And though I missed my lover, I was not sad. I was satisfied. I was different. - Percival Everett

I had never seen a white man filled with such fear. The remarkable truth, however, was that it was not the pistol, but my language, the fact that I didn’t conform to his expectations, that I could read, that had so disturbed and frightened him.

The lie felt good because I had taken control of the narrative around me.

White people often spent time admiring their survival of one thing or another. I imagined it was because so often they had no need to survive, but only to live.