Grip Trilogy Box Set - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,286

“you know he was just provoking you, trying to get a rise out of you. You can’t let him.”

She turns her body to face me, but leaves her cheek against the cushion.

“And I’m just concerned. I didn’t mean to lecture you.” She holds my eyes with hers, takes my hand, and weaves our fingers together. “You know I would never presume to tell you anything about being Black in America.”

“That was a stupid thing for me to say,” I interrupt. “I was angry and frustrated. I’m sorry.”

“Maybe I was being . . . I don’t know, presumptuous.” She fixes her eyes on our fingers twisted together. “I just wanted us to both see what he was doing and not fall for it next time.”

Bristol grimaces delicately.

“And I’m afraid there will be a next time. There’s something about you that offends him. Actually, I think it’s everything about you. When there are guys like you running around, how is he supposed to sell his false superiority bullshit? Men who are smarter than he is, rich like he is, more accomplished. Famous. Well respected. He wants to think you’re an aberration, but he’s scared there’s more where you came from.”

Her assessment is spot-on. Now I have to wade into what is sure to be one of the toughest conversations we’ve ever had.

“When I first started at the performing arts school,” I say, studying our hands caressing, mine darker and rougher than hers, “I’d never really had a white friend. Your brother was the first.”

She watches me, not making a sound, so still I wonder if she’s breathing.

“There were pretty much no white people in my neighbor- hood,” I continue. “Not at my school, not in the stores where we shopped. The only white people I ever saw on a consistent basis, who were in my life, were cops, and I’d been conditioned to fear them.”

I take a gulp of wine.

“That’s how separate we felt. I’d go as far as to say sometimes we felt forgotten.” I pause to laugh. “When I showed up at my new high school, I’d never seen an episode of Friends, and who the hell cared about that show? The kids’ jokes weren’t funny, but I was the only one not laughing, and when I tried to be funny, they didn’t get it. None of it made sense to me. It was foreign, like a parallel universe where up was down.”

I glance up to find her eyes fixed on me in complete concentration.

“If Rhyson and I hadn’t become close, I probably would have quit. He’d never seen Friends, either. He knew less than I did in a lot of ways because he’d been on the road busting ass like a grown man, playing piano since he was eleven years old.”

I shrug, trying to remember why I thought I should tell her this.

“I just . . . Tonight, you asked if it was a Black thing and you wouldn’t understand.” I sigh, unsure how to approach this, but needing to say it all without a filter, the way our other conversations have always been. We’ve never done eggshells, and tonight sure as hell isn’t the time to start. “Is that how you feel when you’re at my mom’s or . . . wherever with me? With my friends?”

“Sometimes.” Her voice is soft, but her eyes remain undaunted. “Like everybody understands something I don’t. Like at any given moment, I’ll make a fool of myself and not even know it. It’s a very vulnerable feeling—that you don’t even know what you don’t know. I think that’s why I let Jade’s words get to me. You know me, I’m not the girl who gives a fuck, but around Jade, in situations like that, I find myself trying so hard—not trying to be Black, just . . . trying, because I want to understand.”

“I’m sorry if I make you feel excluded sometimes. I don’t mean to.” I tilt my head to peer into her eyes. “Some things are specific to my cultural experience, and I don’t know if you’ll ever fully grasp them all. Real talk, I don’t care if you don’t. Ethnicity is just one part of who I am, a very important part, yeah, but just one, just like it’s only one part of who you are. There are things about your job, your past, your experiences that I won’t completely get, either, but I want to know about them because they make you who you are.”

“You’re right.” She looks