Page 6 of You Deserve Good Things

He went still.

The car peeled off, tires screeching, the smell of rubber and iron in the air. The silence that followed wastooloud. My screams got caught in my throat. My whole body shook. It felt like my heart had been ripped out, stomped on, and buried on that pavement next to my big brother.

I didn’t know how long I was kneeling there, sobbing like the world ended.

But then I heard it—Jacory’s voice, frantic and raw.

“Shaniya! Baby! Where she at!”

He ran up so fast, his knees almost buckled when he saw me covered in blood, hovering over Silas’s body.

“Baby—no, no—look at me. Shaniya, please—look at me!”

His arms wrapped around me, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I just stared. My eyes wide. Empty. Gone.

Chase walked from across the street, eyes in shock, right behind him, shouting “What went wrong! I . . . he left me! Why the fuck wouldn’t he wait for me?”

Jacory was crying. Jacory. That boy never cried. But he was holding me like he was scared I was gonna disappear too.

“Silas protected her,” he said to Chase, voice cracking. “He-he took all of it.”

Chase was stomping around, fists balled, teeth grindin’. “I swear to God, I’m killing them. I’m killing every last one of them!”

But me?

I was done.

I looked at Silas—his body still protecting mine, his hoodie soaked, his chain twisted in his fingers like it never wanted to leave him.

That was the moment I stopped speaking.

No more words.

No more sound.

Just silence.

Because the moment Silas died . . . so did the loudest part of me.

The Helpless Protector

New Orleans,Lower 9th Ward

I wasn’t there when it happened.

And that shit? That shit ate me alive every damn day.

I wasn’t talking about guilt that faded after a while. I was talking about the kind that woke you up in cold sweats. The kind that made you look at your phone three times an hour hoping maybe that call never came.

But it did.

I got the call from Chase.

His voice was shaking, and if you knew Chase, then you’d know—that boy didn’tshake. Not even when shit got ugly. But that night?

“J . . . Silas gone.”

My whole body went cold like the blood in my veins hit a brick wall.

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