I Don't Love You

I wanted to say I hated him. I wanted to say I hated Black during the times I was with him when I am asked by many of the other colors about how I felt about him. He had ruined me and forsaken me to this cruel state I am in now. But when I am close to answering their question, I find that I end up stopping myself from using the world “hate”. How could I prevent myself from using that word after all the things he has done to me? How could I not after what I had been through trying to understand him? My answer was simple and clear to any one’s eyes. I loved him. I loved him too much. I loved him with every single vessel in my body. I loved him until my heart ached.
All the other colors, mainly the pastel colors I mean, didn’t understand how I could ever love a dark color like Black. And at times, I even wonder how I came to love someone like Black. Maybe it was because he looked different than any of the other colors, or that he was the one that I believed that I could spend my whole entire life with no regret. Now that I think about it, I don’t remember the real reason why I loved him anymore. I was so blinded by the thought of him being the only one for me that all I saw was Black. Many of the colors would say I was blinded by my love for Black. And eventually, I couldn’t help feeling that it was the case.
I had met Black in a cold winter day. It was barely sunny and the white clouds were forming into darker clouds that covered up the light patches of white across the sky. I grew worried. I had never seen anything so dark in my life, particularly the sky. My friends Pastel Pink and Pastel Yellow had warned me that there were many colors besides us out, including the darker colors.
Between our groups of friends, Pastel Blue was always the beautiful color, but also had a quiet boldness to her from the sky, but Pastel Yellow was wise and strong like the sun. As for me, I was always called White, the pure and naïve colored girl. I was considered naïve because I knew so little about other colors. All I ever got to know was Pastel Blue and Pastel Yellow the most. They were my two best friends in the world because they understood me and knew where I had come from. I was also considered the pure color because I had not been with any other colors before. I was “pure”, haven’t been mixed with any colors. My friends wanted nothing but the best for me, of course.
On that one early morning, I waited for Pastel Blue and Pastel Yellow to arrive, but they were not there. All that I saw on that day was Black. He stood there, from the opposite side of me. The first time I saw Black, he looked like a terrifying and daunting color. But after staring at him for a little while, I saw something beautiful. Reflected in his eyes, I saw white. I saw a little bit of myself within him. Even though he was Black, what was reflected across his eyes was white. How was it that I saw white in his eyes? Black stared at me in return, intently. He came over to my side.

“I see Black in your eyes, miss.” Black told me, looking bewildered.
“I see White in your eyes, mister. Are you a color too?”
He seemed to have smiled, but what I had sense was a hint of sadness.
“Yes. I am a color. I am Black. And what color are you?”
“I had never seen a color like you before. I am White.” I told him, never letting my eyes off him.
“Nor I have seen a color quite like you.” He smiled, which made my heart skip an odd beat.

Since that day, were didn’t leave each other’s side. We went on a number of outings together, or stayed in the same place we had first met for the first time; a dark green colored meadow with a single black colored tree. I would always wait for Black there. And every time I waited patiently, he would always be there without fail. He was a remarkable color, I thought. But what I didn’t understand was why all of my friends, including Pastel Blue and Pastel Yellow, didn’t want to go near us when we were together. In my mind, I had shrugged the thought off, thinking that it was possible that they were just jealous of what we had. After all, I was happy for the first time, and I was finally with another color. But it would only be many years later that I realize that it were a big concern. When it was becoming a big problem, the Pastel colors gathered up the courage to tell me what was wrong.

“White, you shouldn’t see Black anymore.” They told me.
“Why?” I asked as I was trying on my new white dress that was once my mother’s. I was ready to move out with Black.
“Black is a dark color. He consumes any color he comes in contact with. And the more you spend time with him; you will be consumed by him too.” Instead of taking their warning seriously, I laughed it off.
“Black would never do that to me. He loves me.” I told them as I was ready to head out the door. Pastel Yellow grimaced and closed the door.
“White, this is serious. He will take advantage of you. He’s not right for you.”
“Well, what if I want to be consumed by Black?” I retorted. Pastel Yellow looked startled.
“How could you say that?”
“I haven’t felt so alive in my life, Yellow. I want to find love like you and Blue, Yellow. And I’ve finally found it with Black! I know it!”
“How could you be so sure about that, White?” Pastel Blue argued.
“Because I saw myself reflected in his eyes.” I told them. Pastel Yellow was beginning to cry in the background, but I was too stubborn to listen.
Pastel Red sighed and led Pastel Blue away from the door.
“Red….?”
“Let White go.” Pastel Red said.
“Wha-?”
“She needs to learn the truth on her own.”
“Thank you, Red.” I said to Pastel Red, gratefully as I was picking up my suitcase to leave.
“White….we only want what’s best for you. But if you think this is your best, then it is. But…do not forget what we have told you.”
I tried to smile, but all that came out of me was a frown as I left the Pastel house for good.

If only I had listen to them then. But instead of listening to them, I had pushed them away and never came back.

The days I had spent with Black were a blur. We were always together, and never apart. At that time, Black was all I could think of, and I want to believe that I was all that Black could think of too.
I was happy, and he seemed happy too. He had a sincere smile whenever he was with me. I could tell that his smile was different compared to when we had first met.
We talked for many days about ourselves in our happier days. What I had learned from Black was this. He was a very lonely color, and that he wasn’t always called Black. He was like me, a single light color who only wanted to be with another color like himself. He was known as Grey once. However, the only difference we had was that he had been with anther color before me. The first color he had ever been with was Dark Green. She was the first color he fell in love with. But, like himself now, she was a dark color too. I learned eventually that he had been hurting him for a long time since he was Grey. She had been with Dark Yellow and Dark Blue when they were still seeing each other. Her dark side had consumed him and turned him into what I know him as now, Black.
He still didn’t forgive her after Black left Dark Green. After leaving Dark Green, he pursued other colors, but all of them had treated him the same way; they had insulted him, beaten him, and consumed him.
When I learned of this story from him, I yearned for him. He had gone through so much pain and sorrow compared to what I had been through. When he told me this story, he held me close for the first time.
“Don’t ever leave me. Promise me you won’t.” he told me in a heart wrenching voice. I held him in return and told him what he wanted to hear from the bottom of my heart.

As the years past, I was happy with Black. But, I couldn’t help noticing changes as I stayed with him. Each time we embraced, or even kissed, Black would always leave a part of him within me. With every touch from Black, my white skin turned a little darker every time. Black noticed the changes in me too, and he grew fearful and scared of me leaving him.
One night, as I was getting ready for bed, I saw Black in the kitchen with a knife in his hand. He was directing the knife to his wrist. I rushed over to him immediately when I saw him bleeding white from his wrist.
“Black, what are you doing?!”
“I can’t stand it…”
“You can’t stand what, Black?”
“I can’t stand myself!” Black said, with white tears trickling down his cheeks.
“What are you talking about?” I asked him, trying to calm him down.
“You’re changing and it’s all because of me! Once you’ve changed completely, you’re going to leave me for another and I can’t stand that! I CAN’T!!!!”
I manage to drop the knife from his hand, but I could not stop the bleeding.
“I already told you. I would never leave you, Black. I promise!”
“No you will! You’ll leave me for another because I am tainted!” He continued screaming as he hit his head with his hands.
“Stop it, Black! You’re hurting yourself!”
“I don’t care! I deserve this!”
At that moment, I realized Black’s true nature. He was sad, frail, and pitiful; I didn’t know anything at all. I didn’t know what he was feeling, no matter how hard I tried to understand him.

The next day, Black acted like nothing had happen the previous night. At some point, I had given up the fight as he left the house. His arm had stopped bleeding, but I could tell that he was still depressed. He tried smiling and asking to go out with me to our secret place, but deep down, I knew that he was unhappy. He wasn’t smiling from his heart anymore, he was faking it. But nonetheless, I still went out with him. I still kissed him, and embraced him like nothing had happened. Unfortunately, that night was not the only night that these episodes happened.
He was hurting himself constantly in front of me when were alone in our house. I hid the knife away after that first night, but he always had a way of hurting himself. He would break a porcelain glasses after porcelain, throw chairs around as if they were nothing, and would even punch walls with his fist or hands until he bled white again.
Eventually, he started using his words too. I found that his tantrums were getting worse each night.
One midnight, he woke me up and told me to get out of the house.
“Why? Why do I have to get out the house?” I asked him.
“Because I can’t stand to look at you! You need to get out or I’ll take it out on you.”
“You don’t mean it….” I told him, feeling black tears swelling up my eyes.
“I mean it. Get out.”
“But…I didn’t even do anything…. What did I do wrong?” I pleaded. It looked like he was in pain the way he held up his head with his hands.
“I don’t care. Just get out!”
“I love you, Black….Please….Please Black….”
“I said get out! Just get out!”
The last thing I remember was Black closing the front door in front of me, and the sound of his footsteps fading away as he left in the direction of the kitchen. Nowhere else to go, I left for our secret place and waited until morning came.

I was changing, but Black stayed the same. That concept stayed with me the more I continued to be with him. My white skin was now a dull black. I was not considered White anymore. Even his despair was becoming a part of me. I could feel myself being consumed by his sadness each day I spent with him. But even then, I did not have it in myself to leave him. I loved him too deeply to leave him.

Our days together came to an end.
As I waited for him in our secret place on that morning I left the house, he had come just as he was back then when I met him; sad and terrifying. He came to me, and without holding back, I held him close. But he pushed me away as I looked on with disbelief.
“We can’t do this.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, scared of what he might say next.
“White, I don’t think we should be together.” I looked into his eyes, but he didn’t look back at mines.
“I don’t love you anymore.”
Those five words echoed inside me and left me with a dry and numb sensation across my whole body.
“What….how could you say that after all we have been through?” I asked him.
“I’m sorry. But we can’t see each other anymore. Goodbye, White.”
I could only watch him go as he left me. He didn’t even turn to look back at me.

I went to see the doctors after a couple of months recovering from my heartbreak, but all the doctors said nothing could be done. The condition I had couldn’t be changed. I was stuck in this dull color between white and black forever. After Black left me, I wasn’t myself. I was no longer “White”. I was becoming sad, frail, and pitiful like Black. My depression kicked in right after Black left me. A few months had past, and I found out later that Black fell in love with another color named Dark Blue. At least she understood him, because she was a dark color herself too, and she had the same sad aura as him as well. They related to each other, but I could never relate to Black ever again. Black and I were just too different, and after what I had been through, I would never be the same again.
I went back to the Pastel’s but they didn’t look at me the same way after that. They saw indifference in me and didn’t accept my changes. I was no longer White, but was now known as Grey.
Years passed, and I was the only one who stood in the wrong end of the line. But Pastel Yellow and Pastel Blue never left me. They helped me up from the ashes and helped me become a new. I grew up accepting my fate as Grey and remained a single color for the rest of my days. The next year, I learned that Black committed suicide with his lover, Dark Blue. They were found at my secret spot, hanged together on the same black tree I always admired. I didn’t know what to feel at the time when I heard the news from Pastel Yellow, but at that moment, these words echoed inside my head repeatedly.
“I don’t love you.”

Notes