“Sarah, would you settle down?” Matthew asked as he watched her flit from one side of the room to the other, occasionally picking something up and then putting it back down a few moments later.
“I have to pack,” she muttered, glancing around at her cluttered bedroom.
He laughed, “Come here and sit down.”
Sighing, she ran a hand through her light brown hair and plopped onto the bed beside him. He shook his head and pulled her into his lap, pressing a light kiss to her neck.
“Now, tell me what’s wrong,” he instructed, resting his head on her shoulder and wrapping his arms around her waist.
She twisted her head around to look down at him and said, “Matt, what if my parents don’t like you? What if they tell me that we can’t get married? What if my family…”
“What if they do like me?” he replied quietly, cutting her off. She narrowed her eyes, but remained silent as he continued. “We could play this game all day, but the fact still remains that I want to marry you. I do plan on asking your father for permission first because it’s important to you, but what if he does say no? Are you really going to leave me because of what he thinks?”
“No, of course not,” she said in a small voice, her slight Southern accent even more prominent than normal. “I just want them to like you.”
He grinned; he loved her accent even though she complained that it made her sound stupid. Taking her hand in his, he allowed his fingers to slide gently over her palm, caressing her skin as he kissed her cheek.
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “They’ll come around. I mean, what else can they do?”
“Throw me out of the family, maybe?” she offered with a wry smile. At the disapproving look he gave her, she groaned, “All right, I’ll try to hope for the best. Happy?”
“Of course,” he said. He paused for a moment before asking, “Why are you so worried, anyway? I mean, how bad can it be?”
“You don’t understand,” she murmured, looking down at their entwined hands, at the contrast of his dark skin with her pale skin. “Down there, you just don’t date outside of your race. It’s not done. It’s almost like for a small part of my hometown, integration and the Civil Rights movement never happened.”
She got up from his lap and wandered over to her mirror, biting her lip as she gazed at her worried reflection. He followed her, holding her gently as he watched their reflection.
“What do you see when you look at us?” she asked suddenly. “What do you think about our relationship?”
He looked down at her, a smile curving across his face as he studied her hazel eyes. He glanced back at their reflection, taking in the sight of his brown arms wrapped around her waist, her small fair hands running along his skin. He bent his head down next to her ear and whispered a simple word that sent a shiver down her spine as his breath brushed her neck.
“Gorgeous.”
---
I chose to write this story for a few reasons. I’ve found the song, “Gorgeous,” to be inspiring and a beautiful way of describing the way love should be. I do come from a small Southern town, so the fact that people look down on interracial dating and homosexuality is something I’m very familiar with. It has always bothered me that there is a stigma attached to interracial dating, and I feel that it is something that should be changed. Since my dream is to one day become a writer, I hope that maybe one day, my work will influence other people’s opinions, and maybe an issue like this can be eradicated.
My name is Meredith. At the moment, I am attending Huntingdon College. It’s a small private college in Alabama, and it’s not particularly well-known, but I do love it with all my heart. I am majoring in Business Administration and English with a concentration in Creative Writing. While I do plan on becoming a writer, eventually, I also enjoy the business world, so I’ve managed to satisfy both my creative and practical sides. I just finished my freshman year, so I have a while to wait until I get into the real world.
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