Lie: Closure is an end.
Truth: It might be done, but it’s never over.
Satisfied. That was what I was supposed to feel when the verdict came down.
Relieved. That was what I was supposed to feel when I read my victim impact statement. Closure. That was what I was supposed to feel when the judge handed down a sentence of sixty years in prison for Richard and Nate.
I didn’t feel any of that. I felt hollow.
As the judge read the jury’s verdict, I stared at the back of Richard’s head, saw his shoulders droop for the first time; it was so slight, but it was real. Nate yelled out, not words, but like a yelp. Like he’d been kicked in the gut. I wanted them both to feel so much worse than that.
Richard’s father leaned over the banister that separated the defense table from the benches we were all sitting in. He clasped his hand on Richard’s shoulder. He was saying something, whispering to the lawyers, but I couldn’t hear him. The courtroom was in a bit of a frenzy for a minute. Judge Suman was banging her gavel telling people to come to order. I glanced over at Jawad’s parents and nodded at them. His mom was crying. His dad was, too. I wondered if their pain would ever go away. I guessed it wouldn’t. I don’t know how anyone can live with a hole like that in their lives.
Right then, Richard glanced over his shoulder. He saw me. Caught my eye. At first I wasn’t sure if I could face him, but then I couldn’t take my eyes off him because there was something in his face I’d never seen before: fear. His smug smile had been erased. His family’s wealth had always bought him everything, protected him. Then suddenly, it hadn’t.
Immediately after the trial, attorneys from both sides held press conferences on the steps of the courthouse. The defense said they were going to appeal. They were hinting that the judge should maybe have recused herself, that there was bias in the case. I noticed that one of the defense attorneys kept emphasizing the judge’s name when he said it. Said it over and over, Judge Majida Suman. And he mispronounced it, too. Even though inside the court he seemed to know how to say it perfectly fine.
Of course they’re going to appeal. Rich white kids aren’t supposed to be held accountable for their crimes, apparently. Richard did always act like he had a Get Out of Jail Free card up his sleeve. One of the newspapers reported that on his first night in jail he’d asked for a grass-fed steak for dinner. Of course he did. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d gotten it. The defense lawyers got Richard and Nate transferred to the cushiest jail there was, even with the verdict and the sentence. Money can buy comfort, I guess, if not always freedom.
The bruises and scrapes I’d gotten in my fight with Richard were gone but the memories were like scars on my body. Jawad was still dead. Murdered. Left alone in that cold, wet culvert until I found him. How could he ever have justice? There is no justice for murder and hate. Maybe even asking for justice, calling it justice in cases like this, is wrong. It’s not like paying back money you stole. It’s a life that was taken that can never be returned. It’s all the lives that one life affects that can never be made whole again.
Jawad’s voice, that woodsy musky incense smell I always sensed when I thought it was him around, his ghost, his presence, faded until a small part of me began to think it had all been a figment of my imagination. I think a lot about that afternoon years ago when Jawad and I were both little and he came into the store. Maybe that’s why he chose me. Maybe I had a promise to keep. Maybe he needed my voice to speak because he couldn’t. Even if I couldn’t hear him anymore, he wasn’t silenced. I carried a part of him with me now. That’s how it would be, always.
I don’t know how it’s fair that I get a whole life ahead of me, I just know that I’m lucky to get it. Jawad’s life is over, but his story hasn’t ended. I won’t let it be forgotten. Each one of us has stories that braid into other lives as those other lives weave into our own. The golden threads of Jawad’s life are threaded through mine now. And looking up at the stars, I imagine him there. Shining.