“Ayo, are you listening?” Nate says, pounding his fist on the table. The ripple causes a huge wave on the surface of my mug.

She’s drowning . . .

Mini-Me, fight! Fight to come back up . . .

Oh no! She’s gone under . . .

She doesn’t make it to the shore. Maybe none of us ever do.

I grit my teeth, take a deep breath, and push my mug away.

“How can you be so easily distracted? I’m trying to talk to you. Did you hear anything I said?” Nate asks.

“Yeah. You need me to go to the media with a message,” I reply dryly.

“Not just any message. I need you to make this city cheer for you. You need to give them hope.”

“Then give me some!” I shout out of nowhere. My heart is hammering against my chest. My mouth is dry and the familiar red haze begins to surround me.

I lean in closer and lower my voice. “You want me to find words that’ll reassure Black folks, while soothing white folks’ conscience? Okay. Tell me what magical words I’m supposed to string together to make that happen.”

He leans in close. “We have people at See Us who can craft a statement for you. We’ll choose the right words; you just have to say them.”

“My mother never used anyone else’s words. She used only her own. She led with messages that came from her heart. I have to do the same thing.”

“Yeah, that would be ideal, but given that you don’t have a message, you need to use the one we create for you. That grand jury will be coming back soon. And you know as well as I do that there’s no guarantee they will do what’s right. We have to get America on our side.”

The laughter that escapes my throat is so sudden that it startles me. I don’t realize just how loudly I’m laughing until other people in the café turn to look at me. There are tears in my eyes, my side aches, and I can’t catch my breath, all because I’m cracking up so hard.

I flash back to the GIF of my mom. It should make me cry, but instead, it makes me laugh even more.

“Ayo, enough!”

I try to stop, I swear I do, but I can’t. The longer this goes on, the more obvious it becomes that this isn’t a joyful event. Everyone is looking at us, and Nate tugs on my coat in an effort to get me to stop chuckling, but it doesn’t work.

Everything hurts: my mom’s absence, the possibility of losing her forever, and seeing the worst thing in my life as a joke for internet trolls. But my body has its wires crossed. What should be sobbing is still cackling. The manager comes over to warn me about keeping it down.