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VINCENT
I wake up, and for a second, I do not know where I am. I hear soft breathing next to me and turning my face to the sound, I look into the face of Chrissie. Her face is soft and peaceful. She is sleeping curled into a ball. Her lips are slightly parted, and I want to reach for her and kiss her tenderly. A strand of hair had fallen across her cheek, so I lift my hand to move it away from her face, and then I feel a deep sense of shock as I notice my dark skin against her pale skin. It is unbelievable how this little gesture, so insignificant, suddenly opened my eyes to the reality. Everything my father had ever told me flooded back to me. Things I cannot even remember him ever saying now come back to me.
I know it is not fair, but Chrissie and I did not make the rules, we only fell in love despite them. I pull my hand back abruptly, away from her face before touching her. I cannot do this to her, and I know I cannot allow this to happen. I stand up as fast as I can without waking her and then I softly leave her room.
The longer we do this, the more devastating and painful it is going to be when we must go back to reality.
The rest of the week, I go out with Simon, Dennis, and George at each different venue. I ignore Chrissie, and it takes all my willpower—every grain.
We perform our song—my song to her—after each concert, and my busted heart aches painfully until I go out and I am with a different girl every night. White or black, makes no difference, just someone who would for, that short space in time, take my mind off Chrissie.
It never works though, because by the time I go back to the hotel I go to her room and sit outside her door. I sit there for hours, unable to leave. I always contemplate knocking, to tell her I am sorry, to apologize, but I never do. I am sure Romeo and Juliet, although they had an accidental suicide at the end of it all, never felt about each other the same way we do. At least they died in the end, and they did not lose each other. They did not have to go through a whole lifetime feeling the hurt and loss, the pain and defeat. To always think back and to always miss a part of me that made me whole. In another life, we could have been together, but because I am black and Chrissie is white, tragedy is also our destiny. I only want to be with her, and although I know I should fight my love for Chrissie with everything in me, I am too foolish to stop. I know what I feel for her is real, and just because this spiteful world says we cannot be, and although I have the right to differ, I have no choice but to let her go.
After our last night, our last performance, I see the pain in her eyes – the pain she hides so easily from the rest of the world by laughing and smiling.
I decide I would never be able to move on if I did not explain myself to her. I needed to speak to her one last time, so I walk to her room instead of going out with Simon, Dennis, and George.
I stand outside her door, leaning against the wall, drawing courage from wherever and whenever.
