Justyce can’t breathe. He lets his head fall back against the couch and closes his eyes.

“Mom, can you take it to another room?” SJ says, putting her hand on Justyce’s knee. “You’re gonna give Jus a frickin’ heart attack!”

“Jeff, I’ll call you back. I need to talk to the kids….Yeah….Strictly confidential, I understand.”

Things can’t get worse, can they?

Mrs. F hangs up.

“Mom?” from SJ.

“There won’t be a second trial,” Mrs. F says.

Jus rockets up, and SJ grabs his hand. “What?”

Mrs. F looks at the phone in her hand. Then at the two of them.

“Garrett Tison is dead.”

Transcript from morning news, August 9

Good morning, and welcome to Rise ’N’ Shine Atlanta on Fox 4.

In our top story this morning, a mere forty-eight hours after a mistrial was declared in the proceedings against him, former APD officer Garrett Tison was found dead inside his cell at the Clarke County Jail.

While details about the incident are being withheld pending investigation, three men have been implicated in the matter, two of whom were already awaiting trial on murder charges.

In a statement to police, Garrett Tison’s attorney claimed she received a phone call from Mr. Tison alleging that guards refused to put him in isolation despite his complaints about receiving threats.

The sheriff’s office is also conducting an internal administrative review.

More on this story as it continues to develop.

August 25

DEAR MARTIN,

Welp, I’m here.

The illustrious Yale University.

I’m actually writing this from beneath a picture of you that SJ hung over my desk. It was a going-away gift from Doc.

I gotta be honest, Martin: your picture is making me a little uncomfortable.

Actually, no. I take that back. It’s not your picture. It’s being here at this school.

A lot has happened since I last wrote to you, most of which I haven’t really had time to process. Hard to believe that this time last year, I was starting my whole experiment.

What I find most interesting reading through the letters: I can’t figure out what I was trying to accomplish. Yeah, I wanted to “be like Martin,” but to what end? I wasn’t trying to move mountains of injustice or fight for the equal rights of masses of people…

So what exactly was I trying to achieve? I’ve been thinking about it for days and haven’t come up with an answer.

On the one hand, I feel like I should thank you: while there were black students at Yale as early as the 1850s, I doubt I would be here without all you did to “challenge the status quo,” as Doc put it.

On the other hand, though, I feel crazy outta place. I’m in a four-person suite broken down into a living room and two bedrooms, and while I was in here setting up my half of the room, my roommate came in looking like he stepped straight out of a Ralph Lauren ad. Blond, blue-eyed white dude with a deep side part and comb-over, wearing a blindingly white polo tucked into plaid shorts, and a pair of tasseled loafers. After staring at your picture for a few seconds, and then giving me the type of once-over that would’ve made the guys from my neighborhood throw a punch, dude finally stuck out his hand. “Roosevelt Carothers,” he said.

Now, okay, Martin. I tried not to judge the magazine by the advertising, but standing there with this guy looking down his pointy nose at me made me wish I were rooming with Jared Christensen (he’s going to school here too). At least then I would’ve known what I was dealing with.

But this Roosevelt guy?

“So where you from…is it Just-ICE? Like rhymes with ‘price’?”

Martin…

“It’s Justice, man. Just with a ‘y.’ I’m from Atlanta.”

Everything went downhill from there because he put two and two together—my name and face were all over the news until like a week ago. Then when SJ came back in from the bathroom and I introduced her as my girlfriend, dude’s entire demeanor changed for the negative. I know I wasn’t imagining it because as soon as he left, SJ said, “What the hell is his deal?”

Martin, I just— It never ends, does it? No matter what I do, for the rest of my life I’m gonna find myself in situations like this, aren’t I? It’s exactly what Mr. Julian told Manny and me, but there’s a part of me that still doesn’t wanna believe it.

And all right, benefit of the doubt: maybe I’m making this a race thing when it’s not. I’ll admit my filter’s a little tainted after the past eight months…scratch that: after the past year.

But that’s the thing, Martin. I CAN’T not notice when someone is eyeing me like I’m less than, and at this point, my mind automatically goes to race.

No clue what to do about that.

Which brings me back to my original point: What was my goal with the Be Like Martin thing? Was I trying to get more respect? (Fail.) Was I trying to be “more acceptable”? (Fail.) Did I think it would keep me out of trouble? (Epic fail.) Really, what was the purpose?

What I do know: I just went from being one of three black students in a class of 82 to one of…well, very, very few in a much larger number. Yeah, Garrett Tison is gone, but like Mr. Julian said, the world is full of people who will always see me as inferior. Roomie Roosevelt just proved that.

I keep coming back to something Doc said during “Thug-Gate”: If nothing ever changes, what type of man am I gonna be? Chewing on that over the past few days, I’ve started to wonder if maybe my experiment failed because I was asking the wrong damn question.

Every challenge I’ve faced, it’s been What would Martin do? and I could never come up with a real answer. But if I go with Doc’s thinking—Who would Martin BE?—well, that’s easy: you’d be yourself. THE eminent MLK: nonviolent, not easily discouraged, and firm in your beliefs.

And maybe that’s my problem: I haven’t really figured out who I am or what I believe yet.

I found this letter you wrote the editor of the Atlanta Constitution where you said, “We (as in Black people) want and are entitled to the basic rights and opportunities of American citizens…” It’s from 1946, which means you were seventeen when you wrote it. That’s the same age I was when I had that exact thought for the first time.

Not sure if you were the Martin the world is familiar with by seventeen (prolly not, right?), but knowing you were my age gives me hope that maybe I’ve got some time to figure things out.

At least I hope I do. If not, this is gonna be a long four years. Hell, a long rest of my life.

Anyway, I gotta run. SJ and I have a train to catch.

Thanks for everything.

Until we meet again,

Justyce

There’s already someone standing over Manny’s grave as Justyce approaches. Part of him wants to turn around, go sit in his car until the person leaves—but he knows that’s not what Manny would want him to do.

“ ’Sup, dawg?” Jus says as he steps up.

EMMANUEL JULIAN RIVERS

BELOVED SON

“YOU HAVE SORROW NOW, BUT I WILL SEE YOU AGAIN,