When an aspiring actor announces he’s marrying a black girl, everyone laughs, thinking he’s making a huge mistake and will ruin his career. But years later, they deeply regret it when she becomes a household name.
Routina nervously entered the room. She was one of the last to arrive, and everyone turned to look at her as she joined the small group that had been waiting for her. She’d been confident she’d made the right choice, but now looking around at her classmates, she wasn’t so sure anymore. No one smiled or greeted her, apart from one shy-looking guy who avoided making eye contact but had a slight smile on his face.
Jacob was also feeling nervous. He wanted more than anything to be an actor, and he certainly had the talent for it; otherwise, he wouldn’t have made it into the Juliart School. He was taking classes at one of the most prestigious private performing art schools in the world, but he still found it hard to believe in himself. Everyone had seemingly already formed small groups, and he was left on his own. Of course, one person was running late, prolonging his awkward pain before the introductions could get underway. But when Routina entered the room looking as flustered and nervous as him, he immediately forgave her. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a more beautiful girl in his whole life.
The rest of the group was just as unwelcoming as he’d expected. They were frustrated at having to wait for one last classmate, and Jacob felt sorry for the girl. He tried to make eye contact, but he felt too shy, so he smiled and hoped that she knew it was for her.
As the months passed by, the group got to know each other pretty well. They were all there for the same thing, so most of them formed strong bonds. Even Routina and Jacob managed to find their own small groups of friends. But Jacob hadn’t once plucked up the courage to have a full conversation with the girl. Pleasantries had been exchanged, but beyond that, they went their own separate ways. Jacob longed to speak to her, though, but he just felt like he’d mess everything up.
There was no way a girl as pretty as her would ever want to be with him. Jacob’s longing looks only seemed to go unnoticed by Routina herself, though, and soon his friends began to tease him for his infatuation. Beyond the jokes and laughter, his best friend in the group encouraged him to speak to the girl before he regretted it. He wasn’t the only one who had noticed Routina’s beauty, and if he didn’t act soon, it might be too late.
One of the girls in their class was having a birthday celebration and had invited everyone out for drinks. Jacob lingered on the edges of the group for most of the evening, dazzled by Routina’s beauty. But after a few drinks, he finally found the courage to go over and speak to her. The pair spent the next few hours sitting together and sharing everything about their lives. They were so wrapped up in each other that they hadn’t noticed the bar was now almost completely empty and all of their classmates had left.
From then on, they were inseparable. From the first moment Routina had seen that half-smile on Jacob’s face, she’d been desperate to talk to him. But he always seemed to avoid her, so she’d assumed he wasn’t interested. When they both learned of each other’s awkwardness, they just laughed at how silly they’d been. They’d spent months not talking to each other, but they were more than making up for it now.
However, not everyone was so happy for the couple. Routina was the only black girl in the group, and some of Jacob’s so-called friends began to question why he would want to date someone like her when there were so many pretty white girls in the group too. He quickly realized that all their jokes had been a way to try and put him off. He had no interest in being friends with people like that and quickly cut them off. Only his best friend remained supportive of the couple.
Years passed, and the pair studied hard together. They were both deeply passionate about becoming actors, but Routina confessed that sometimes she worried if she was doing the right thing. When she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, some of her family had encouraged her to take a nursing course for a career to fall back on. But she had no interest in that and had enrolled in the Juliart School instead, determined that she would make it as an actor.
Jacob’s family had always been supportive of his career choice, so he admired Routina for chasing her dreams despite what everyone else said. As the pair progressed through their course, their confidence and talent grew, spurred on by each other’s support. Soon, it became clear that the two of them had every chance of becoming a power couple in the acting world. But some people still weren’t convinced about their relationship. Whisperings began to circulate around the group that if they stayed together, Routina would ruin any chances Jacob might have of landing big roles because she just wasn’t destined to make it.
Rather than be upset by the rumors though, the couple looked for ways to prove everyone wrong. Their time at the Juliard School was coming to an end, and they both knew that it wouldn’t be an easy ride from here on out. But as long as they had each other, then they could face any challenge.
Jacob had loved Routina from the moment he’d first seen her nervously entering the room after being late on the first day. From that point on, he’d fallen deeper and deeper in love, and with graduation looming, there was only one thing left for him to do.
Both Routina and Jacob were working students. Once they became a couple, a future together was all they could think about, and they’d been saving hard to ensure that they had a good pot of money to get a place together once their studies were over. But Jacob had been saving for something else too: an engagement ring. He wanted to make Routina his wife so their journey to being a true Hollywood power couple could begin. His beautiful girlfriend had given him more confidence and support than anyone else, and now felt like the right time to propose.
Five months before graduation, Jacob got down on one knee and asked Routina to be his wife. The young woman was overjoyed. From the first moment she’d seen his slight smile, she’d been drawn to him. Falling in love with Jacob had been the best feeling ever, and it only felt right that as their time together at Juliard was coming to an end, they should start their new exciting chapter as man and wife.
The couple decided that they didn’t want a big fancy wedding, so right after graduation, they tied the knot in a small, intimate ceremony, marking the start of what they believed would be an amazing new chapter. But still, not everyone could be happy for the couple. When their classmates found out that they were engaged, many of them were happy for the couple.
They’d watched their love blossom over the past four years and didn’t doubt that they were both destined for big things. But there were still some people who ignorantly laughed when Jacob married a black girl, believing that he’d ended his acting career before it even started. But they didn’t know that years later they would deeply regret their words.
Jacob and Routina had never experienced acting work to come to them easily. They knew what a cutthroat industry Hollywood was, and it took a few years before either of them began to really get noticed. They attended audition after audition while working odd jobs to keep a roof over their heads. And when they both started to land roles, their dream finally seemed to be coming true. But things wouldn’t be plain sailing for the couple.
Routina had heard about an exciting new TV series, and her agent told her that she had to audition for a part. It was 2007, and Juliard seemed a lifetime ago. She’d been married to Jacob for two years now, and they’d been together for even longer. She’d never expected breaking into the acting world to be easy, but neither of them had had much work in the past few years. A silly, annoying voice in her head began to question if perhaps people had been right when they’d said she’d hold Jacob back. But she couldn’t start thinking about that now. She had to go into this audition oozing confidence.
Much to her surprise, Routina landed a role. She was told she’d be part of the main cast, playing a character called Tara Thornton in a show called “True Blood.” When she excitedly told Jacob about the role, neither of them knew just how big the show had become.
Routina’s life was about to change forever. After the first season of “True Blood” aired in 2008, it was clear how much of a fan base had already been built for the vampire show. Routina had gone from an unknown actor to a star almost overnight. While his wife flourished in her career, Jacob was still struggling to get recognized. In the same year “True Blood” was released, he had a few minor parts in several shows, but nothing compared to what his wife was doing.
They’d always vowed to support each other no matter what, but they’d never had to face the reality that one of them would make it as an actor while the other one didn’t. Routina’s time on “True Blood” just kept getting better and better, and it wasn’t long before the show was getting nominated for awards. In 2009, she won the Best Supporting Actress award at the fifth Scream Awards. At first, Jacob was supportive, and Routina believed his big break was just around the corner. But she could see the passion slipping away from him, and over the months, he started developing resentment towards her success.
By the time she started work on the fifth season of “True Blood,” cracks had begun to appear in their once-perfect relationship. At first, Routina tried to ignore the problems. She loved Jacob, and he had been the one constant in her crazy life. They’d once shared a dream of being Hollywood’s next power couple, but now she began to wonder if she’d got swept up in everyone else’s expectations of them. Now it seemed like they wanted different things.
She’d never been sure about having kids, and she didn’t feel that biological pull to be a mother. Jacob had never really expressed a strong desire for a family either, so she figured it wasn’t something that needed discussing. But now that she was in her early thirties, Jacob had begun to mention starting a family more and more, and she was well aware of the biological time bomb she had. The problem was that she had no desire to give up her career to have children.
A dark thought began to creep into her mind. She cast her mind back to their Juliard days. She knew that people had whispered about her holding Jacob back because she wasn’t destined for big things. But what if it was actually him who was holding her back? She was the one with the amazing career that was going from strength to strength, while he was lucky to get one acting role a year, and it was always a minor part. And now he wanted her to put her career on hold to start a family she wasn’t even sure she wanted.
Unfortunately, it seemed like their lives were heading in different directions. There was no ignoring the problems anymore. While she was busy on the set of “True Blood,” it was easy to forget that she had some big decisions to make. The couple could barely say two words to each other now without arguing. They’d gone from being a team to a fractured pairing. They’d vowed to support each other no matter what, but in reality, that just wasn’t working out. Jacob seemed to resent her for landing such a big role and having such huge success with it, while she couldn’t help but feel he was wasting his talent by not trying out for more roles.
She still cared for Jacob and wanted the best for him, but she just wasn’t sure that she was in love with him anymore. In 2013, with just one season of “True Blood” left to air in the following year, Routina filed for divorce from Jacob, citing irreconcilable differences. The truth was that they both changed a lot, and they were no longer the same people who had met at Juliard. Jacob wanted a family and was happy to plot along through life, but Routina had an amazing career and a drive to get better. She couldn’t give that up for a man she was no longer in love with.
Routina was upset by the end of her marriage, but she also had a sudden sense of freedom that she could finally be who she wanted to be. Everyone had laughed when Jacob married this black girl, thinking she would hold him back, but now it was clear to see that they’d been wrong. Routina had an amazing career while Jacob was still relatively unknown. In fact, the biggest thing he was now known for was being Routina Wesley’s ex-husband.
But no one had wanted it to end like this. Despite the jokes and laughter, everyone had seen how in love the pair were during their years at Juliard. But sometimes people drift apart and lose themselves in a relationship, and Routina certainly felt that way. Years passed by, and the couple went their separate ways. Routina knew the divorce had hit Jacob hard, as had the reports that were floating around that she was now engaged to a chef from New Orleans. She hadn’t expected to maintain a friendship with him, but the situation still made her sad. Still, she couldn’t help but be proud of having proven so many people wrong. Her ex-classmates at Juliard had predicted she would never amount to anything, and yet she was the true star here, and they were deeply regretting their words.
When “True Blood” ended, she landed another major role in “Queen Sugar,” a TV show produced by Oprah Winfrey. Her role as Nova in “Queen Sugar” saw her nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series several times. But it was her 2019 nomination at the 19th Black Reel Awards that she would never forget. Routina won the award for the second consecutive year. But it wasn’t winning that would make the night memorable; it was who would congratulate her after her victory that would make the night stand out.
In the early hours of the morning, Routina arrived back home feeling tired but happy. She only wished Jacob could be there to share her success. And when she looked at her phone, it felt like fate was making another of her wishes come true. She saw a message from someone she hadn’t heard from for years: it
was Jacob. The message simply read, “Congratulations. Proud of you.” Routina smiled to herself as she typed out her reply. The bond she and Jacob had once shared hadn’t been permanently broken after all. They might not have worked out as a couple, but they still loved each other as friends, and that kind of love would never end.
