I Want To Be Alive

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

It was a rather simple question that require a direct answer but in my case, I really didn't have a direct answer to this question. If someone had asked me this question a year ago, I would've told them I wanted to be a writer or a doctor. This last twelve months have been hell on my end. It was like a nightmare that kept repeating itself and only stopped when I forced myself to stay awake and never go to sleep.

You see, I grew up with my parents in an apartment. We weren't rich or poor. I was the only child so money wasn't really an issue when it came to my needs. For twelve years, I lived a lie thinking I was exempted from the blacks who had to deal with police harassment and judgmental looks just because their skin color depicted a stereotype definition of who they were. One day, reality slapped me in the face like a real bitch.

I had been on my way back from an amusement park with my parents. I sat in the backseat playing with the huge teddy bear my dad had won for me at a prize booth. I didn't pay attention when the car suddenly stopped too absorbed in the stuffed animal on my laps. It wasn't until the sound of gunshots resonated in the car that I jolted up. My mum screamed in horror as her door was being violently shaken trying to force it open. My dad turned around and I could see his hand was covered in blood. He yelled at me to run and that's exactly what I did gripping the bear in my arms as I took off into the forest beside the road. I kept running ignoring the shouting behind me. I stopped in front of a tree and hoisted myself up unto one of the branches.

I can't remember how long I stayed there but it was certainly a long time before I heard voices of crying and angry protests coming from the road. I carefully descended to the ground and ran back out to the road only to see people surrounded around a car with the police trying to hold them off. I pushed my way through the ground and up to the front. Once I was standing behind the police tape, I had a better vision of what had people so worked up. There was my car parked where it had been when they had stopped us with my parent's bodies lying side by side on the road with holes through their head. As every other person would've done, I started calling out their names anf crying trying to reach out to them but a kind lady behind me pulled me back pulling me into her chest telling me it would be alright but I knew it would never be alright.

After a while, the ambulance came over to take the bodies away and I was taken to the station. I told them what had happened still in tears. They were really nice to me throughout the interrogation and told me justice would be served for my parents but I knew better. I wasn't stupid. This was another act of police harassment and nothing would be done unless someone was able to heavily sue them. I wasn't aware of having any rich relatives so I knew suing would be out of the question.

My aunt came to pick me up from the station. She hugged me letting me cry into her chest as she led me to her car and buckled me in whispering I was safe. I didn't want to be safe though. I just wanted justice for them. I wanted to avenge my parents death no matter the costs but I was just a child. What could I do? I had never felt so utterly useless and lost at that moment. I kept thinking about the look in my father's eyes when he told me to run and the screams of my mother. I should've stayed and gone down with them. I hated the police. They always told me they were our friends but they lied.

I began to live with my aunt in her little house in a friendly neighborhood in South Carolina. We buried my parents after two weeks. During the funeral, donations were made towards my upbringing. My aunt accepted them with a hearty and grateful smile. I knew she had been wondering about how to raise me by herself when she was running low on money. After that day, I began to go to school again at my former school. The teachers and students had a little memorial for my parents which was really nice of them. People of both races symphatized with me and for once during that period, I felt like I wasn't completely alone.