What keeps you up at night?

“I was really worrying about how I wasn’t going to graduate and all my friends were going to leave me. I felt alone - I wanted to go back to school and play football. I just had to face the fact that I was going to be sitting for a while. I was waking up every day in a cinderblock room with a tiny window and a fake mirror, doing the same things over and over. I felt like I was ready to spaz. I wanted to fight everyone.

I was hurt and sad, but I only cried only one time on the phone with my mom. She was so angry at me for getting arrested. I was the first one of my siblings that was supposed to graduate high school. I waited for one year to have my transfer hearing and when I had it my case got sent to the juvenile system and I went home the next day.”

– Kwantai A., automatically charged as an adult at age 17