Corazana Prieto wasn't a summer person. The only thing she liked about summer break was having the young Lydia Deetz by her side. Corazana was just supposed to babysit her for two weeks. She thought it'd be horror movies nights with popcorns all alo...
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Chapter 20 Teen Idle.
There weren't tears the whole night, but a lot of talking, actually. Beetlejuice asked about her boyfriend and quickly understand, as she was summering their relationship, that he had absolutely no reason to be jealous of this pathetic guy. Nathan was just an awful person, fetishizing his Latina girlfriend so he would have an alibi to prove he "could absolutely not be racist". Which he obviously was.
"Why are you doing this to yourself?" softly asked the demon, "you could've at least find a -fake- boyfriend that respects you."
Corazana shrugged, "it's easier to fake our relationship if I hate him. I'm not afraid to break his heart."
He smiled, his teeth seemed to glow in the light of the moon.
"Do you hate me so much for breaking mine like that, then?"
Giggling, Cora hides her nose in his chest.
"I can't listen to you seriously if you keep telling me that kind of cheesy stuff. That doesn't sound very you."
"Heh, sorry, I'll go back to be a creep and sneak up on you while you're in the shower."
"Ew, no thanks."
He held her tighter because that was the only thing he allowed himself to do. They weren't meant to be. An undead couldn't end up with a breather. She deserved to live a long and happy life while he would just spend eternity alone. That has always been the plan.
But for now, I can pretend this is eternity, thought Lawrence, as he took a "deep breath" to smell her heady scent of mint, forest, and rain. A human being should not be allowed to have the same perfume as a dryad. He had never personally met one, but he assumed that what they smelled like.
Beetlejuice brushed her burned skin, wondering if Corazana wasn't some sort of dryad after all. It was like touching the very delicate and fragile bark of a young oak tree.
"Are you really human?" asked the demon, knowing full well her response.
"I am, unfortunately."
"Too bad. But I still like you."
He felt her heart beating faster. She put the blanket over them.
"When I was a young girl, thirteen or something, with dead dreams and dying lungs, I remembered doing this every night and crying until my eyes were running out of tears and my brain too tired to stay awake. I was telling myself I was useless, a burden to my parents."
Beetlejuice remained silent.
"I didn't have friends. No one wanted to hang out with the burned girl and her disgusting scars. I spent my middle-school years alone. Can you imagine how hard it is for a young Mexican girl to eat by herself while all the White kids were looking at her like a monster. I was a creature at school, and a stranger in my own home," she was patting his hair as she was talking, "so I tried to hide under my blanket."
"I did that too when my mom was going home. There was an old trunk in my bedroom. The second I heard the front door open, I jumped and locked myself in."
"I'm so sorry."
"That's alright, it was a century ago. And she's not here to hurt me anymore. But your insecurities on the other hand..."
"Still there, I know. I'm working on it," assured Corazana, "I think the worst thing I did at that time was bleaching my hair with actual bleach, desperately trying to fit in the popular girls' group. I wanted to be the pretty blonde everyone was looking at. I just ended up destroying my hair so bad my dad had to help me shaving my head. That's kind of a funny story, actually: he heard me crying in the bathroom in the middle of the night, handful of yellowish hair, facing the mirror. I was barely talking to him since the accident because I felt..."
He finished her sentence, since she stopped talking, looking for words: "ashamed?"
"Yeah. I couldn't look in his eyes. We were close before all this, and suddenly I wasn't even able to have a normal father/daughter relationship with him. But that night, he's the one who found me in the bathroom. And we talked for hours. About the accident, about his past career, about our place as immigrants in this country, about finding my own way in a society that will always consider me the "Mexican girl". He took his trimmer and helped me get rid of my hair. Of course, everyone gave me a funny look at school. Not only was I the burned Latina unable to make friends, but now I looked like a freaking anarchist as well."
"Sounds pretty dope, actually," commented the demon, smirking.
"It was. Mom showed me pictures she found the other day, I looked awesome. It helped me realize how little I cared about them, their opinions, and the way they perceived me. I finished middle-school and started high-school without any friends, and I was happy. Being a lone-wolf was kinda nice. I also started studying art on my own, had my first boyfriend who went to Australia a few months later. Then I got sick... the rest is history."
He clasped her body as she was shivering with delight, "my sweet, sweet doll..."
The demon's right hand started going down, caressing Corazana'a bottom over her underwear.
"We can't," she whispered in a breath.
"I know," he kissed her neck, smiling when he heard her holding a moan.
"Lawrence, this is hard enough for both of us... please..."
"Alright, alright."
Corazana wished she could not care enough to go for it, even though it was insane, not right, unthinkable. But she cared. A breather and an undead were simply not meant to be.
"You told me you weren't ready to die for me," said Beetlejuice, "but even if you were, I wouldn't want you to give up on life."
"Why?"
"It's just so beautiful to see you live, breathe, laugh, and cry. If you threw that away for my poor demon ass, it would be a shame."
"We could be friends, you know... Just friends..."
"Lydia is my friend. Babe and Sexy are my friends, as well. I would even consider Charles and Delia my friends, somehow. But you're different, I don't have friendly feelings towards you, it's more than that."
"Oh..."
She had guess, of course, but it wasn't the same to hear him say those words. He pushed her aside, starting to get up.
"Now sleep, doll, it's getting late."
Cora grabbed his hand, "stay with me...?"
"I don't need to sleep."
"But you can, can't you?"
"I can."
"Stay with me," she repeated, but not as a question.
He nodded and let the young woman hug him. She fell asleep quickly, and for the first time in decades, Beetlejuice closed his eyes and felt peace overwhelming his mind and corpse.
