Author's Note: Hey sorry this took so long, I was away (I guess I still am… sort of). Anyway, this chapter is a bit choppy… I'm not sort if it turned out as well as I went it to. I will be adding more soon as soon as I find a working computer. Hope you enjoy!
Monday morning, I wasn't sure how I managed to get out of bed, I was so tried. Though I must say I woke up a bit when I walked out of my front door to see Roger standing in my drive way.
"What on Earth are you doing here?" I angled my camera at him.
"Good morning to you too." We started to walk together. "I thought I would escort you to school this morning."
"I'm not gonna get lost, you know."
"Yeah, but if someone throws more books at you, I'll be here."
"To do what?" I snorted skeptically.
"I don't know… Help find your glasses if they fall off…Oh, I could put band-aids on your cuts or kiss them better." He laughed. I could feel my facing going red.
"Ah… I think I'll be okay." Roger shrugged and rolled up his sleeves. I looked down and saw that right below his wrist there was a huge cut that went almost all the way across. It looked to be all most healed but still was still a bit red. "Oh my God, what happened to you?"
"Oh, sorry for caring Mark. I'll let you get hit in the face next time." He scoffed.
"No, I mean your wrist." He looked down at it and then covered it up.
"Oh, that's nothing."
"But are you okay? What happened?"
"It was…a cat."
"What?"
"I was attacked… by a cat."
"You don't own a cat."
"I didn't say it was my cat, I said it was a cat."
"But that still-"
"So when's that History thing do?" He clearly wasn't going to answer me so I let it go.
"Soon."
"No, I thought it wasn't due for like a mouth."
"That is soon considering all the shit we have to do."
"Hey, so after school me and Collins were going to go to that little café, you should come to." My heart fluttered a bit. The more time I could spend with Roger and away from home the better.
"Okay. Oh, but remember we have practice after school."
"I thought you said you didn't want to play Benvoilo?"
"Well I changed my mind." Roger beamed at the news.
"That's great. Hey you should help me go over same stuff at lunch time."
"Sure, how's Queen Mab going?"
"She's a bitch."
"Well that's Shakespeare for ya."
"'And in this state she gallops night by night, Trough lovers brains and they dream love…' Ah, what's comes next?" He gave up again.
"'O're courtiers knees?"
"What? Lets me see that." Roger reached across the lunch table and snatched my script away from me. "What the hell?"
"I told you."
"What does that even mean?"
"Who knows." I snatched it back from him. I took a look around the room, a about a hand full for people from surrounding tables kept glancing at us.
"Ignore them."
"I was." I turned back to Roger. God, he had the greenest eyes I'd ever seen. "So where's Maureen today." I replaced my fascination with his eyes with my fear of seeing Maureen. Ever since Roger had asked me to see him over lunch I was afraid of running in to her.
"You're going to have to talk to her sometime."
"Not necessarily." I shifted uneasily.
"She's back in the play."
"Of course she is." I sighed and sunk down in my seat a little.
"Do you still love her?" Now it was Roger's turn to blunt with the questioning.
"No." I said too fast.
"Really?" I didn't think he believed me. "Well, just make sure you come today, I think you'll enjoy yourself."
I really did have a good time. Just after getting there Roger pointed out Joanne to me. I couldn't say I was thrilled when I found out thatMiss Angel made her the assistant director. But I was after I saw just how much she and Maureen fought even more then we did. Every second Maureen wasn't on stage she was being pulled to the side by Joanne to bicker about something new. This made me feel great. I always enjoy seeing Roger do such a good job with most his lines. Maybe he couldn't get queen Mab down, but he did everything else perfectly.
"Do you think she'll make us wear tights?" I asked Roger as we strolled out of the school.
"What?" he looked puzzled.
"Well, we haven't talked about costumes yet, and I was just wondering."
"Oh, I don' think she would do that." Roger lips spread once again into that sly grin.
"Why?"
"Because no one would watch the play." He stated as if it made prefect sense.
"Okay…why?"
"Well, It's simple really. They'd be so mesmerized by the sight of you in tights that they wouldn't concentrate on anything else." Now I was the puzzled one. "Hey, I'll be right back. I need to give Maureen back her script."
"Why do you have Maureen's script?"
"Because she already has her lines down and my script is…misplaced."
"You lost your script!"
"No," Roger looked as though that statement was outrageous. "I just don't know where it is."
"But that is-"
"I will be right back."
I felt strangely at peace standing there alone in that empty parking lot. It was a prefect place for filming. Slowly dying golden orange trees, their leafs blowing everywhere in the chilly November air. Things were really starting to look up for me, all thanks to Roger. I was on top of the world, nothing could bring me down, not even Jim. Of course, my luck being what it was, I spoke too soon.
"Have fun in the theater, Fag?" Jim and his two little zombies were fast approaching. Oh Lord, why now? I had no where to hid either. As usual they give me a sharp shove and ripped my camera away. I was getting really sick of this.
"Give it back." I breathed with little to no energy.
"Oh, are you sad that you won't be able to film your boyfriend any more?"
"He not my…" Why do I even bother?
"Why are you two even here? No one wants you here. That's the last thing we need, a coke head and a faggot."
"Look, asshole, my name's Mark. Are you really that stupid that you can't remember?" Why the hell did I say that? They looked at me stunned- almost as stunned as I was- until Jim delivered a very powerful blow to my stomach. I fell, doubled over in pain; they made more comments or more likely insults. After I made sure I wasn't going to throw up, I wearily got to my feet and did one of the stupidest thing I'd even done. I punch Jim in the face, which did nothing but make him mad and hurt my hand. Figuring they had to 'teach me a lesson' they throw me to the ground and began to kick me repetitively. Shielding my face I endured this torture, but not as long as I thought.
"What the hell are you doing?" I dare not look up yet. All I heard was even more yelling and punches being thrown. The three men were being pulled off me. I opened my eyes to see one of my attackers was already leaving, one was being pushed away by a tall black man I did not recognize, and Jim and Roger rolling around on the ground in what looked like I death match. The other attacker left and the man turned to face me, reaching out his hand.
"Need some help?" I took his hand and he helped me to my feet.
"Thank you...Ah." The man smiled one of the biggest smiles I'd ever seem.
"Collins. And you're welcome. You must be Mark." He shook my hand with a very tight grip.
"Yes, nice to meet you." I said just as Roger and Jim released each other. Jim ran off with his buddies, Roger stayed on the ground.
"Yeah and remember," he shouted, a bit out of breath "You fuck with him again and I'll mess you up!"
"Wow, you need to calm down, man." Collins helped him up as well.
"Are you boys alright?" Miss Angel came running out of the school. When she got to us she threw her arms around me. "I so happy Mark, now we have witnesses! We can at least get them suspended for a few weeks, won't that be nice."
"Yeah," I don't know what they'll do when they get back, but it's still nice.
"And thank you Roger," She smiled at him. "You okay, honey?" she turned to Collins.
"Yeah, I'll be fine." His nose was bleeding a little and there was a cut on his hand.
"Oh, no, why don't you come to my office I'll get you cleaned up. I'm Angel." Collins smile broadly at her.
"Angel…indeed. I'm Collins, Tom Collins." They walked towards the school. "I'll catch up with you later Roger."
Now we were standing alone. Roger handed me my camera.
"So, how are you feeling?"
"Considering that I just had the shit kicked out of me, pretty good." I meant it to.
"That's good."
"Thank you Roger, really."
"It was nothing."
"I didn't know you could be so aggressive."
"Well Benvolio," He put his arm around me. I was still very sore, but I didn't want to break the contact. "I'm here, and I've got your back. You know what they say, men in tights stick together."
"What?" I laughed "I thought you said she wasn't going to make us wear them."
"Well, you know what I mean."
"Not really."
"Still want to go out for coffee?"
"I'd like that."
