Page 64 of Unexpected Prejudice

Rethinking about the day the federal agents knocked on our doors brought back so many bad memories I wished to forget. How did it make me feel? I felt betrayed when my dad disappeared without leaving so much of a note behind. I felt fear when strangers kept taking things from our house and shame when my mom and I had to stay with friends because we had nowhere else to go. I remembered how powerless I felt listening to my mom cry in the bathroom the first night we spent in that crappy motel room. I was also angry, but unlike the other emotions that had slowly faded, my anger from the beginning never left me. Instead, it only grew stronger with each passing day.

“Powerless. Devastated. But mostly angry. I was so angry I wanted to break something.” That was my immediate response.

“And did you?” He turned his head and searched my face for my answer. “Did you break something?”

“No. I’m not that type of guy.”

A smile broke his icy expression as he brought his thumb to his lips and bit the tip. “Yeah… that’s what I thought,” he said, leaning back in his seat.

“Why do you ask?”

“Is there anything else I can bring you, sugar?” the old waitress asked as she popped out of nowhere and interrupted our moment. She was chewing on bubble gum while giving the two of us a warm smile.

“Just the check, please,” Shay-Lee said while returning her smile.

She left and quickly returned with the bill. Shay-Lee didn’t even glance at the small piece of paper before taking a hundred out of his wallet and leaving it on the table.

He stood up. “Let’s go.”

We were hit with the cold night air as we stepped outside the diner, and I was already gripping the handle to open the driver seat when Shay-Lee spoke.

“Skip school on Monday.”

“What?” I asked, confused by his random statement.

He moved his hand over the hood of his car before he glanced my way. The sorrow I saw earlier in his eyes was replaced with something else. An emotion I couldn’t explain.

“Just listen to me, and don’t come to school on Monday.”

I wanted to ask why, but Shay-Lee got inside the car before I could, and by doing so, he made it very clear that the conversation was over.

Jessie

We’d come back from Fool’s Moon at dawn, at which point I’d slept for three hours, woke to watch a movie and have breakfast, and then took another nap for a couple more hours. When I woke again, I couldn’t find Levi. I looked everywhere, and yet, nothing.

“Have you seen Levi?” I asked Andrei, who was crouched on the grass in our backyard, waxing a yellow longboard while several more surfboards leaned against the blue wooden fence behind him.

“Nope, haven’t seen him. I gave Miles a ride home, and Levi wasn’t here when I returned. Thought about calling him?” Andrei stood and replaced the yellow longboard with a pink and white funboard.

“He doesn’t pick up, and what are you doing with all of those?” I waved at the piles of boards and slumped down beside him.

“Some boards from the shop needed waxing. Maybe he went with Chief and Kai to the fish market?”

“He didn’t,” I said. “I called Chief and asked, but he said Levi wasn’t with them.”

“I see.” Andrei hummed before he took off his shirt and used it to wipe sweat from his body. “Fuck, it’s hot today.”

It was hot today. Very hot.

It was also a beautiful day with the sun high in the sky, and the ocean water was clear and inviting. So… there was no way Levi would be outside. Levi was basically a vampire. He hated the sun because he got burned way too quickly and loathed sweating. The amount of sunscreen he forced on me every day before I left the house was insanely high. I was positive that the sunscreen industry could survive alone, with Levi being its sole customer.

“Hey, if you don’t know where he is, why don’t you help me—”

“Sorry, I can’t.” I shrugged and got up.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“To the library.”