Acting White

The girls all said she bleached her skin. Her complexion a handmade pigment designed to reflect what she truly felt on the inside. Things only became worse when she bleached her hair blonde. Blonde; as if it were common for a black girl to walk down the street with such a color.

"Oh, here comes Brittany the white girl," they said laughing, as she walked past them in the halls, "She's nothing but an Uncle Tom."

The kids who were white gave her odd stares, "Does she think that shade of lipstick looks good on her?"

No one discriminated in mocking her. They said that she was embarrassed to be black. That she hated her skin. That she thought white people were the superiors.

But that wasn't true.

She was in love.

She had fallen for someone she thought she had to change herself for; to get his attention. A white boy. The only boy she had ever developed the deepest of feelings for.

She first knew of her love for him in sixth grade, when they sat across from each other in math. He frequently asked her for a pencil, and whenever she needed one, he was quick to return the favor. He gave her warm smiles whenever their eyes met, helped her when there was something she didn't understand--vice versa--and treated her with genuine kindness. The days he said her name, her heart could finally catch a break from his arresting presence. She was definitely in love, and her feelings never faded.

But he was white.

He only dated white girls, and white girls only dated him. Over the years, she watched him grow, girlfriend to girlfriend. Not in fast-paced one after the other motions, but a fair accumulation of exes over time. They all were the same way: blonde hair which spanned to their mid-back, and eyes just as soft and clear as his. They were white girls. Why did she think she could be the exception? The truth was she only wished she could be. Every time she corrected her grammar, convinced that dialect was a racial thing; and even raising her voice because she thought that it seemed more befitting for a black girl to talk lower, which was what she wanted to avoid, he was in her mind, playing like her favorite song on replay.

Her body was a battlefield; a war zone of ethnics and expression. Being who she wanted, only meant someone would be offended.

"Trish," he said one day, "you smell really good."

"Thank you," she said, mirroring his smiling face.

She knew he had to be drawn in by her transformation. Carley, his third girlfriend had straight blonde hair. Straight blonde hair that she thoroughly combed out each day, letting him run his fingers through it. So she decided to do just as she did, straightening her natural curls out of her hair to avoid it becoming kinky, and applying lighter foundations though she was never a dark person to begin with, and asked to be called Tris.

He was her goal. He only dated white girls, but she had to change it. She thought of him at a constant rate. His smell of high caliber cologne when he brushed past her in the halls each day, she held on to the scent as long as her clothes would allow it to last. His face was a soft olive, more on the fair side of pigmentation, with a smile that resembled the sun and all its glory. He kept his hair tidy, often combing it in blonde layers to the right side of his head. His clothes only made her heart race more, having enough grip to show off his defined figure, not yet strong enough for pecks and biceps to grow, but just enough to give him a masculine cut in his build. She found him perfect, though most girls would say his looks were okay. Only God could have given her the blessing to be his lab partner.

She sat stiff as he sat down next to her, "Hey Tris," he said.

"Hey Kyle," she said.

"Looks like we're partners for this quarter."