Disclaimer: I do not own Rent. Sorry.
Author's notes: This is just a one shot that I came up with thanks to English. I had wanted to work on We Fit Together, but my teacher made me do free write, where we have to read it out loud and I figured that one was getting a bit on the inappropriate side, so I wrote this. And I only read the first paragraph aloud since the rest would get me a first class trip to therapy, but that's the story behind this story.
Angel
I visit her grave once a week. I talk to her and tell her everything that's happened. I ask her for advice; I even ask what's new with her. Sometimes I'll film it. Sometimes I'll do my best at singing her the new song Roger is working on. I do this every week, and nobody knows but me and her. It's our secret. People think that Angel and I weren't that close…that I was sort of scared of her and that I shied away from her…that I only used her for my film. But with me and Angel it was much more than that. She was my Angel.
I had met her once before she took care of Collins. It was when she took care of me. It was the January before everything. Before the disease, and Mimi. It was the January before I had to be responsible. That January was one of the worst times of my life. I was depressed, for some reason or another. I still can't explain it, but at the beginning of the month I just stopped. Eating, talking, sleeping. It was as though my life was on hold; all vital things didn't matter. At the beginning of the month I also started. Making tiny incisions along my waist, where I knew no one would find them. It's not as though I had a girlfriend who was going to be discovering them while we were doing it or anything. And on the last day of January…that was when I went to the top of some abandoned warehouse. I filmed my last message to the world; I had set my camera up so it would watch me fall. It was a dramatic ending, but I am a filmmaker. My feet were on the ledge. I was shaking, but I was ready.
"You OK honey?" They were her first words to me. I hadn't heard her come up behind me. I had been ready, and then her rich, smooth, sensitive alto voice startled me to the point where I fell back onto the roof. And then she was just there for me. She didn't press for information; it was just easy to talk to her. I don't really remember much else about that day, but I can remember just breaking down when I was with her. Full on crying and sobbing. And I can remember that she just sat on the roof with me, rubbing my back in smooth gentle circles until I calmed down. Then she gave me my camera and took me off the roof. I didn't know her name then. And it was the only time I saw her until Collins came back. Then when she showed up in the loft that morning, and I learned her name was Angel, I knew that it wasn't just her name. Angel was her identity.
I know she recognized me from that day on the roof. But she never brought it up. That was the thing about Angel. She always knew when it was OK to bring something up. In all honesty, for a while I did stay away from her. Not because the fact that she was a drag queen made me nervous (that's what everyone thought) but because I was scared she would bring up that night. After a while I learned that she wouldn't, but our friendship remained behind closed doors. We were both morning people, and Collins wasn't, so a lot of the time we would get together somewhere for coffee. She was who listened to me, because I had no one else to talk to. Angel was the one I could talk to about how I found April. How I had woken up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and I got into the bathroom, slipping on the blood and fracturing my wrist. That I was the first one who knew that Roger was sick. And she was the only one who understood how it might have affected me.
When she died, and Roger left, and I had sole my soul to the devil (Alexi) I relapsed into January. I was cutting my hips and not eating again. About a week into I started getting sick. And I realized that one of the times I had cut myself, I had used a razor Roger had left behind, and after I got tested I learned that he had cut himself with it. I couldn't tell anyone, so I pulled a January.
It was at the loft this time. And I didn't film a new message. I found the reel of the old one, and started to play it as I went onto the fire escape, setting up my camera to watch me fall. And once again I was ready. "You OK honey?"
And there was that voice. Angel. Almost an exact repeats of events occurred. I fell back into the apartment, and I started to cry. I don't know how long I was there for, but the entire time I felt like Angel was there, telling me it was OK. And after a while I felt like I really was.
Just like last time, it was our secret. I still haven't told anyone that I'm HIV positive. Roger's back of again, but if he knew…and that I technically got it from him…I couldn't do that to Roger. Nobody knows about my trying to kill myself. Nobody knows that Angel saved me twice. That once it really was an Angel.
Any time that I feel like I'm going that way again, I just talk to Angel. Angel was my Angel. Angel is my Angel. Angel is an Angel.
There's that. I promise I'll have lots of new stuff for We Fit Together this weekend.