Wherefore Art Thou Romeo? ✓

thirteen

late winter 2018 / thirteen

note: i am so tired that I fr cannot even tell if this is good or not but it's so so so late that I thought I would get it up anyway! currently suffering from very intense creative burnout so pls bear with me, thank you <3

ROMEO WAS FREEZING half to death, just so that he could stand next to a tired, brooding Rodney while he smoked.

Everything outside was frozen and covered with a thin, gleaming sheet of ice. The slick, black roads were icy and the ground was blanketed in inches of dirty snow, gray under the thin, white moonlight. The sky was a deep, enigmatic blue, disguising itself behind streaming clouds that were too bright for a winter Saturday night, and the house waited behind them as Rodney blew plumes from his cigarette— Romeo half-expected it to solidify and make a statue of itself in the air.

He tore his eyes away from the dissipating smoke and found Rodney's face. His jaw was tight and his eyes were blank, staring ahead into the black abyss of stretching night. His face, for once, wasn't horrifically marred or cut up or bloody, but there was a small, fading bruise on his left cheekbone. Truthfully, it was both confusing and unnerving. It didn't help that Romeo hadn't had the chance to see him since the weekend. It was already mid-week and days apart were becoming an increasingly unusual occurrence for them.

Since Rodney's eighteenth, they'd been attached at the hip. Multiple times a week, they went out after school to the movies or to get food or to drive around and get high, talking about nothing for hours. If they didn't go out then Rodney came over and stayed the night, spending hours asleep in Romeo's bed while Romeo did his homework or hung out with his sister. Then, Rodney would come down and join them for dinner, sleepily charming his mom and Adrienne with quick remarks and cleaned-up, comically censored stories that neither of them fully bought but were amused by nonetheless.

To Romeo's surprise, they welcomed his company. They never complained about the amount of time he spent at the house and Romeo wondered if maybe it was because he was so inoffensive around them, always knowing when to stay out of the way and when to offer his hand. It helped that he seemed to leave just enough time between his visits that his presence wasn't oppressive. A few times, Romeo's mom had even asked about him, curious to know where he was and when he was returning. Somehow, he was a completely different person around them, yet nothing about him rang false or insincere.

He'd taken one of those times as an opportunity to ask her if she was okay with Rodney spending so much time at the house and, surprisingly, the question had shocked her. All he does is sleep, do his homework (he didn't, but she was under the impression that he did), join us for dinner and help run errands. Why wouldn't I be okay with it? And anyway (she lowered her voice at that point even though Rodney hadn't even been over) I don't think he has a very good home life.

Though she and Adrienne didn't seem worried, Romeo, initially, had been intensely apprehensive. With all of the time that they spent together, he was convinced that they would become abruptly sick of each other, but it never happened. Not even a second passed where he wasn't happy to have Rodney next to him in the car or in bed or at the dining table, all to himself. He never tired of running his fingers through Rodney's hair or kissing his head while he slept or gently shaking him awake for dinner or doing favors for his mom with him. He didn't even mind that they spent all of their time at his place and never spent any time at Rodney's.

He hadn't been back since before Rodney's birthday, not because he hadn't wanted to go but because he hadn't been invited— not even to help go through that box of trophies and artwork. When he asked about it, Rodney told him that his grandmother had taken it all. When he probed to find out about Freddie, Rodney, smiling, told him without elaboration that everything— including Freddie— was fine and it was never mentioned again.