She is my world. She is the one I would live and die for.I love the color of her skin – different from mine – the perfect balance between light and dark, day and night. You love the way she tells you she loves you. I tell her I'll marry her someday.
But your dad does not approve. You wonder every day how anyone can be so bigoted. Has he not felt the way you do at some point in his life? He doesn't understand, just rants and raves about your “taste in men” in that nasally voice you hate – the one he only uses when he'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.
Her mom has forbidden you from seeing her again, and her 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.
I remember her telling me she was afraid but that she wouldn't stop seeing me. I asked her to run away with me, just drop everything and run, figure it out as I went. But I said I wanted to wait and see if it would blow over. The look in her eyes was sad, as if she knew her parents would never accept me.
I hop off my bed and start shoving clothes into an duffel bag, making a trip to the bathroom for my toothbrush. I head to your desk and stare blankly at a piece of paper, pencil in hand. I write a quote that has been in my heart from the minute my parents told me that I was making a big mistake. It's short, but it's all I need to say.
I head down the hall to the laundry room. My mom has piles of clothes on the floor, organized by color. I 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. I lay my message on the top. It doesn't say who I was with or where I was going, but it wouldn't be hard to figure out.
“Laundry is the only thing that should be separated by color.”
