Katherine Arruda
Sep 5, 2018 · 3 min read

Black, white & grey

“Let the dead bury the dead.” He says to me, his voice quiet as the rain hits the windows. We’re laying cuddled in a bed that isn’t ours, but the space feels intimate, as if we’ve laid together all of our lives; our limbs intwined as if they grew together like old tree roots.

“What does that mean?” I ask. The curiosity in my voice sounds painful.

“It means the dead are dead, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” He says this matter of factly, like he says everything.

I picture hundreds of unburied caskets, mounds of dirt, dead grass, no one around to tend to the dead. The imagery is scary, uncomfortable, but that is how his wisdom feels. Unsettling, but necessary, just like the caskets.

“If only it were that simple,” I say, looking at him.

In his world, everything is black and white, just like the opposite colours of our skin.

“It can be, if you let it.” He looks directly at me as he says this. In the dark of night, I can’t see the intensity of his stare, but I can feel it. I can feel the tendrils of hope and at the same time, guilt, at the possibility of his words. A future where the dead are dead and I can be free. The tendrils threaten to unchain me and choke me at the same time. I want to catch my breath like a runner on a hot day, but I swallow quietly instead.

His response is a challenge, like most things he says to me. He speaks directly to my competitive spirit. He makes me want to be better.

In this instance, he is challenging me to let go, something I so desperately want to do. He challenges my notion that it may be too hard to let go. I know he is right. If I let it be, it can be. That is something I believe. But I also believe that life isn’t black and white, but varying shades of grey. If it were so easy to let go, I would have done it by now, wouldn’t I?

I tell him that although he sees the world as black and white, that’s not how it truly is. There is always a middle ground, an in-between shade, a third perspective.

I look directly at the freckle in his left eye as I tell him this. I like the freckle. It’s light brown, which is several shades lighter than his dark eye colour. The freckle makes his piercing stare softer, less harsh. His dark eyes convey his curiosity at my opinion of his outlook on life.

“Do you really believe that?” He asks, his voice quiet now.

I nod. What I don’t say is how much I like his perspective, and how it makes me question everything I thought I knew. I envy how sure his answers are. He is confident while I am hesitant. He understands who he is. I am still figuring out how I want to approach who I am.

There are so many things I want to tell him, but I’m not sure how to say them. Him and I communicate so differently. I yell, use my hands when I talk, roll my eyes. I’m expressive. He is quiet, stubborn and hard to read. But every time I am around him, I feel at peace, even when I am angry. He calms the storm inside me and I can feel a rainbow. It’s colourful, bright and warm, the opposite of the cold, dark aura I usually carry around me like a shroud. The rainbows he creates inside me radiate out of my hands and eyes. People can see it and they tell me I look happy.

Because of the rainbows he gives me, I tell him what I need to hear him say, what I need for him to act on to keep me here. I tell him in his language, plainly and to the point.

“Tell me you love me,” I say, when the night is so dark that I can’t see my own yearning. But I can feel it, and I know he can too.

“I love you,” he replied, his mouth partly open, in that way I love. “So much.”

I believe him. Black, white and grey.

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