You Should See Me in a Crown

by Leah Johnson

but watching the first one, at the very least, is like a mandate of

was like as soon as we had an audience, I didn’t exist. Just like he’d done that day freshman year.

Jordan is not genuine

Ro to take his medicine

what meds

she snorts with her laugh this time. It’s a cuter sound than should be legal, really.

l o ve

Mack,

She’s also an incredible drummer.

Kittredge’s

Teela Conrad),

what?

You can never be too careful when it comes to eating white folks’ food.

hmmm

this is a system designed to benefit people like Rachel Collins?”

White privilege

Teela Conrad is kind of my hero.

“People love drama, a little novelty, but they won’t vote for her if they think …” She trails off, suddenly at a loss for words. “If they think she’s queer,” I finish for her.

not fair

“Like, Liz, it’s different for you! Nobody would ever guess that you’re into girls. I mean, you hide it so well.”

not a compliment

“So are we giving up them waffle fries at Chick-fil-A now?

christian chic file

Silence and shame aren’t the same thing—not by a longshot. But sometimes silence is simpler. “Well, good thing I canceled the order on my GIRLS JUST WANNA DO GIRLS T-shirt, then, huh?”

ugh

I’m never going to be able to own every part of myself.

sucks

I’ve passed the homes in this neighborhood a thousand times before, pedaled down Gabi’s street and thought of all the lives I could be living inside those big, beautiful houses if I wasn’t me.

black

Like my sexuality is a light switch I can flip on and off when it’s convenient.

which many Wasps believe

I would like to get these posters up before it’s time for me to file for social security.”

Not likely something a teen would say

I could swear I felt at the Bake-Off as we cowered underneath that baking sheet. I remind myself that I’m not in this race for that.

Single mindedness toward a goal.

I like that about her—that she doesn’t care about being so carefully put together.

white carefree hair versus society's fear of black curls

Like she’s already past this place and the things that are happening within it.

Romanticized love interest

I remember knowing what it feels like to have someone be your entire world one second and them be gone the next.

Dealing with loss

When someone in your life is sick, or could get seriously sicker, you’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Genetic diseases like sickle cell should be eradicated. Why haven't they?

median age of death for women with the disease

our mom, it was the even earlier.

So the days when his pain is at an eight on a scale to ten,

brother

nothing I can do to help

helpless

Jordan’s hand

grounding.

“I’ll always worry about you, Lighty,” he says. “Us not hanging out anymore didn’t change that.”

Jordan

did she ever say she was wrong.

None of which smooth over the way that conversation made me feel.

I hate when she uses my nickname like that, like I’m some sort of toddler who needs to be placated.

condescension

there’s one thing I understand, it’s feeling stifled by the place we live and the people who live here.

stifled

“I know it must be tough being one of the only black students at Campbell.

The token minority

Gabi

prized pale pink leather Givenchy tote G’s grandmother had gotten her for her sixteenth birthday. Honestly,

Rich Gabi

a cornerstone of the Indianapolis community—a day care, a summer camp, a refuge for neighborhood kids with nowhere else to go.

More worthy volunteer op

Normally the kids would be outside, but I heard on the news there was a shooting in the neighborhood last week.

Disportionate housing

the middle of an almost entirely black neighborhood, so it’s not often we get a white person strolling through these halls.

“Yo, Lighty, wait

light skinned

That there was a time, whole years of our lives, when our friendship meant everything to us,

and he threw that away in one day.

Or by fits and starts no one noticed

I’ve missed us, and it seems like he has too.

“Truce?”

“Ohmygosh, Liz, I totally forgot! You’re absolutely right; consent is crucial.”

I forget this myself

the Colts!”

The Colt's you stole from Baltimore

“That’s a touchdown for white, and the first score of the game comes from Lightning Lighty!”