A Stranger’s Phone Number

Words by Maria Probert Hermosillo Art by Avery Fox

People always tell you not to lose yourself in a relationship. While this is typically said in reference to a romantic relationship, I didn’t experience it until I found myself obliterated by a friendship. After an intense and traumatic five months, I had never felt less like myself: It was as if I didn’t even exist in my own world anymore. Between October 2021 to February 2022, I gave my all to a close friend that all but manipulated me through emotional and situational triggers I had disclosed early on in our friendship. In an effort to sympathize with and support someone going through, almost eerily, exactly what I have lived through, I became one of her only two support systems, and started to feel isolated while also trying to control the effects that these triggers had on myself. Despite the fact that this brought me back to the old habits and unhealthy lifestyle of my past I had worked so hard to heal from, I truly believed that it was all for the good of someone I loved. The morning of Feb. 7, my reality came crashing down. I got a call from my friend’s family member, who informed me that the last five months were all a lie. The emotional rollercoaster I endured supporting someone post-SA, the self-harm tendencies turned self-destructive and suicidal actions, and the alarming family issues were all stories made up from details of the lives of the people closest to her, myself included. She had used the trust she built with the people who were vulnerable with her to garner sympathy, attention and unrelenting love. I had never felt so violated in my life. Intimate details of my trauma and experiences I disclosed to someone

I had come to trust more than some of my long-term best friends were used against me, against my compassionate tendencies. When all of this was over and I finally told my parents what had all happened, the first question my mother asked me was, “Why didn’t you ask for help, or involve an adult when it clearly became bigger than you?” I had a lot of answers to that question, and a lot of excuses. But she was right. The bottom line is this: No matter how strong, some things are too heavy to be borne by your own selflessness. Friends, family, partners -- nobody should be demanding all of you for all of them. When the whole of you gets torn apart by someone else, very rarely are they the people who would help build you back up. After this traumatic downfall, I thought that my trust issues would heighten to a new level. Make me close off again, become a shell of a person. But after days of crying and talking and almost going actually crazy from my reality shattering, I found peace within myself. While I learned many important lessons about self-preservation and creating healthy boundaries, I was also proud that I am the type of person that would, without hesitation, give my all to someone I loved whenever they needed me. Like most characteristics, that is very much a double-edged sword, but the compassion and empathy that lives within me is how I build trust with the people in my life. Everyone’s always said that one of my greatest qualities is my ability to connect with others and be a shoulder to lean on in times of need. I give my strength to others, I give me knowledge to others, and I give my trust to others. I hope that I never lose these qualities, but I also hope that I learn to give to those who are worthy of receiving them. That I don’t trust blindly and give blindly without knowing that, when I’m in need, I’ll receive the same compassion. And that whenever I’m unable to give and give and give, that they would allow me the space and support to put myself back together. You are not everything to everyone all the time. But, you are, in fact, everything to yourself all the time. What happens when you keep giving pieces of yourself to others without withholding some for yourself or replacing those given? The puzzle of your own life will come apart, and putting the pieces back together will seem all but impossible. Give what you can, take what you need and find the people who will help keep your puzzle together.

I hate what Gen Z has done to AAVE: African American Vernacular English, a way of speaking pioneered by and created for Black individuals. I hate how they’ve taken a hold of African American slang, just to dilute the once-potent language and claim it as their own. How, if I Google “Gen Z slang,” every article that appears will list words that Black people created long before Gen Z was even a thought. How I can no longer use slang tied to my culture without someone critiquing me for having an “Internet personality,” when they should be critiquing non-Black people on the Internet for making Black culture their personalities.

Instead, it seems they’d rather enable them, giving non-Black individuals from my generation far too much credit. Every headline is always some variation of what makes Gen Z “different” from the rest, as if gentrification doesn’t run rampant through its core. As if “Gen Z culture” isn’t just cherry picked elements of Black culture that’s been rebranded and sold as otherwise.

Yet, when I voice these thoughts, few people ever seem to get it — like everyone can hear me, but no one’s really listening.

I’m listening, though.

How can I not, when non-Black individuals have begun to sound like an imitation of me without understanding the nuances of what they’re imitating?

They don’t understand that my most impressive skill is how quickly I can code switch, after having non-Black people tell me all my life that the way that I speak is unprofessional. But I guess that’s only when AAVE comes from the mouths of its originators.

Because now, every corporation wants to utilize “it’s giving” and “slay” in their marketing to better connect with their target audiences. But those audiences are never the Black people who created these words.

It’s always the non-Black members of

Gen Z, the ones who’ve unrighfully claimed the slang as their own.

I’m listening as nonBlack people sprinkle AAVE into their day-to-day dialogues like it’s the punchline of a joke I must have missed. Everyone else seems to have heard it, though. Because there’s an uproar of laughter each time.

I remember sitting in class as a white kid raised their hand to let the professor know “You so real for that.” Everyone laughed. Maybe it’s just me, but there’s nothing humorous when I have to be careful of where I use my slang, otherwise they’ll call me ghetto. But this kid can do it without a care in the world.

The professor and I both stared in confusion.

Perhaps she found it as strange as I did to hear our slang being spat back at us. That’s the other thing: AAVE never sounds quite right coming from people who don’t understand the conventions and history surrounding the language. I imagine it becomes almost like poison the second it reaches the lips of someone it shouldn’t, and that’s why the words never roll off of their tongues the way they should. Because their bodies are rejecting what they know doesn’t belong there.

I’m still listening, even once they’ve grown tired of the slang that didn’t belong to them in the first place. How they critique the language after they ignored its conventions and made it into something else.

I stare in confusion. Especially when they feel the need to ask why I’m using “outdated” words, as if my mother didn’t use “point, blank, period” all throughout my time of growing up, long before Gen Z thought it was trendy and cool to say.

AAVE has no expiration date when its home is the mouth of the one whose culture originated it. In fact, it thrives when used amongst Black individuals. It comes out effortlessly. Like second nature. It only dies when removed from its natural environment and forced into a space where it doesn’t fit. But, now that Gen Z has taken AAVE and made it so ingrained into their personalities, I’m afraid that what I say may be in vain. They’ll tell me that I can’t gatekeep words, or that culture is meant to be shared. But why should I be expected to share with the same people that contributed to the negative connotations surrounding my slang in the first place? And worst of all, I know that even once they reach the end of this essay they’ll pretend they didn’t see anything and continue with their dayto-day gentrification of Black culture.

Like nothing ever happened. Like they heard me but weren’t really listening.

Yet again.

But I’ll still be here. Talking to what feels like only myself as the hysteria sets in after realizing you can’t make people care about something they only see as disposable. But I’ll always care. How could I not?