In Chap­ter Sev­en of *If These Wings Could Fly*, the nar­ra­tor reflects on her pro­found dis­con­nec­tion from her sur­round­ings and the world beyond her small town of Auburn. Feel­ing like she’s on the edge of a precipice with­out sup­port, she seeks solace in the writ­ten word—a com­fort­ing lega­cy from her moth­er who loved clas­sic lit­er­a­ture. How­ev­er, she has grown weary of the tragedies inher­ent in these sto­ries; instead, she prefers the truth of jour­nal­ism, which offers her a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive on life. Despite her dis­dain for the clas­sics, she finds her­self in a lit­er­a­ture class dis­cussing *Tess of the d’Urbervilles*, dread­ing the inevitable heartache con­tained with­in.

Through­out the class, she becomes acute­ly aware of Liam, a class­mate who, unlike the stereo­typ­i­cal pop­u­lar kids, exudes a qui­et charis­ma that attracts both admi­ra­tion and scruti­ny. The class dynam­ic is tense, par­tic­u­lar­ly when Brody, a pop­u­lar boy, makes dis­parag­ing com­ments about fem­i­nism, using deroga­to­ry lan­guage. The nar­ra­tor attempts to advo­cate for the con­cept of fem­i­nism, empha­siz­ing that it sim­ply means sup­port­ing equal rights for women—not a rad­i­cal stance as Brody sug­gests.

Inter­est­ing­ly, Liam inter­jects that he con­sid­ers him­self a fem­i­nist, yet he fal­ters when prompt­ed to define it. The nar­ra­tor, feel­ing bristly yet res­olute, chal­lenges Brody’s igno­rance, which leads to an esca­lat­ing ten­sion in the class­room. It is evi­dent that although Liam is well-liked and social­ly adept, he also faces the under­ly­ing racism that exists in their small town, some­thing the nar­ra­tor feels guilty for hav­ing ignored in their youth.

The chap­ter encap­su­lates a moment of pro­found reflec­tion as the nar­ra­tor grap­ples with the social com­plex­i­ties of her envi­ron­ment. Through her expe­ri­ence, she nav­i­gates themes of iden­ti­ty, soci­etal norms, and the effect of small-town dynam­ics on per­son­al rela­tion­ships. Ulti­mate­ly, Liam rep­re­sents both a famil­iar fig­ure from her past and an enig­mat­ic pres­ence that ignites curios­i­ty in her, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing her feel­ings as she bal­ances her shel­tered upbring­ing with the broad­er issues of race and accep­tance in Auburn.