The next morning, Mama has the day off, so she gives me a ride to school, and it feels different.

It’s quiet as shit, no sound at all, except for the roaring motor. There’re only a few clouds out, but I can smell that smell that says it’s going to rain no matter what.

I watch Mama glance in all of her mirrors, like she thinks she’ll see Tyler hitchhiking, his backpack on his back, thumb out. Her eyes are bloodshot red, like she’s not slept in weeks. She takes a sharp left turn, going the opposite way of Sojo High, and I’m compelled to speak up. Maybe she’s completely lost it. And maybe I’m close behind.

“Where’re you going, Mama?” I say, wrinkling my forehead as I give her a worried-as-shit glance.

She looks at me as she speeds up, running through a red light. “I think I just saw him.” She has this hopeful look all over her, and it warms me up, and then she pulls up alongside a boy walking into a coffee shop, screaming, “Tyler, Tyler, Tyler!”

The boy doesn’t hear at first, and then he takes his hood off, unplugs his headphones, and looks around. This boy’s too light-skinned and looks a couple inches too tall to be Tyler.

He gives her a weird look before going into the coffee shop.

She pulls to the side of the road, parks the car next to a meter, and just sobs into her hands, like she’s allowing her world to end. And her weeping turns into wailing and her sobbing turns into a frenzied breakdown and her frenzied breakdown turns into her beating away at the steering wheel.

I’m not gonna cry. I’m not gonna cry. I can’t.

I reach over, unbuckling my seat belt, and I grab her into a forced hug and I squeeze hard, like it’s the last hug we’ll feel in this life. And she hugs and squeezes back and kisses my forehead and cheeks, like she thinks I’m going to slip away from her grasp, too.

“You’re all I’ve got right now,” she says. “You’re all I’ve got.”

School seems to last long as shit, and everybody wants to ask me about Tyler, about what I know, about what the cops are doing, and about how it feels to be the twin brother of a missing boy. I try my best to avoid most of it, because it’s just too much. I end up missing two of my classes, sitting in the unused, freezing-cold orchestra room, hiding away from everyone, just to clear my mind and let myself cry when I need to. I don’t eat lunch with Ivy and G-mo because I can’t seem to shut off the feelings knotting in my chest.

When I finally get home, Mama starts making Tyler’s favorite for dinner—cheesy broccoli and white rice—and soon I realize it’s going to take a lot longer for everything to cook, because she has to take little meltdown breaks, where she cries into the wooden table and smokes a couple of cigarettes. And I wonder why she even decided to make his favorite meal, besides the fact that it’s all we have left in the fridge. Maybe it’s her motherly way—her far-fetched motherly way—of praying that he’ll smell her cooking from afar and come barging through the door.

I head to my room. The rain picks up, and I leave my window open, just listening to the raindrops pummel the ground. There’s something about the sound that completely relaxes me. And I stare at the blank screen of my jank laptop, hoping words will start pouring out of my head so I can have my MIT application finished before my interview.

After dinner, we stay at the table, flipping through pictures of Tyler and me. She pulls out Tyler’s yearbook photo from tenth grade and kisses it softly, eyes closed.

There’s a sudden pounding on the door, beating a familiar beat.

Mama jumps up, her chest heaving. And she looks through the peephole first, like all those times when police visited us.

“Marvin?” she calls, concern oozing into her voice. “Come here.” She wipes the corners of her eyes and adjusts her bathrobe. “Stay close.”

She opens the door, the wind and rain rushing in. Detective Bills and Detective Parker share an umbrella on the front step, flashing us their badges like we forgot who they are. Detective Parker shouts over the rain. “Ma’am, we’re here to inform you that we believe we have found your son Tyler.”

Mama holds her heart, attempting a smile, exhaling so hard. She lets go of the door and, touching her cheek, looks back at me. “Thank you, Lord. God is good.” She turns to the detectives, a half smile on her lips. Eyes alert—so alert. “Where is he?”

The detectives glance at each other. “Unfortunately, Mrs. Johnson,” Detective Parker says slowly, “we’ve come to tell you that we found his body a few blocks away from the old Pic-A-Rag flea market. We need you to come down and identify the body.”

I lose all the air in my lungs. Mama blinks hard, her face wearing shock, before she stiffens and falls to the floor, screaming like she’s being tortured, crying like she’s supplying the world with another body of water, grieving like grief is a living organism hugging her tight.

And I lunge my body down to pick her up, and she fights me at first, before her body goes limp and she screams into my shoulders and chest, her voice’s vibration rattling my organs. My eyes fill fast with tears, and I blink and blink so many times, but everything’s a mess and there’s an entire apocalypse going on inside my chest. I’m going to split at the seams.

Is this real? This can’t be real. Tears keep rolling down my face. I try to wipe them away with my arm, but they won’t stop.

She’s pounding on my chest as I lift her up, her face tear-streaked, eyes shut tight.

“May we come inside?” Detective Bills asks.

Mama doesn’t stop wailing.

I nod, walking Mama to the kitchen table, her legs not wanting to move right.

The detectives follow us to the kitchen, glancing at each other and then at us and then back at each other. They stay quiet—real quiet.

I pull up a chair next to Mama, and the detectives sit across from us. I’m taking turns patting her on the back and wiping my face with my sleeve.

“Oh, God!” Mama wails even louder. “My baby boy!”

“I’m so sorry,” Detective Bills says.

“Yes, Mrs. Johnson,” Detective Parker adds. “I know this isn’t the news you were hoping for, but I assure you all the details will be transparent soon. There wasn’t a police report on file, but our team is gathering all the details as we speak.”

This doesn’t stop Mama from breaking down. And it doesn’t take my heart from out of my stomach or stop me from feeling like there’s a house fire inside me, burning everything to ash.

It hits me—so damn hard.

Tyler didn’t even disappear. He was dead all along. And realizing that a part of me is now gone, I can’t stop shaking my head and my chest goes numb. I can’t believe it. From here on out, every memory between us will be one-sided, and only I will be able to piece together all the little details, without Tyler correcting me, telling his version of them.

A lump rises in my throat. I forget how to swallow.

This ain’t even fair, man.

I place my hands in front of me, looking at them and wondering why Tyler and not anyone else? Hell, why him and not me?

Detective Bills clears his throat and leans in. “We think this death was somehow linked to the gang fight that occurred on Friday, where we arrested Mr. Johntae Smith and two other minors.”

Mama shakes her head, sobbing. These words bang up on one another in my head.

“Detective Bills and I could take the two of you down to identify the body right now, if you’d like, ma’am,” Detective Parker says.

“I gotta see if it’s real. I gotta see if it’s really my baby,” Mama says, her voice breaking. We all rise from the table, and my legs feel tingly and weak. The detectives open the front door, and I help Mama walk out to their black car.

The inside of the car smells like mints and coffee. Mama and I soak the black leather seats with our tears. It’s so hard to breathe, but I squeeze Mama’s hand and shut my eyes and try my best to allow air into my lungs.

The ride to the county morgue is painfully long. Mama wraps her arms around me and presses my head into her shoulder. It’s soft, and I can hear her heart beating fast, no, breaking, over and over again.

When we arrive at the morgue, Detective Bills opens the door for us and Detective Parker walks us toward the building. I look up, taking tiny steps next to Mama, keeping my eyes on the brown-and-red brick building that gives me chills. Each step closer to the concrete stairs leading to the door makes something inside me tighten.

Detective Bills comes up behind me and places his hand on my back.

Walking inside, it feels like I’m stepping into a hospital, and the smell of bleach and glass cleaner hits me in the face. I expected it to smell like death—sulfur or rotten eggs. The smell of sterilization is too strong, so I cover my nose with my shirt.

We’re greeted by two people in long white lab coats, Mr. Garcia and Ms. Collins. They lead us down a long hallway of doors, and we walk into a small room with three normal walls and one made of glass. It’s cramped and looks like an interrogation room, four chairs around a metal table in the center.

Mama and I sit on one side.

Mr. Garcia and Ms. Collins sit on the other, pulling out manila folders and paperwork.

“Where is he? When can I see him? I need to see him,” Mama says, her eyes looking up at the ceiling, lips vibrating, legs shaking.

“The body is in the other room,” Mr. Garcia says.

“I need to see him,” Mama says over and over again. My face feels so hot and my throat tightens.

“We don’t wish to trigger any further trauma, so we give the option of showing a photograph of the body instead,” Ms. Collins says.

“I want to see him,” I blurt out, not really realizing that I even opened my mouth.

The two of them nod at each other.

“Very well,” Mr. Garcia says, putting away the manila folders.

Ms. Collins murmurs, like she’s trying to keep her voice down, “Mr. Garcia will show you the body and the autopsy report.”

I hate how they keep saying “the body.” My heart stops and then starts and then stops all over again every time they say it.

“I’m here to answer any questions you might have, and will be with you throughout the entire identification process,” Mr. Garcia says. “Sound good?”

Silence washes over the room for a moment.

Mr. Garcia gets up to hold the door open for us. I’m taking so many deep breaths, and my lungs feel so damn heavy. We all file out the room, my arm interlocked with Mama’s. I can feel her shaking, like she just stepped inside a freezer or something. And I’m shaking, too.

We turn and take a few steps down the hallway, and Mr. Garcia says, “Right in here.”

I blink harder and slower as we enter the room. It’s cold, and I can hear an unseen air-conditioning unit blasting air inside. Mr. Garcia leads us to a metal table on wheels with a blue sheet over it.

My heart pounds. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I can’t feel anything. Mama’s eyes get real wide and she’s shaking even harder now.

Mr. Garcia pulls back the blue sheet. I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t want to see. I can’t see this.

Mama loses it. “Oh my God!” she screams, her voice splitting in so many places.

I swallow. Then, I look.

The boy on the table is Tyler—that’s what my eyes tell me; that’s what my brain says. Same fivehead forehead. Same nose. It’s Tyler, but it’s also not. His eyes are so glossy and pale, not the familiar brown I remember. His skin is different, like a plastic mannequin’s that’s grayer than his brown. His mouth is open, like he was letting out a final breath of air. There’s dirt and grass and blood still in his hair.

My stomach twists. A sob slips out from deep within my gut.

Mama leans over Tyler’s body. She doesn’t touch him—just looks at him, like she’s trying to press in her mind that he’s really not coming back to us, or like she’s trying to scrape up some hope that it’s not really him.

I watch Mr. Garcia walk over to the other side of the room and grab a clipboard. He comes back and writes something down. “Is this Tyler Johnson?”

I can’t even nod right now.

Mama says, “That’s my son,” and I feel the whole world shake inside me.

Mr. Garcia begins to read the autopsy report. “There are three holes in the body. One in the chest, near the heart. Two in the stomach area. We found three bullets belonging to a Glock 22 lodged inside.”

My mouth goes numb.

I’m going to be sick or faint or both.

I run out the room, not even looking back. As soon as I get outside, I’m throwing up all over the steps. Everything I’ve eaten is coming out my mouth and it’s like every drop of water in my body pours from my eyes.

I wipe my mouth with my sleeve. My chest fucking hurts.

And I feel like I’m dying.

The detectives drive Mama and me back home, and the two of us have finally gone a whole five minutes without busting out into tears. We just sit on the couch, staring straight ahead, lights off and curled up into each other, like how we’d do when I was a little kid and Tyler and I would take naps with her.

Everything inside me feels emptied out. And I don’t know what to do. I can’t think about anything, and I don’t want to think about him being gone. I would be okay if the two of us stayed like this forever.