“But dadddddd She ruined my ps4444” I say complaining about Ava, My baby sister getting slobber all over my stuff. 

“Joshua what did I tell you. Forgive and forget. She’s just a baby” My dad says. I roll my eyes

“You always say that. Forget this, forgive that.” But he just laughs. “One day your going to thank me” he says smiling. When will someone ever do something that horrible to me that I won’t forgive them I think to myself. I’m a pretty caring, nice, and funny person if I do say so myself.  I look out the window at all the cars and all the people on the street. But for some reason, all I see is white people. White people left and right.  I bring my focus back to my dad. “You wanna see how fast this car goes?” My dad asks its my first time being in his car without a car seat! It smells like strawberries because of the air freshener he has in the front right in front of the AC. The car looks so brand new with the gray seats and the small tv in the back. No scratches, no stains. Everything is spotless.

“Of course I do!!!” I say with excitement. The engine roars. There’s screaming, There’s laughter, There’s smiling. But then, There sirens. We pull over. Red white and blue flashing everywhere. My dad rolls down the window but for some reason, When the cop see’s my dad’s face he grimaces. 

“Why are you driving so fast?” The cop says he has a very deep voice. It’s scary. 

“ I was just trying to show my son how fast the car can go.” My dad says with excitement even though I know deep down he’s scared too. “You see it’s his first time-”

  “let me see your id” The cop says rudely interrupting my dad. My dad reaches into his pocket to bring out his id. I look up at the cop he’s reaching for something on the right side of his pants pocket. Its as if at this very moment time slows down. I look at his uniform. Its blue. He has badges on the top left of his shirt.  I look to the right and I see the name” Simth.” Suddenly everything speeds back up again. One, two, three. Three gunshots. There’s screaming, There’s crying. Tears are running down my face rapidly. I grab my dad by the shoulders. “DAD!” I say screaming on the top of my lungs “DAD DON’T LEAVE ME!” I shout. I don’t even know what to do other then cry. “ don’t leave me please! Your my best friend dad. Please don’t go.” But the only thing my dad manges to say is “I love you son. Forgive.”
And just like that, Everything turns black and I wake up.  

I wake up Sweating bullets, panting as if I was just running for my life. “I had another nightmare of seeing my dad die again”. I say to myself. The first thing I see is the family portrait of me and my family. I see my mom, my sisters Ava and Alexis and lastly, I see my dad. I stare at him for what feels like an hour. “ God I miss you so much. Why did that cop have to shoot you that day?” I say. I go out of my mess room and into my bathroom. I pick up my blue toothbrush. And for some reason, I examine it. I see the dents from pushing the brush too hard. I see the brushes been pushed in from how hard I brush my teeth. I stare at myself in the spotless mirror. And Immediately think of my dad. Everyone said we looked alike. And now that I’m growing up I’m starting to see it. We both have the same milk chocolate skin color and the same hairstyle. The main difference between us was he had brown eyes and I had blue eyes. I smile. Once I finish getting ready for school I walk down stairs to my kitchen. Its spotless with white everywhere. It’s all white I see my 2 little sisters, Ava and Alexis. As soon as they see me they run up to me and I bend down to hug them so hard. I have no idea what I would do without them. I go to mom and hug her like it’s the end of the world. We make pancakes together. It has Chocolate chips in it. It's not over cooked. But its not under cooked either. We have warm syrup and some cut up strawberry with some whipped cream at the top. Just how we like it. Especially my dad.  I always cook with my mom. It’s one of our favorite things to do. We sit down together and eat.

We were talking about going on runs when my mom starts to talk about my dad. I zone out. My heart skips a beat.  Why is she talking talking about him? 

She knows- “Joshua are you okay?” she looks really worried. 

“Um- yeah.. Yeah i’m fine I was just thinking about something.” She gives me the look cause she knows i’m lying.

“You know you really should go see your dad’s grave. I was hurting so much when he died to but- “ “NO” I say Everyone stares at me. Ava and Alexis looks scared. My mom is just shocked. “I’m sorry for screaming… i- can I be excused?”

And just like that I run out the house With my mom screaming my name. I go for a jog and all I can think about is my nightmare. The happiness and then the sadness. But then I remember seeing a name that day. “Smith.” I run down to the police station and I ask everyone what they know about “Smith.” I don’t even know how I ended up buying a gun. It was as if my legs has a mind of its own. I look at my phone and see the time. It’s 5:00 pm already. I missed school and I see thousands of messages and phone calls from my mom. I ignore it cause right in that moment, I look up and see him. I see the face of the man. Smith. The man who killed my father. 

We’re face to face. I have the gun in my hand. Kind of confused on what to do with it. I’ve never had a gun before. “What’s your name?” I say softly as if i'm afraid of myself. 

“What did you say? I could- couldn’t hear you. “He says stuttering.

 Okay this is going well. He’s afraid of me. “WHAT’S YOUR NAME!” I shout angrily. 

“Smith” He say sheeple. “M- My  name is Smith Williams.”He’s staring deep into my blue eyes confused. He’s probably thinking its contacts. Just because i’m black doesn’t mean I can’t have blue eyes.   A tear drops down my face. I wipe it away. No joshua. You have to be strong. “ Do you have any idea what you did?” “ DO YOU KNOW HOW BADLY YOU RUINED MY LIFE?” I say shuddering. Tears running down my face like a waterfall. 

“Im sorry son but I don’t know you.” Smith says softly like he’s innocent. 

“DON’T CALL ME SON!” I say furiously. “YOU KILLED THE ONLY PERSON WHO EVER HAD THE RIGHT TO CALL ME THAT.” I take deep breaths. In. and out. In, and out“you killed my dad 11 years ago...YOU KILLED MY BEST FRIEND.” Im crying so hard everything blurry now. I wipe my eyes and everything becomes clear again. We’re in the middle of the street. Luckily no one’s here to see this. Smith is on his knees with his hands up above his head. “ you killed my dad. And now, your going to pay.” I put my finger on the trigger. I’m about to kill a man I say to myself. 

 But then, I hear a voice. “ forgive.” I ignore it. But It continues. “Forgive. Forgive. Forgive.” I recognize that voice. It sounds so good to hear it. “Dad?” the tears comes back. “Forgive. Forgive. forgive.” He keeps saying. I wipe my eye’s one last time and I see i'm still holding onto the gun. Smith is still on the floor trembling. I start crying hard. I drop the gun. 

“I’M SORRY” I scream sobbing. “ I’M SO SORRY.” Smith gets his cuff and takes me down to the station. 

My family comes to pick me up. They Run up to me and hug me so tie it gets hard to breathe for a second. With tears still my eyes, I tell them I’m ready to go to my dad’s grave. We drive there. But on the way there I start to think why didn’t he kill me? Why didn’t he kill me like he killed my dad? So much white cops kills other black people for no reason. I was just about to kill him so why not kill me? But then I remember him looking into my eyes. My blue eyes. 

My family stays in the car. I have white flowers in my hands. “His favorite color” I whisper to myself. I drop to my knees and cry. “ i’m so sorry dad.” I say sobbing. I almost killed a man because I could accept the fact that your dad.”

 I stay there crying for like 15 more mins and then we go home. The next day I wake up with no nightmares. It feels as if a weight has been lifted off my shoulder. “ I guess you were right dad” I say getting off my bed to look at his picture in the early morning. “Sometime you just need to forgive and forget.”