My Friend, Radcliff Deroche (Pj)
By Rodney Arnold (12/10/13)
     It was Easter Sunday. I went to church, came home, ate Sunday dinner, and basically relaxed in the living room for the rest of the afternoon. I was feeling good. 
     Eventually, I got bored watching TV so I went upstairs to my room and started to play my game. I played from 5:00 to 6:30 and then I saw my mother going back and forth between the bathroom and her bedroom. I heard some sniffling; I figured she had a stuffy nose. She kept on sniffling, so I paused the game and went into the hallway. 
     My mother was going into the bathroom. I looked at her face. Her eyes were bloodshot red with tears.
     “Mommy, what happened?”
     “My baby got shot!” She said.
     I was thinking: who is she talking about? I couldn't think who she was talking about.
     “Mom, who?” I asked. 
     She didn't answer. My sister came out of her room.
     “Pj,” she said to me. My heart stopped.
     “What!? How?! Mom, what happened?” I started to panic.
     “He got shot in the back of the head!” 
     ‘Is he okay?” I asked.
     “He’s in the hospital; I’m going to see his mother at her house now.”
     “I wanna come.”
     “No stay here with your sister,” she said as she grabbed her keys and coat. Then she left. 
     I went back in my room and un-paused my game and began playing. I couldn't stop thinking: Pj is really close to me. He is like my brother, and I grew up with him. Out of all people, I would have never thought he would be the one who would get shot.         
     I began to cry..

~~~

     Five minutes later, someone was knocking on the door. I wasn't going to answer it. So my sister got up and went downstairs to see who it was. It was my father.
     “Where June at?” He asked as soon as he came into the front door.
     “Upstairs,” she answered.
     “June, come downstairs,” he said. I heard him. I didn't move a muscle.
     “June,” he said. “Come downstairs, now.” I went down.
     He was standing in front of the stairs watching me. 
     “You all right, son?” he asked. I just went in his arms and burst into tears.
     “It’s okay, shhh...” He was saying, hugging me and rubbing his hand on my head. “Its going to be okay, okay?”
     ‘Mhmm,” I said as I was swiping my eyes.
     After that we all went into the living room to watch the news.
     “New Haven, Conn. (WTNH) -- An 18-year-old man riding an ATV on Dixwell Avenue in New Haven was shot in the head and left in critical condition Sunday. Radcliff Deroche was shot around 3:15 p.m. where Dixwell meets West Division Street. Witnesses say they were returning from church when they heard the revving engine, the gun shots, then the police sirens.”  
     I started to tear up again.
     “It’s going to be okay,” my father continued to say. All I could say was, “Okay.” 
     After we were done watching TV, my father left. Thirty minutes later, someone knocked on the door.  
     “Who is it!?” I yelled.
     “It’s Mark.” Marquis is my big brother. I had introduced him to Pj when we went over his house to play video games. I opened the door and Marquis came in. He gave me a hug and asked if I was okay. I said yeah. He just shook his head.
     “What’s wrong, Mark?” I asked.
     “Nothing. It’s just that everybody’s messed up nowadays. They just don’t care and they’ll kill just to kill." 
     We were silent. He stayed for a little while, then left. The whole night, all I could think about was Pj.

~~~

     It was 10:00 pm. My mother was just getting home and I was still up.
     “How’s Allison (Pj's mother)? I asked.
     “She’s really upset,” my mother answered.
     “Mom, you think Pj's okay?”
     “Yeah sweetie, everything is going to be okay.”     
     “I hope so,” I said as a tear came out of my eye. She gave me a kiss on my forehead. “You have school tomorrow so get some rest and everything will probably get better.”
     “Okay,” I said as I was walking to my room. I jumped in bed, closed my eyes, and before I knew it I was asleep.

~~~ 

     It was Monday morning, 8:00 am, and I was running late for school. I jumped out of my bed to see if anyone was home. I looked in my sister’s room and she was gone, so I looked in my mother’s room. She was sitting on her bed, on the phone crying. Finally, she got off the phone.
     “Mom, what's wrong?”
     “Pj…” she couldn't finish the sentence.
     “Pj what?” I asked. 
     “Pj passed away this morning,” she said. My heart stopped. I ran in my room and burst into tears. I was hollering and screaming as loud as I could. My mother came into the room and grabbed me. She began to cry too. We both went into her room and sat on the bed. My eyes were flooded with tears. I was laying my head on my mother as I was crying.
     “It’s okay. It’s okay.” That was the only thing my mother could say, even though she knew everything wasn't okay. Someone that we were close to died. But I knew crying wasn't going to bring him back. 
     From time to time I still cry. We had that bond that no one could break. He was a role model, and I looked up to him, and I wish he was still alive. But like my mother always says to me, “He’s in a better place than here on earth.”

It's Okay To Not Be Okay
By Drew Highsmith (4/10/14)
     Throughout all 5,475 days of my life, people have been telling me that it’s okay. They tell me this to get me through the pain and to stop me from worrying too much. I didn’t used to believe it, but I’ve come to realize that things do somehow end up being okay, even when they’re not.
The House of Death
     I was 7 seven years of age and It was my first time going into a haunted house. Boy, was I scared. My sister and niece made me walk into my own death wish. It was like they were trying to get me killed.  
     “It’s okay.” My sister murmured this until we got in.
     When we walked in, I thought my life was about to be taken in the house of death.  I felt chills all over my terrified body. Left and right was a nightmare come true. There was slime running down the walls, blood everywhere like a slaughter house, monsters popping out like a jack-in-the-box. The house was beyond horrifying.
     We arrived at the graveyard. There was a clown standing there, eye balling me like I was the freak. I got past him with a sigh of relief. I heard the sounds of his black, steel toe boots banging against the ground. (Boom, boom, boom, boom.) I can still hear his laugh; it was a reminder of death.
     What would you have done? Wait don’t answer that. Because any smart person would’ve run. And I’m no dummy.  
     That night I cried. I bawled until my head felt like it was ready to explode.
     When I got home, my brother was there. I couldn’t stop the tears from sliding off of my cheeks. “It’s okay. You’ll be okay,” my brother attempted to make me realize.
     “How do you know?”
     He put on a Halloween mask; it was a gremlin. I screamed like I was in a horror movie. “Relax, it’s me,” he stated as he took off the mask. I knew then that everything was going to be okay because none of it was real. It was just people behind a mask, was all.
My Nemesis
     I had an arch enemy. It was our pool and boy, was it evil. No matter what, I would never step into his territory. I always stayed on the borderline. My friends and family were all on his side. I stood alone and refused to learn how to surrender.
     It was a hot day, like 90 degrees hot. Pool had a party and everyone went. Well, except me of course. I was standing on the edge of life and death, which was the edge of our deck.
     Suddenly, I slipped on water that had been splashed from the fun of everyone else, and banged the back of my head on the edge of the deck. It all happened so fast. Under the water I went, chlorine flowing through both of my nostrils, seeping into my mouth. I could feel my chest closing second by second, struggling for a gasp of air. It was like World War II, going down under a 5-foot pool. I was under attack and I couldn’t defend myself. I thought, “It’s time to surrender.”
     No one noticed I was in the process of drowning until what felt like years. Again, brother saved me.
     But the event continued to replay over and over again in my head; I was drowning constantly.
     Three years later, my brother finally made me face my fear of drowning, in the same way he had helped me with the haunted house. “It’s okay.” He stated as he convinced me to get in the pool.
     Sometimes having faith, and a person to remind you of that faith, can make bad things okay.
You’re Better Now
     August 2, 2011, is when I lost my cousin, Nasir, to cancer. Nothing was the same. I broke down into pieces because the pain ate me alive. The words from my mom’s mouth, “it’ll be okay,” went through one ear and out the other. I felt as if it would never be okay.
     The night I got the call that they pulled the plug, I was drowning in tears. I can still remember what my brother was saying. “It’s going to be okay.” He told me that we were going to pray for Nasir. It didn’t bring him back, but it helped me accept the fact that he was in paradise.
     On my way to his funeral, the radio was playing “Tyga-Far Away.” I play this song every day and I think of him.
     Now I realize that people tend to tell you that it’s okay to get you through a hard time. In reality, things aren’t always okay, but as C De. Lima says: “…I’m finally accepting that it’s okay to not be okay.”