4 years ago...

"How does it feel?" Kylie asked me.

"What does?" I asked.

"Being in a gang for two years now." She replied.

I shot the target three times in the head before answering, "I don't know. It still feels the same as when I first got here. I just know more."

"You're turning 15 in a few weeks, too. What do you wanna do then?"

"Eh, I don't know." I replied with a giggle, putting away my gun after the wooden target broke.

"You done?" She asked.

"I'm Dayana," I replied.

"Ha-ha. What a comedian." She replied, "Let's go, I want to fall asleep right now."

We walked out of the training area, with me heading to Leon's office and Kylie heading to our room.

"See later alligator." I told her as I got out of the elevator.

As I walked down the hall, something felt tense in the atmosphere. It was too quiet, something felt off.

I looked behind me, "Hello?"

I looked back ahead, "Is it me you're looking for?"

I snorted at my own humor and continued heading to Leon's office. I gave it two knocks, and three pounds.

"Come in." Lawrence's stern voice responded.

"Hello Lawrence my goodie buddy Lawrence, how are yo- oh, Marc, I didn't see you there." I smiled at him.

"Well, I guess we found a partner for you." Leon told him, "Dayana, do you mind being his partner for a mission?"

"Oh, sure. What's the mission about?" I asked, letting out as giggle as I sat on the seat in front of Marc.

"Clean up duty." He replied.

"There's a clean up duty?" I asked in disbelief.

"Ooh, your first clean up duty." Lawrence cooed.

"What are we going to do in clean up duty?" I asked, sticking my tongue out like a cat.

"Last night's exchange with a gang was a bit messy. Luckily, the area hasn't been spotted yet- it is a very secluded place. Anyways, all you have to do is clean up anything that could compromise us. Thanks again for volunteering, Marc." Leon nodded at him.

"It's no problem, nobody else wanted to do it, so I might as well."

"How are you so nice?" I joked.

He chuckled, "It's just who I am, little one. Anyways, we won't be taking any gear 'cause it's just clean up."

"Cool, cool." I nodded, "Let's go, Marc!"

I stood up, and so did he. Before we were out the door, Leon suddenly called me.

"Dayana, one moment please. Marc, do you mind waiting for her in the garage?" Lawrence asked him.

"Oh, sure. No problem." He replied as he headed out.

Leon slid a gun on his desk, "Take this. Just in case."

"But Marc said we didn't need it." I told them, giving them my confused face.

"Marc has his reasons, and we do too. We don't want any of you hurt." Lawrence told me, "Stay safe out there. Take care of each other."

I nodded and took the gun, "See you later, L brothers."

I headed down to the garage where Marc was told to wait.

"Hop in." He told me as he entered one of the cars there.

"Okie dokie." I said and hopped on the front seat.

"Seatbelt." He reminded me.

"Yup," I replied, putting on my seatbelt, "How long is the ride?"

"About half an hour."

"What? How far away is it?"

"Not that far, don't worry. Like they said, it's secluded so we're just going to have to go through a lot of places."

"Can I play music?" I asked.

"Why not?"

The first ten minutes of the ride, we were just having fun and singing songs. Then one song played which caused me to shrink in embarrassment.

"So you listen to Disney songs for fun? It's cool, nothing to be ashamed of." He grinned.

"It makes me happy." I defended, "I know I'm almost fifteen, but I'm never going to let Disney be taken away from me."

His smiled widened, "You remind me of my baby sister."

"You have a sister?" I stuck my tongue out like a cat.

"Yup, she was a little ray of sunshine. She was adopted when she was five years old. I was ten. That was ten years ago, she would have been the same age as you, too. She loved Disney songs, it was all that ever calmed her down."

"You weren't adopted with her?"

"They were only looking for a daughter, not a son."

"Have you met her since?"

"Nah. She's probably way happier without me." His grip on the steering wheel tightened.

"I'm sorry, should we stop talking about this?" I asked.

"It's alright, little one." He replied, "It feels nice to talk about it. Can I tell you how we lost our parents?"

"If it makes you feel better."

"They say letting it out of your system helps, so I hope it does."

I nodded.

"I was seven years old back then. Earlier that day, I was playing in the park with my toy gun. You know the plastic ones that made sounds when you pressed the trigger? I loved playing with it, pretending I was a cop. It was my dream to be one. Ironically, look at me now." He chuckled.

"We're illegal." I joked, and he chuckled.

But it didn't reach his eyes. His chuckle was forced.

I cleared my throat, "Sorry, what happened?"

"When we went home, I couldn't find it. I was whining at my mom and dad all day, but they couldn't focus on me because Lea, my sister, got sick on that day. I was so upset that I stormed out. I went back to the park. It was so dark, and I was scared, but I just wanted to find my toy. See, it was the my favorite toy that my parents got for me. Out of the few I had. We weren't that rich. We earned enough to live, but not to enjoy much luxuries. My mama worked as a waitress, and my dad didn't earn much from his work. When they had Lea, things just got harder for us."

I looked at my lap guiltily. I was born into a wealthy family. They got me everything I wanted when I asked for it.

"There was this one time when I was five, I went with my mom in work because no one could look after me. Her other co-workers... You could see the disgust that they felt for her. They shoved her around and some of the people in there even asked for a different waitress when she was serving them. Only a few people did that, but I saw it. I asked her about it when we got home and she told me..." His voice cracked as he pulled over, "I remember her words clearly. 'Baby, some people don't like us 'cause we don't look like them.' I asked her what she meant, and that's when I got my first glimpse of racism. That's when I got to understand for a little while that people will despise me because I'm black."

"Marc... You are such a kind person, those people are just assholes." I told him, not knowing what to say.

"Let's clean this place up real quick, alright?" He said, swiftly wiping his eyes.

"Okay." I nodded.

"The cleaning supplies are at the back," He told me, "Go get them for me while I check what we need to clean up."

I nodded as we both got out of the car. I headed to the trunk.

I opened a bag that I assumed contained the supplies, but it was a gun and a piece of paper.

"He said he didn't need weapons..." As I looked further, I saw that it wasn't a real gun. It was a toy gun, just like he mentioned.

I picked the piece of paper up and realized that it was a photo. It showed a family of four. The mom and dad carried a kid. They were happy and laughing in the picture.

"Why is this in the car..." I asked myself, "As far as I know, this car is for the entire gang."

"Hey, Dayana, all we need is some detergent and bleach. There's just some few blood stains on the concrete, which we need to get rid of." Marc called out.

"O-okay! I'll see if I can find it." I replied, putting back the gun and picture. I looked further in the bag and saw that there were actually bottles of bleach and detergent there.

Maybe this was his bag and he just carries around the toy and picture with him at all times.

"Found it!" I replied, grabbing the two bottles and the two pieces of cloth from the bag.

"Whe- you said there were only a few blood stains." I giggled.

"Oh, Dayana, you know that there were bloodier scenes than this before." He told me.

"Wait- so do we clean up when we have gang wars too?" I asked in disbelief, "But that's such a bloodbath."

"We make the other gang clean them up when they lose." He replied.

"Ah, and we've never lost." I smiled.

"Right, let's get to this. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish." He told me, "Now toss me that."

I did as I was told.

"The cloth, Dayana, not the bottle." He laughed.

"Oops." I smiled sheepishly as we started cleaning up.

Halfway through scrubbing, I couldn't help but ask Marc about the gun and picture.

"Oh, you saw that. I always brought that bag in every mission, even clean up." He replied.

"Why?" I asked him.

"My dad died with those two things," He replied, "and he died because of me. I don't know really why I kept them for so long. I guess I just wanted to remind myself that if I die, I should at least be dying for a reason."

I smiled sadly, "You're living for a reason, Marc."

"Thanks, Dayana."

We finished scrubbing the place in a few minutes in comfortable silence. I didn't know what was going on in Marc's head, but I was thinking really hard about how he felt.

When I was younger, my parents always tried their hardest to protect me. My brother and I got everything we wanted and needed. When I woke up in adoption center, I was scared and felt like I was the unluckiest person alive.

But growing up, I didn't notice the people that were being shunned and shamed for their skin color. I didn't notice back when I was in school this kid, I couldn't remember his name. This kid that was called the n-word by white kids. This kid that cried at the halls nearly every day. I thought he was weird.

I remember thinking he was being too sensitive. I thought they were only bullying him because he was fat.

We finished with my head still heavy from thinking of those things.

I was never bullied for my pale skin. I was never pushed aside and disrespected for my skin. I was never humiliated for it.

Yet they did. Marc did. His mom did. That kid I never gave a second look did. A million other people probably did.

Just because they were black.

"What are you thinking about, Dayana?" Marc asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I didn't realize that I was standing still with the bloodstained cloth still in my hand.

I hurriedly put that back in the trunk, "Sorry, I zoned out."

We both got into the car.

"I know you might be curious with what I said... That my dad died with my toy gun." He said, starting the car.

"You don't have to if you don't want to." I told him.

"No, it's fine, Dayana." He smiled, "I do feel a bit better after telling you all the other things earlier."

I didn't say anything but nod.

"So I was upset that my parents weren't paying attention to me and stormed out. I went to the park where I knew I lost my gun because that's the last place I saw it. I couldn't find it anywhere and just started crying in the middle of the playground. Just a few moments later, my dad showed up, worried sick. He wanted to take me home, but I refused to leave until we found my gun."

He sniffled, wiping his eyes.

"We spent a few minutes in the park. He later found it under the slide. To me, it just looked like my dad found my toy gun that I lost earlier, but I guess to the police officer that was patrolling area saw a man about to shoot a kid. Even if that man wasn't even aiming at him." Tears started rolling down his cheeks at this point, "My dad was in front of me, giving me my toy. I was reaching out for it. Before I could even take it, he fell to the ground."

"I'm so sorry, Marc, that is awful."

"I was so confused. I asked him what happened. I heard the gunshot and I saw him fall down, but I couldn't comprehend what happened. I asked him over and over again. 'Dad, what's wrong? Dad I found my toy, let's go home now.' With his last breathe, he told me that he loved me, Lea, and my ma more than anything. He still had my toy gun in his hands. Then the officer grabbed me and asked me if I was okay. He fucking asked me if I was okay after he shot my dad in front of me. I asked him what happened to my dad."

He stopped the car. I looked around, and there were no other cars anywhere. We were fine.

"The officer told me that my dad was about to shoot me so he protected me." He was full on crying now, "I asked him why would my dad do that. 'Son, can't you see the gun in his hand? He was ready to kill you.' He wasn't, officer, he wasn't. If only I told you that, maybe you would have done something to help him. It was a plastic gun. It was too small to even look like an actual gun, and he should know that, he has his own real one that he used to kill my dad."

I took off my seatbelt and reached over to hug him. He continued crying on my shoulder.

"All they saw was a black man with a gun, and they immediately shot. But why is it... that now that I'm grown, and I'm witnessing actual crime, they tell you to stop first and drop your gun when you're white? Even when you're holding an actual weapon, why did the officers tell you to drop your weapons and only shot when you acted hostile? My dad was just giving me my toy! He didn't do anything wrong!"

He was now curled into a ball on his seat, crying his eyes out.

"It wasn't only dad that was hurt. Even Lea and mom had to suffer. Mom overworked herself just to provide us with what we needed. I told her to take me out of school so I could work for Lea, but she insisted. She worked and worked until she couldn't anymore. Because dad was gone, she went away, too."

"I'm so sorry, Marc. I really am. I have nothing else to say- I don't know what to say."

"It's not your fault, Dayana. It's mine. I was stupid enough to drag my dad into danger just because of a stupid toy. Because of me, my mom had to work twice as hard. Because of me, Lea grew up without her actual mom and dad. She probably hates me now, just as like I hate myself."

"No! Marc, you are not at fault here. It is that racist police officer's fault. He only looked at your dad as a dangerous black man and not as a human. If Lea were to see you, she'd probably be brokenhearted to see that her brother is blaming himself for something he couldn't control." I grabbed his arms, "I'm just a kid, and I may not know much about what you are actually going through, all of you black people in the world, but let me tell you, even if it's just you, that you are important in this world. You matter. Just because you have a different skin color does not mean you are not a person. I am not black, but now I can see with my own eyes the oppression you have to suffer with."

I took a deep breathe, squeezing his arms to remind him that he's still here.

"I can't do much for all the people that are going through similar things like you have, but I want to help you. Then maybe I could help others when the chance comes. I stand by you, Marc."

"Thank you, Dayana." He sniffled, "This really makes me feel better..."

"Your life matters, your parents' lives mattered, and every other black people's lives matters."

"Yeah... I just hope that one day, we could be able to live in a society that can see that, too."

"One day. We will."

I'm not black, but I see you.

I'm not black, but I hear you.

I'm not black, but I mourn with you.

I'm not black, but I will fight for you.

It saddens me the amount of racism that all of you have to go through. George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many more.

I'm not doing this for votes, comments, or views. I just want to portray the hardships that those people go through. They are being killed despite their innocence, ridiculed for their skin color, and it is time that we should stop it, even if it shouldn't have started to begin with and should have ended sooner.

You are all important, and your skin color should not be an excuse to disregard you as a human.

I truly hope that we will live in a society where one's color does not define one's person.

And I hope that everyone could do what they can for that to be possible:

https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#

Stay safe everyone.

♡~Yelly