Wherefore Art Thou Romeo? ✓

five

five / fall 2017

THIS WASN'T WHAT he had expected nor what he was promised.

Atlas Park, who Romeo loved as blood, was apologetic and irritated. "I told them," he huffed. "I told them not to make it a full blown party, but they don't listen to a fucking word!"

They were sitting on the back patio steps, Romeo in the middle of Frankie, at his left, and Atlas, at his right. The back porch light was bright enough to reflect off of their young, twisting faces, but gentle enough not to blind or insult them. The sky was black and it was difficult to see if there were any stars.

Atlas' soft brown eyes had hardened and his smooth brow furrowed. His silken black hair was immaculate— as it always was— and the planes of his gentle face were disrupted by his vexation, his pale pink lips tightened. He sat with his knees jutting out and his elbows resting on them, occasionally twisting himself towards Romeo and Frankie when his temper burst out.

Frankie, on the other hand, was calm. He ran a dark hand over his cropped hair and sighed. His dark brown eyes flickered between his two friends and he chewed on his plump lower lip, as if deciding how to make it better. Frankie was always deciding how to make things better. Occasionally, he smoothed his hands over his jeans or drummed his feet against the bottom step.

Romeo smiled and playfully knocked into Atlas. "It's alright," he insisted. "The thought was there."

"Was it?" Atlas glowered, his face locked with contempt. "I swear, all those two ever think about is themselves."

"C'mon, Atlas," Frankie tried. "It's a different approach."

"A different approach?" He echoed incredulously, brows shooting up as he leaned around Romeo to gaze at Frankie. "That's what we're calling this? They fucked it up."

"Are you upset by this?" Frankie frowned, tapping Romeo's knee with the back of his hand and watching his face patiently.

"It's okay if you are," Atlas huffed, shaking his head and scowling. "I am."

"I'm not," he assured, nudging his knee into Frankie's. "It just caught me off guard."

That was an understatement.

To celebrate his birthday, he and his friends had decided to organize a casual get together. Tia and Heather had insisted that they would work everything out and assured that there was nothing for the boys to do except show up. They would invite their closer friends over to Heather's place and everything would be fine.

When they showed up, however, any expectation of a small, laidback get together was crushed. Word, apparently, had spread and the whole event had quickly spiraled out of Tia and Heather's control. That meant that, by the time Romeo was pulling up to the house with Atlas and Frankie, the place was already packed.

There were people everywhere and the house was buzzing with life. The music was so loud that it was practically coming from the floorboards and the whole thing had dived headfirst into chaos.

Romeo, needing space to breathe and wanting a chance to adapt his mood to this unexpected environment, had announced that he was going to sit in the backyard for a while while he collected himself. Frankie had tagged along without question and Atlas, despite their pleas, had marched to find Tia and Heather so that he could chew them out and find out what the fuck was going on.

What the fuck was going on, insisted Heather, was that it was out of their control. They had tried— really they had tried— to stop people from coming so that Romeo could have the small get together he had both expected and been looking forward to, but it had been too late.