“What were we supposed to say?” Marie asks. “We don’t have any right to tell you how you’re supposed to feel, so we stopped saying things. Even in high school, when people would call you an Oreo or how Ruby was always telling you she was Blacker than you for whatever stupid reason she came up with, even though she’s white? You never seemed fazed, you always laughed it off.”

“Just like when you were saying you were the DUFF,” Liv says. “You always thought that and you would say little things about your nose being too wide or hating your hair and your hips. Why do you think I’m always trying to get you to wear your hair curly? I don’t know what it must be like to be the only person in a room who looks different than everyone else, but I have seen the way it affected you. Maybe even more than you because I was on the outside looking in.”

“We all go through a phase where we’re insecure about our looks.” I try to defend myself, even though she’s right on.

“Of course we do, and we all build our defenses accordingly.” Liv squeezes my hand. “And you did that by laughing off things that hurt you. You don’t excuse racism, but you have learned to deflect and make excuses for people when they do things that are offensive.”

“You know how much we loved your dad, right?” Marie says, and my lungs forget how to function as I brace for whatever she’s about to say. “But remember when you were thinking about going to a historically Black university and your dad talked you out of it because he was disappointed you would go to a school that excluded people? And so you ended up miserable with us at the whitest college ever, where you had to build up your defenses even more every time someone asked you what sport you played or what you thought of affirmative action.”