Page 106 of Unexpected Prejudice

She started to protest, but I shook my head. “No, I’m so sorry, but I can’t.” I took a step away from her. “I’m so sorry, Laura.”

And like the selfish coward I was, I turned around and left without looking back, unable to see any more pain on her face.

It wasn’t the same as helping Jess because I had no time to think back then. Now I had, and the thought of risking everything to help a girl I hardly knew scared me. She deserved justice, but I wasn’t strong enough to help her chase it.

Jordan

User3456: What a slut.

BigD69_34567: Just another whore trying to get attention.

User87321: Slutty-ass bitch. One look at her clothes and cock-sucking lips, and you can tell she was ASKING for it. #RIPBITCH.

“The fuck, Jordy?” Shay-Lee said as he nudged my shoulder and forced me to look up from my phone. When did he come in?

Slumping his ass on the couch beside me, he leaned back. “I’ve called like five times. Didn’t you see?” He waved at my phone. “I fucking hate being ignored.” He stomped his foot on the carpeted floor and stood up.

He stepped into our tiny kitchen and opened up the pantry, then grunted when he came up with nothing. “Got anything to eat? Of course, you don’t… ha. What a shitty day. I’ll just order something. What do you wanna eat? By the way, where’s your mom?” He pulled out his phone and started tapping.

“She’s visiting her friend in Palm Springs for the week,” I answered, not realizing how weak my voice came out until Shay-Lee put down his phone and looked at me. A line appeared between his brows, and he glared at me worriedly.

“Hey, everything okay?” He returned to sit on the couch, and I clenched my phone tighter. Noticing the action, he reached and took it out of my grip. It took a few seconds before realization sank in, and he sighed.

“Why are you reading this?”

“I don’t know,” I answered flatly, staring at the black screen of the TV.

“If you don’t know, then don’t do it to yourself.” He placed my phone beside him before he reached to touch my back. “What happened to her was tragic, but it’s not like we knew her.”

Laura died.

Wrong.

Laura killed herself.

According to Mrs. Morrison, Laura Mayers took her own life last night. The whole school was shocked and sad about losing a fellow student. At least, they pretended to be sad. She wasn’t even buried, and people were already spreading the gossip. They didn’t care for her. They cared for the drama. The scandal from the suicide of a seventeen-year-old girl who took her life after she was—

“I did know her.” I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat. Only yesterday, she came to ask for my help, and I’d refused. I refused because I was a selfish coward. “I even talked with her yesterday,” I added with a choked voice.

Am I the last person she talked with?

Shay-Lee stopped moving his hand on my back and leaned closer. “What did you two talk about?”

I took a deep breath, trying to hold it together so I could try and share what had been sitting on my heart since hearing the news of her death.

“She asked me to help her.” What if after we talked, she went back to her home, took her father’s gun and shot herself in the head? That’s what the news had said. That she shot herself in the head.

“To help her, how?”

His hand moved to my thigh, and he squeezed me a little. The touch pulled me out of my thoughts and back to the present. I turned to face him, only to find his piercing blue eyes staring back at me. His being here, beside me, gave me the courage to speak.

“She was raped.” The moment that word left my mouth, Shay-Lee’s whole expression changed. It lasted less than a second, but I didn’t miss how his eyes widened, and his lips parted right before his poker face returned.

“She was brave enough to go to the police, but no one believed her. The guys who did that to her, they made it all go away.”

“Guys?” he asked, making sure he heard correctly.

I nodded. “There were two of them,”