Dear Diary, Day 780: He was over there. Just through those bushes.
I could see the long lean side of his back. The back that I had spent so many times seeing. Nights spent here in this corner. In this patch of smooth dirt waiting and watching. Sometimes I thought he saw me.
My heart sped up fast, faster than one of those new rocket ships NASA was building, that we always heard about on the television. Those blue eyes, hooded with long black lashes. His golden blonde head would turn every so slightly toward me and I would have to shrink back into the shadows, shrink back behind the fence line, sure not to be seen.
You see, I was black and James Woodland was white, and today black people and white people couldn't be in love—or at least that's what Mama says.
But you see, Diary, when she told me this, I couldn't understand. She said today we couldn't be in love. So does that mean maybe tomorrow? Mama doesn't know about love. Or she doesn't anymore. Daddy was shot when I was three, and my little sister had just been born. After that, Mama just plain stopped lovin', even me.
So, Diary, she doesn't know how I feel. She doesn't know you can love someone even without meeting them. You can love someone just by their scent. You can love someone of another color. You can love someone across the fence line. So, every night I return to the patch of dirt. I sit with my torn books and I love.
Dear Diary, Day 785: He saw my diary.
The light must have hit me, and he saw me. He didn't say anything to his friend, just a glance from those blue eyes. I started to leave, afraid for my life, then a ball came flying over my way. I saw him jogging toward me. In that instant, I thought my heart was going to leave my chest, but then I saw his mouth the words, please wait.
As he got to the fence line, he picked up the ball with one hand and with the other, brushed his fingers against mine and looked at me with those pleading blue eyes. So I did, Diary, I waited. I knew Mama would be mad when I returned so late at night, but I didn't care—she didn't know about love. After the game was done and all of his friends had left, he waited to throw the ball around until it was dead silent.
Then, in a rush, he threw the ball down and hurried over to me. He came as close as he could to the fence, putting his fingers through it.
"Hi," he said cautiously.
"Hi," I said back.
"I know you've been watching me."
So he knew I was here behind the fence.
"You didn't say anything."
"I didn't want you to leave," he said softly.
"You don't?"
"I don't."
