#this was the first short story in ttayn that stuck to me

[dragoncoitus]

You knew by people's reactions that you two were abnormal -- the way the nasty ones were too nasty and the nice ones were too nice. The old white men and women who muttered and glared at him, the black men who shook their heads at you, the black women whose pitying eyes bemoaned your lack of self-esteem, your self-loathing. Or the black women who smiled swift solidarity smiles; the black men who tried too hard to forgive you, saying a too-obvious hi to him; the white men and women who said "What a good looking pair" too brightly, too loudly, as though to prove their own open-mindedness to themselves.