The Hate U Give (The Hate U Give, #1)

by Angie Thomas

When I was twelve, my parents had two talks with me. One was the usual birds and bees.

The other talk was about what to do if a cop stopped me.

Momma fussed and told Daddy I was too young for that. He argued that I wasn’t too young to get arrested or shot.

Officer One-Fifteen yells at me, pointing the same gun he killed my friend with.

They leave Khalil’s body in the street like it’s an exhibit.

She wipes her eyes a few times, probably thinking about Khalil or how that could’ve been me lying in the street.

I’ve seen it happen over and over again: a black person gets killed just for being black, and all hell breaks loose. I’ve tweeted RIP hashtags, reblogged pictures on Tumblr, and signed every petition out there. I always said that if I saw it happen to somebody, I would have the loudest voice, making sure the world knew what went down. Now I am that person, and I’m too afraid to speak.

“Maverick, she’s seen two of her friends get killed,” Momma says. “Two! And she’s only sixteen.” “And one was at the hands of a person who was supposed to protect her! What, you think if you live next door to them, they’ll treat you different?”

I wanna cuss Khalil out. How he could sell the very stuff that took his momma from him? Did he realize that he was taking somebody else’s momma from them? Did he realize that if he does become a hashtag, some people will only see him as a drug dealer? He was so much more than that.

I just have to be normal Starr at normal Williamson and have a normal day. That means flipping the switch in my brain so I’m Williamson Starr. Williamson Starr doesn’t use slang—if a rapper would say it, she doesn’t say it, even if her white friends do. Slang makes them cool. Slang makes her “hood.” Williamson Starr holds her tongue when people piss her off so nobody will think she’s the “angry black girl.” Williamson Starr is approachable. No stank-eyes, side-eyes, none of that. Williamson Starr is nonconfrontational. Basically, Williamson Starr doesn’t give anyone a reason to call her ghetto. I can’t stand myself for doing it, but I do it anyway.

Maya’s boyfriend, Ryan, happens to be the only other black kid in eleventh grade, and everybody expects us to be together. Because apparently when it’s two of us, we have to be on some Noah’s Ark type shit and pair up to preserve the blackness of our grade.

Holy shit. Who the fuck complains about going to Harry Potter World? Or Butter Beer? Or wands? I hope none of them ask about my spring break. They went to Taipei, the Bahamas, Harry Potter World. I stayed in the hood and saw a cop kill my friend.

I try to forget that he has an entire floor as big as my house and hired help that looks like me.

I let go of my mom’s hand to shake the detectives’ hands. “Hello.” My voice is changing already. It always happens around “other” people, whether I’m at Williamson or not. I don’t talk like me or sound like me. I choose every word carefully and make sure I pronounce them well. I can never, ever let anyone think I’m ghetto.

“Yes, ma’am. He didn’t find anything. He then told Khalil to stay put while he ran his license and registration.” “But Khalil didn’t stay put, did he?” she says. “He didn’t pull the trigger on himself either.”

“We all want to get to the bottom of this, Starr. We appreciate your cooperation. I understand this is hard right now.” I wipe my face on my arm again. “Yeah.” “Yeah.” She smiles and says in that same sugary, sympathetic tone, “Now, do you know if Khalil sold narcotics?” Pause. What the fuck?

Fuck this chick

Investigating or justifying?

But what the hell does that have to do with him getting murdered? Is that supposed to make all of this okay?

I refuse to make them feel better about killing my friend.

“Whoa, wait one second,” Momma says. “Are y’all putting Khalil and Starr on trial or the cop who killed him?”

“You haven’t asked my child about that cop yet,” Momma says. “You keep asking her about Khalil, like he’s the reason he’s dead. Like she said, he didn’t pull the trigger on himself.”

On the Monday night news, they finally gave Khalil’s name in the story about the shooting, but with a title added to it—Khalil Harris, a Suspected Drug Dealer. They didn’t mention that he was unarmed.

“Dammit, Starr!” Hailey yells, recovering the ball. She passes it to me. “Hustle! Pretend the ball is some fried chicken. Bet you’ll stay on it then.” What. The. Actual. Fuck?

Um????

“What the hell was that comment?” “Lighten up! It was only game talk.” “A fried chicken joke was only game talk? Really?” I ask. “It’s fried chicken day!” she says. “You and Maya were just joking about it. What are you trying to say?” I keep pacing. Her eyes widen. “Oh my God. You think I was being racist?” I look at her. “You made a fried chicken comment to the only black girl in the room. What do you think?”

“Does this have something to do with the police shooting that drug dealer in your neighborhood?”

The drug dealer. That’s how they see him. It doesn’t matter that he’s suspected of doing it. “Drug dealer” is louder than “suspected” ever will be.

On a serious tip—white people are crazy for their dogs.

“Did something happen?” she asks. “No.” “Is it Khalil?” she asks. I sigh. This time tomorrow I’ll be staring at him in a coffin.

I side-eye the hell—excuse me, heck; we’re in church—out of her.

“As we say farewell to Khalil, we find our hearts burdened with the harsh truth of how he lost his life. Just before the start of this service, I was informed that, despite a credible eyewitness account, the police department has no intentions of arresting the officer who murdered this young man.” “What?” I say, as people murmur around the sanctuary. Everything I told them, and they’re not arresting him? “What they don’t want you to know,” Ms. Ofrah says, “is that Khalil was unarmed at the time of his murder.” People really start talking then. A couple of folks yell out, including one person who’s bold enough to shout “This is bullshit” in a church.

“And you can take your behind right out the door too. Coming in the Lord’s house, looking like the prostitute you are!”

Ope

This is bigger than me and Khalil though. This is about Us, with a capital U; everybody who looks like us, feels like us, and is experiencing this pain with us despite not knowing me or Khalil. My silence isn’t helping Us.

He grins and feeds her a grape, and I just can’t. The cuteness is too much. Yeah, they’re my parents, but they’re my OTP. Seriously.

Stop thats too cute

On the news they said there may have been a gun in the car, like that changes everything. I honestly don’t know if there was.” Ms. Ofrah opens a folder that’s on her desk, takes a piece of paper out, and pushes it toward me. It’s a photograph of Khalil’s black hairbrush, the one he used in the car. “That’s the so-called gun,” Ms. Ofrah explains. “Officer Cruise claims he saw it in the car door, and he assumed Khalil was reaching for it. The handle was thick enough, black enough, for him to assume it was a gun.” “And Khalil was black enough,” Daddy adds. A hairbrush. Khalil died over a fucking hairbrush.

I turn to Ms. Ofrah. “When I was ten, I saw my other best friend get murdered in a drive-by.” Funny how murdered comes out easily now. “Oh.” Ms. Ofrah sinks back. “I didn’t— I’m so sorry, Starr.” I stare at my fingers and fumble with them. Tears well in my eyes. “I’ve tried to forget it, but I remember everything. The shots, the look on Natasha’s face. They never caught the person who did it. I guess it didn’t matter enough. But it did matter. She mattered.” I look at Ms. Ofrah, but I can barely see her for all the tears. “And I want everyone to know that Khalil mattered too.”

“Thank you so much for having the bravery to do this.” There’s that word again. Bravery. Brave peoples’ legs don’t shake. Brave people don’t feel like puking. Brave people sure don’t have to remind themselves how to breathe if they think about that night too hard. If bravery is a medical condition, everybody’s misdiagnosed me.

It seems like they always talk about what he may have said, what he may have done, what he may not have done. I didn’t know a dead person could be charged in his own murder, you know?”

I try not to laugh as Chris really does turn the Nae-Nae into a No-No.

“Um, no? Besties before testes.”