Note: I'm not really sure of the chances of this happening. I just thought it would be interesting. This is my first stab at Rent fanfiction, and mainly comes from the love I developed for Angel and Collins after seeing Rent for the first time.
It's amazing how time can play tricks on you. How years can go
by like days and days can go by like years. My time with Angel had
been one huge illusion. When she died, it felt like I had known her
forever, like she had always been a part of me. Yet, she left me
so quickly. Those last few days had been like years, and while I
hated to see Angel suffer, I was grateful to be able to realize it was
happening, to get the last words in. We hadn't even been together
for a year, but I knew I would never love someone as much as I had loved
my Angel.
Everyone crumbled after she died. I think because she meant
so much to everyone of us. I found myself trying to be the strong
one after the funeral. I saw what was going to happen if someone
didn't stand up and be strong. We had created a family, a group that
depended on everyone else in it and now we had a missing link. I
felt this emptiness in my chest, like she had taken my heart with her,
yet I could feel it tearing apart every time something reminded me of her,
every time I thought of her. It was another illusion, just like time.
My attempts to keep everyone together didn't work. Maureen and Joanne
continued to have problems, Mark and Roger had a massive fight, Roger ran
off to Santa Fe, Mimi and Benny got back together. It was a huge
mess. We were a huge mess without Angel.
But Angel brought us together again. In her own special
way. Mimi died, I'm thoroughly convinced that Mimi was gone, but
Angel sent her back. Angel told her to stick around. I cried
when Mimi told us that, I cried because I missed Angel so much and just
to know that she had been with us the whole time, probably shaking her
head at how childish and selfish we had been acting without her, that made
me love her more. I didn't even know that it was possible for me
to love her more. I can just hear her, "People! What is going
on here? I move on for a little bit and you all fall apart?
What is with this people? And Mimi, honey, those pants, uh uh!"
I don't know if it was fate that brought us together that first Christmas
Eve, Mark swears that it was, but Angel kept us together the next.
And after Mimi's brush with death, we all felt Angel's presence with us,
a presence we wouldn't allow ourselves to feel after the funeral because
we were too wrapped up in ourselves and what we had lost.
I'm back at NYU now. I'm still teaching philosophy, but
I have a new take on a few things. Like fate. Like spirits
and soul and what living really is. I still feel this distance from
my students, like I've experienced something they will never get the chance
to experience. It's not the easiest thing in the world to realize
that you can live after losing someone that completed you and made you
see life in a completely different light. It's even harder to show
others that it is possible. But sometimes, when I'm missing
Angel an awful lot, I tell them about her. It always gets their attention.
They don't expect their philosophy professor to have loved a drag queen.
They don't expect their philosophy professor to admit to being HIV positive,
and sometimes that's why I tell it. Sometimes I reach them through
my stories, and I know that Angel's there then too.
"Ok, so, Socrates," I say to the class. They are sleepy,
I can tell. The eight o'clock class is always sleepy. The three-thirty
class is always hyper and antsy. Both are full of students though,
because word has gotten around that my class could be a fun one at times.
It definitely is not your traditional philosophy class. I've come
to notice nothing about my life is traditional at all. "His most important
work was?"
"Professor Collins?" a student from the back asks.
"Yes, Steven?"
"Spring break starts tomorrow. We don't want to be here.
Can't we do something more fun?" The class perks up and nods in agreement.
I stick my hands on my hips.
"You mean, Socrates isn't fun?" I ask sarcastically.
"Not unless you add in the part about you streaking past his
statue in Athens!" The class erupts in laughter and I join them.
It comes from deep within me and it feels great. I remember that
when my father died when I was a teenager, I forgot how to laugh.
For months, I was afraid to laugh because I thought it was disrespect toward
him. How was I supposed to laugh when he wasn't around anymore?
How dare I sound happy in the house when Mamma had lost her true love?
But I've lost my true love now too, and I know the last thing Angel would
want is for me to stop laughing.
"Ok, so what do you want to do?" A girl in the front, Allie,
smiles shyly and raises her hand. "Allie?"
"Tell us about Angel," she says softly. I feel a grin come
to face and sense the smiles on the faces of my students. I realize
that they probably learn more about the soul and the philosophy of living
through my stories about Angel than the required readings of Socrates and
Aristotle. They know how I met Angel, they know how Angel helped
me when I had nothing, they know how Angel changed the way I see life.
And because I feel up to it, because I feel that they know Angel well enough
now, I offer something I never thought I'd want to verbally recount.
"I don't think I ever told you about Angel's last days," I say.
A shadow falls on the faces of my students and they look at each other
awkwardly. I give them a reassuring smile. "I've told you more
about Angel than I've told you about Plato. And for some reason,
I don't think that's wrong. I know that it's Plato that helped to
originate the philosophy of life, but Angel had her own way of life, and
for you to fully understand that, you need to know about the end too."
"We don't want Angel to end, Professor Collins," a voice calls
sadly from the middle of the room.
"See, but that's where you're wrong," I say, and I smile but
I can't help the sadness in it. "Angel never ends. When you
truly love, you realize that. There was a short period in time when
I thought Angel was gone and that I would never get to be with her until
I died, but she proved me wrong. She always tends to prove me wrong…"
I trail off.
There were days when I could barely stand looking at him.
It hurt me too much to watch him suffering like that. He would struggle
to sit up just because he needed a hug. He would bury his head in
my shirt, and sometimes he would cry. I didn't cry very much, I always
felt like I had to be strong for him, but it was so goddam hard.
I rarely left his side. I stood behind him with my hands lovingly
on his shoulders as he retched, I placed the cool washcloths on his burning
forehead, I held his hand as he coughed with no end in sight, I wrapped
blankets and my arms around him when he got the shivers. My other
friends always dropped by, because Angel was so important to them too.
Mimi surprised me by coming the most. She would never stay that long,
just long enough for Angel to know that she was there. If he was
sleeping, she would wait until he woke up and would take his other hand
and squeeze it gently. She would look at him with faraway eyes of
realization that someday it would be her on this bed, in this situation.
I think she wondered who would be holding her hand, who would be by her
side, and that's why it hurt her so much. Angel would smile that
beautiful smile at her, and she'd get tears in her eyes, but she never
let them spill over. Sometimes she would tell him about what was
going on in her life, sometimes she'd just sit quietly, holding his hand,
gazing into space. She always kissed him when she left, and told
him that she loved him. I think Angel meant a lot more to Mimi than
any of the rest of us knew. I think that, maybe, Angel was what Mimi
was always trying to be in a way.
It was funny, though. I knew Angel was sick when I met
him, it was one of the first thing's he told me. I had been sick
for almost three years already, but I had no clue how long he had been.
He was so young, I couldn't see how he could have been positive for more
than a year or two. But as long as Angel was dressed up, I could
not believe that she was sick, and if she wasn't sick, neither was I.
She just did not play the role of being sick. She wasn't dying, she
was living. Being sick never depressed me the way it depressed some
people, but with Angel in my life, I didn't even think about it.
Once he started getting worse, I had to. He didn't have the energy
to design the outfits or put on the makeup. He dressed for the last
time in the beginning of October, I think it was. Yeah, it was.
We had all gone to the Life Café, all seven of us and that was the
last time the seven of us were together like that, happy. That night
is vivid in my memory because everyone was getting along, everyone was
in love. Angel had been getting worse for a few weeks, but he wasn't
letting it show that night, he was my Angel. It was like that first
Christmas Eve, that night, it was amazing.
Things just went downhill from there, and for the next three
weeks, I watched him start to slip away. He'd shake, he'd throw up,
he'd get fevers he just couldn't break. I noticed that Roger didn't
come much, and I think it was because he couldn't accept that it was starting.
We were all sick, but up until this point we were all surviving.
I think he knew that once we lost Angel, things would just fizzle out and
die. He was always the one that had the most trouble accepting he
was sick, it always put this big weight on his shoulders. Roger couldn't
admit it, it hurt him to admit it. And I think the fact that Angel
loved life so much and was the first to go, I think that really tore Roger
apart, because Roger never really found that love for life.
I learned later that the day Angel died had been awful for everyone
even though they weren't with him. They had all come that morning,
all together to say goodbye. I had called to tell them I thought
this was it. Angel smiled at them all, assured them that he would
see them soon and had fallen asleep. They all kissed him as they
left and then each hugged me tightly. Maureen and Mimi sobbed, tears
fell silently from Joanne's face, Mark wept openly. Roger stood solemnly,
biting his lip and I later learned that once he was out of the room, he
had burst into uncontrollable tears. Angel slept most of the day.
Our goodbyes were said. I had cried that last time, because God knew
I couldn't help it. He had kissed my face and wiped my tears with
the palm of his hand. He had told me how much he'd miss me, but that
he was going to a better place, a place where we would be together again.
A place where he would be accepted for how he was, where no one would question
the way he lived his life.
Angel woke up one last time in the hospital and immediately tried to
sit up. I moved toward him right away, to help him, but he pushed
me away with a surprising amount of strength. I stepped back, shocked
and hurt, watching him sitting there on the hospital bed. I had this
tightness in my chest that felt like my heart was ripping apart again and
again. His clothes literally hung off him, he was skinny to begin
with, now he was just skin and bones. His head was down and he was
staring at his bare feet. He looked up at me desperately, tears sliding
down his angel-face. He reached his arms out to me and I moved closer,
putting my arms gently around his fragile body. His weak arms were
closed lightly around my waist, his face buried in my shirt. He was
sobbing.
"I don't want to die here," he cried. "Will you take me
home?" He looked up at me, and despite the utter sadness in his eyes,
he smiled that gorgeous smile. I felt my eyes well up.
"Of course, baby." I lifted his body, which was incredibly
light and he placed his arms around my neck and nuzzled his head under
my chin. And I carried my Angel home.
I'm dimly aware that I am crying in front of my class, but my
mind is somewhere else. Their eyes are fixed on me. Some of
them are crying too, others express looks of heartfelt shock. I look
at my watch and see that class is over. I clear my throat and wipe
my eyes.
"Well, that's it for today. Have a great spring break,"
I say. They continue to stare at me. No one moves. "Guys,
you're going to be late for your next class."
"You've never called Angel 'he' before," a voice whispers.
"I know," I reply.
"Did she die right when you got home?" another voice asks.
In an ordinary situation, that person would have been accused of being
insensitive, but this was no ordinary situation. They feel they know
Angel, and they feel comfortable enough with me to ask.
"No. I laid him in the bed and covered him up. And
then I climbed in next to him and watched him sleep for the last time,"
I say.
"I…I just don't see how you can let go of someone like that.
That loved life so much and just…"
"But how could I not go on? That's the whole thing. It
hurt so much to go on, but I couldn't give up either. Angel wouldn't
want me to." Still those gazes. "Ok, guys, I don't want you
to be late. Thanks for listening." The students get up silently,
putting their books into their backpacks. I stand at my podium, organizing
the paperwork littered on it.
"Professor Collins?"
"Yes, Rachel?" I ask.
"I…I just want to thank you for sharing Angel with us.
We can tell how much she meant to you every time you say her name.
I don't think there is any better way for you to get the meaning of life
across to us," Rachel says quietly.
"Thanks, Rachel. I'm glad I could reach you," I reply.
"You both reached me. All of us. You and Angel."
I smile at her as she leaves, feeling a peace in me that I haven't felt
in a long time.