“Nice seeing you,” I responded.
He walked up to the passenger’s side and what was said next almost knocked the wind out of me. “I’m surprised I didn’t see you earlier.”
“Surprised you didn’t see me? See me where?” I asked, confused.
“Well, being that you and my cousin were such good friends, I kinda figured you’d show up,” Pedro responded as I looked at him, confusion was clearly evident on my face, I was sure. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, and I guess my expression told him so. “You don’t know, do you?”
“What are you talking about? What don’t I know?” I asked.
“Well, I’m sorry to break this to you, but Shane’s funeral was this morning.”
“Huh? I’m sorry… Shane’s what?” I asked, not sure if I heard him correctly.
Getting out of the truck, I walked up to him, and he gave me a big hug. I wasn’t ready for that. I totally didn’t expect for Pedro to say that. Shane had just texted me a few days ago, and although I knew about him having HIV, I had no clue that he was that sick.
“Shane’s funeral was this morning. Everyone was looking for you. Now I know why you didn’t come… you didn’t know.”
“I had no idea! When did he… what happened?” I asked. I didn’t want to make Pedro uncomfortable questioning him. I was just shocked and really didn’t know what to say.
“We’re not sure what happened, but he was killed a few days ago.”
“Oh my God!” I gasped.
“We don’t know who did it. We think it was someone he may have known. It happened at his house. There was no sign of forced entry, and according to the family that lives across the street they think he knew the person. They said they’d seen the guy at his house so many times that they could point him out in a crowd. They just don’t know who he is to give any more details to the police. When I went with the family to Shane’s house after it happened, they came over and told us what they witnessed.”
“Wow! I’m totally speechless, Pedro.”
“We are, too. I still can’t believe it.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what did they say they witnessed? If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand. I’m just in a state of shock, is all.”
“Oh no, you’re fine. I know how close you and my cousin were, so it’s cool. I get why you’d want to know because that’s how I was feeling about it also,” he admitted. “They basically told us that they heard a lot of yelling and screaming. The noise sounded like some serious fighting was going on. You know Shane was loud and obnoxious sometimes, so they thought it was a wild party or something going on at first. When they realized that he was being attacked because they said when the dude was beating on Shane, they could hear the hits one by one, so they called the police.”
“My goodness,” I muttered.
“They were standing out on their front porch when they saw a man leave his house, get into a car, then speed off. Thanks to them, they were able to give the description of the guy and car to the police. We’re just waiting on them to find this person so that justice can be served. Whoever it was doesn’t deserve to be walking the streets because he is clearly dangerous. When we went by Shane’s house after the attack it was a true crime scene, I tell ya. His place looked like it was hit by a hurricane, broken glass, furniture, and blood was splattered all over the walls and floor,” Pedro continued to explain. I could tell that he was fighting back his emotions. “I can’t believe that someone would do that to my cousin. He didn’t deserve that.”
I didn’t know what to say. No one deserved to be beat to death just because, I can agree to that, but Shane had been involved in some shady shit. I didn’t know how to respond, but clearly, he had no clue about me and Shane’s fallout. And he probably had no clue about all of the shade Shane had been upto leading to his death. There was no telling who could have snapped out once he had to admit he was HIV positive. But, now that he was no longer here, I felt like there was no point in me bringing any of that up. I felt like that would have been inappropriate, so I just stood there and tried to console Pedro instead.
“I’m so very sorry, Pedro. My condolences to you and your family.”
“Thank you, sweetie. I have a few extra copies of his obituary. Let me grab one for you out of my car so you can have one. I’m just parked over there.” He pointed behind me then continued. “I’ll be right back.”
Pedro scurried off to his car as I stood there waiting. I didn’t know how to feel about what I had just heard. I had been so angry with Shane that I felt in my heart that I was done with him, but to hear that he had been beaten to death… I couldn’t say that it made me feel good to hear that. What he did to me was wrong on all levels, and if I had Dawn’s heart, I’d probably not care and shake it off as his karma, but I couldn’t.
“Here you go, love,” Pedro said, breaking me from my thoughts.
“Thanks so much. Wow!” was all that I could say.
Giving Pedro one last hug, I got ready to get back into the truck when Kevin walked up.
“Who was that? Is everything okay?” he asked.
I handed him the obituary without even looking at it first.
“Oh! Wow! What happened?”
I explained to Kevin that the guy he saw me hugging was Shane’s cousin and that he was telling me that Shane had been beaten to death. Kevin looked through the obituary as I told him what Pedro had told me. He handed it back to me then drove off headed back to my house.
