Chapter 36
Diesel
“M ind telling me what we’re doing in a cemetery at this hour?” I asked while looking around the gravestones surrounding us as we walked among them. The whole place was lit with lampposts, and even though it was a much fancier cemetery than the one Carmen and Iván were buried in, with spreading lawns and expensive-looking monuments, it was still a fucking cemetery, and being here at night was creepy as fuck.
“You’ll see,” Shay-Lee said, not bothering to turn around, as he continued walking ahead.
A sudden rustle that came from a bunch of trees to our left made my heart skip a beat, and I swore under my breath. I wasn’t one to believe in ghosts, but who knew? As a kid, Mamá used to tell me stories about demonios y brujas , so I wouldn’t take my chances on ghosts. Not wanting to stay behind, I caught up to Shay-Lee, who’d, to be fair, been acting incredibly weird ever since we left our place. Did I overreact when he brought up the whole PTSD crap again? Probably. But it was bigger than me, and getting angry was easier than facing the truth. He might also be angry over my dick, which suddenly decided to go limp at the worst of moments. Knowing Shay-Lee, it was probably a blow to his ego, even though it shouldn’t be. It wasn’t his fault my cock turned soft, but my screwed-up brain and the images it decided to show me right while Shay-Lee was sucking me off.
“Are you mad or something?” I asked to break the creeping silence.
“No.”
“So, will you tell me why we’re here?”
“Like I said, you’ll see soon enough.”
I scowled, as I didn’t appreciate being kept out of the loop. But then again, that was exactly what I’d been doing to him for the past… well, for the past few years. But as much as I wanted to be an open book and share everything with him, there were things I couldn’t bear to tell him. Things that kept me up at night.
My line of thought was cut once he came to a sudden stop, and I nearly bumped into him. Fuck . It was too damn dark.
Shay-Lee didn’t say a word and, instead, half turned to face me, almost like he was inviting me to come and stand beside him. Getting the message, I moved to his side and looked ahead at the marble gravestone we stopped in front of. My eyes immediately locked on the name Eva Rogers , and surprised, I turned to look at Shay-Lee. With his bottom lip tucked under his teeth, he remained silent with his eyes fixated on the cold stone. Stillness grew between us, with only the sound of the wind rustling through the trees filling the void, leaving me to wonder why he took me to his mother’s grave.
“I was thirteen the first time he raped me,” he said out of the blue, and his words made my blood run cold.
My eyes snapped to him, and confused, I stared at his profile while he continued to stare ahead. And despite the turmoil that went through me, I kept quiet and waited for him to go on.
“It happened a few months after she died.” He nudged his head in the direction of the tombstone. “He took me to some benefit, and the party host, a nice old lady, told him I was the most beautiful boy she’d ever seen and asked if I’d be interested in modeling. My father didn’t say a word and instead took us back home, where he locked me in his bedroom. The rest, well, you can imagine.” He swallowed hard. “Back then, I had no idea what triggered him to rip me apart as he did that night… but now, now I do. Or at least, I think I do.” Moving his hand to the back of his neck, he squeezed himself. “The mere thought of someone else finding interest in me of any kind drove him out of his mind, you know?”
Despite his question, I kept silent while he let out a short laugh.
“If only I were ugly, maybe none of this would have ever happened. Unfortunately for me, when it comes to my looks, I’m perfect, and people always look at me, and he did, too.” Shay-Lee’s lips twisted with repulsion as he spat out his words. “He always looked at me. Hunted me with his eyes like some predator. And the look in those cold eyes of his… It was a combination of sickening desire and condescension, like I couldn’t be without him.” Gritting his teeth, his jaw twitched before he curled his hands into fists. “He always said it was all my fault. He raped me because I asked for it, and it was me who ruined him. Me . Give it to him to put all the blame on a fucking kid.” Closing his eyes, Shay-Lee then let out a deep sigh. “And because it was my fault, it was also my job to bear this twisted secret. Our secret.”
The way he spat the word ours almost made my knees buckle with how raw it was.
“The hardest part about bearing such a horrible secret was that, often, it was more painful than the things he did to me, and only because it ruined me from the inside.” Taking a break from speaking, Shay-Lee tilted his head back and looked at the dark sky. “Whenever he touched me, I felt like my skin was poisoned, and it hurt, from the inside out, all of me hurt—and keeping that secret for so long hurt just as much. It was like a secondary punishment to what already felt like an unjust sentence. A disease that kept nipping at my soul, leaving me to slowly rot.”
I wanted to reach forward and hug him, but he continued talking before I could, clearly telling me there was a lot more he had to say.
“The curse of keeping a secret as dark as my own is that it never ends with just one; they keep piling up until there’s too many, each one worse than the last.”
“What kind of secrets?” I found myself asking, and he turned to face me.
“Like the fact I sometimes enjoyed what he did to me.” He gave me a pitiful smile before looking down at the ground. “Or at least, my body did. Do you know how it feels? When your own body betrays you by accepting such a monstrous deed?”
My throat dried, and my stomach turned with the heaviness of his question so that I was left without a word. My mind was nothing if not a dry desert, and clueless about what to say, I just stayed quiet.
“I can tell you it hurt, but that wouldn’t even be the start of it.” He let out a broken laugh before looking up to meet my stare. “But that isn’t even my worst secret.” He glanced back at his mother’s grave. “My darkest secret is that I’m the reason she’s here. I’m the one who killed her.”
Shay-Lee
“I’m the one who killed her.” I spoke the words for the first time ever, only for them to disappear like thin air into the dark night.
Camilo, being the guy that he was, stayed silent despite what I’d just said. He wasn’t the type to ask meaningless questions, and it was probably one of the things I loved about him most. I loved the space he gave me. Space that allowed me to be real. To be me .
“I never really knew her because my dad locked her in an asylum soon after I was born, claiming she was mad. He only sometimes took me to see her, and those times were always brief and ended before they even began.” A barely there memory of a white room where I used to meet her flashed before my eyes. And while most of it was a blur, I could clearly remember how the only thing brighter than the fluorescent lights in that place was her smile. “She was beautiful, or so I think. I can’t honestly say I remember her face…” Only that she had long dark hair and big brown eyes I always wished to have myself. “What I do remember is that the older I got, the clearer it became that she wasn’t insane. Despite the stories my dad had told me about her, whenever I came to see her, her eyes… They weren’t the eyes of a sick mind, unlike his . His eyes were the source of madness, while hers were nothing but kind and loving.” My heart ached with those memories that I held so close to my chest; speaking them out loud was painful, almost forbidden at times. But it was crucial because if I wanted Camilo to tell me his secrets, too, I had to do the same.
“I was twelve when I decided to tell her about the things he was doing to me. About the violence, about how scared I was of him.” I took a deep breath before hugging myself as tight as I could, remembering how she did the same thing after I’d told her my secret. “I still recall the warmth of her embrace as she promised me everything would be alright.” By now, tears choked my throat, and it was almost too hard to go on when Camilo placed his hand on my shoulder. I turned to meet his compassionate eyes, which held the same love my mother’s did.
“That day, she promised me she’d fix it all. She promised me I wasn’t alone and that she’d protect me from him.” I tore my eyes away from Camilo and focused back on her grave. With a heavy conscience, I took a step toward it and crouched down until my knees hit the ground. Ignoring the wet grass that stained my pants, I reached forward and brushed my fingers over the engraving of her name. “She was dead that same evening.” I focused on the year she died as the sound of rain filled my memory. The same rain that hit the kitchen’s windows when my dad came to tell me the news. “My father told me she had finally given in to her sick mind and that it was all my fault for burdening her with my lies.” I heard Camilo moving right before I could feel him beside me. He always gave me so much courage, hence why I was willing to sacrifice myself to save him from his own demons. “I have no idea how he killed her, but what I do know is that he wouldn’t have murdered her if I’d kept my mouth shut.”
“It isn’t your fault.” His hand once again landed on my shoulder as he squeezed me lightly. “You were just a child, Shay-Lee. You couldn’t have known what he’d do.”
I pressed my palm to her grave, telling her in my heart how sorry I was before I pulled my hand back and completely turned to face him.
“I didn’t tell you all of this so you could validate what I already know.” I forced a smile because deep down, I knew she wasn’t dead because of me but because of him . “Just now, I told you all of my secrets, Camilo, because I don’t want anything to stand between us.” I stroked his jaw while slowly tracing my fingers down to his neck. “There was so much that kept us apart for so long, and I’m sick of it. We’re finally able to move forward, but only if you can be honest. First with yourself and then with me.” I brushed my fingers over his necklace before lowering them down to his chest. “Speak with Blaire. And if not her, someone else. Allow people to help you for once. Allow yourself to be happy.” I closed my hand into a fist and pushed hard against him, right at his heart. “Allow us to be happy.”
Camilo bit his lip before he covered my hand with his and held it closer to his body. So close I could count every beat of his heart. Feeling his pulse gave me a sliver of relief, that was until he tore his eyes away from me and took a deep breath.
“I killed a man,” he confessed, and those four little words were so heavy one could almost crush under their weight. “And it haunts me. It haunts me while I’m awake and in my sleep… and I don’t know what to do.”
Not sure of what to do myself, I did what felt right: cupping his face, I pulled him close at the same time I fell backward until my ass hit the grass with him crushing on top of me. And with his head shoved in my chest, I held him tight .
“Talking about it will help,” I said, and he let out a sad snort.
“I don’t think it’s something I can speak about.”
I hugged him tighter. “With Blaire, you can. You can tell her everything.” She’d never betray us. “Trust me. She could help you.”
Finally, Camilo moved his hands to hug me, and my heart broke when I felt his fingers trembling.
“Aren’t you curious who it was?”
“No.” I kissed the top of his head like he always did to me. “Whoever it was, I put all the blame on Dion, who forced you into that life.” I loathed that man. “But what’s important is that it’s over now, and it’s our time to move forward. Together .”
Camilo stayed quiet while hugging me tight, his fingers clenching my clothes like some lost child who’d found solace in an embrace. And despite his dark confession, I felt joy that finally, after weeks of suffering, he was starting to unwind. Who cares if he killed a man? We all did things we regretted, right? I did many wrongs in my past, so who was I to judge Camilo for something like that. Besides, I was sure whoever he’d killed deserved it.
“Do you really think that we could move forward?”
Smiling to myself, I pressed my cheek to his head and closed my eyes.
“I do. I really do.”