Wherefore Art Thou Romeo? ✓

twenty one

TW: mentions of rough sex, panic attacks, domestic violence, suicidal ideation

early summer 2018

THE LATE AFTERNOON sun was breaking, hot and bright, through the bedroom window and Romeo wished he was dead.

There was a party happening that they had both been invited to— a post-graduation, end-of-high-school party for all of the seniors. Finals were over, prom was over, graduation was over, school was over, everything was over.

Romeo had taken all of his exams, breezed through some and prayed through others, and received his diploma like all of his classmates, like his acquaintances, like his exes, like his friends, like his Rodney.

He'd skipped prom— even though all of his friends had gone— to spend a night with Rodney, lying under the black sky together in the flower garden, the night breeze cool over their pale, moonlit skin, their elbows grazing, their silence hanging between them like one of those dead, burning stars above their heads.

They'd gone to the diner earlier and stolen food from each other's plates, saying little and exchanging looks but never at the same time, and cleared out hours before people from school would be showing up for greasy food and milkshakes after whatever afterparties they might attend. Rodney had thrown the cash on the table, leaving more than he needed to like he always did, and walked out alone, seeming to trust that Romeo would follow— which he did.

Rodney, in all his prom night glory, had been wearing, as he almost always was, an old black t-shirt, beat-up sneakers and the same loose jeans he always wore, resting low on his hips. When he stretched his arms out above his head, his t-shirt exposed a sliver of toned midriff, sometimes the waistband of his underwear and sometimes his sharp, ivory hip bones and the lovebites that Romeo had left there. His dark hair was getting longer again, shaggier on the top and thicker at the nape of his neck.

He'd been tired, rubbing his eyes and sinking into the dark pitch of silence, and the night before he had been grinding his teeth and sniffing hard, stretching and scrunching his nose, anxiously pinching and tugging at the tip with his thumb and forefinger; his dark eyes hollowed with deep purple bags and bloodshot like the life inside of them had been sliced and was spilling out.

He'd smoked a lot of cigarettes, lighting one after another after another, and the familiar scent of smoke mixed with the familiar spice of his cologne, the same smell that clung to everything in Romeo's room; his clothes, his bedsheets, his pillows. The entire feeling of his room was tainted with Rodney, traces of his touch and presence and essence, in the family photos and the dresser and the laptop and the books almost like the space had morphed around him, defined and shaped itself to him; the window became a seat, gusts of wind blowing into the room, when he smoked out of it, the bedsheets wrinkled with his sleep— some restless attempts and other comatose nights— and the drawers stuffed and the surfaces littered with his underwear, his sweatpants, his pills, his lighters, his origami frogs and rabbits and cats, Freddie waiting faithfully on the bed each night for his return.

On prom night, after they'd hopped the fence and left the flower garden, leaving midnight behind them, he had told Romeo that he wanted a cat, that a cat would be good for them, and Romeo, surprised by the absurd suggestion, had laughed. For the first time all night, Rodney's cruel, beautiful lips tugged into a smirk and Romeo asked what the hell he was talking about.

A cat, Rodney told him. It would be good for us. A nice black cat. And we'd take it with us.

Take it with us where? Romeo teased.

Wherever we go, Rodney grinned, revealing his wolfish teeth under the moonlight; the fangs, the sharp, small dent in his front left tooth that was either from being punched in the face or from grinding his teeth together too much. Wherever we run away.