Chap­ter 7 of If These Wings Could Fly opens with the nar­ra­tor con­tem­plat­ing her grow­ing sense of dis­con­nec­tion from the world around her. She feels iso­lat­ed in Auburn, her small town, like she’s stand­ing at the edge of a cliff with­out any sup­port. In search of com­fort, she turns to books, fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of her moth­er, who found solace in clas­sic lit­er­a­ture. How­ev­er, while she once found refuge in these sto­ries, she has grown dis­il­lu­sioned by their con­stant focus on tragedy. She now prefers the straight­for­ward nature of jour­nal­ism, which offers a more ground­ed and truth­ful per­spec­tive on the world. Despite her grow­ing frus­tra­tion with the clas­sics, she finds her­self reluc­tant­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in a lit­er­a­ture class dis­cus­sion about Tess of the d’Urbervilles, dread­ing the inevitable heart­break that will accom­pa­ny the nov­el­’s themes of love and loss.

As the class con­tin­ues, the nar­ra­tor becomes increas­ing­ly aware of Liam, a qui­et yet mag­net­ic class­mate who stands out from the usu­al crowd of pop­u­lar stu­dents. Unlike the typ­i­cal jocks and atten­tion-seek­ers, Liam car­ries a qui­et charis­ma that draws both admi­ra­tion and sus­pi­cion from oth­ers. The class­room dynam­ic becomes charged when Brody, a pop­u­lar boy, makes dis­re­spect­ful com­ments about fem­i­nism, using offen­sive lan­guage. The nar­ra­tor, uncom­fort­able but res­olute, takes the oppor­tu­ni­ty to chal­lenge Brody’s igno­rance by defend­ing fem­i­nism as a move­ment sim­ply advo­cat­ing for equal rights for women. She stress­es that it’s not a rad­i­cal or extreme view­point, but a basic human right—something Brody dis­miss­es with dis­mis­sive remarks. Her attempt to stand up for what she believes in only adds to the ten­sion in the room, but it marks an impor­tant moment of resis­tance against the pre­vail­ing atti­tudes of her peers.

In an unex­pect­ed turn, Liam speaks up to state that he con­sid­ers him­self a fem­i­nist, although he hes­i­tates when asked to explain what it means. The nar­ra­tor feels a mix­ture of frus­tra­tion and respect, as Liam’s com­ment holds poten­tial, but his uncer­tain­ty under­mines its pow­er. The class, already uneasy, becomes more charged as the con­ver­sa­tion shifts back to Brody, whose lack of under­stand­ing becomes more evi­dent. The nar­ra­tor chal­lenges him fur­ther, feel­ing both bristly and res­olute in her defense of women’s rights. Mean­while, she begins to real­ize that Liam, though well-liked and out­ward­ly con­fi­dent, also faces the sub­tle yet per­va­sive racism that exists in their small town. The nar­ra­tor feels a pang of guilt for hav­ing ignored these issues in the past, reflect­ing on how eas­i­ly she over­looked such inequal­i­ties dur­ing her child­hood. Liam’s qui­et, con­flict­ed pres­ence acts as a cat­a­lyst for deep­er intro­spec­tion, forc­ing her to con­front the com­plex­i­ties of their shared upbring­ing and the con­tra­dic­tions she once failed to notice.

The chap­ter serves as a moment of sig­nif­i­cant reflec­tion for the nar­ra­tor, who grap­ples with the lim­i­ta­tions and chal­lenges of her envi­ron­ment. As she reflects on the class­room dis­cus­sion, it becomes clear that her per­spec­tive on fem­i­nism and social jus­tice has evolved, push­ing her to chal­lenge the harm­ful norms ingrained in her small-town upbring­ing. Liam’s qui­et yet com­plex char­ac­ter stands in stark con­trast to the overt racism and igno­rance embod­ied by oth­ers in the class, mak­ing him both a sym­bol of famil­iar­i­ty and an enig­mat­ic fig­ure that sparks curios­i­ty. Her grow­ing aware­ness of these soci­etal issues forces the nar­ra­tor to rec­on­cile her shel­tered upbring­ing with the broad­er issues of race, iden­ti­ty, and accep­tance that are qui­et­ly sim­mer­ing beneath the sur­face of Auburn. This chap­ter encap­su­lates the inter­nal con­flict and per­son­al growth that the nar­ra­tor expe­ri­ences as she nav­i­gates her com­plex rela­tion­ship with her past, her peers, and her evolv­ing sense of self. Through her inter­ac­tions with Liam and her class­mates, she begins to under­stand the larg­er soci­etal forces at play, rec­og­niz­ing the impact of her own priv­i­lege and the impor­tance of con­fronting the issues of race and equal­i­ty that have shaped her town.