shout from the library entrance turned my head—I did not see the shouter, but I did see Christian Miles staring at Cole and me from the library door. He entered the library, shaking his head.

“You know what, Cole?” I smiled, “I’m going—I’ve gotta print something in the library before my next class. See ya.” I escaped into the library atrium, down to the second floor, down to the first floor, and slumped against a wood-paneled wall with my arms folded. I shut my mouth to control the hyperventilating. Cole did not even remember, yet his voice sent my skin crawling.

“Rebekah Cardim!” someone shouted, exasperated as if it hadn’t been the first time. Chris was loping down the stairs, favoring his injured leg. “What was that?!” he demanded.

Sighing, I pulled him by the front of his leather jacket into the landing below the government section; I faced him in front of some dark grey lockers. We were not exactly hidden, but someone would have to come for a drink of water or something to see us. “What do you want?” I demanded, matching his fierceness, but lowering my volume.

“Cole Douglas—why on earth would you let him get near you?!”

“Keep your voice down. And it’s none of your business.”

He retorted with the same intensity, but quieted a bit after I shot him one of my most venomous stage looks. “Bekah! In a sane world, your brother would have ground Cole to a pulp by now.”

I rubbed my forehead. “You don’t understand, Chris—Cole doesn’t even remember what happened. It was so late, and maybe you knocked him out a little hard, or maybe he was even drunk or something.”

“So you’re just going to pretend that nothing happened? That he didn’t try to—”

“He didn’t really mean to. I probably read too much into it, panicked because I was sleepy.”

“Of course he meant it, Bekah! Just because you see everything and everyone the way you want to see them doesn’t make your fantasy real.”

“But it was like a nightmare, and in the morning it’s not real. I want to forget I was ever at that house. Anyway, no harm, no foul.”

Jade eyes determined, Chris brushed my hair from my face and gently turned my bruised chin into the florescent light. “No foul?”

Doing my best Stella impression, I glared at him.

“Why haven’t you told anyone, or reported him to someone?”

“And what could I do? Say he forcibly nicmoed me? It’d be my word against his.”

Chris slammed his palm against the lockers so hard that I jumped. “That’s crazy! It’s both our words against his.”

“I don’t want your word!” I squeaked.

The intensity in Chris’s face faded. He stepped back, shrugged, and took two steps away from me. Then he shook his head and leaned back towards me to hiss, “If I hadn’t woken up, Cole would have raped you, okay? He wouldn’t have been satisfied with anything else.” He stalked off, shaking his blond head.

Ten breaths later, I stepped away from the lockers. I heard the dull scrape of rubber on industrial carpet and was quick enough to see a dark head and a wheelchair disappear up the ramp to my right. So, Charlie Ramirez (from Provo, Utah; majoring in neuroscience; served in the México Mérida Mission) had found me.