Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
I hear a key inserted into the lock of the apartment door. I know it’s only going to bring me more pain and despair. I’d anticipated this moment happening, but I figured I’d have more time.
Time.
I ask for it in some situations. More time in this apartment. More time with Alec. I’ve also begged time to speed up. Make me eighteen already. End the time I had to wait until Alec came home. Futile requests on all fronts.
I sit on the bed, standing my ground, refusing to give up my grief filled sanctuary. Cowboy boots and the clicking of the kitten heeled shoes Alec’s mother is famous for wearing echo off the wall. Seconds before their forms block the doorway, I see their looming shadows. I’ve lived in literal and perpetual darkness since reading about Alec’s death. It only seemed fitting for my now darkened heart.
Even in the low light of the room I can see the distaste on his father’s face. Brown hair and dark, almost black eyes stare through me. I see Alec in his Hispanic features, and it kills me that they hate me so much. How two people can have so much contempt for a girl who’s a victim of circumstance I’ll never understand.
“It’s time for you to go,” Maria Sanchez all but snarls as she flips on the light.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell them with more bravado than I actually feel. “Alec paid the apartment through the end of next month. I’m staying.”
“That’s correct,” Alejandro Sr. says with a heavily accented tone. “But the apartment manager has had pity on my family and our loss. They’ve refunded us this and next month’s rent, as well as the security deposit.”
Maria smirks at me even though her face is marked with pain and her eyes are swollen red from crying. The loss of a child is something I’d never wish on anyone, not even Alec’s parents. They hate me, but they loved him dearly, smotheringly so. He moved out of their house and away from their judgment of me as soon as he removed his cap at graduation last year.
My lips quiver as I try not to cry. I clear my throat. If anger, hate, and disrespect are helping them through their hard times, it can work for me as well.
“I’m not leaving,” I repeat.
“Yes you are,” Alejandro Sr. says still standing in the doorway.
“We were engaged to be married. I have rights as his fiancée.”
“You have no rights, little girl. What you have are twenty-four hours to gather your things and get out. You should be glad we’re allowing that much time. I could easily have the apartment manager up here to forcibly remove you this minute. You’re not in the rental agreement. As far as they know, you’re a squatter here,” Maria sneers.
She’s right. I’m not eighteen. Alec tried to put me on the lease agreement but couldn’t because of my age.
“I love him. We were getting married.” I hang my head in shame, knowing our pending nuptials were a thorn in their sides at a minimum.
I hear his mother huff. Looking up at her, I recognize the look in her eyes. She only gets it when things are going to turn ugly. Usually, she’s able to maintain her composure, but I’ve seen her lose her control a couple of times.
“That sham of an engagement,” she says pointing down to the tiny diamond ring I’m clasping with my right hand. “If it were real, things would be different.”
“It was real,” I argue, raising my voice. “He loved me!”
“Silly girl, we’ve known Alec was gay since we caught him wearing his mother’s makeup at eight.” I cut astonished eyes back to Alec’s dad. “That’s right; we’ve known for years. We know exactly what you were up to, pretending to be in love so he could marry you and take you with him when was stationed stateside. You may have fooled everyone else, but you can’t fool us.”
My tears return in earnest. Alec died thinking his parents had no idea about his sexuality. He lived in shame every day for how he was born. The stigma of being gay in America, although getting better as time goes on, was a heavy burden. Being gay in a Catholic, Hispanic family was almost more than he could bear most days.
“Listen,” Maria says with an uncharacteristically soothing voice. “We have no doubt you loved him. We have no doubt that he loved you, but you have to go home, Khloe.”
She pats my legs quickly and walks to the door. “We’ll be back to pack up his things tomorrow. You need to be gone before we get here,” I hear his father say before they both walk out of the room.
The sound the front door makes as it closes sounds much like I imagine the sealing of a tomb would.