Eleven Days and Two Blocks Too Far
They simply recognized, through an instinct granted by centuries of racial hierarchy, that faced with choosing between Olivia’s genuine affection and their sexualized interest, I would surrender.
This story may be truncated in your email. You may read the story in its entirety in your browser or the Substack App.
When I saw the video of Erika Kirk salaciously embracing JD Vance—a calculated, possessive display right in front of his wife, Usha—something long buried inside me resurfaced as a painful memory. The way Kirk pressed herself against him, with theatrical intimacy, sent a clear message to his brown wife sitting right there in the audience: ‘He may have married you, but watch what I can do.’ It was a performance of white female sexual authority as old as America itself, a reminder that some boundaries are meant to be crossed while others must be upheld.
Zuri Stevens, author of the Substack “We Need a Black Woman in Charge” and other notable works, pinpointed it exactly: the weaponization of white femininity against women of color, rooted in the old belief that white women’s sexuality has a special power to reclaim “their” men from interracial relationships. Stevens recognized the calculated cruelty behind it—how Kirk’s hug wasn’t about desire but about dominance, about putting Usha Vance “in her place” with a gesture that seemed harmless enough to maintain plausible deniability but was obvious enough to cause harm.
Reading Stevens’ piece, I felt queasy. Not because I had witnessed this dynamic happen, but because I had experienced it, a tangled horror of ugly, tragic racism and the terrible blight of child sexual abuse. Suddenly, I was 13 again, watching white girls use their newfound sexuality as a weapon against Olivia, the brilliant Black girl who had dared to be my girlfriend in 1967 North Carolina. And even worse, understanding, with decades of hindsight, that I had been the perfect target for their crusade.
They couldn’t have known about the sexual abuse that had already shaped me by then, starting when I was ten. They couldn’t have known that I had already been taught to equate sexual attention with value—that being desired was the only power I understood in a household marked by violence and neglect. They didn’t need to know. They simply recognized, through an instinct granted by centuries of racial hierarchy, that their attention would influence me—that faced with choosing between Olivia’s genuine affection and their sexualized interest, I would surrender.
And I did. Just as they knew I would.
Kirk’s hug brought it all back: how Jennifer Morrison leaned her body into me, how Ashley Bennett tempted me with her sexuality, and the surge of white female attention that arrived exactly when Olivia and I fell in love. It reawakened my shame at how easily I responded, how my trauma-shaped need for sexual validation made me the perfect accomplice in restoring the racial order they instinctively knew had been broken.
But most of all, it brought back Olivia—her dignity, her wisdom, her refusal to compete for someone who failed her. Her memory demanded to be written, witnessed, and honored after more than fifty years of carrying it.
Late Fall 1967
Her name was Olivia. The musty smell of worn-page library books and creaking floorboards blend with my memories of her. Even after 50 years, her sharp eyes and proud attitude stay clear in my mind. She held her head high in unfriendly hallways, flashing a small smile when she scored higher on a test than I did. She was the only student with a higher GPA than mine, and I was hopelessly in love with her. The question has always been, what did my first love teach me about power and prejudice?
It was 1967 in a small North Carolina town. We were both 13, just kids. She was the only Black girl in our school, one of just three Black kids there.
Olivia entered my life several months after Loving v. Virginia ended interracial marriage bans, a decision that shook the South. In our town, integration was nearly nonexistent. Olivia walked the hallways alone, carrying the burden of being “the first” and facing humiliations she wouldn’t tell me about: books shoved from her hands, lunch trays knocked off tables, whispered slurs teachers ignored. Yet, she never flinched or let them see her break.
Now, I understand what my emotional brokenness and trauma blinded me to back then: my feelings for Olivia went beyond the simple first love between two smart kids. As my affection grew, I faced a new question—one I can only now confront as an adult: how did prejudice and my own brokenness shape love? This question echoed harshly, mirroring what the segregated South resisted.
My grandfather taught me to see past prejudice, emphasizing that race didn’t matter—even as society and white girls’ expectations influenced me. The relationship was a complicated mix of love and attention I struggled to understand. I once mistook Olivia’s calm for stability, but now realize it was just armor. It took years to see this; back then, I only felt affection and uncertainty, unable to name what truly unsettled me.
By age 13, I’d been harmed in ways I wouldn’t make sense of or heal from for decades.
Sexual abuse starting at age 10 led me to associate sexual attention with love and power. Maybe it was the only control I had in a life scarred by my father’s violence, my mother’s absence, and these illicit abuses. That tightness in my throat reminded me of what I tried to bury. I believed attention meant value, even from the wrong places. I mistook desire for care, confusing sexual interest with genuine connection.
My feelings for Olivia allowed that confusion to retreat. The urge to seek attention instead of genuine connection diminished, replaced by unfamiliar yet comforting feelings. Everything with her felt different—as if I could finally break free from the unhealthy patterns forming and simply be myself. The sense of relief was fresh and authentic.
The library was Olivia’s safe haven. While others filled the hallways or cafeteria, she found comfort in the reference section of the library—her books neatly arranged, posture upright, often alone. Looking back, I understand; the library was the one place where she didn’t have to deflect hostility, where her knowledge and sharp mind were the only things that mattered. She arrived early, before the hallways got crowded, and stayed late, after most students had left. Mrs. Henderson, the librarian—one of the few adults who respected Olivia—sometimes brought her tea, a small act of kindness amid indifference and, yes, hatred.
For weeks, I watched this routine, gathering the courage to approach her. We competed academically, trading the top spot back and forth in a silent, ongoing game. She smiled at me in class when she bested my exam scores; I flashed a big grin when I earned a better grade on our English essays.
Then, one late fall day, I finally approached her table.
“You’re going to beat me in biology if I don’t find a study partner,” I said, my rehearsed opener sounding dumber out loud than it had in my head.
Olivia looked up, her expression unreadable. Looking back, I realize now that she was weighing the risk—any interaction with a white student could be precarious. Was I different, or just another potential source of humiliation?
After a pause, she offered a slight smile. “You think studying together will help you? Or are you hoping I’ll go easy on you?”
“Maybe both?” I pulled out the chair across from her without waiting for permission, my boldness masking my 13-year-old fear. “Or maybe I just wanted an excuse to talk to you.”
The smile widened slightly. “Hmm… at least you’re honest.”
I hadn’t admitted to her—or myself yet—that my feelings went beyond rivalry. I was drawn to her confidence and how she carried herself as if she belonged. One afternoon, as we packed up our books, Olivia hesitated, looking around for eavesdroppers. “You know,” she said in almost a whisper, “my mom didn’t just send me here to study. She taught at the colored school and stood up to the board. Kept her job after they smashed our windows.” Her voice was quietly determined. “My dad, a minister, was threatened twice. But he said fear will not define us.”
She spoke proudly, revealing the heavy burdens her family bore, their courage legendary among Black families and notorious in white circles. Listening, I felt awe that gave me my first understanding of her pressures and grace.
I admired how Olivia never diminished herself, even as hateful white boys pushed her in the halls and the counselor “suggested” she go to the Black high school across town. But now I question whether my admiration came from seeing her as an exception to the stereotypes I had unconsciously absorbed. Growing up, I was exposed to the harmful stereotype that Black women were strong enough to endure anything, which undermined their humanity by reducing them to nothing but a one-dimensional symbol of resilience. Did I, however, subconsciously see Olivia’s strength as fitting that narrative, thus excusing myself from recognizing the full depth of her experience? Acknowledging this bias doesn’t lessen my respect for her; it keeps my reflection honest and reveals old blind spots in my own understanding.
My grandfather taught me to see beyond racism. His family immigrated here with nothing, and he worked in fields and warehouses alongside Black men who became friends—men who showed him that character transcends race. He carried these lessons into law school and his practice, helping anyone in need regardless of race or ability to pay. Later, he left the law—you can’t make a living if you won’t bill your clients—and became the town’s postmaster, holding onto his convictions all his life. “A man’s worth,” he told me, “is about character, not skin color. Treat everyone equally and respect every person until they give you reason not to.”
I remembered this; it shaped who I am. When I looked at Olivia, I saw more character than almost anyone I knew—adult or child, Black or white. My grandfather’s lessons played a role in shaping our relationship.
For two weeks, library sessions became routine. We compared notes, quizzed each other, and debated books like The Great Gatsby. “Daisy’s trapped,” I insisted during one of our debates. “No,” Olivia stubbornly countered, “she chooses the cage.” Our growing trust in each other’s intellect allowed us to appreciate both sides of the argument: that Daisy was a victim of her world, as well as a complicit beneficiary of it. These exchanges strengthened our bond and deepened my admiration. If I was wrong, she told me. If I made a good point, she offered that slight smile that meant everything to me.
After study sessions, I would walk Olivia to her mother’s car parked two blocks away. Two blocks away. She explained that the principal “suggested” she not be picked up at the school’s main entrance “to avoid problems.” As my feelings for her grew, a deep-seated anger intensified within me over these two blocks. Still, she hadn’t yet shared that Black students at the segregated high school called her a traitor, or that she wrote to her cousin in Chicago about the loneliness success couldn’t fill.
“You’re different,” she said one afternoon, closing her book to look at me. I was surprised and uncertain about where she would go next. “Most white boys won’t look at me at all or stare at me like I’m less than human. You… talk to me like I’m a person.” I felt pride and self-consciousness, unsure how to respond to something so simple yet clearly meaningful to her.
“You are a person,” I said emphatically, somewhat confused by the observation.
“Keith.” Her voice was patient, almost sad. “You know it’s not that simple.”
I didn’t realize back then that it wasn’t as simple as it seemed, and my heart desperately wanted it to be. I couldn’t—didn’t understand—that simply being recognized as human was, for her, a constant struggle. Every morning, she prepared herself for psychological warfare. My basic decency was apparently so rare in her experience that it probably seemed suspicious to her. Integration wasn’t just about education—it was whether America could acknowledge Black children and their humanity as they truly are.
I’m not sure what compelled me to do it, but two days later, I found her at our usual table, my hands sweating and my heart pounding—a different kind of nervousness from the first time I approached her.
“I was wondering,” I hesitated, then, gathering my nerve, forced myself to continue. “Would you want to be… be my girlfriend?” Olivia’s pen stopped. She looked up, and for the first time, I saw something vulnerable cross her face—surprise, hope, maybe even fear.
“You understand what you’re asking?” Her voice was quiet. “People already talk about us studying together. If we’re actually going steady…”
She didn’t need to finish. We both understood what she meant. That year, cross burnings followed integration efforts. The Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan lived in our small town. Civil rights workers had been murdered in Mississippi two years earlier. For me, being with Olivia carried a social risk. For her, it could be dangerous.
“I don’t care what people say.” The 13-year-old certainty in my voice was naively absolute. I believed it completely.
Now I realize—it was white privilege that enabled my carelessness and indifference because my consequences were only social. No one would follow me home or threaten my family. Not understanding the real danger, I asked her to risk what was its own cruelty. How often do we unknowingly use our privilege while putting others at risk? When have we mistaken our white safety for courage?
From nearly six decades away, I see that girl weighing her options, calculating the cost, measuring my sincerity against potential consequences. She was only 13, like me, but already carrying the accumulated wisdom of generations who had learned to navigate white spaces with careful calculation. Every Black mother’s warning echoed in her decision: ‘Don’t give them any excuse. Be twice as good. Keep your head up but not too high. Be proud but not too proud.’
And yet, despite everything, she said yes. That was true courage—not just dating a white boy, but believing, against all odds, that a real connection across the racial divide in the 1967 South was possible.
“Okay,” she finally said, with a huge smile and a genuine sparkle in her beautiful eyes. “Yes. I’d really like that.” And at that moment, my heart almost leapt from my chest. I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced happiness that intense in my so-far-short life.
For 11 days, I had a girlfriend who made me feel like the person I was meant to be. During that time, Olivia and I were official—holding hands between classes when teachers weren’t looking, passing notes in study hall, and sitting together at lunch in a quiet corner of the cafeteria where fewer students gathered. For those 11 days, I experienced something new: feeling cared for without being used, seen without being objectified, and valued for more than just meeting others’ needs.
Olivia proved that goodness could still be part of my life—genuine, hopeful, and untouched by my early confusion about desire.
Then the white girls started to notice. It happened subtly—so subtly that at first, I thought I was imagining it. Jennifer Morrison, a ninth grader–older than me–who had never spoken to me or seemed to know I existed, appeared and leaned casually against my locker, her blonde hair falling across her shoulders—both accidental and deliberate.
“Hey, Keith. Some of us are heading to the drugstore for Cokes after school on Wednesday. You should come.” Our small town had a few drugstores, but the one by the school had a soda fountain that attracted the younger crowd.
I fumbled with my combination lock, caught off guard. “Uh, maybe. I usually study in the library on Wednesdays after school.”
“With Olivia?” Her tone made the name sound like a question wrapped in something I couldn’t quite identify, almost feeling like an accusation. “You two are always together lately.”
“She’s my girlfriend,” I said, surprised by the slight defensive edge in my voice.
Jennifer’s smile didn’t waver. “That’s sweet. Really. But you should still come on Wednesday. It would be fun to get to know you better.” She gently touched my arm before walking away, and I stood there feeling a familiar confusion—that strange mix of validation and unease I’d already learned to associate with the wrong kind of female attention.
Looking back now, I realize what I couldn’t understand then: Jennifer’s touch stirred something in me that had nothing to do with typical 13-year-old attraction. A typical crush at that age might have sparked nervous excitement or innocent curiosity, awkward conversations, and a sincere desire to be near someone without expectations. In contrast, Jennifer’s touch awakened patterns already deeply rooted in experiences I hadn’t yet recognized as abuse. Her attention felt powerful in a way that Olivia’s genuine affection did not, because power and sex had already become entangled in my understanding of self-worth. At an age when healthy curiosity should have been normal, my experiences distorted this developmental stage, leading to a premature and distorted view of what it meant to be valued or loved.
That was Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Ashley Bennett—a cheerleader and another ninth grader, whose existence I’d only been vaguely aware of but who’d never acknowledged me—sat next to me in the cafeteria while Olivia was getting her lunch tray.
“You’re really smart, aren’t you?” Ashley said, her voice carrying a breathless quality that made something in my chest tighten with recognition; ‘smart’ sounded suspiciously like ‘special’, a word that would lead my young life down a trail of sexual exploitation. “I’m completely lost in algebra. Could you help me?”
“I—I guess I could…”
“Great! We can study at my house. My parents won’t mind.” She wrote her phone number on a napkin and pressed it almost seductively into my hand just as Olivia returned to the table.
The napkin felt like evidence of something I both longed for and feared. Already, at 13, I’d realized that this kind of attention—direct, sexual, transactional—could make me feel wanted in ways that genuine connection somehow didn’t. I’d learned that being desired was a form of control, a way to feel a sense of agency in a life where, in reality, I had none.
I watched Olivia’s face as she took in the scene—Ashley sitting in what had become “her” seat, the napkin in my hand, Ashley’s lingering smile as she got up. “See you soon, Keith,” Ashley said, making sure Olivia heard.
Olivia placed her tray down carefully, her face remaining neutral. “Making new friends?”
“She needs help with algebra.” I shoved the napkin into my pocket, suddenly aware of how that looked. “It’s not what—I mean, I help lots of people.”
“Do you?” Olivia’s voice stayed steady, but a change flickered in her eyes. “That’s generous of you.”
By Thursday, three more girls had come up to me—older girls who’d never paid much attention to me and who were part of the popular middle school social scene where, as a seventh grader, I had never had access or interest. Suddenly, I was being invited to parties, asked for help with homework, and included in conversations about weekend plans. Each time, it happened near Olivia, not exactly when we were together, but close enough for her to see the approach and notice the attention.
Now, after decades of experiencing our culture and years of therapy, I can recognize several mechanisms at play. These white girls weren’t consciously conspiring with each other—they didn’t have to be. They had internalized the social conditioning of the segregated South so thoroughly from an early age that their reactions were almost instinctive. A white boy dating a Black girl was seen as a threat to the racial and social order they’d been taught to uphold. They didn’t need to justify why it was “wrong”; they knew, in some unconscious way, that it had to be stopped.
And they deployed their most powerful weapon: themselves.
But there was also something else happening—something they didn’t realize they were tapping into. The white girls’ sudden interest wasn’t just flattering; it activated patterns rooted in years of abuse, triggering responses that felt compulsive rather than voluntary. For a 13-year-old boy already confused about boundaries and attention, starved for positive recognition in a home filled with violence and neglect, the sudden surge of female interest was intoxicating. These girls were attractive and popular, and they made me feel something I had learned to crave: the thrill of being sexually desired.
One afternoon, as I was grabbing books from my locker, Jennifer leaned in close, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. “You know, Keith,” she said, brushing her hand lightly against my arm, “it’s kind of cool how you’ve caught everyone’s attention so quickly. Makes me wonder what other surprises you might have…”. Her words weren’t just a casual comment; they held an illicit promise, an implication that stirred something within me beyond mere adolescent curiosity. Looking back, I realize how those words tapped into a longing for validation deeply implanted by my first abuser. The attention barrage triggered something that felt less like choice and more like need.
As I walked to Ashley’s house that Friday afternoon, a whirlwind of emotions roiled inside me. This was a chance for acceptance, an opportunity to fit into a world I’d been led to believe I belonged to. Yet, beneath the excitement, there was an unsettling sense of apprehension. I knew I was stepping into something that both promised and threatened to change everything. With each step, doubt crept in, whispering questions I wasn’t yet ready to answer.
What was I searching for? Validation or connection? Could this really fill the void that had lingered from years of feeling overlooked and unloved?
Olivia recognized my intelligence and character, seeing the person I could become. These white girls saw something I could offer—validation, attention, an opportunity to support their social standing while feeling attractive in the process. But for me, caught in patterns I couldn’t understand, their attention felt essential in a way that Olivia’s genuine affection somehow didn’t.
I didn’t understand the nature of the transaction at the time. I just knew that I was caught between two different kinds of attention: one that made me feel loved as a better version of myself, and another that I allowed to deceive me into feeling powerful in ways I’d already been conditioned to seek.
The breaking point, for me, came that Friday afternoon, about a week after Olivia and I had officially become boyfriend and girlfriend. I had agreed to help Ashley with algebra—just studying, I told myself, nothing wrong with that. But when I got to her house, her parents were conveniently not there. She wore a short skirt and a tight sweater, and, as I’d soon discover, no bra. The way she positioned herself on the sofa in their den near me felt intentionally provocative, and I recognized it and responded automatically.
“You’re so much smarter than the boys in my grade,” she said, her face close to mine. “And you’re really cute, too. Has anyone told you that?”
My heart was pounding. A better part of me knew this was wrong—I had a girlfriend, I was supposed to leave, and I should make an excuse. But Ashley’s attention triggered reactions that felt beyond my control, patterns of seeking validation through sexual attention that were already part of me. The confusion between being used and being valued, between genuine connection and transactional desire, had become so tangled that I couldn’t tell them apart. When she kissed me, I didn’t pull away.
I told myself it was just once—just a mistake. I wouldn’t let an encounter like this happen again. But Ashley told Jennifer, and Jennifer told two other girls, and suddenly the attention intensified in ways that felt overwhelming.
Notes appeared in my locker—flirtatious, explicit, promising. Girls found reasons to touch me in the hallways. Even the popular boys who had previously ignored me started including me in their conversations, as if successfully attracting the prettiest white girls had boosted my social standing.
When Jennifer Morrison and others started their campaign, they were upholding unspoken rules as old as slavery itself. The sexual politics of the Jim Crow South had always been about controlling Black women’s bodies while denying their humanity. These 14- and 15-year-old white girls had absorbed these lessons without realizing it. They knew, instinctively, that a white boy choosing a Black girl challenged the racial hierarchy they had been taught to defend. Their sexuality became a weapon handed down by culture, and they used it with devastating effectiveness.
And Olivia noticed everything.
She didn’t confront me right away. Instead, she began pulling away—sitting farther from me at lunch, turning down offers to study together, and giving shorter, more guarded responses to my attempts at conversation. The warmth in her eyes when she looked at me faded into something like disappointment mixed with a quiet understanding, as if she could see something broken in me that I couldn’t yet see in myself.
“What’s wrong?” I finally asked, cornering her outside the library a little while after the white girls’ campaign had started.
Olivia looked at me with an expression that seemed far too old for 13 — not quite anger, not quite sadness—something weary and knowing.
“You really don’t know?” Her voice was quiet. “Or you just don’t want to say it out loud?”
“I don’t—Olivia, what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Ashley Bennett. And Jennifer Morrison. And Kathy Stevens.” She counted them on her fingers. “I’m talking about the way you light up when they talk to you, the way you’ve been staying after school for ‘study sessions’ that never seem to involve any studying. The way you look at them like they’re giving you something you need.”
My face burned. “That’s not—we’re just friends—”
“Keith.” She said my name like she was tired. “I see you. I see how they look at you, how you look back. I see exactly what they’re doing, what’s happening, even if you want to pretend you don’t. And I see…” She paused, seeming to weigh her words carefully. “I see that something is going on with you that I don’t understand. Something that makes you need their attention in a way that isn’t normal. But that doesn’t make it hurt less.”
Her perception cut through my defenses like a blade. She saw it—the brokenness I couldn’t name, the compulsion I couldn’t control, and the way I’d been shaped by experiences I couldn’t yet verbalize with anyone.
“They’re not—I’m not—” I couldn’t finish the sentence because I didn’t know how to explain what I barely understood myself.
“I thought you were different,” Olivia continued, her voice breaking slightly. “I thought you actually saw me as a person, not just as some… some race relations experiment. But you’re just like the others. The first time white girls pay attention to you, I disappear. Do you know what I risked to be with you? Do you know what it cost me to believe you were different? My parents warned me. They said white boys always choose their own in the end. I defended you.”
She was right. Only 13 years old and she could see what I wouldn’t understand for decades: that I was already caught in patterns of seeking validation through sexual attention, that the white girls had tapped into something that was already damaged in me, that my betrayal of her was about more than just teenage fickleness—it was about my own deep brokenness and maybe more importantly, my inability to comprehend the magnitude of what she’d risked by choosing me. If I could go back, I might have written to her parents, explaining the impact Olivia had on my life and expressing my regret for not standing by her. Or maybe I would have asked my grandfather for guidance, seeking ways to repair the damage I had caused. These lost opportunities continue to remind me of the weight of my actions.
“I’m sorry,” I managed, the words woefully inadequate.
“I know you are.” Olivia straightened her shoulders, gathering that dignity I first admired. “But I’m still done. I’m not going to compete with girls who have every advantage, while I have to be twice as good just to be considered half as worthy. I’ve spent my whole life fighting to be seen as human. I won’t fight to be seen as lovable, too. Not when you’ve already shown me what I’m worth to you.”
“Olivia, please—”
“We’re done. Take care of yourself.” She walked away, her head held high, refusing to let me see if she was crying.
I stood there outside the library, watching her disappear around the corner, and felt something crack inside my chest. Not just heartbreak, although that was part of it, but a deeper fracture. The nagging sense that I had destroyed something real and good because I couldn’t resist patterns that had been established in me through experiences that would take years to name as abuse.
I stayed frozen in place, letting the silence press against me, heavy and unyielding. It forced me to face the emptiness—the void that opened as I watched Olivia walk away, taking with her a part of myself I didn’t realize I needed until it was gone. This self-inflicted pain, layered over the damage already caused by others, made it even harder in later years to understand my emotional issues.
I should have run after her. I should have apologized, explained, and promised to do better. I should have recognized that what Olivia and I had was rare and real, while what the white girls offered fed into something compulsive and ultimately destructive.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I let her go. I tried to convince myself she was overreacting, that she’d misunderstood, that I hadn’t really done anything wrong—not realizing I was using my white privilege by trying to rationalize my behavior. And the attention from white girls continued, filling the space Olivia had occupied with something that seemed necessary in the moment but left me feeling emptier afterward, reinforcing patterns that would shape my next years in devastating ways.
But Ashley Bennett lost interest within a month—once the thrill of winning me away from Olivia faded, I became just another mediocre conquest. Jennifer Morrison never truly wanted to get to know me; she just wanted to prove she could redirect my attention. Some girls drifted away, having accomplished their conscious or unconscious mission to restore the racial social order, but enough to feed my growing compulsions hung around. The damage was done—not just to Olivia, but to me. The white girls had inadvertently reinforced what I’d already begun learning: that sexual attention was how I felt valued, that being desired was a form of power I could access even when everything else in my life was chaos, and that intimacy and transaction could become so entangled that I couldn’t tell them apart.
I was left with nothing—no girlfriend, no real connection, just the empty validation of being desired by girls who didn’t see me at all. Beneath that emptiness was a growing obsession that would shape subsequent years of my life: the reckless, unquenchable hunger for sexual attention as a stand-in for the love and safety I’d never known.
My Present Day Reflections
After more than fifty years, I can still see the intelligence in her eyes, the dignity in her posture—how she looked at me before the white girls descended, like I was someone worth knowing, someone capable of being better than the world around us. Someone who might be different.
And I remember how she looked at me at the end—disappointed, but not surprised, as if she’d expected this all along. But there was something else in her expression, too: a sad kind of recognition, as if she’d seen something broken in me that I couldn’t yet see in myself.
For more than fifty years, I’ve carried the weight of those moments. They sit alongside all my other regrets, betrayals, and times I chose fleeting validation over real connection. But this one feels different—sharper—because it was the first time someone saw my brokenness and still decided to walk away rather than try to fix or use me.
Olivia was someone I betrayed who truly loved me for who I was, not for what I could give. She was the first person to see something good in me and give me a chance to be better, and I threw it all away — not just because of the manipulation by white girls, but because I was already trapped in patterns I couldn’t understand or control.
Now, with therapy and hard-won self-awareness, I can see what was really happening. At 13, I was already hyper-sexualized in ways that weren’t normal or healthy. I’d already experienced violations that had taught me to confuse sexual attention with being valued, to seek power through being desired because I had no other form of control in my life. The white girls didn’t create that damage; they activated it, triggering responses that felt compulsive rather than chosen. In reflecting on these insights, I have to ask myself: Am I explaining or excusing? Insight allows us to confront the past, but it does not absolve us of our actions. This question sharpens my reflection, helping me differentiate between insight and self-forgiveness. It helps keep accountability vivid while retaining compassion.
I was a child—yes, a traumatized one—already scarred by abuse I couldn’t name. But Olivia was also just a child—someone who, despite facing the ugliness of racism every day, managed to keep her dignity and self-respect. No child, no person, should ever have to go through that. She recognized my brokenness and wisely chose to protect herself instead of trying to save me. That was the difference between us.
The pattern Olivia observed would recur throughout my teenage years—with Teresa, Linda, Ashley, and many other girls near my age. The teachers—Karen, Connie, and Janice most disastrously—and with numerous older women whose names I barely recall. I would mistake feeling desired for being truly valued, confuse sexual attention with genuine connection, and mix up intimacy with the real thing. The urge that started at 13 would eventually grow into a full-blown addiction, pushing me from one bed to another in a desperate quest for something sex could never truly provide.
But it started before Olivia. The damage was already done, and the patterns were already emerging. The white girls who threw themselves at me in the spring of 1967 were pawns in a racist system they didn’t fully understand. Still, they also unknowingly helped fuel something more personal—my growing addiction to sexual validation as a substitute for the safety and love I’d never experienced.
I could blame them, and in some ways, I do. I could blame Peggy, the alcoholic who had already violated me from age 10 to 12, or a friend’s older sister, a college sophomore, who practically raped me a week after turning 13—both of whom taught me that being sexually wanted was the only form of power I had. And I do blame them—they were adults who hurt a child in ways that would stay with me for decades.
But I was also the one who made the choice with Olivia. Yes, I was 13 years old—confused, traumatized, already caught in compulsive patterns I couldn’t control. But I still had enough awareness to know I was hurting someone who mattered. I still had enough clarity to see that what Olivia offered was different, better, real.
And I still chose the white girls. I stuck to the familiar pattern of seeking validation through sexual attention instead of embracing the unfamiliar experience of being truly valued for who I was. And being brutally honest with myself, it was white privilege I wasn’t yet aware of that made it easier for me to choose the lesser path.
Olivia was 13, too. She faced racism every day, carrying burdens I couldn’t even imagine, navigating a world that told her constantly that she was less-than. And she still managed to hold onto her dignity, her self-respect, and her refusal to accept anything less than she deserved.
She saw my brokenness and chose to protect herself. That wasn’t cruelty—it was wisdom. She understood something I wouldn’t learn for decades: that you can’t save someone who doesn’t even realize they need saving, and that you can’t love someone into healing if they’re determined to seek their validation elsewhere.
I’m over 70 years old now. I’ve spent years in therapy. I understand how trauma and addiction work, how childhood abuse rewires neural pathways and creates compulsions that seem impossible to resist. I’ve learned to extend compassion to the boy I was, recognizing that I was doing the best I could to survive with the resources I had.
I now see that what happened to me before I met Olivia shaped how I responded to the attention from white girls. I understand that the urge I felt wasn’t just teenage fickleness — it was a trauma response, a desperate effort to feel powerful and valued through the only methods I’d learned.
But understanding doesn’t erase the harm. Compassion for myself doesn’t undo the pain I caused Olivia. She deserved better than the boy I was—the boy who’d already been hurt in ways that made genuine connection feel less important than sexual validation.
In my broader story, this moment is crucial. Everything here matters because it shows the early signs of patterns that almost destroyed me. It shows that I had already mixed up being used with being valued, and that I was already chasing power through sexual attention because I had no other control in my chaotic life.
However, it also hints at glimpses of something better. With Olivia, I experienced what genuine connection could feel like—being valued for my character rather than my need for validation, being seen clearly and still chosen, being loved in a way that didn’t require performance or transaction. I can still see Olivia walking with that proud stride down hallways that were often unkind to her, embodying her self-worth with every step. It serves as a reminder not only of what I experienced but also of what I lost.
I had that for 11 days. Then I threw it away and fell back into my familiar patterns of seeking validation through sexual conquest—patterns that were already becoming compulsive and starting to shape the person I was becoming.
The white girls taught me that sexuality could be used as currency, reinforcing a painful lesson I was already beginning to understand: sexual attention could make me feel valuable when nothing else in my life did. These weren’t lessons anyone consciously wanted to teach a 13-year-old boy. But I absorbed them completely. By the time Karen, my 24-year-old history teacher, seduced me three years later—traumatized, hyper-sexual, desperate for any validation—I was perfectly groomed prey. Not just groomed by her, but also by years of experiences that had taught me to accept attention from people who should never have looked at me that way, to seek validation through sexual performance, and to confuse being desired with being loved.
Olivia deserved better. She deserved the boy my grandfather raised me to be, not the boy shaped by my parents’ abuse and others’ violations. She deserved someone who could see that what we had was precious and protect it as if there was nothing more precious in the entire world.
Instead, she got me—already broken at 13, already caught in patterns I couldn’t understand or control, and already learning to choose the familiar damage over the uncertain possibility of something real.
I’m sorry, Olivia. You were right about everything. You saw my brokenness clearly and chose to protect yourself, and that was the wisest thing you could have done. You deserved so much more than I could offer. This apology probably will never reach her. She’s moved on, built a life, and found people who can value her the way I should have. She doesn’t need my regret or my belated understanding. But I need to say it anyway, even if only to the page, even if only to the boy I was, who couldn’t see what he was throwing away. And thank you, Olivia, for showing me back then, even briefly, what a real connection could feel like. For seeing something good in me when I couldn’t see it in myself. For having the wisdom and strength to walk away when I couldn’t give you what you deserved.
I moved to Atlanta in ninth grade and lost contact. Olivia graduated as valedictorian of her senior class, went on to Howard University, and then to Harvard Law. I found out about this quite by accident decades later through a mutual acquaintance. She became a civil rights attorney, arguing cases that expanded protections for children in integrated schools. She married a professor and raised three children, creating the life she deserved, surrounded by people who saw and valued her full humanity.
Sometimes I wonder if she remembers those days in 1967. I doubt I was more than a footnote in her larger story of survival and triumph. She was navigating hatred I couldn’t understand, carrying burdens I couldn’t see, fighting battles I didn’t even know existed. My betrayal, certainly one of the biggest regrets in my life, was just another sign of what the world had already taught her about white people’s conditional acceptance.
But for me, Olivia symbolizes the moment I first failed someone who deserved better, choosing familiar pain over unfamiliar grace. She showed what real courage looks like—not just the courage to love across racial lines in 1967 North Carolina, but also the courage to walk away when that love proved hopeless.
You were real. What we shared was genuine. And when I chose the hollow attention of white girls over your true affection, I didn’t just lose you—I delayed for years the chance to become the person you believed I could be.
You faced a hostile world every single day with a dignity I couldn’t summon for even 11 days. You deserved so much more; I can’t express it enough.
You attempted to teach me that, but I wasn’t prepared to learn.
But I remember the lesson, Olivia.
Years later, I learned to embrace intimacy with renewed hope and clarity. These lessons about genuine connections and racism have given me a deeper understanding of the mistakes I made in my youth. Today, I work to foster authentic connection and to find value in vulnerability rather than performance. It’s an ongoing journey of growth, where each step forward demonstrates resilience and the ability to turn regret into a more meaningful bond with life’s true gifts.
**Eleven Days and Two Blocks Too Far draws on insights gleaned from Nell Irvin Painter’s work on the history of white identity, Ibram X. Kendi’s examination of racism, Robin DiAngelo’s analysis of white fragility, and Maya Angelou’s witness to dignity in the face of oppression. Their work has helped me understand what I lived but couldn’t name.
You are so beautifully broken in this piece. Thank you for sharing that with us.
The depth to which you allow yourself to recall the trauma of the past, exceeds my vocabulary.