Burn Book Yearbook Novels & Stories

She kept the Santa Monica condo. Melanie took her coffee into the living room. She found the faded blue and gold yearbook jammed in between some dusty photo albums on her the bookcase. She ran her fingers over the gold embossed seal which read Honor, Integrity, Knowledge, surrounded by the phrase "Let each one find the truth he is seeking" on the cover just below the title Abbeyville, Minnesota Class of 1972.

Thank the heavens he doesn’t comment about my face when I blush. I crouch down and stack the rest of the yearbooks on the floor. Most of them are from twenty-five years ago. Weren’t the owners informed of the publication of these yearbooks? Why didn’t they get them? “Nikki, next time I say I’ll do the task, just let me do it. I don’t want you to get hurt,” Leandre says curtly, crouching down beside me and putting the yearbook in his hands onto the stockpile.

It looked as though the place had been ransacked, due to the books being scattered in every direction. I knocked around some of the books with the tip of my sneaker, surprised that not all were destroyed beyond recognition. I picked up one of the many plain bound books and looked at the cover. The top and bottom corner was burned off of the book, and the cover hung by a few threads, but there was still some sense to the handwritten words inside. The cover of the book read, "1836" I flipped the book open to a random pace, surprised to find the inexperienced writing of a child.

Already this weekend has been a big mishap that I have had the misfortune of knowing. My eyes cry as my mother shuts the tv off. The last thing I see on the screen is my face covered in flour with the caption reading "Is Bullying on the Rise at Ashmore High?" Well, no shit, it is. It has been there from the dawn of time. Anyone who knows the school library, as well as I do, would know that yearbooks are evidence of the year-to-year mockery predating back to the Great War, World War II. There are photos defiled with comments like "Go to hell and die."

"Excuse me. I attended this school five years ago. Do you have a yearbook where I can see the students from that time?" The librarian replied, "Of course. Some schools have yearbooks donated by students. But here, we have all the records. If you head to section C 24, you'll find all the yearbooks from the year 1986." "Thanks. I'll check it." Together with Gray, they looked for the yearbook five years ago. While searching, Gray asked, "Did you ever have a university crush?" "I never did. I wasn't interested in anyone," she replied before locating the yearbook and pulling it off the shelf.

None of them look at me like I’m some misplaced extra who wandered into their story. If I’m new here, if I wasn’t written into their lives until now, shouldn’t someone notice? After the first three periods, I locate the library, not exactly sure of what I'm looking for. It looks like something made from a book. Well this is a book. Rows of shelves holding up books — history, mythology, and school records stacked behind glass cabinets. My heartbeat quickens. I open the cabinet and withdraw the student's yearbook. The smell of old books linger in the air as I open the yearbook.

Fifteen minutes later, I had finally found what I was looking for. my old yearbook. Fairview High, 2010 I let my hand run over the red cover, which was also covered in dust before I opened it up and my eyes started to scan every page of the book until I had found just what I was looking for. AHAH! There you are, little mate.

Placing a finger on the plastic-covered sheet, I caress her image, wishing she were alive to see me now. “This is our yearbook. Not the silly one that the school puts out, but the real yearbook. The Legacy Book.” “So everyone in this book is a Legacy?” I look at the other images on the page. There are newspaper articles and awards, as well as images from special events. My mother was a debate team champion and excelled at horseback riding. “Yes,” he confirms. "And these books go back generations. This is only one volume. There are dozens of others. I can show them to you if you’d like. We keep them in the Legacy library."

Exhaustion is taking over, and I am having trouble keeping my eyes open. Right before my eyes close, the last thing I see is Braxius's blue-green eyes filled with love and sorrow. Except, I somehow know everything will be all right with him. That only thought is making my leaving easier, and I stop fighting the darkness. I am floating away towards total oblivion. I am having a few brief flashbacks of my short life of twenty-two years and growing up in New Jersey with Meena, my younger sister of nine months. I accepted my entry-level position at a prestigious marketing firm and graduating from college with honors as a business major with a minor in history.

“Technically, she’d have finished college in 1992. But that doesn’t narrow it down if we aren’t sure how long she’d been twenty-five for.” “But it gives us an idea. I think we might be looking too far. Let’s check the early 90s.” We replaced the books we’d been checking and looked around the other shelves for the 1990 yearbook. When we found it, we paged through, but found neither Nora nor Elizabeth, who looked anything like our mothers. The same happened with every other photo book from the year 1991 to 1994, and it seemed like we were coming to a dead-end.