Wherefore Art Thou Romeo? ✓

seventeen

late spring 2018

HE STARED AT Rodney. He was sitting in the driver's seat with his arms folded over his chest and his sharp, beautiful face drawn into a petulant scowl. "You really don't think that this is a problem?" Romeo asked, studying the curves of his stubborn eyes and long thick eyelashes, the lines of his lovely pink lips and straight-bridged nose.

"No," he said flatly, his brow furrowed and his dark eyes hard, staring straight ahead through the windshield. "I really don't think that this is a problem."

Rodney's car was in an empty parking lot, overlooking an empty, overgrown field. The tall, unkempt grass blew gently in the May breeze, the blades moving and resting against each other, like little bent heads resting on shoulders under the pale cornflower sky.

There had been no plan for the day. Instead, after not seeing each other so much through the week, Rodney had called and told him that he would be outside the house in twenty minutes, just so that they could be together for a while.

An hour of driving around had grown tiring and they had decided to park for a while until they felt like going for something to eat, but a once relaxed, lazy conversation had begun to spiral and Romeo could feel a little twitch in the depth of his stomach growing tighter.

He blinked and then, with his body angled towards Rodney, moved back, his shoulders pressed against the car window. "Then you're delusional," he decided plainly, brows raised, his left elbow pushing into the passenger's seat.

"I'm delusional," Rodney scoffed, inspecting his knuckled hands and slender fingers and squared nails, his dark hair falling over his forehead. There was a tense energy brimming inside of him, his jaw shifting slightly and his eyes failing to dart up.

"How could you not think that this is a problem?" Romeo demanded, brow creasing and his nails pulsing into his closed palm, embedding half-moons in his skin. His voice had lost its usual silver melody and he spoke in a swift, firm tone. "There's a complete lack of emotional vulnerability in our relationship."

"Bullshit," he muttered, still refusing to look up, still inspecting his hands. Romeo couldn't help glancing at them. He knew those hands better than he knew his own. "There isn't a lack of anything in our relationship. We're fine."

"If we were fine then we wouldn't be arguing," he replied briskly, his face turning to a marble frown.

"We're not arguing," Rodney snapped, his head darting up. There was a cold glare in his eyes and the blunt edge of denial in his voice.    

"Sounds to me like we're arguing," he mumbled, falling against his seat and staring out of the window, pulling his shoulder into himself and trying to turn his back to Rodney.

"It's not an argument," he insisted, his voice taut with an impatience that he was failing to restrain, irritation spilling through every word. "It's a disagreement that you're getting too upset over."

"I'm not upset," he shot, sitting up taller and whipping around. "I'm annoyed because you always fucking dismiss me whenever I bring up the fact that you're completely unwilling to be vulnerable. I'm trying to communicate with you. I'm trying to tell you how I fucking feel and all you do is shut me down and say that I'm getting upset over nothing. How is that fair?"

"My god," he mumbled, shaking his head and turning his head away, staring out of his window.

Romeo narrowed his eyes. "You're only sulking because you know I'm right."

"I'm not sulking."

"You are sulking," he insisted swiftly with a quick, matter-of-fact voice, "and it's because I'm right." His eyes were fixed on the sharp line of Rodney's jaw; his tightened throat; the bulb of his cheekbone. "I don't even really know anything about you."