JAWAD

The police won’t let my parents bury me. Not until the case is solved, they said. I traded the cold metal of a pipe for the cold metal of a drawer in the morgue. It’s dark in here, too.

At least my parents know now. At least they know where I am. Thanks to Safiya. I called to her and she came. She saw me when no one else did, even when I was alive.

I thought it would make it better for my parents if they found me. But my mom still cries all the time. I could almost feel her when she touched my hand and my cheek when they showed her my body.

Now I see Baba watching her as she tries to sleep. How he puts his hand on her head. How he puts his hand to his heart.

Safiya feels it, too, the dark, the scary shadows coming to life. I’m sorry for that. I didn’t know that would happen. I didn’t know what else to do. She’s the only one who heard me, who listened. The only one who believed.

Be careful, I whisper when Safiya is at her breakfast table, shivering, her hands wrapped around a cup of tea her mom made. Be careful. You’re so close to everything.

In sixth grade we did a unit on how courts and laws work in America. In our book there was a sketch, a line drawing of a figure that kind of looked like the Statue of Liberty, but wearing a blindfold and holding scales that weigh things, like at our little corner grocery. She was called Lady Justice. Because “everyone is equal under the law,” my teacher said. I didn’t get it because if you can’t see, how can you make sure everyone is treated equally?

A lot of the things we read in the textbook didn’t match up with the things I saw outside of school. And on the news. One time, a protest march passed my parents’ dry cleaners. A lot of people of different ages and races. Even kids in strollers and toddlers on their parents’ shoulders. They were holding signs that said BLACK LIVES MATTER. There were signs with a picture of a smiling Black woman. She looked happy and young. Not young like me, but like someone in college. She’d been killed by a cop. In her own house. All she was doing was sleeping. And there was a picture of a Black boy in a hoodie. He was maybe my age. He was killed, too. For walking around. For being Black. The news kept talking about him like he was an adult, but he was a kid, like me.

There were people chanting “No justice, no peace.” It made me think of that Lady Justice drawing. About how some things they taught us in school were a lie. About how sometimes adults betray you. About how sometimes it feels like you can never win, no matter what you do, even when you didn’t do anything wrong. But some people get to get away with murder.

I saw Safiya sitting still for a long time, staring into her cup of tea. She’s scared. I know what that feels like. She was scared, but she came to find me anyway. Shukran, I breathed next to her. She turned her head, and her eyes landed on a slant of light streaming in through the window.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You saw me when no one else did.