Page 74 of Sinner (Priest 2)
I open my mouth to say more, to set these people the fuck straight, but before I can get a word out, Zenny is flashing a smile at everyone and tugging me away. “So sorry, I need to have a word with Sean, one second.”
And before I know it, I’m in some strange giant hallway outside the ballroom, tucked behind a plant where I can’t smite anyone. Before Zenny even says anything, my eyes are on the ballroom doors, because I’ll be patient and let her tell me whatever it is that’s so urgent, but then I’m going back in there and I’m killing everyone, killing them and then stomping their corpses into the parquet floor until they’re flat enough for Zenny and me to dance on.
Then I’ll calm down, I decide. Once I’m waltzing on their corpses.
“Stop being an asshole,” Zenny says, and it’s not at all what I expected her to say, and also over the past week I’ve become painfully attuned to that word—asshole—latching onto it as our safe word of sorts and marking it in my mind as a signal to back off.
And so I tear my eyes away from the ballroom and focus on her—on my Zenny-bug, who is beautiful and who also looks like she’s a combination of angry and amused and annoyed and…pitying, maybe?
I take a deep breath, trying to harness my fury, because it’s not directed at her and I don’t want her to think for a second that it is. “Zenny, they were saying—”
“I know.”
“They were acting like you—”
“I know, Sean. I know.”
But how can she tell me that she knows and still act like she doesn’t want to pour boiling oil over everyone in that cursed ballroom? “Zenny, they were acting like that because you’re—” and here I falter, because I’m still so angry, and saying the bald truth out loud feels like having a nest of hornets in my mouth. “Because—”
“Because I’m black,” she says. “They assumed I was working the event because I’m black. They saw me, a black woman, in what they think of as ‘their’ space, and to them it was a logical assumption that I was the help.”
“But…that’s shitty,” I protest.
“I know.”
“Because why wouldn’t a black woman belong in there? Why is it more likely that you were a server than that you legitimately belonged there?”
“I know, Sean. You don’t have to tell me.”
“And that part about you belonging only after they realized who your dad was!” I fume, barely even listening to her now, so lost in my own anger. “That almost makes it worse, like, oh, now it’s okay because we’ve vetted your parents?”
“Sean,” Zenny says, holding up a hand. The first edge of bitter impatience lines her voice. “Please. I know all of this.”
“But,” I splutter, “then why are you so calm right now? How can you live with it?”
This strikes a nerve; I see it in the copper flash of her eyes. “This is my life, Sean. I deal with this every fucking day. What am I supposed to do? Not live? Not go anywhere ever? Not talk to anyone ever?”
“But then why aren’t you angry?” I demand.
“Because I can’t get angry!” Zenny bursts out, her words loud and shaking with frustration. And then, clearing her throat and glancing around the empty hallway, she says again, “I can’t get angry. If I get angry, then I’m the Angry Black Woman. If I admit to having my feelings hurt, then I’m being too sensitive. If I ask for people to treat me thoughtfully, then I’m being aggressive. If I joke back, then I’m being impertinent or sassy. If I cry, then I’m hyperemotional. If I don’t react at all, I’m intimidating or cold. Do you see? There’s not a way I can react where I win. I can’t win.”
Her words gouge at me, at the space in my heart that’s cracked open just for her in the last week and they also gouge at my mind, where my admittedly flawed concepts of fairness live. I hurt for her, I want to bleed for her, I want to fix it—
I want to fix it
I want to fix it
I want to fix it
“Okay,” I say. “But I can get angry—let me go back in there and—”
“Sean,” she says sharply. “Stop. If you go back in there and do anything else, the headline is not going to be ‘Noble Sean Bell Heroically Defends Young Woman.’ It’s still going to be ‘Black Girl Causes Scene.’”
“But—”
“It will reflect back on me. And,” she adds in a defeated tone, “it will reflect back onto my parents. I can’t risk that. I can’t risk their standing and their livelihoods just so that you feel better. Please tell me you understand this.”
And all at once, I feel like seventeen emotions are collapsing in on me. Rage and righteousness and concern for her and the need to protect her and—ugh, defensiveness. Shame. I don’t like admitting them to myself; they’re such gross feelings to have right now, when all of me should be focused on Zenny, but they’re there.
