The Bench She Couldn't Share

He remembered seeing her the first time. It was a few years ago. She was older than him, beautiful, with a kind smile. He saw her regularly around the town, and was eager for an opportunity to talk to her, to know her better, but it never came.

In his dreams, she was an angel, a perfect girl, physically and ethically. He loved to have her - as a sister when he was young, and as a girlfriend when he got older.

He kept fantasizing about her, until one day, he saw her waiting for him. But it was far from his fantasies. She was at a pro segregation rally in front of his new school. Unlike always, she was angry and yelling at black children. He couldn't understand why. When he tried to pass by her, she spat in his face, and called him racist names. He just ran inside to avoid further conflict, as the police pushed her and other demonstrators back.

He hadn't seen her for about a year now. Segregation had been abolished for a while, although the scars it left on the society and specially children were still fresh.

Now, there she was. Sitting alone on a park bench, well groomed as always, lost in thoughts. He didn't know exactly why, but couldn't resist talking to her. Maybe the fantasies were still not completely dead, or he simply liked to know why a monster was behind such a beautiful cover.

"Excuse me," he asked, as she turned towards him, and her face expression changed to angry, "Can I sit here?"

"No you may not!" she answered, her voice filled with hatred.

"Why? Is it someone else's place?"

"Because you don’t belong here, not on this bench, not in this park, not in our schools."

"Why?"

"Because God made us different for a reason," she answered, her fingers tightening around the handle of her purse. "And no Supreme Court decision can change that."

"But we are only different in colors. It doesn't mean one is superior, and even if one was superior, I can't see how that could have been a cause for separation."

"You think it's just about color? It's about purity. About not letting your kind taint what's been preserved for generations. You don’t even understand what you’re destroying."

"So, you are worried about purity and what's been preserved for generations? Is that why you stand in front of schools, spitting in black children faces?"

Her grip on her purse hardened, and for a moment, he thought she was going to swing it at him. "You think you're clever? Talking back like you've got some right to question me? My grandfather fought for this country. He didn't do it so your kind could sit wherever you please." Her eyes seemed to flicker with something as she spoke; not just anger, but perhaps the crumbling certainty of someone who had built her entire worldview on a lie.

"Okay, okay," he said, sad and disappointed, and not seeing any point in continuing the argument, "You believe your grandfather fought so that I can't sit wherever I please. I wonder how he would have reacted if he knew this would be how some people value his deed."

He turned to leave, but as he walked away, all the fantasies and dreams he had built around the girl came back to him, as if begging him not to give up, to try one last time. He knew how it would end, but decided that he owned the attempt to his own young idealist self that still lived inside him.

He walked back to the girl, who watched him in surprise. "I don't suppose I can buy you a coffee, take you somewhere, or ..."

An ugly humiliating smile appeared on the girl's face. She shook her head, as if she was sorry for him, and held her tongue for a few seconds, as if she was searching for the most hurtful and humiliating words to throw at him. As soon as she opened her mouth to talk, the boy raised his hand, signing for her to stop, as he turned to leave again. That ugly humiliating smile was all he needed to bury his fantasies.