“It’s hard out there by yourself, man. Martel gets it.” Quan looks Jus right in the eyes, and a stone drops into Jus’s gut. “You’ll be welcomed if you want in,” he says.

“For real, dawg. I’m good. Besides, I don’t have anything to write with.”

“I’m sure you’ll remember the number until you get back to your phone. You ready?”

As soon as Quan recites the last digit, a guard Jus failed to notice says, “Time’s up!” The whole way back to his car, some of Quan’s words run laps in Jus’s head: Resistance is existence….These white people don’t got no respect for us….There’s no escaping the Black Man’s Curse….It’s exactly the kind of thinking Jus tried to combat with the letters to Martin.

But asking What would Martin do? didn’t help, did it? That’s why he stopped writing them.

There’s one thing Quan said that Jus can’t dispute: doing things Jus’s way got him and his best friend shot. Yeah, Quan’s in jail, but at least he’s alive.

That’s more than can be said for Manny.

Before sticking the key into the ignition, Jus grabs his cell phone from the center console. Before he can change his mind, he punches Trey’s number in.

Turns out not using the number is harder than Jus anticipates, especially when he’s alone with nothing but memories of his homeboy. He’s hanging out after school in Doc’s classroom to avoid making the call a few days later when SJ busts through the door like she’s being chased by rabid dogs.

The sight of her punches the air right out of Jus’s lungs. They haven’t really talked since the funeral a couple of weeks ago, but seeing her so…SJ? Well, it centers him in a way he doesn’t expect.

“You guys!”

“Yes, Sarah-Jane?” says Doc, the picture of calm.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on right now?”

“Can’t say we do,” Doc replies.

“Where’s your TV remote?”

Doc pulls the remote from his desk drawer and passes it to her. Once the TV is on and tuned to the right channel, Jus finds it hard to breathe for a different reason.

There on the screen, big and bold and bright and blatant, is a picture from Jared’s Halloween-Political-Statement-Turned-Brush-with-Death. Of course everyone else—Blake the Klansman included—has been cropped out of the version making national news. It just shows Justyce McAllister as Thug Extraordinaire.

“We’ve heard about his grades, SAT scores, and admission to an Ivy League school,” the anchor says, “but a picture speaks a thousand words. This kid grew up in the same neighborhood as the young man accused of murdering Garrett Tison’s partner more or less on a whim.”

“You gotta be kidding me,” Jus says.

People all over the country have rallied to the cause: wearing Justice for JAM T-shirts (JAM being Justyce and Manny) and riding with their music loud from 12:19 until 12:21 every Saturday afternoon to commemorate the time of the argument between them and Garrett. But if there’s one thing Jus knows from the Shemar Carson and Tavarrius Jenkins cases, it really doesn’t take more than a photo to sway mass opinion.

SJ crosses her arms, and the three of them lean in to hear the “analysis” of some anti–gang violence pundit who appears on a split screen with the anchor. “I mean it’s obvious this kid was leading a double life,” the guy is saying. “You know what they say, Steven: you can remove the kid from the thug life…But ya can’t remove the thug life from the kid.”

SJ: You son of a bitch.

Doc: Shhh…

SJ: This is blatant defamation of character!

Pundit: There’re all these reports about how great a kid Emmanuel Rivers was. But if this was the company he kept? Well, I really don’t know, Steven.

Jus: [Shakes his head.] Unbelievable.

Steven: We’ve received some reports that this other young man you mentioned—Quan Banks—is a relative of Emmanuel Rivers. You know anything about that?

Pundit: It wouldn’t surprise me if both boys had ties to Banks. Who’s to say Officer Tison didn’t see them on the scene the night his partner was murdered right before his eyes? You have to put the pieces together, Steven: Garrett Tison and Tommy Castillo respond to a complaint about loud music, there’s a Range Rover parked in the driveway of the offending domicile, and some thug kid pops out of the backseat with a shotgun. Now that we’re learning about all these connections, who’s to say it wasn’t the same Range Rover Emmanuel Rivers was driving? Officer Tison says these boys pointed a gun at him, and after seeing this picture, I can’t say I’d put it past them.

As the news cuts to another segment, SJ turns the television off.

Doc looks too furious to speak. All Jus can do is put his head in his hands.

“Effing Jared,” SJ says. “If that cretin wouldn’t’ve—”

SJ’s phone rings, and Jus lifts his head. When she sees the screen, her eyebrows jump to the ceiling.

“Who is it?” Jus says.

SJ holds out the phone. Douche-Nugget is the name displayed. “Speak of the spawn of Satan and he shall make his presence known.”

“Jared?” Jus asks.

“Yep. I’ll take it in the hallway.”

As she pulls the door closed, Jus hears her yell: “SEEN THE NEWS TODAY, ASSHOLE?”

Doc throws an arm around Jus’s shoulder and gives him a shake. “Wanna talk about it?”

“This is some bullshit, Doc!” Jus kicks the desk beside him and it topples onto its side.

“Yep.” Doc rights it.

“Is it not enough that Manny’s dead, man? It’s like these people want Garrett to get away with it.” Jus shakes his head. “I knew I shoulda said no to Jared’s idea. Definitely shouldn’t’ve let him take that picture…But I ignored how I was feelin’ about it because I was tryna be like—” He grits his teeth.

“Like Martin?”

Jus nods.

“You still writing your letters?”

“Nah, man.”

“Why not?”

Jus shrugs. “Don’t see the point. My ‘experiment’ obviously didn’t work. Don’t wanna think about it anymore.”

“I see.”

“You know what’s crazy, Doc?”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve got one memory of the day everything happened: sharp pains in my chest and shoulder, and then not being able to breathe. In that moment when I thought I was dying, it hit me: despite how good of a dude Martin was, they still killed him, man.”

Doc nods. “I know. But I don’t think knowing he’d be killed would’ve changed the way he lived, Jus. He challenged the status quo and helped bring about some change. Pretty sure that was his goal. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“All I know is he and Manny are dead, and I’m being cast as the bad guy.”

“I get that. Look, Jus, people need the craziness in the world to make some sort of sense to them. That idiot ‘pundit’ would rather believe you and Manny were thugs than believe a twenty-year veteran cop made a snap judgment based on skin color. He identifies with the cop. If the cop is capable of murder, it means he’s capable of the same. He can’t accept that.”