Page 68 of Explosive Prejudice

I grunted, rolling onto my side and punching the pillow. Sleeping on the couch was uncomfortable, yet it wasn’t my lower back pain that kept me awake but all the thoughts running through my head. So many things had happened in the last few hours, making it feel like a week had passed instead of one single evening. From arguing with Andrei to confronting Shay-Lee and then bringing him here. I had no idea what possessed me, but the moment I saw him looking this broken and lost, I knew I couldn’t leave him alone.

What was he even planning on doing, walking his wasted ass alone on the beach? It was the second time I’d found him a minute away from doing something really fucking stupid, but what if there was a third time and I wasn’t there? Was Shay-Lee suicidal? Llorón may have been bruised and hurt, but he loved life. I knew that he did because I could feel it.

But what if we die together?

His words suddenly struck me, forcing me to reflect back on that moment. When we first met, I thought Llorón was deadly, not suicidal. I believed being with him would put me in danger, not the other way around.

Llorón was an oasis, a toxic illusion of something too good to be true. It turned out he wasn’t. He was a real human being, and he was bleeding. He was hurting, and his pain was something I needed to fix.

Before killing herself, my mamá was depressed for a long time. For months, I watched the life slowly drain out of her until there was no light left in her eyes. The day she pulled the trigger and blew her brains out simply made her death official. Nothing more, nothing less. The truth was, she had died the day they found Carmen’s butchered body in a ditch.

That was why Shay-Lee confused me. Even though death was written in his eyes, so was life. As sad and broken as he was, he also held fire. Fire that burned with the desire to live and survive. His hunger for life was what separated Shay-Lee from my mamá. But in the end, he was hurting, just like she did.

The idea that some people in his life chose to admire his pain and use it for their selfish needs was sickening. Not only that, but Shay-Lee allowed those people to do it and encouraged them. It was heartbreaking. His pain needed to be chased away, not cherished.

Massaging the bridge of my nose, I let out a deep sigh. If only helping this jackass was easy. Why couldn’t he be a bit more decent? A bit less annoying? Instead, whenever he opened his mouth to bitch, all I wanted to do was to shut it up right back.

With my cock.

“Fuck.” I threw my pillow across the room. Clearly, I was making no progress with sleep. Getting up, I grabbed my pack of smokes from the table and went out to the balcony. Leaning over the rail and lighting the cig, the same thought I always had crossed my mind, that I should quit this nasty habit. I actually tried to do it a couple of times before but failed miserably each time.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

With the cig between my lips, I looked over my shoulder to find Shay-Lee standing by the sliding door. A sense of possessiveness overtook me at the sight of him in my clothes. Even though he wasn’t a small guy and had a defined, ripped body, he was smaller than me, and the sweats and shirt I’d lent him were too big.

“Shit, did I wake you up?”

He shook his head and stepped closer. “I couldn’t sleep either,” he said, leaning his back against the rail.

Taking a deep drag and blowing the smoke into the cold air, I rubbed my jaw. “Why couldn’t you fall asleep?”

“Why couldn’t you?”

Dropping my head down, I snorted.

“I’ll answer yours if you’ll answer mine.” His reply made me look at him. This game was Nero and Llorón’s thing. Their way of getting to know each other.

Am I willing to know Shay-Lee, too?

Biting my cheek, I followed my gut and nodded. “You go first.”

He was silent for a minute, his face serious while his blue eyes searched mine for something.

“Why did you help me tonight?”

“Because you looked like you needed help.” My answer was out of my mouth before I could even stop to think. It was as simple as that. He needed help, and I couldn’t turn my back on him. “And before you open your mouth and bitch about how you don’t need my pity, don’t.” I flicked the butt of the cigarette into the ashtray after taking the last drag, then tossed it. Pushing back from the rail, I turned around, so now we were both leaning with our backs against it. “You’re a crazy son of a bitch, and I’ll probably regret saying this… But you’re not all that bad.”

“Ever thought about pursuing a career in poetry?”

Rolling my eyes, I bumped my shoulder with his. “Fuck off.”

He laughed, his lips spreading wide as beautiful smile lines adorned his face. Whenever Llorón laughed, I imagined how he’d look under the mask. My imagination didn’t do justice compared to Shay-Lee, not even close.

“My turn,” I said, getting his attention back. I had many questions to ask, but one stood above all, taunting me for weeks. “When did you realize it was me?” Squeezing my eyes shut, I rubbed my temples. “I mean, when we kissed… when we… did you know?” My throat went dry, and my whole body tensed from the fear of finding out the truth.

“Oh, God.” He sighed deeply, pressing his palms together as if praying, and brought them to his mouth. “I know that I lie a lot, and there’s no reason for you to believe a word I say, but I swear to you that I found out the same day you did.”

I felt like a rock had been lifted off my shoulders as relief washed over me, taking away some of my anger. Despite everything that happened, the moments I shared with Llorón were sacred. Honest. Conversations and experiences I still cherished to my core.

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