Page 75 of Explosive Prejudice

Fucking pigs.

My idea was to act casually and walk calmly like it was okay for me to be there. I guessed it worked because no one stopped me until I reached her. I was excited because I managed to do what the older kids couldn’t, and now I’d have something to annoy Iván with. Only my excitement was replaced with pure horror as I encountered death for the first time.

A tangle of black curls on the white sand.

Missing nails on bloodied fingers.

A pool of blood between spread thighs.

Scratches and cuts all over her naked body, leading up to her neck.

Her neck.

It was purple, blue, red.

It was any color but the color it should have been, and I couldn’t take my eyes away from it. There she was, my beautiful sister, lying in a ditch with broken legs and a pool of blood between her thighs, and I couldn’t stop staring at her throat.

Her strangled throat.

My sister was dead.

Carmen was dead.

“Hey! Who’s that kid?” someone called before I felt hands around me, pulling me back. Only then life kicked in again, and I pushed and fought to get free, all while screaming Carmen’s name over and over.

I kicked back at whoever held me until they lost their grip. Falling in the sand, I quickly got up and ran toward her.

“Carmen!” My screams ripped my throat to shreds. “Carmen! Carmen!” Repeating her name as if it would bring her back, I tried to reach her, but before I could, I was yanked away again.

“It’s my sister,” I cried, trying to explain so they’d let me go. “She’s my older sister! We need to help her!” Pushing away the fat tears welling in my eyes, I tried to look at her again, fearing it would be the last time, but all I saw was purple, blue, and red.

All the colors but the color it should have been.

“Thank you,” Shay-Lee said as he took the mug of coffee I handed him while I settled beside him on the couch. After I was done smoking, we’d taken the conversation inside, where I’d continued to tell him pretty much everything.

“So, that time I followed you to the cemetery, you were visiting her, Carmen, right?” Hugging his mug, he brought his legs to his chest, his stare never leaving mine.

“Yeah, it was her birthday.”

Taking a small sip, he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about stalking you,” he sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “I fucked up a lot, didn’t I?”

Somehow, he managed to make me smile. “Yeah, you did.”

Pulling out my wallet, I took out a small Polaroid photo I always kept there and handed it to him.

He took the photo and looked at it. “Is that her?”

“Yeah.” I nodded proudly, glancing at it, too. It was taken at one of her ballet shows. Carmen’s hair was pulled into a tight bun on top of her head while she wore her ballerina costume.

“She’s beautiful,” Shay-Lee said, examining it a bit more before returning it to me. “You look alike.”

“I wish.” Looking at her image one more time, I smiled, then placed it back inside my wallet.

“Okay, so back to the story. What happened after?” His eyes followed me as I tossed my wallet on the small table before us, right next to the pack of smokes I’d left there earlier.

Leaning back on the couch and spreading my legs, I rubbed my jaw. “After Carmen’s death, my mom just… couldn’t function anymore. It didn’t happen in one day but over a few months. She stopped cleaning, cooking, going to work. Eventually, she got fired from her job. After that, she no longer had a reason to get out of bed, so she stopped doing that as well. My father was hardly ever home, and when he was, he couldn’t care less. Instead of helping her, he violated her with his fists and his words. Us, too, of course. Iván and I were usually the ones who took the brunt of his beatings.”

It was then Shay-Lee broke our stare and gazed into the void. I mentioned my piece-of-shit father for a reason, hoping it would help Shay-Lee to open up, too.

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