Page 177 of Pride High 2: Orange

“What happened with Silvia? Did she get away with her dad?”

Ricky nodded. “It was easy. Nobody paid attention to us at all.” His eyes lit up suddenly. “Diego!”

Omar turned and saw him hustling through the doors. “Are they on your tail?” he asked.

Diego shook his head. “They tried chasing me up a stairwell. They’re probably still in there huffing and puffing. Let’s go.”

They piled into the car and drove away. Omar ducked when he saw a security guard cruising the parking lot. He checked the back window after resurfacing. Nobody was following them.

“Home free,” Diego said as they turned down the street.

“I saw you guys fighting,” Ricky said. “I wish I could have stayed and watched. It looked awesome!”

“That’s nothing,” Diego replied before his eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. “Remember the throwdown at the mall?”

“Hell yeah!” Omar said with a grin. “We had a whole routine going.”

“I threw him across the room,” Diego said proudly while glancing at Ricky.

“And missed the damn bed!” Omar said with a laugh. “It was a department store where they sell mattresses. You’re lucky I didn’t break something.”

Diego shrugged. “You’ve always been good at falling.”

“True. Hey, do you skate anymore?”

“Are you kidding? Don’t you see what I’m driving?”

“I’ll still skate, even when I get a car,” Omar replied. “I like it too much.”

They kept talking along the way, sharing more memories with Ricky and laughing over the antics they used to get up to. And it felt like old times. Enough that when they pulled up to his house, Omar invited him in without a second thought.

“Let’s chill in my room until we hear from the others,” he suggested.

Diego’s response was gruff. “We’ve got somewhere to be.” He exited the car and tilted the seat so Omar could climb out.

“Do you have a second?” he asked.

Diego eyed him warily before he shut the car door with Ricky still inside. “What?”

Omar struggled to put his feelings into words. “It was cool hanging with you. I forgot how much fun we used to have.”

“I didn’t,” Diego snapped.

Omar felt a pang of guilt. “So let’s do it again. Make up for lost time. There’s no reason we can’t.”

Diego snorted. He stared at the other side of the street while shaking his head, his gaze intense when he finally locked eyes with him again. “Remember how shitty that summer was?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“How’d it feel at the end when you got to hang out with Anthony again? I bet that was real nice. Did you guys laugh about avoiding me? Or make it one of your little games? You could have at least had the balls to tell me to my face. I would’ve. If I was gonna ditch your ass, I would have been man enough to say so. Instead of making you wonder if you’d ever be forgiven. You don’t know how long I waited.”

Omar swallowed. “We messed up. You’re right. But you didn’t make it easy, man. If we’re being fair, you weren’t talking to us either. About any of it.”

“What the hell was I supposed to say?” Diego snarled. “My dad killed himself! And my mom lost her fucking mind! There are no words for that. Even now, all these god-forsaken years later. You have no idea how much it—” Diego clenched his jaw and looked away.

“Sorry,” Omar said while squirming. “We were dumb kids. Suicide was way outside our comfort zone. Anthony and me, we didn’t know how to deal with any of it.”

“Then what made you think I’d be able to?” Diego’s fists clenched at his sides. “I was a dumb kid too! And I losteverything. My dad, my mom, my best friends…” His chin trembled before he steeled himself. “So don’t pin this on me. All I could do was survive. Getting through each day was hard enough. What was your excuse? Huh? You and your stupid cozy life. What was so damn hard that you couldn’t be around me anymore? My anger? My silence? Well fuck you! Go back to your fake-ass existence. Maybe you’ll wake the hell up once you’ve actually lost something. Then we’ll see.”