The Interview

How It Ends

"...Two weeks later on an early Sunday morning, I checked my email like I had everyday after Mr. Dallas had left our home, and finally there was the link. I think I read it maybe six times before I had the correct thought to call and ask what he'd written. On the phone, he'd told me that he wrote what people wanted to hear, that he couldn't include all that I'd told him because "no one cares about another drug addicted black man involved in gang violence".

I got ready for school that day with my laptop open and the article staring back at me. It was still open when I walked out of my house with no hijab on for the first time in six years. I started going by 'Lena' for the rest of my senior year and up until three days ago."

"Three days ago when you tried to overdose on your antidepressants?"

"Yes, I put my hijab back on because if I was going to see my lord then I wanted to go the right way." I stare at the psychiatrist sitting in front of me in the dark blue room and tell her, "I'm glad it didn't work"

"Are you?" She asks.

I close my eyes and remember the paragraph I've read so many times now that it's engraved into my memory, "Ashalina Iman Abad, a young Muslim girl, and her partner, a 17 year old black man named Darnell Harris, arranged the Great Chicago Protest, although, Darnell was unable to see the protest through. Due to his ties with gangs and addiction to heavy narcotics, he was beaten to death the morning of the protest.

"I think I am,"