Brianna looked younger without Megan beside her.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Naya waited.
“For the fight?”
“For all of it.”
Naya folded her arms.
“That’s a lot.”
“I know.”
Brianna stared at her hands.
“I really did think Jefferson picked you partly because you’re Black.”
Naya’s expression hardened.
Brianna continued before she could respond.
“That doesn’t mean it was true.”
“I know now.”
Naya leaned back.
“How?”
Brianna swallowed.
“My counselor made me read the scoring rubric.”
Naya almost laughed.
“You needed a rubric?”
“I know how bad that sounds.”
“It sounds exactly as bad as it is.”
Brianna nodded.
She explained that she had entered the Jefferson process assuming she deserved the scholarship because her résumé looked stronger on paper. When Naya won, Brianna needed a reason that protected that belief.
Race became the easiest explanation.
Then every new accomplishment Naya earned became another problem.
Good grades.
Leadership program.
College interviews.
Praise from teachers.
If Naya was genuinely talented, Brianna had to reconsider the story she told herself about losing.
So she kept inventing exceptions.
“Your old school must’ve been easier.”
“You got diversity points.”
“You had a better story.”
“They wanted representation.”
Naya listened.
Then asked, “Did it ever occur to you that I might just be good?”
Brianna started crying.
“Not enough.”
That answer was more honest than anything she had said all year.
Naya looked toward the window.
Outside, students crossed the same courtyard where lunch had scattered across the pavement weeks earlier.
Brianna continued.
“The worst part is I never thought I hated Black people.”
Naya turned back.
Brianna wiped her eyes.
“I still don’t think I do.”
“But I had this picture of who needed help and who earned things normally.”
“And you fit the first picture.”
There it was.
Not hatred.
Hierarchy.
A Black girl from Baltimore with a single mother and a scholarship fit the category of somebody Brianna could imagine receiving help.
She had difficulty imagining the same girl simply outperforming her.