I’m not used to being with a room full of black people. It’s super exciting and different, but it’s never been something I craved. It doesn’t make me feel at home. Sometimes I get scared that I’m secretly racist, because it’s so much easier to hang out with white people. Not that that doesn’t have its problems, too.

I glance at Robb. He wanted to come with me tonight, which is cool I guess. He knows Kwame, who invited him. But he’s my friend, and we arrived together, so I feel like people are looking at us like, Who’s the white guy and who’s that oreo who brung him?

TYRELL

I like living in the dorm. It’s simple. Food is right downstairs in the dining hall. You don’t even have to go outside. Swipe the meal card, and it’s like manna from heaven. I’m gonna get fat. And I’m gonna like it.

I take full advantage of every swipe. I bring my books. Eat, then study, then eat again.

Some kids come down and use a whole swipe for a bowl of cereal. One of many things I don’t understand about this world.

They be trippin’, bro. That’s what Tariq would say about it. Even now, two years later, it’s hard to stop his voice from sliding into my head.

Harder today than usual. I don’t want to watch the news, but I can’t help seeing it. Her name, her face, is everywhere. Around the cafeteria, soft mutterings:

“Can you imagine?”

“God, her parents. I feel so bad for them.”

“What kind of cop can’t tell the difference between a little girl and a gangbanger?”

“Never walk wearing headphones. That’s the moral of the story.”

“I can’t imagine.”

I bend over my tray, keep full attention on this bowl of oatmeal. Bite my tongue. You can’t imagine? Really? It’s happening in front of you. Some of us don’t have to imagine.

Cinnamon, raisins, brown sugar, sliced almonds. What I can’t imagine is a world in which someone pre-slices your almonds for you.

My spoon keeps stirring. The truth is, I’m full. For now.

I make myself walk an hour every day, for a bit of exercise. Put in my headphones and let the music carry me. In the last few weeks, I’ve even started jogging.

I go at dusk, right before I head down for my dinners. The sunset sky settles over the trees. I loop through the wooded walks of campus, across the quad, weave among the dorms. I become a dark shape moving against the gathering night, and somehow it is okay. People move out of my way when they see me coming, but otherwise I am barely noticed.

It’s amazing.