As I’m typing, I’m realizing I don’t know what race you are…I guess it doesn’t matter. Maybe that is why this whole anonymous thing works. If you’re a woman of color like myself, then you’ll get it, and if not…well, that’s what I’m getting to.

This white girl and I have fought almost my entire high school career. I don’t know what started it, really, but it’s been a constant. And I’ve always felt race was the source of our frigidness. We don’t go out of our way to be vicious, but we constantly butt heads in class, in the quad, etc. We’ve never had any love for each other.

This weekend, while at a senior party, I thought I was opening the door to the bathroom. I was alone—my BFF was busy on the dance floor. Anyway, I opened the wrong door. Walked in on…damn, it’s turning my stomach right now.

I walked in on a guy—one of the few college dudes at the party—forcing himself on the white girl. It was clear it was forced because…God, her eyes were wide and panicked and she was trying to push him off but she couldn’t.

I didn’t think.

I just launched at him.

I wasn’t stronger than him.

Wasn’t stronger than her.

But together, we managed to shake him up enough to get her free.

I clutched her hand and yanked her ass down the hallway.

Locked us in the bathroom I had intended to find in the first place.

I held her.

We were both trembling, speechless.

But I held her.

In that moment, we weren’t enemies.

We weren’t two races.

We were women.

Just two girls who understood how it felt to be powerless.

We were the same.

And in that moment, I wondered why we’d constantly fought?

Was it because I thought she had privileges I didn’t?

Was it because she was afraid of or judged me because of her own bias?

Was it the social stereotypes of the world we’ve grown up in that fueled our fights in the first place?

I couldn’t stop my head from spinning as my soul shifted in those moments I held her while she cried.

As I felt her fear as real as if it were my own.

Because it was my own.

I had a similar situation happen last year.

I was lucky, though—my brother was with me at the party.

But still…we were the same.

Women.

Fearful of reporting the assault because who knew if anyone would believe us.

Fighting for the right to be viewed as human and not a prize for those around us.

Desperate for anyone older than us, or in authority, to stop trying to control or have entitlement to our own damn bodies.