The room is a stark and startling white, except for the seats. I notice that a lot of people are wearing white, too, and it suddenly feels like I’m allergic to the world. My palms itch. My neck is sweating. My throat is scratchy, and everything blurs in my eyes, like I’m stuck in a pool of poison ivy, drowning in it.

The ADA is talking about the video now, explaining the last few minutes of Tyler’s life. I squeeze my eyes shut so fucking tight when they play the video, but I can still hear my brother’s voice. Hear the man who murdered him. But they don’t call it that. No one is saying the M word.

And all I want to scream is: Murder, man! It was fucking murder. Just because a goddamn crooked cop did it doesn’t mean it’s any less than that.

The defense attorney speaks up. “Objection! Inconclusive. We’ve all reviewed it, and it’s clear that he resisted.”

The room starts blurring before me.

Tyler had a mother who loved him to bits—sometimes it felt like she loved him more than she loved me. Tyler had dreams—had the world at his fingertips and a whole life to live. Tyler had me.

But to them, all they see is his hoodie and baggy pants. All that cop saw was a thug looking for trouble.

He was just a kid.

Scratch that. I’m sick of the word just because Tyler wasn’t just anything.

Tyler was my best friend, my companion all those times when I needed one. He was everything—everything—and just like that, he’s not.

The world is muffled in my ears, and it sounds like I’m in a glass jar and there are vibrations bouncing off me, not quite clear, like I am floating in a hazy vertigo.

I’m not gonna cry, I keep reminding myself over and over, until I trick myself into believing it.

I force myself to block everything out as I replay one of my fondest memories with Tyler, a memory I hold on to tight, like the last hug we shared. It’s a cloudy day, the earth soft, and the world smells like rain will fall soon. It’s just the two of us on the court, and we’re playing a game of one on one.

Tyler has the ball. He dribbles and dips and crosses me over as I try to play defense, my arms guarding him the best I can.

But he always finds ways to get around me. He dribbles the ball in between his legs, spins, releases the ball into the air, and then SWOOSH! The ball falls from the hoop and bounces a couple times on the ground before he checks it to me.

I dribble, breathing in, keeping my eyes on him, knowing his every move—mastering them.

We’re both just sweat and nothing else, not saying anything, just playing.

A dark-skinned girl in a tight purple dress steps forward. When she walks to the stand in front of Mama and me, I can see her eyes up close. They aren’t filled with tears, but with rage. She takes the oath, swearing on the Bible to tell the whole truth.

“State your name into the microphone, please,” the judge says to her.

The girl runs a hand through her hair, flips it, and then says, “Daphne Haywood. I witnessed what happened the night of Tyler Johnson’s slaughter, when he was stopped and then shot to death.”

“Objection!”

“Sustained,” the judge says. “We haven’t come to a conclusion just yet, Ms. Haywood.”

And I’m shaking so fucking bad right now. My life is not a movie, but most of the time I wish it were, and right now is one of those moments when I just fucking wish that this wasn’t real. That the stories on the news, the stories from Mama, the stories Tupac rapped about had just been that. Stories. Not things that could happen to ordinary people. And I feel this harder, more than ever.

And I want to shout: He was murdered. He was murdered. But shouting this would be like shouting into a vacuum in space, only to be silenced and suffocated to death in the end.

The ADA begins questioning Daphne. “For the record, Ms. Haywood, are you a student at Sojourner Truth High School?”

“No, ma’am.”

“How did you end up at the scene?”

“I was invited to the party by a friend’s boyfriend.”

“What did you do when the chaos started?”

“When I first heard gunshots, I dipped out, taking the back exit. When I got outside, that’s when I saw Tyler. He didn’t see me. The cop didn’t see me either. At least, I don’t think so, because neither of them took their eyes off each other.”

“What did you see happen between Tyler and Officer Meredith?”

“The cop told Tyler to put his hands up in the air. Tyler dropped a package as he lifted up his arms. The cop had his gun pointed at Tyler the whole time, taking slow steps forward. I had a feeling that I knew what was going to happen. So I started recording with my phone.”

“And then?”

“It was exactly like what is in the video. That’s how I saw it. Tyler said that he just wanted to get home, and he pushed the cop away and started to run, and as soon as I heard three shots, I ran, but I made sure to keep recording.” She stops and turns her head to look at Officer Thomas Meredith, her face angled up in disgust. “That boy didn’t deserve that. Hell, no one does. And I’m sick and tired of these racist cops saying that he was just a thug and had it coming to justify their actions. This has happened in our community too damn much.”

“Objection!” the defense attorney calls out, adjusting his black tie.

“Sustained.”

“No further questions, Your Honor.”

Now the defense attorney steps up to cross-examine her, his white face almost as red as his beard.

“Can you describe the party for the court?”

“The party was like all the others that I’ve been to, but it turned into everyone’s worst nightmare. Gang fight and police raid all in one night.”

“Noted. So, you were aware there was the potential for gang violence and police intervention?”

“Yes. But no one tells you when there’s going to be a gang fight or a police raid.”

“So, you’re saying that you went to this party oblivious to the consequences?”

“What?”

“Objection, relevance!”

“Sustained.”

“Withdrawn. When you exited the party, did you see Mr. Johnson handcuffed?”

“I don’t think I saw handcuffs come out at all. Gun first. It was just the two of them going back and forth before the cop shot him.”

“They were going back and forth? So, Mr. Johnson was resisting?” They’re trying to get her like bait. And I want to scream.

“No. He was just asking why he was being targeted, which anyone would do if they were scared. The officer didn’t have to resort to the gun as his first option.”

“Did he resist? Was he behaving violently toward Officer Meredith?”

The Tyler Johnson I knew, not the one the world is trying to make him out to be, was not violent. It doesn’t matter if he wore his pants below his waist, had weed, or had all Ds and Fs on his sixth-grade report card—none of that gives a police officer the right to kill a kid.

And Daphne says it for me: “If in this country we want to justify murder for white people, for cops, I don’t want to be here.”

“Let’s back up. Didn’t you say it was dark?”

“Yes.” She blinks real slow.

“How do you know what you saw, then?”

“It wasn’t that dark. There was a streetlight. It’s in the video. You can see for yourself, if you’d just open your damn eyes.”

“If you’re so sure that what you saw was murder, why did you stay, pull out your phone, and attempt to record what was going on instead of getting help?”

“I didn’t stay.” Daphne sighs before giving me a sad look. “When I heard the shots, I ran. I told no one about what I saw at first.” And I can’t exactly blame her for recording and not running to get help first. Because what help could she have gotten, if the people we go to for help are the very ones doing the harm? We’re too familiar with shit like this. Tyler wasn’t the first, and all the cases before him ended in the same way: no justice.

“You didn’t tell anyone?”

“No,” she says, taking a deep breath, her purple dress expanding at her stomach. “I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be next.”

The entire room almost seems to freeze over. It gets so bitterly quiet.

“How did you know Mr. Tyler Johnson?”

“I didn’t,” she says. “Not until word got back to me from my friend’s boyfriend about who it was in the video.”

“Is that why you leaked the video anonymously?”

“I was scared,” she replies. “And I didn’t know what to do.”

“So, apparently, you took it upon yourself to keep Mr. Tyler Johnson’s death your little secret.”

Each time they say his name, my heart beats faster.

“That’s not what I said,” Daphne goes. She flips her hair and sighs so angrily, so annoyed.

“No further questions, Your Honor.”

As Daphne leaves the stand, she turns to Mama and me and mouths the words I’m sorry before going to find her seat.

I feel like I’m suffocating, taking my final gasp of air over and over again. I just want to scream for the world to listen closely, to listen carefully, to finally hear me. But I shake my head, unable to form any words. Everything in my mind is like a whirlpool, a free-for-all.

Mama starts sobbing into her Kleenex again. I spend the rest of the hearing focused on Mama or trapped in my own head, unable to concentrate on what the lawyers are discussing. Unable to trust that justice is coming our way.