My voice broke then, and I had to take a deep breath, to finish saying this shit, because the shock from everything that had gone down in the last hour was starting to wear off and I was shaking again. “I can’t be that person, Easton. I can’t be the one for whom the rules are broken, while every other fucker that looks like me has to just live with it.”

His mouth twisted then and he took a step, closing the space between us. “That is not what that was, Patrice,” he said, desperation clear in his voice. “It’s not that I don’t care about what happened to other people. I know now how wrong it was for us to stay silent, to not reassure the community.” He fisted the hand he’d been running through his hair. “I freaked out, okay. I got scared. I get that I may seem hypocritical—”

I scoffed and leaned my head back, starting to feel pissed off. “May seem hypocritical, Easton?”

“Patrice—”

“No. That’s the kind of energy you need to have for every single person that is stopped in this town, and doesn’t have a boyfriend with the pull to help him out. You know what it takes to make this better for everyone? Sacrifices. Your boss won’t say anything because she can’t piss off the police, the sheriff can’t do it because he already lost some votes. Meanwhile black and brown people in this town go on thinking the people who are supposed to keep them safe just don’t care. You knew all along that what was happening was dangerous.”

I wanted to touch him one last time, to run my fingers over those lips one more time. “You remember when you told me that you could go your whole life without thinking about the real history of this country?”

He gave a sharp nod in response, his arms crossed tightly against his chest. “We’re not just learning history, we’re making it too. You can’t just be brave when you’ve secured yourself a soft landing or without making any of your friends uncomfortable.”

“Does anyone get a second chance with you? Or is everything black and white, Patrice?”

I laughed again, pushing off the car. “You know what’s wild?” I sounded as if something had been turned off inside me, numb. “When I got stopped the first thing I thought was: if something happens to me, I don’t want this on Easton’s conscience.” I let out a choppy breath and could hear Easton’s shuddering one. “I also don’t have the luxury of navigating in the grays, and I won’t be anybody’s token, especially not yours. It’ll destroy us.”