This_Is_Why_They_Hate_Us_-_Aaron_H_Aceves
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OceanofPDF.com
OceanofPDF.com
For Mom,
my rst best friend
OceanofPDF.com
Ive learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget
what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
MAYA ANGELOU
OceanofPDF.com
CHAPTER ONE
My thumb hovers over the exit button on the remote, poised to strike as soon as I
hear the jingling of keys that means one of my parents is home from work.
Playing on our enormous at-screen—easily the most expensive thing in our
house because if theres anything my dad loves more than drinking beer, its
watching TVis the end scene of a moody indie lm about two white guys in
love who dont end up together. Even though theyre both bawling their eyes
out at a train station, I cant help but envy them. Its better to have loved and
lost and all that.
When the screen fades to black, I breathe a sigh of relief, switch over to my
sitcom equivalent of a security blanket, and grab the bag of Hot Fritos on the
glass-and-marble coee table. Then I stretch out on the übercomfortable puke-
green couch my mom inexplicably loves (possibly more than me) and start
stung my face.
During the end credits of the rst episode I watch, my phone lights up with a
message. I sit up, suck chili powder o my ngers, and check it.
Hello!
Saleem. God I hate how much I love how formal his texting is.
sup, I reply.
Did you get home safely? he writes back almost immediately.
I smile and put my feet up on the coee table. It only took one ride in
Fabiolas truck for Saleem to realize that the fact that I make it home every day in
one piece is a miracle.
nah i died
It amuses me to no end to respond this way. With every other person I text, I
use adequate punctuation, but not with Saleem. It actually takes more of an
eort to reply the dumb wayAutocorrect and I always get locked in a battle of
wills as I ght to keep the rst word of my sentence lowercase, among other
thingsbut Saleem appreciates the chaotic energy I inject into his life. At least,
thats what I tell myself.
Your ngers have remarkable dexterity for a corpses.
wow dats deadist
I hope that makes him laugh. I cant say what I really want to say, which is
You wanna see how dexterous my ngers are, you sexy brown
The sound of keys makes me throw my phone across the room. When I look
up, my moms walking in, and she does not look happy.
Bad day? I ask.
She blows hair out of her deceptively young-looking face. There arent
enough cuss words.
My mom works at the CVS down the hill from my school. Every day when
she comes home, she goes o about an exceptionally stupid customer that she
very graciously refrained from punching in the face. Unless shes too tired to do
so, which looks like the case today.
She hangs her keys on the hooks beside the front door that she had my dad
install because he could never nd his keys in the morning before work, throws
her purse onto the faux marble counter that separates the kitchen from the living
room, and trudges past me to the hallway on the way to her room. But before
shes all the way there, she backtracks until shes standing next to the couch,
looking down at me.
Whys your phone all the way over there?
I look to the corner of the room where my cell is lying facedown.
Uh Fabiola just scored sixty points in Words with Friends.
Triple word score?
Yup.
Smart girl.
She glances at the TV, and my eyes follow hers. The episode currently playing
features two lesbian side characters getting married. Shit. I usually skip this
episode if my parents are home. But my mom doesnt say anything, just turns
back to me and asks, When you gonna ask her to marry you?
This question has been a running joke from the time I was thirteen or so, but
ever since I turned seventeen, my moms been sounding less and less like shes
kidding.
Wed have to start dating for that to happen, Mom.
Mm-hmm. I suspect she suspects we already are, but she changes the
subject. How was the last day of school?
Thats tomorrow.
Oh. She rubs her face and snis. How was your second to last day of
school?
Okay. Not too dierent from all the others.
Only one year left.
Yup
Well, dont stay up too late, kid. She tousles my hair and goes to leave, but
then stops. Chips.
I grab the bag of Fritos from the couch, roll it up, and put it on the coee
table. She nods and is on her way to her bedroom again.
When shes gone, I retrieve my phone, and Saleems message is waiting.
Is that a term for prejudice against dead people?
I reply with one (made-up) word.
jes
I will have you know that I have a number of close dead relatives, so it is
impossible for me to be deadist.
Oof. How am I supposed to respond to that? Hes joking, but hes also not.
As I often do when I dont know how to reply to someone, I shift my focus
to something else in the hopes that a perfect response will pop into my head
while Im distracted. In this case, I actually start a game of Words with Fabiola.
She completes her turn almost immediately.
After she wins, we start another game. Im in the middle of putting down the
word gay (for entertainment value, not point value) when my dad gets home.
Despite toiling in the sun all day, he actually enjoys his work. I think he and his
colleagues spend more time pranking each other than actually washing cars.
Hey, Dad.
Mijo.
He puts his keys on the counter, walks over to me, kisses my forehead, and
then heads to the bedroom. I hear the squeak of springs as he falls onto the bed
next to my mom.
I play a few more turns before I get up. First, I grab my dads keys and hang
them on the hooks. Then I head to my parents room. Their doors open, and
theyre both passed out in their work clothes. I take o my dads boots, then my
moms sneakers, and turn the ceiling fan on. As I leave their room, I glance at the
Bible on my moms nightstand and cant help but sigh.
In the living room, I op down on the couch again and stare at the strip of
wall next to the window. Hanging there are two framed decorative cards with my
parents names on them. Underneath the names, in parentheses, is their biblical
meaning. My moms card reads, Maria (The wished-for child), and my dads
says, Abel (Breath). I have a card as well, but its hanging in my room. There is no
Enrique in the Bible, so we had to cheat. My middle name is Luke, which means
light. I dont think that ts me at all.
My parents arent the most religious people I knowwere those Christians
who only go to church for Christmas and Easter—but they believe in God and
grew up with ultraconservative parents, which is why I havent told them that
Im bi. Part of me is certain theyll still love me whenif?I come out to them,
but another part of me keeps saying, You never know.
Its the same with Jesus. Most of the time, I know He loves me. I mean, thats
what Hes all about. But sometimes when I hear someonemy pastor, my
grandparents, a random person on the Internet—say that God hates queers, I
have to squash the tiniest inkling of doubt that worms its way into my chest.
My eyes travel to the coee table, where my phone is ashing. I pick it up and
see another message from Saleem.
Hey, are you still there?
yah sars
No need for (barely intelligible) apologies.
I smirk.
how tings wit aya
Saleems sister Aya is just about the coolest person I know. Ive only met her
once, but I was stunned by her beauty and the condence with which she carried
herself. For some reason, though, whenever she comes home from lm school in
New York, Saleem gets a little weird about it.
Theyre going well.
Ah, a contraction. That means hes lying, but Ill let it go for now.
gude gude gude
Yes, gude. Anyway, I wanted to ask if you happen to be free later tonight.
I sit up, my heart pounding because I know where this is going, and all I can
think about is how the smallest act on his partan accidental touch, a
compliment, initiating a hangoutcan send me reeling.
Having feelings for Saleem is one of the hardest things Ive ever had to deal
with because I know we can never be together. There are a lot of reasons why
thats true (my own cowardice being one of them), but the main one is I did the
math and calculated that there isexactlya 0.01 percent chance that he sees
me the way I see him. I mean, why would he?
Saleem is thoughtful and kind and a much, much better person than I am.
He never complains about his parents or ghts with his sister like I would if I
were him. He always holds doors open for old ladies and gives homeless people
his change or at least apologizes to them when he doesnt have any. I bet he
doesnt even do that thing where you break something at someones house and
only x it enough so that it looks ne and the next person who breaks it thinks
they did it. He has the sweetest, gentlest soul Ive ever encountered, and Im,
well, me.
Which means I shouldnt tell him Im free.
im free, I reply. y?
I was thinking of a late-night swim. Would you like to join me?
There it is.
hellz yeah, I write without hesitation. gets hot af in my rume @ nite
Great. I look forward to seeing you, Quique.
Ugh, he just had to add that sexy-ass apostrophe before my nickname. God I
hate him. Except that I dont, never could. Short and handsome and smart and
caring Saleem. He is my greatest source of joy, and despite all the possible
complications, I need him in my life. Im not going to ruin us.
I hope.
After I get his grammatically immaculate text saying I should head over at
around nine oclock, I go to my parents room to wake up my mom and ask for
permission to take her car. She grunts in approval before turning over and
resuming her snoring.
It takes twenty minutes or so to get to Saleems. He lives equally far from
school as I do but in the opposite direction. Its a quiet area with mobile home
parks, shopping plazas, and similar apartment complexes to mine. I pull up to
the gate where I usually punch in a code to get in, but the keypad isnt working,
which is weird. I reverse back onto the street and park across from the complex.
After I jump the gate, I walk quickly to Saleems apartment, noting that the
entire compound is almost completely dark, which, again, is weird. Even the
streetlamps are out. If this were my rst time coming here, I would get lost as
hellthis place used to be a maze to me—but now, even in the shadows, I know
exactly where to go.
I hike up the stairs to the apartment but dont knock or ring the doorbell. I
know Saleem can hear me arrive from any room inside his apartment. The few
times Ive been inside his place, Ive found it grand yet homey. Everything (from
the rugs to the curtains to the tapestries) looks handmade with rich colors and
intricate patterns, and the now-familiar scent of cumin-forward Palestinian
stews hangs in the air.
The door opens, and he comes out, forcing me to do whats become
necessary for my survival: try my best to ignore everything about him that drives
me wild. The smile that lights up his entire face. The black T-shirt that matches
the single ringlet of hair dropping onto his forehead. The amber eyes that wait
for me in my dreams.
Hey, I say, what the hells going on?
Power outage, he replies, handing me a towel.
Oh. That explains the gate.
I should have warned you.
Yeah, you shouldve, asshole.