I liked how it made people speak to me softer. I liked how it made the comments change on my page, because when youstood in front of a room full of broken people and said the right words, folks started forgetting what they had been whispering about you. They started seeing you the way you wanted to be seen, not the way your enemies tried to paint you. They started saying you were strong and brave, and they started calling you a voice for the grieving, and I didn’t correct them because I didn’t need to. I had already learned that if you stayed consistent with the story you wanted, the world would repeat it for you.
Tonight, the room was full again. There were mothers with red eyes and fathers who didn’t talk much. There were sisters holding hands so tight their knuckles looked pale. There were people who had lost somebody to sickness, and people who had lost somebody to gun violence, and people who had lost somebody to accidents that still didn’t make sense. I sat in my chair at the front and spoke like I was born to lead, even though my stomach felt tight when certain faces looked at me too long. I didn’t like the ones who stared like they were measuring my sincerity, wondering if I was real or if I was just performing.
Trial had been crazy, and even though I played the role of the grieving sister perfectly, the truth was that it still fucked with my mind to sit in that courtroom and see Kay’Lo Mensah sitting there like nothing could touch him. It made me sick to see him look so calm while my whole life had been turned upside down, and it made me feel this weird conflict too, like shame was tryna crawl up my throat when I remembered certain things I had done and said before everything blew up. I hated that feeling.
Still, when I watched Kay’Lo listen to his lawyers and barely react, I couldn’t stop my mind from going back, and that annoyed me because I didn’t ask my mind to do that. I didn’t ask it to bring up the parts of the story that made me look messy. I didn’t ask it to replay moments that didn’t fit the version of me I was showing the world now. I would be sitting there in court, listening to people talk about bullets and timelines and evidence,and then outta nowhere I’d remember the sound of his voice in my ear, and I would have to blink hard and sit up straighter so nobody could see the shift in my face.
I didn’t like that he still had that kind of access to my head.
That was why I kept moving and keeping myself busy. If I stayed still too long, my thoughts got loud.
My car was parked under one of the dim lights, and I walked fast, ready to go home and wash this day off my skin. I got inside, tossed my umbrella onto the passenger seat, and sat there for a second with my hands on the wheel, letting the quiet hit me. Then I started the car and pulled off.
The rain got worse on the way home, and the island looked different at night when it rained like this. My windshield wipers moved fast, and still it felt like the rain was winning. I drove with my shoulders tense, my jaw tight, and I kept telling myself I was fine, because I had been telling myself that for months.
My phone buzzed on the seat beside me, and I glanced at it, then ignored it. People had been calling and texting all day, asking about trial, asking about the support group, asking about my mama and daddy, asking about all the mess
Ever since Abeni Mensah exposed my father’s side situation publicly, our family had been spiraling behind the scenes, and it wasn’t even the kind of spiral you could fix with a speech or a prayer. My mama and daddy were living on opposite ends of the house, and they acted like it wasn’t happening, but I wasn’t stupid. My mama’s eyes looked dead when she talked to him, and my daddy was angrier than he’d ever been because he was embarrassed. He hated being exposed. He hated lookin’ like he didn’t have control of his own life, and the more the public talked, the more our house felt like it was filled with tension.
I resented Abeni for it in a way I didn’t even try to hide anymore. She didn’t only expose my daddy. She exposed all of us. She exposed the fact that my family wasn’t untouchable, andshe exposed the fact that the Mensahs were willing to go to war in public and in private. She had made my daddy look like a hypocrite, and she had made me look like a hoe… and liar because once people started questioning one thing, they started questioning everything.
And the worst part was, the more she did, the more my daddy got colder. He had been playing dirty in court, and I knew it. I just watched him move, make calls, meet with people, and I watched how quickly doors opened for him.
By the time I pulled into the Lennox apartment complex, the rain had turned into a hard steady fall, and I hated that it matched my mood. The parkin’ lot was slick, and puddles had formed in the cracks. I parked in my usual spot, grabbed my bag, and stepped out, pulling my coat tighter around me as I shut the door.
The air was humid and wet, and the rain hit my face like little needles. I started walking toward the building with my head down, ready to get inside, lock my door and take a shower so hot it could burn the day off me.
Then I heard my name.
“Echo.”
I froze for half a second, and my stomach tightened because nobody called my name like that at night in the rain unless they wanted something. I turned slowly, squinting through the dark, trying to see who was standing there. But I didn’t get the chance.
The first shot hit me in the chest, and it felt like my whole body seized up at once, like the air got punched out of me and replaced with heat. My mouth opened, but no sound came out, and the shock of it confused me more than the pain did at first, because my mind couldn’t catch up to what my body was telling it. Then the second shot hit me, and this one made my knees buckle.
I stumbled back, my bag slipping off my shoulder and landing in a puddle. My hands flew to my chest without me thinking, and when my fingers touched the wetness there, my brain finally caught up.
I had been shot…
I tried to inhale, but it came out wrong, like my lungs didn’t know what to do. I took a step, then another, then my legs gave out, and I hit the ground hard enough to send a sharp pain through my hip. The rain slapped my face, and I blinked up at the sky, then tried to lift my head, because I needed to see who did this to me.
My chest burned, and it felt like each breath was smaller than the last. I tried to speak, but my throat wouldn’t work right, and when I coughed, it hurt so bad my body curled on itself. Then a figure stepped closer.
At first, all I saw was a silhouette against the light in the parkin’ lot, and then the person moved into the glow just enough for me to see the outline of a face.
My mind refused it at first, because it didn’t make sense, and it didn’t fit the story I believed was happening.
It was Toni…
My mouth fell open, and my heart slammed against my ribs. I stared at her, and all I could do was shake my head, because my brain kept saying no, and my body kept saying yes.
She stood over me with a gun in her hand. Her face was calm, but it wasn’t soft. It was a calm that came after a person finally made up their mind, and that look scared me. I tried to speak, but my voice came out broken, and it didn’t sound like me.
“Toni,” I whispered, like saying her name would make her remember she wasn’t built for this.
She looked down at me like she was looking at something she had been forced to deal with for too long, and she was finally tired of dealing with it.
My fingers slid in the blood on my chest, and my arms started shaking. I wanted to crawl away, but my body felt heavy, and my legs weren’t listening to me. Every breath felt like it was takin’ more effort than the last, and I could hear the rain louder now.
