He is your world. He is the one you would live and die for. You love the
colour of his skin – different from yours – the perfect balance between
light and dark, day and night. You love the way he tells you he loves
you. He says he'll marry you someday.
But your mum does not approve. You wonder every day how anyone can be so
bigoted. Has she not felt the way you do at some point in her life? She
doesn't understand, just rants and raves about your “taste in men” in
that nasally voice you hate – the one she only uses when she's angry.
Later you sit on your bed, and turn up the volume on your iPod. “All the Same” by the Sick Puppies blasts through the ear buds.
Wrong or right … black or white … if I close my eyes … it's all the same.
Your mum has forbidden you from seeing him again, and your dad's taken to keeping a shotgun in the living room.
In my life … the compromise … I'll close my eyes … it's all the same.
You remember telling him you were afraid but that you wouldn't stop
seeing him. He asked you to run away with him, just drop everything and
run, figure it out as you went. But you said you wanted to wait and see
if it would blow over. The look in his eyes was sad, as if he knew your
parents would never accept him.
You hop off your bed and start shoving clothes into an duffel bag,
making a trip to the bathroom for your toothbrush. You head to your desk
and stare blankly at a piece of paper, pencil in hand. You write a
quote that has been in your heart from the minute your parents told you
that you were making a big mistake. It's short, but it's all you need to
say.
You head down the hall to the laundry room. Your mom has piles of
clothes on the floor, organized by color. You grab bits from every pile
and toss them to the middle, creating a mound no longer separated into
lights and darks.
Green, yellow, red, blue, black, white – all heaped into one huge pile.
You lay your message on the top. It doesn't say who you're with or where
you're going, but it wouldn't be hard to figure out.
“Laundry is the only thing that should be separated by colour.”
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