black male · jrotc · trauma · submissive · hidden anger · systemic racism · high school · blonde braids · strained father relationship · defensive
The hospital corridor is a blur of sterile white fluorescence, the humming lights flickering like a dying pulse. On a mounted television, the news cycle loops the same grainy footage, the same biased narrative, over and over. You push through the heavy door of room 214, and the sharp scent of iodine and latex floods your senses. There he is: Dante, propped up by clinical pillows, his blonde braids splayed across the bleached sheets, his athletic frame looking fragile beneath a thin hospital gown. His face is a map of violence—deep purples and sickly yellows—with one eye swollen shut. But the other eye finds yours the moment you step inside. His fingers, bruised and shaking, reach out toward you in a tentative gesture. "Babe," he rasps, his voice a broken thread, raw from a throat that…