I bump elbows with her in the studio.
"Can I read your paper?" She asks me.
I blush.
"No, I'd be really---I'd be too embarrassed."
She stares at me, from the other side of her glasses. Me, the girl with tissues in her pocket. Me the girl with the headache.
I try to explain. "It's hard, because I'm white. I don't know the experiences. I'm trying to learn..." and she smiles, slightly. I think she is a friend. I want her as a friend.
"I have a lot of white guilt," I whisper. Too inaudible to hear, in the small studio.

Tony turns on the lights.
She doesn't ask me more questions.

What does it mean, to be born in this privilege, and how the heck are you supposed to sleep every night, when you know what is really going on? You can write papers. You can speak up in class. You can stand up to your white friends, but it
 doesn't
do
anything.

It doesn't change the nightmares of someone in a different country, sleeping on the ground, who wakes up still hoping.