Jay and Luis

Jay’s Story

Jay moved in around May, and the house finally started to feel alive again. He has a way of making a space his — hanging art, moving furniture, finding light in corners I hadn’t even noticed. Within a week it stopped feeling like an empty place I was surviving in and started to feel like somewhere people actually lived.

One weekend we drove down to Miami, then to Orlando. We had a few errands, a few reasons, but mostly it was just to get out. Somewhere on the way back, I realized we were near Krome — the detention center where Enrique was. I said it out loud, half to myself, that it was strange to think of someone you once had such a deep connection with being so close, but completely inaccessible. Jay asked if I’d thought about visiting. I said no. The whole situation already took up too much space in my life as it was.

After that he got quiet. A few miles later, he said, “You don’t remember anything, do you?”
I asked what he meant.
“Luis,” he said — his ex.

I remembered the broad strokes: they’d broken up, Luis had been deported. What I hadn’t remembered (or maybe never known) was that Luis had been at Krome as well.

Jay told me the whole story on that drive back. How he and Luis were invited to someone’s house to record a podcast. How the night felt wrong from the beginning. How, when they left, they got pulled over minutes later and Louis was arrested. Two days later, he was in Krome

He said the early days were hell. Visiting hours that kept changing, officers who treated them like problems, never people. Louis got hit a few times for being gay. Jay fought back in every way he could -complaints, calls, anything - but it didn’t matter much. He was suddenly alone, paying all the bills, trying to figure out lawyers and immigration and paperwork.

And then, after months of waiting, of taking care of everything for someone who was barely surviving, he found out Louis had been cheating. It didn’t even end with that. After five months of doing everything he could, Louis just stopped calling. Ten days later, he called from Chile. No notice, no warning, nothing.

Jay said he waited another month, maybe two, hoping Louis would call again — to say thank you, to say come here, to say something. He never did.

When he finished telling me, he said quietly, “That’s why I get frustrated with you sometimes. I know you care about him. I know you want to help. But I never want to see anyone lose themselves the way I did.”

It shut me up for a while. Because he was right.