Page 81 of American Love Story

“That’s a pretty self-recriminating statement. Can you tell me more about that?”

I needed to say this; I could not move forward unless I did.

“It’s the truth and I’m disappointed in myself for not opening my eyes to this until it happened to someone I care about.”

Her eyes kept getting bigger and I really was starting to worry they’d pop out of her head. But I had to keep talking until I was done. I also wanted Patrice to hear this, to know that I’d finally understood what he’d been trying to tell me, even if his way of relaying the message made it hard for me to hear it.

“Last week, someone I love was stopped by the police,” I said as my interviewer gasped like she was at the intense part of a movie. “I was talking to him on the phone when it happened. I’d called him to ask why he was so far behind and teased him about how cautious he was when driving.” She grimaced at that, as if she knew what happened next.

I cleared my throat and relaxed my muscles like I did whenever I was in court and I knew I had the last shot at driving my point home. “When he told me he was being stopped by the police I thought to myself, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been this terrified.’ The first thing he did was switch our call to FaceTime, and I knew he was scared for what would happen and wanted someone to be able to witness the stop.” I shook my head, remembering how frantic those moments felt. “It’s so wrong that anyone has to feel like that. I’ve told myself a million times that the people I know and work alongside every day inthis county are good people, and they are. But there is another reality: people of color fear for what could happen to them when they’re stopped by police, and you only have to do a quick Google search to find more than enough tragedies all over the country to warrant that fear. Both those things are happening at the same time, and one of those two groups hold a lot of the power to shift that reality.”

I tried to keep my face neutral as I always did in crucial moments, but my heart was pounding. I knew that with every word I said, I was probably making another enemy. “Denying the reality of what our neighbors experience will not make us safer. We need to do better.Ineed to do better, and there is a lot that I have to learn. I don’t think I’ve done the work yet to be the kind of DA this county needs, so today I’m officially withdrawing my candidacy for District Attorney.”

I sat there smiling woodenly and waiting for my very stunned interviewer to react. After a second, she blinked and finally got with it. “That is a very bold statement, since so far there had been no mention of these incidents. Is your partner all right?”

I smiled at her genuine concern. “He’s not my partner, but yes he is all right.” I was certain the wistfulness in my voice had not gone unnoticed.

She extended her hand and for the first time in the meeting, she gave me a real smile. “Thank you, Easton, for being so honest today. I hope you reconsider your run; I think your point of view will add a lot to the conversation.”

With that, the camera was off my face, indicating we were done.

As I thanked her once again, she gave me a knowing look. “Was the person you were talking about Patrice Denis?”

“What makes you say that?”

She laughed and shook her head, looking a little embarrassed. “Don’t worry, this part is off the record. I’ve justseen you guys around town together, and since he was just stopped recently and said someone intervened, I put two and two together.”

I just nodded, not sure how to respond. “Yeah, I was talking about him. When is this going up?” I asked, wondering how much more time I had before my life got really upended for a few days.

She turned around to look at the kid with the camera. He considered for a moment, his attention still on the laptop in front of him. “It’ll be up by the end of the day.”

I left it at that and walked out of the room, hoping that if my career in the DA’s office went down in flames, that I’d least done the right thing.

Patrice

I was getting my stuff together to leave my office after a particularly brutal grading session, when I saw my phone screen flashing with Ari’s number. So far things had been calm with him. He’d been mostly staying at Yin’s house for the past week. The new development to his housing situation was that they’d both be moving to the studio in my building in a couple of days. The levels of excitement they had for this big step in their relationship, at least on Yin’s side, were reaching rapture-like intensity. And, of course, my mind went to Easton’s help had really been a game-changer for Ari.

I answered the call, thinking once again that I needed to figure out how to reach out to him.

“Hey—”

He didn’t let me get the full greeting in before screaming into the phone, “Did you see the video?” He was so hyped up, I couldn’t tell if the video was supposed to be a bad or a good thing.

I frowned, wondering if there had been another stop. I quickly opened another tab on my browser and went to theIthaca Star’s website since they usually put stuff up really fast, but when I got to the homepage, my heart almost beat out of my chest. There was a video up and the face behind the play icon was none other than Easton’s.

The headline to the article read,Easton Archer Withdraws from DA Race and Speaks about Recent Traffic Stops

I only realized I’d been holding my breath when I heard Ari’s voice calling my name loudly. I shook myself out of the trance I was in and answered, as I tried to read the article at the same time. “Sorry. I was looking at theStar’s website. Easton pulled out of the race?”

“Sounds like it, but you should see the video, Patrice. He talks about you, without giving names, of course,” he said, as if he knew what I’d get hung up on. “You won’t believe all the stuff he said, I wonder if it’s going to affect his job?” Ari’s astonishment made me hit play on the video, my heart racing as the camera zoomed in on Easton’s face. He had smudges under his eyes like he did when he was not getting any sleep, and my heart lurched knowing I was at least partly responsible for that.

I spoke into the phone as the woman in the video introduced Easton. “Ari, let me call you back, okay?”

“Sure P. We’ll talk later.”

I ended the call and increased the volume as she asked the first questions. With every word he said, the need to go and talk to him, to see him, went from an urge to an absolute need. By the time he told the interviewer that he hadn’t done the work to be a DA yet, I had my coat on and was slinging my backpack on my shoulder. When I stepped out into the cold November air, I thought about the things Easton said in that interview, the way he took responsibility for his actions. He had always done that, owned his mistakes.

I got into my car and set up the phone so that I could listen to the interview one more time. As I made the short driveto my building, I thought about all the ways that Easton had put himself out on the line in our relationship. How he stayed hopeful and open even when I told him over and over we could never work. What Priscilla told me was true, I’d let the fear of letting someone in shut me off from really leaning in to the things that brought me joy.