G called me to tell me about two women that, this week, had speculated that he was unable to form relationships.

He'd asked me my opinion.

I told him I was too biased.

~

"That morning," he asks, out of the blue. "What were you thinking of?"

I pause. I didn't expect the question, but I also kind of did.

"I don't think," I said slowly, "that it would help either one of us."

"Oh," he says, but he doesn't pry.

I almost wish he would.

~

He talks for a while.

I'm silent.

Hearing him talk about the other women he talks to...it hurts more than it should.

It feels like there is a lead blanket on me, pressing me into the bed, pushing the air from my lungs, forcing the words back into my throat.

He talks. About this and that.

"Tell me about your mother," I say, and I know it's a cruel question.

He's silent for a long moment.

"Why?" he asks tremulously, and I can hear the little boy in his voice.

"Because," I say. No mercy. "Tell me about her."

~

He tells me, in stops and starts.

It takes him a while to start.

He describes a woman much like I am today.

Poor. Long haired. Hippie. Always protesting something.

"It's a wonder you like me at all," I laugh, and it's a hard laugh.

"I do like you," he says, a little defensively. "You have that skin...that hair." A pause. "You have a nice face."

You have a nice face.

I laughed, and I laughed hard. He sounded hurt.

"No, no," I say. "I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Hey now!" he says, starting to protest again.

But I think it is the nicest thing he ever said to me. He said it without frilly words, without hesitating or thinking, without lying.

You have a nice face.

~

I tell him, eventually. I tell him what I was thinking that morning, as he drove me back to the event.

It doesn't help either of us.

I wish I could cut out the part of my heart that has his name on it.

Sometimes I lay in bed and dream of what it would be like to have a real relationship with him. Trust, affection. I wonder if people would look at us in the street, a mixed race couple, and then I realize I don't care. It would only make me prouder to be his girlfriend.

He's sensitive about his skin colour, and I can't even imagine what it's like to be him. I'm such a privilidged little white girl.

The best I can do is treat everyone the same.

But I'm not his girlfriend, and will never be. That's just how it is.

Right now I'll just be his conscience, when he decides to listen to me.

Which he doesn't.

.

Rosie.

Before&After