All Faculty Excerpts

This Is Why They Hate Us

The following is an excerpt from Aaron H. Aceves' novel, This Is Why They Hate Us

***

My thumb hovers over the exit button on the remote, poised to strike as soon as I hear the jingling of keys that means one of my parents is home from work. Playing on our enormous flat-screen—easily the most expensive thing in our house because if there’s anything my dad loves more than drinking beer, it’s watching TV—is the end scene of a moody indie film about two white guys in love who don’t end up together. Even though they’re both bawling their eyes out at a train station, I can’t help but envy them. “It’s better to have loved and lost” and all that.

When the screen fades to black, I breathe a sigh of relief, switch over to my sitcom equivalent of a security blanket, and grab the bag of Hot Fritos on the glass-and-marble coffee table. Then I stretch out on the übercomfortable puke-green couch my mom inexplicably loves (possibly more than me) and start stuffing my face.

During the end credits of the first episode I watch, my phone lights up with a message. I sit up, suck chili powder off my fingers, and check it.

Hello!

Saleem. God I hate how much I love how formal his texting is.

sup, I reply.

Did you get home safely? he writes back almost immediately.

I smile and put my feet up on the coffee table. It only took one ride in Fabiola’s truck for Saleem to realize that the fact that I make it home every day in one piece is a miracle.

nah i died

It amuses me to no end to respond this way. With every other person I text, I use adequate punctuation, but not with Saleem. It actually takes more of an effort to reply the dumb way—Autocorrect and I always get locked in a battle of wills as I fight to keep the first word of my sentence lowercase, among other things—but Saleem appreciates the chaotic energy I inject into his life. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

Your fingers have remarkable dexterity for a corpse’s.

wow dats deadist

I hope that makes him laugh. I can’t say what I really want to say.

***