Devil At The Table

Eleven.

Corrine
Wednesday
The Next Morning

Sitting at my desk, I kept thinking about the phone conversation from last night. Tears welling in my eyes every time.

There's no telling what would happen and I surely didn't want to make him split with his family because of the color of my skin.

How do you ever get used to that?

I tried you know? Him and I have been together three years. If he'd go see his family, I 'couldn't come'.

They made it pretty clear the last time.

Could I survive a marriage where I couldn't even come around?

When they come to the condo, I don't even come out of the room.

My name is on the fucking lease too!

Tears began to pour out of my eyes, I couldn't even control them anymore.

----
Dean

Heading to Corrine's office to hand her today's files, I rushed in, dropping the files and kneeling next to her.

"Corrine, what's wrong?" I asked Corrine,as I rubbed her back softly.

She tried to speak but the only thing that came out was more sobs. She began to cry into me as I hugged her.

Corrine can be a crybaby but she would never cry at work. That was one rule she lived by.

Her loud cries turned into soft sniffles as she held on to me tighter.

She then pulled away from me a bit and I could see her bloodshot red eyes from her crying.

"What's wrong?"

"Antonio's family."

My eyebrows furrowed, "What happened?"

"They hate me Dean. They hate me so fucking much."

"Corrine, they can't hate you. You're a great girl. What makes you think that?"

"Racism."

"Raci- oh...Oh!" I said, realizing what she meant.

She shook her head, "No matter what, they'll hate me over my skin. I can't change that and even if I could, I don't want to. I love my skin. I love being able to say I'm an African-American woman. I'm a black woman. I love being able to be black and not have to pretend to be black but it seems like they'll never understand that."

"Come here beauty." I said, calling her by one of her old nicknames.

She smiled a bit and hugged me. I'm surprised she even let it get this far with me, but I didn't plan on pushing it. She needed comfort.

She needed me.

My parents would love her, my friends would too but right now, this wasn't about me.

She needed love.

"Thanks for listening." she looked at me.

"Anytime."

"What made you come in here?" she asked.

"I had the fi-Dammit I dropped the files, I'll be back." I walked out of her office to grabbed the dropped files from the hallway and brought them back to her.

"Here." I handed them to her.

"We're switching systems now?"

"Yep. Something called Canvaglide."

"How do I-?" she asked confused.

"Here's the instructions. I can set it up for you if you'd like."

"Please? I'm about to take some pills for this headache that stupid crying gave me."