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never look the same. That it would always look broken. But once it healed I would, at least, be able to breathenormally. They applied ice packs to my ribs, which were super uncomfortable because after a while the cold makes your skin feel like it’s burning. But after that, it all goes numb.
    Custody. A police officer—not the one who did this to me, but a different one, the one who fingerprinted me—stood outside the hospital room on guard, making sure I didn’t run. As if I could. As if I were a real criminal. As if I were a criminal at all. He stood watch at the door until my parents arrived.
    Custody. The police officer explained to my folks that I had been caught stealing. Not only that, but that I had also been charged with resisting arrest and public nuisance. There was no point trying to explain. I could barely breathe. I could barely keep my eyes open. The officer read the citations and explained that even though they were all misdemeanors, I had been processed and would still have to appear in court. Then, because I’m a minor, my folks had to fill out paperwork so that I could be signed over and returned to their custody. After that, the police officer left.
    The next morning, when I woke up from it all, there was my mother, sitting in a chair on the other side of my hospital room, staring out the window.
    â€œMa,” I said, instantly wincing. I could feel the gauze taped to my face, to my nose. It’s that same tight feeling my skin gets after swimming, after the chlorine has turned me intocardboard. I cleared my throat and called out for her again.
    She whipped toward me, sprang from the chair, and dashed over to my bedside as if I was about to deliver my last words.
    â€œRashad,” she said, her voice full of all the motherly stuff. Worry and love and hope and fear. “Oh, baby,” she repeated, rubbing her hand on my forehead gently, her voice cracking. “How you feelin’?”
    The truth was, I was feeling two ways. Physically, I obviously didn’t feel great, that’s for sure. But not terrible. Not like I thought I’d feel. But maybe that was the drugs doing their thing. I did feel some soreness, though. My breathing was weird and uncomfortable. Every breath felt like a hundred tiny needles sticking me in the chest. And that was breathing through my mouth. Breathing through my nose wasn’t an option. Not yet, at least. But I was okay. Hell, I was alive. And so the other stuff—well, the alternative was way worse.
    The other way I was feeling was just . . . confused. I mean, I hadn’t done anything. Nothing at all. So why was I hooked up to all these machines, lying in this uncomfortable bed? Why was I arrested? Why was my mother waiting there for me to wake up, dried tears crusted on her face, prayer on her breath?
    â€œI’m okay,” I said.
    She sat on the side of the bed. “Listen, I need you to tell me what happened, Rashad. And I need you to be honest withme, okay?” But before I could answer, my father came into the room, making a not-so-grand entrance. He had two cups of coffee, and even though one was for my mother, my dad’s face looked like he could’ve used them both. And maybe a third. But him being tired didn’t stop him from preaching.
    â€œHe up?” my dad asked my mom, handing her a cup. He hadn’t even looked at me yet. If he had, just for a second, he would’ve noticed my eyes were open, a sure sign of me being awake. My mother nodded, almost as if she were giving him the green light to acknowledge me.
    â€œRashad.” He said my name the same way he said it every other day when he was waking me up for school. As if nothing was wrong. As if he wasn’t broken up by the sight of me lying in bed, black and blue and taped and bandaged and tubed and connected to machines monitoring whether or not I was actually still breathing.
    â€œHmm,” I grunted.
    â€œHelp me