We Are Not Like Them

by Christine Pride

The only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people that are better than you are—not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous and more forgiving—and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad—or good—it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well. —A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara

Maybe she and I failed each other by allowing each other the freedom to be ourselves, and maybe that was the inevitable consequence of true friendship. —Trouble, Kate Christensen

turns out you don’t outgrow yourself.

Sometimes you just need to be around someone who loved you before you were a fully formed person. It’s like finding your favorite sweatshirt in the back of the closet, the one you forgot why you stopped wearing and once you find it again you sleep in it every night.

she also always goes out of her way to be thoughtful, which makes you feel adored when it doesn’t make you feel undeserving.

It kills me how some people want so badly to believe racism is buried beneath layers and layers of history, “ancient history,” they say. But it’s not. It’s like an umpire brushing the thinnest layer of dirt off home plate: it’s right there.

So maybe the marching, rallying, showing up, it serves a purpose. It says, We will not be invisible or afraid. We will not give up. And that’s not nothing. It might actually be everything.

What do you see when you see me? Have you made up your mind about who I can be? You could get to know me if you tried You could see what I’m like inside I am made of blood, bones, and muscles too. So how can you say I am less than you? I have so many dreams, even at my age. Let me be free, don’t put me in a cage. Watch what I can do.

I appreciate the support, but it’s getting to be so it’s not even about Justin anymore,” Tamara continued. “And the violence, the looting, the fires. He wouldn’t have wanted that.”

He wanted me to be prepared. If there’s one thing my dad always wants, it’s for me to be prepared, for anything, everything in life.

Momma sighs. “The scarf isn’t so much the point, honey. It’s that we can’t wait. You know, there’s a lot I wish I’d said before your grandma passed. Now I’m wondering why we always wait to say things at all. It’s mighty foolish of us to wait for anything. To wait to tell someone we love them or that we’re mad as hell at them. Kevin did a terrible thing, it’s true, and a young boy is dead and he has to live with that, with that heaviness in his soul. I’m not going to weigh in on how he should be punished. That’s for God to decide. But Jenny is not Kevin, and that girl loves you, and sometimes we need to swallow our pride and reach out. Even when we don’t know what to say and we’re afraid of messing everything up by saying the wrong thing. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to talk about something. All that matters is that you try. The longer you let something go, the easier it is to stay silent, and the silence is where the resentment starts to fester and rot.”

Sometimes you can’t think your way out of a thing. You have to feel it. And sometimes you just have to let it out. You can’t just push it away and pretend it’s not happening.

“There are some things you can’t change, baby girl. White folks are gonna do what white folks do, and the way I see it you can be resentful and angry all the time and let it eat away at you, which some people do, and how can you blame them? Or you can choose to control the one thing you can: your mind-set. You can decide, Nope, I’m not going to let them get to me. I won’t be bitter, I’m going to be better—and better doesn’t mean just working hard. It comes down to character, an ability to be defiant in your joy no matter what they do. That’s what your mom and I tried to teach you kids.”

I’m afraid that Jen won’t get it. Maybe I’ve always been afraid. That’s why I didn’t tell her about when Ryan left that note in my locker, or Birmingham, or even Shaun last year. She could listen, but she could never truly get it. I can’t necessarily fault her for that, but it nags at me: Why don’t we talk about race more? Gaby and I talk about it pretty much every single day, specifically some fucked-up thing in the news or our lives—like venting about ignorant BS like someone mistaking us for the sales clerk at the mall too many times. But I talk to Jen about things I rarely share with Gaby too, like my anxiety and depression and feelings of inadequacy. And besides, Jenny and I met when we were so young, during that brief, elusive period when kids are truly color-blind. We didn’t talk about race when we were five, or ten, or fifteen, and now… it’s a muscle we haven’t used. So is it that I can’t talk to Jenny or that I don’t? Which leads me to an even more gut-wrenching question: What if, when it comes down to it, there will always be some essential part of me that is unknowable to her because of our different experiences? It’s as if an unnoticeable crack between us has stretched into a chasm and our friendship risks falling right through it. “What am I supposed to say, Gaby? ‘I can’t ever forgive your husband for what he did’? ‘He’s part of the chain of systemic racism that’s killing men who look like my father and brother’? ‘If you don’t think race is the problem here, ...

Part of our friendship, of any relationship really, is the tacit agreement to allow a generous latitude for flaws and grievances. A trade-off that goes both ways, glass houses and whatnot—and besides, if you start holding your friends accountable for all their flaws, if you let the annoyances add up on a mental spreadsheet, the whole thing could come toppling down.

Maybe it’s what we all want from the people we love: to be seen for exactly who we are. It was a simple realization, so why did it feel like such a miracle?

I’d talked myself out of loving him because I had an expectation of what my life should look like, who I should be with had clouded my vision of who I wanted to be with. There are no easy choices, no safe choices, you can’t plan your way to happiness. So even though it goes against everything I’ve ever told myself about how my life should look, and it won’t be easy or uncomplicated, I know it’s what I want, who I want. So there’s only one thing to do.

This is it, a start, a knot loosening. Given that Riley is the most contained person I’ve ever known, these delicate conversations—calm and kind—are how we can start to rebuild. It might not be such a bad thing after all; maybe we don’t need to rehash every miscommunication or slight in painful detail, or go backward to move forward. We can trust that we will eventually return to normal, that the strength of our shared history is enough to fall back on, to carry us through. I allow myself to feel hopeful that this is exactly what’s happening right now. And that after all of this, we could become even closer.

I also know that I can no longer be gentle with her. I will have to call her out sometimes. I’ll have to push her to think harder, to get outside her little bubble,

Topics & Questions for Discussion What emotions did you experience while reading the prologue? Why do you think the authors chose to open with this scene? How did you interpret Kevin’s behaviors after the incident? Did you feel any sympathy for him, and do you think he deserved everything that happened after? Who do you blame for what happened? Did you find yourself torn over how to feel about any of the characters’ reactions or decisions in the novel? What moments were particularly controversial to you, and how did they challenge your perceptions? Discuss how this novel exhibits instances of prejudice based on privilege, class, and race. What about instances of unconscious bias? Riley says to Jen: “I didn’t want to be the Black girl always talking about race. That’s no fun. And I don’t know what your reaction would be if I told you about all the shit I have to deal with because I’m a Black woman. What if you didn’t have the right reaction?” How might we be able to more openly discuss our feelings about these sensitive issues? Do you think there’s ever a reason these things should be left undiscussed? Have you ever struggled to express a feeling or observation about race out of fear of being dismissed or misunderstood? Did Jen and Riley’s alternating voices highlight any important similarities or differences about their experiences during the novel? Did you relate to one character in particular? Riley and Jen are pulled between their friendship and their commitments to the...