T.C. Williams Highschool.

It used to be called Alexandria City High School. My ma guesses they weren't too creative with that name long ago.

A house with green walls and a white roof sits in the middle of Alexandria, Virginia. The smell of hotdogs and stove coal eminates from inside the house.

Back in 1971, Alexandria City High School was just for white people like me. The school board didn't want race mixing in that time.

A man with grey-brown hair and a thinning hairline was looking in the mirror, straightening his suit. His wife was at the stove, stirring some broth in a pot.

They made it out to be white against black back then. It wasn't pretty.

The sounds of a barking dog come from the front yard, just behind the light brown picket fence. The sounds of laughing little boys richocet from the front as well.

Well, my ma always told me to be kind to others, and one day I'll be repaid for that kindness. So I guess this was my repayment for that kindness.

"We don't get fooled again!"

The radio was turned up loud. A teenage boy jumped about his room, one hand strumming the air in front of his chest like a guitar, and the other hand cupped on the air around his mouth like a microphone. He had onwhite socks and dark blue jeans, and wore a green short-sleeved shirt with white cuffs. He had fair olive white skin, a spray of freckles across his cheeks like stars in the nigh sky, and a curly puff of blonde hair that darkened at the top and bounced around wildly with every beat.

"Don't get fooled again!" He sung along with the voice coming from the radio. His mouth was bent into a smile, a slightly crooked smile from all his football practices.

That's me. I'm Oliver Pritt, son of a white doctor and a ma who's part houswife, part private teacher.

"Change it had to come, we knew it all along!" Oliver tapped his foot on the dirty rug floor, slightly trampling over some sports magazines that he collected.

I'm a big fan of rock music. I love it just as much as I do football. But like the song said, my view on both these things and more were going to change. It was truly inevitable.

"Oliver, turn that radio off! You're going to be late!" His mother shouted from downstairs.

Shit, shit. Oliver thought as he cranked down the song on the radio. Flinging away a pile of black shirts, he found his normal footwear:shoes that resembled hiking boots, but were actually more casual. Today, they didn't stink to high heaven, since it had been a good few days to save time for their stink to return naturally.

He kicked his pair on, grabbed his light blue backpack, and slung it over his shoulders. When he came downstairs, he saw his father kissing his mother goodbye.

"Have a good day at work, pa." Oliver said, sliding over his dad's set of car keys.

"Thanks, boy. Try to have a nice day today." His dad said with a slight scowl before leaving for work. His mother sighed, knowing exactly what was troubling his father.

That summer, a black teenager was killed by a white store owner, and the city was on the verge of exploding. It didn't help that the white highschool I went to and the black highschool on the farthest side of town were mixing. That's how we got T.C. Williams Highschool, and that's what changed my future.

"Pa ain't got nothing to worry about." Oliver said suddenly, defiantly staring out the window at his father's car. "It's just a bit of unusual intermingling. I do know what might go wrong, but-"

"Promise me you'll be good." His mother said, clasping his cheeks in her hands. "Promise me you'll be nice to those black kids. They're just folks of God like us, remember?"

"I'll never forget what you teach me, ma." He said, taking her hands in his again. He gave her his usual crooked smile, the one filled with joy and energy, and he knew she'd be comforted.

Oliver stepped out the door without the thought of breakfast. He never had breakfast on the first day of school, since he didn't want to waste too much energy before getting back onto the field.

He could practically already feel the cold sweat dripping down his head. His hands shook with excitement, and he ran them through his smooth curls, expecting his hair to be smooth with sweat or dumped water by the end of the day.

Be good today, Oliver. Show ma she's taught her darlin' boy right. He thought as he made a turn down the corner. Make you some friends as burnin' brown as pa's eyes.