Summary

This section begins with Ada in Derek’s room as she endures his negative attitude and criticism about how much religion influences her life. Despite not enjoying his specific company, Ada wills herself to stay in the relationship with him by convincing herself that his company signifies her desirability and that because they are sexual with each other that they are “automatically together” (231).

In the next chapter, “Second Grade,” Ada meets her father’s new girlfriend, which whom it is difficult to share a house. Ada occasionally witnesses this woman’s bare Caucasian skin through cracked doorways, causing her to feel estranged in her own home. One night, after hearing them having sex, Ada enters their room to make sure this woman “knows that I can hear” (240). In an encounter the next morning in the bathroom, the woman refuses Ada’s...