Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's.
RogerApril looked beautiful. Stunning, really; she was the prettiest girl at the wedding. Looked way better than Alison, who was too thin by half and her eyes flamed red from crying. Not April, though. April was… a vision, wearing a slouchy navy dress and a black sweater, making her hair and her eyes even brighter. And her lips. Oh, god, her lips.
In our bedroom that morning she gave him a flash of her dress without the sweater. She wasn't wearing a bra, so her breasts just hung, full and heavy and buoyant and incredibly sexy. (By the time he had finished celebrating with himself reveling in her beauty, they were late).
It bummed him out, though, because he kept remembering his mother's wedding. His little sister had been seven, maybe eight, wearing all black with red high-top sneakers. So cute. It was her second marriage, so his mom didn't wear white. Alison wore weight. Roger's mom, though, wore the world's lightest shade of blue, and she looked splendid and happy in that dress because she knew she was beautiful.
Anyway, that whole time Roger just kept thinking about his mom's wedding, especially when Benny had to move the ceremony to the covered picnic area and there were plastic climbing gyms and swings in the background of the ceremony. In the transition between ceremony and reception, Roger needed to slip away. He just needed one—a little bit. He just needed a dab, just to get him through the next few hours.
"Roger?"
She had followed him. They were just far enough away to avoid being heard. "Please, Roger… not today. For Benny?"
Roger hunched his shoulders. "It's just on, 'Ril. I just need a little one."
She trembled slightly, because she knew. These arguments always ended the same. She begged and tried to argue, and Roger lost his temper and he showed her the scars she couldn't stand to see and Jesus Christ, April, you weren't there, you don't know, but just listen please Roger please listen to me, god dammit April, you just don't know!
He made her feel like a spoiled little brat. A privileged ignoramus.
This time she just nodded. You love smack more than you love me, Roger. "Just a little one, then," she said softly, and he didn't know what it was in her tone that made him hate himself.
Fucking bitch.
When the time for the toast came, Benny scanned the crowd for his best man, but Roger was off somewhere getting too high to care. So Mark reached into the pocket of a leather jacket that didn't fit him because it didn't belong to him, and he read the words off a neatly folded piece of paper.
Friends, Romans, countrymen, I come to see Benny married… no, seriously. It's my job to make sure he doesn't duck out at the last minute. [pause for laughter (had Roger been reading there would have been some) I met Benny just over a year ago, when he moved into the bedroom opposite mine. He was different then. He was younger, very idealistic, and most noticeably of all he had hair. He was also a business major, and I worried that this new friend had no purpose but to grub for money. This concern worsened when he took a job employing said major. Then… one day we were walking through the park and we saw a group of thugs beating up a homeless kid. Benny took out his wallet and told the thugs he would give them one hundred dollars to leave the kid alone. That was serious cash for us, but he gave it up to help someone who needed it. That's when I knew he was a good man. Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; and, sure, he is an honorable man.
But coming from Mark, it just sounded stupid. He quoted Shakespeare like an eleven-year-old talking about blowjobs; he blushed and stammered at the mentions of money. Benny raised his glass appreciatively, but even Mark saw the pity in that little gesture.
to be continued!
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