This couldn't be reality, I thought to myself. Just hours before, the sky had been illuminated in light without a single cloud in sight. Now, the air was compressed with moisture and the once beautiful cloudless, blue sky had turn into a blanket of darkness extending as far as the eye could see. Angelsville was a dark, dull village with nothing but pale faces. Living in Angelsville was like living in Montgomery, Alabama during the 1960s; pure bigotry. The beginning of  the day implied that it would be the most eventful rendezvous my friends and I had ever planned. How things change with a little discrimination  and intolerance to contradicting shades of melanin...

“I like my baby hair with baby hair and afros.
I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils
Earned all this money but they never take the country out me
I got hot sauce in my bag, swag” Beyonce played through my phone blasting into my ear drums.  With a heavy sigh, I rolled over to my back hitting the snooze button. No one or nothing or even Beyonce Knowles herself could wake me up from my satisfying slumber. My eyes slowly began to shut and I was back in REM sleep instantly.
“Leila!” Well anyone excluding my mother who was calling me from downstairs, “Your friends are here.”
Another deep sigh escaped my lips as reached for my phone to identify what time it was. It read 10:03. I rubbed my eyes to examine if they were deceiving me; it was in fact 10:03. I hastily sprung out of bed threw on my extremely oversized Tupac t-shirt on and jeans, brushed my teeth, and tossed my contacts in my eyes.
“Bye mom.” I yelled running out of the front door while struggling to toss my curly fro into a messy top-knot bun.
“Hey guys.” I said.  All three of my friends stared at me like I had grown a third eye. The gang was all here: Gabrielle, Darnell, Tj and myself.
“Finally! We have had this day plan for weeks and you still can’t get up on time.” Gabrielle yelled from inside her 2015 bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle. I chuckled and squeezed inside the miniature car. Gabrielle and I’s relationships dates all way back to 2005, in kindergarden, when she shared her animal crackers with me at snack time. Tj and Darnell, our other guy friends, called us the twins. The only things was that we do not resemble one another in the slightest. I have kinky hair and hers is straight, I have huge doe brown eyes and hers are catlike green eyes, and my skin is black and her skin is white.
We had never really thought anything of our differences until we got to middle school when our third grade teacher started teaching about the civil rights movement. All the kids always stared at me as if I was Rosa Parks herself. The alone feeling continued as it was the same year President Obama was running for his first term in office. My class was filled with Taylor Swifts and I was the lone brown skin girl with afro puffs and a broad nose.
  We traveled deeper and deeper through Angelsville, Mississippi, through the dark woods singing along to everything from Katy Perry, Whitney Houston, to the High School Musical Soundtrack. TJ and Gabrielle couldn’t help but to bring up their juvenile argument back up while Darnell and I silently mock them in the back seat. When it came to Tj and Gabrielle, they have always had a peculiar relationship. They carry on as if they can not stand one another but they both know deep down inside they have deep rooted feelings for each other beginning from the day they met.
“Ah there is nothing like the glorious smell of fried oreos, corn dogs, and farm animals.” Darnell said getting out of the car and stretching his long arms. The county fair had been our tradition for the last four years, This year in particular, being it that we our now young adults, was the year that we were allowed to do be free without the burden of one of our parents tagging along.
“Ok where to first?” Gabrielle questioned the group “I was thinking the ferris wheel.”
“I was actually thinking about getting some food. I’m starving” TJ said.
“Well maybe you should have ate at home”
“You were the one who asked us what we wanted to do and I answered”
“Guy guys we don’t have time for this.” Darnell interjected into their fight.
“Yeah guys. Lets just have fun” I agreed. We had come here to have fun and nothing was going as planned.
“You know this is so like you TJ. To ruin a good thing!” Gabrielle stated raising her voice and rolling her eyes at TJ.
“What are you even talking about all I said was...” Tj asked raising his voice as well.
“Hey hey! What is going on here?” A police officer says breaking up their spat.  The officer was a young man that looked fresh out of college; no facial hair, small frame, with long messy blonde hair and a fade in the back.
“Um no sir we were just having a little disagreement. Everything is fine” Tj said with a bit of hesitation.
“Are you sure?” The police officer asked him as if he wasn't telling the whole truth.
“He said everything is fine” Darnell answered for him. I could tell that Darnell was getting mad by the way the police officer was talking to his friends. He had never particularly cared for the police officers in Angelsville because they always tended to be in the news for some form of discrimination toward any people who aren't the majority; black, hispanic, gay, muslim, transgender, and the list goes on.
“Was I talking to you boy?”The officer questioned walking closer towards Darnell’s face.
“I was trying to explain to you what is happening.” He argued back.
“You people are trying to always trying to explain something”
Darnell puts his hands in his pockets and slowly backing up to walk away, “Look, I’m going to just wal..”
BOOM!
Everything that happened next felt like it was in slow motion.
“No!” I yelled falling to the cold, hard concrete. Hot tears rolled down my face mixing with the blood that had splattered across my face. “Darnell!?” I screamed shaking his limp body lightly. “Darnell! Please, D, do you hear me?”
Nothing. Darnell was silent. The man in the all blue uniform was silent. The curious crowd that had built up was silent. Nothing could be heard but the heavy last breaths of my best friend.
All of sudden, his eyes opened slightly and his lips parted to give his final words, “Do something, Leila.” His eyes closed shut. I was never going to see him again. Darnell was dead.
I repeatedly told myself that horror stories like this do not happen in movies only in movies and on the nightly news on my TV screen. In the midst of my grief, I broke out into a fit of uncontrollable laughter not because I thought the situation was funny but because I don’t know how to manage my emotions in a situation of this magnitude.
“Leila,” Gabrielle  says softly wrapping her arms around me.
“No!” I yell throwing her hands off of me. “You! You did this!” I pointed at the man in the blue who’s shaking hands were still holding the gun pointing toward  my dead friend, My once fit of laughter had shifted into a fit of hysterical crying.
As child, I never understood why my mom used to cry when the news came on at night, Now I know. Growing up in a predominantly caucasian town sheltered me from seeing what was truly happening in the world. Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown. Sandra Bland.  Alton Sterling. Philando Castile. Emmett Till. Martin Luther King. Malcolm X. The hatred of the black man has been instilled in our society since the beginning of time but hatred is a learned behavior. That police officer wasn't born to hate Darnell ; it was learned through society’s animosity toward Darnell’s skin. That police officer can go home at night kiss his wife and take off that blue uniform off, Darnell could not have taken off his blackness that fatal night. That police officer claimed to have been acting in self defense when the only thing Darnell had in his pocket was lint. That police officer murdered my best friend. That police officer was never indicted of any crime.
Who do you call when the people responsible for insuring your safety are the ones responsible for the endangerment of your life? Would Darnell would have had the same tragic ending if his name wasn't Darnell but Joe or Tom? The questions still circle in my mind everyday.
Welcome to America, the home of the “free”.