Disclaimer: I don't own RENT, Angel Rodriguez (the movie from HBO), or anything else in here...like...Pulsar or whatever. I own nothing! -waves hands around-
"Faggot!"
"But Papi, I-"
"Don't 'but Papi' me, you little queer! Get the FUCK out of my house!" With that, Samuel Rodriguez pushed his son, Angel, out of the tiny duplex. Angel could hear his father locking the various bolts and locks on the door, assuring that he wouldn't get back in.
Helpless, Angel began his trek down to the only place he thought to go- T's. His feet, clad in six-inch platform heels, trudged along the cracked ghetto sidewalk to his "best friend's" apartment. (Really, the two had nothing in common. Angel only played along with him to keep up the illusion of his masculinity.)
Hoping he wouldn't get the same response from T as from his father, he rang the buzzer and waited for T to appear at the door.
"T?" Angel asked cautiously when the overweight boy opened the battered, white door. "It's Angel."
"Angel?" T said, incredulous. After a pause, he said, "I think you got the wrong T, man. Go get some help." With that, T slammed the door in Angel's face and left him out in the cold.
A chill wild blew by, causing Angel's longish blonde with to blow around his slender face, and his tacky pink shirt to blow around his…HER thighs.
Angel sighed loudly, the sound shuddery and nervous. She noticed after several minutes that she was crying. That combined with her cheap, thrift-store wig, warranted that she was getting more than a few stares from the people passing by her on the sidewalk. She backed slowly up to the wall of the building she was in front of and started walking to…who knows where.
Suddenly, she remembered something the school psychiatrist had told her and her homeroom class at the beginning of the year.
"If you're ever feeling lost or like you need help, you can see me after school before eight PM, and I'll be there to listen."
Angel looked down at her bright blue "Swatch". It was 7:26. If she hurried, she might be able to make it to school in time. (This was ironic, because Angel was never usually in a hurry to get to school.) PS251 was only 16 blocks away. Breaking into an ungainly run (Angel had had plenty of practice walking in heels, but running was another situation entirely), she headed full speed down the street.
Angel finally made it to school at 7:56, just as Mrs. Donahue was going out to her car.
"Wait!" Angel cried, funning to the small-framed woman as fast as she could without falling. Angel saw her reach into her purse for something (presumably pepper spray or something similar) when she stopped her.
"Wait, Mrs., Donahue! It's Angel." Angel pulled her wig off quickly, making the therapist's jaw drop.
"A-Angel…?" Mrs. Donahue stuttered, clearly shaken.
"Yeah." She said quietly, putting the gaudy wig back on carefully.
"Ah," The psychiatrist coughed into her hand. "Why are you here, Angel?" She asked, putting her teacher's manual and other assorted books on the top of her red Pulsar.
"My dad kicked me out." Angel muttered, rubbing under her eye where her father had punched her before pushing her out the door. Her hand came back black; her mascara was dripping down her face. "Shit." She muttered.
"So I take it you don't have anywhere to stay?"
"Yeah."
Mrs. Donahue nodded and dug through her purse for a moment. After a moment, the woman let out an exasperated sigh and turned to Angel.
"You can stay with me and my family tonight, I suppose. I'm sure my husband has-" She paused for a second. "Er, I have…"
"Either is fine." Angel murmured, dabbing at her streaked face with a corner of her red, puffy jacket. She probably would have said more, but by now she was completely exhausted.
"Alright, good. We'll contact your parents tomorrow after school. If they won't-"
"They won't take me back." Angel stated cynically.
"If they won't take you back," The psychiatrist tried again. "I'll get you to some people that can watch after you until they do."
"They're never going to take me back." Angel said again.
"Never say never, sweetie." Mrs. Donahue said, climbing into the driver's side of that compact vehicle and grabbing her books off the roof at the same time. Angel followed suit, getting in on the passenger's side.
Mrs. Donahue lived in the suburbs, so it took about 45 minutes to get to her home. Or, at least, that's what Angel inferred; she fell asleep almost the instant she sat down in the car.
The psychiatrist lived in an average suburban home with an average suburban family in an average suburban neighborhood in the average suburban community of Lansdale.
Mr. Donahue, who incidentally drove a Suburban, was a lawyer. He seemed pleasant enough, but Angel could detect a shadow of disgust in his hard blue eyes.
Their six-year-old daughter, Louise, took an immediate liking to Angel. The little girl followed her everywhere from the moment she stepped in the door. When Louise asked her name, and Angel told her so, the child seemed overjoyed.
"Really? You're an angel?" She squealed, her little hands moving up to cover her open mouth. Angel laughed.
"Yup." She replied with a smile.
"What does Jesus think of me?" Louise asked, in the innocent, completely sincere way that only a small child can say. Angel smiled knowingly and bent down to meet the girl's gaze.
"Jesus loves you, because Jesus loves everybody."
Though she had never been very religious, Angel had remembered that bit from a sermon when she was around Louise's age, back when her family still went to church. It seemed to be the right thing to say, because the little girl's face lit up and Mrs. Donahue smiled at the both of them.
She had heard from the psychiatrist and several other people that this bright-eyes little girl was suffering from leukemia, but it definitely didn't show on her. Angel had never been that close to sick people before. Was disease always visible, or did it just hide away inside until the time came for it to be unleashed?
A/N: I have no clue where that Jesus thing came from, I'm an atheist. XD But it works!