Red at the Bone

by Jacqueline Woodson

I know you hold on to your dreams and you hold on to your money.

Some of those white men were part-time friends of people. Separate as Tulsa was, people found ways to live their lives with each other in it. Until it got to be too much and black folks got to have more than white folks felt was right.

Does it sound crazy to say I looked at her and saw the world falling into some kind of order that I didn’t even know it was out of?

Go do something, CathyMarie had said. You don’t have a single excuse not to. Nothing’s haunting you.

She felt red at the bone—like there was something inside of her undone and bleeding.