Disclaimer: It's Jonathan Larson's. I'm just playing.
They offered to hire me on the spot. I asked for time. They gave me twenty-four hours to say yes or no.
On the train ride home, all I could think was, how can I leave Roger? We've been together for nearly seventeen years and written when we were apart. I swore I would never leave him-- Roger and I were never lovers or anything more than blood brothers (this was when we were young and neither of us was HIV-positive), but that was enough.
"How did you meet him?" Mark asked me, later that day.
"We were in the same home for a while."
"Home…?"
"Saint Thomas's."
"You mean you and Roger were…?"
I nodded. "Foundlings, yes."
"But," Mark protested, "but Roger has a mother! She calls here all the time!"
Once again, I nodded. "Mrs. Davis. The Davises adopted Roger when he was eight. Before that, he was in the home for about two years."
How could I leave Roger, now, just when he was finishing his physical withdrawal? He was going to have to figure himself out all over again, and I could not leave him to go through that alone.
MIT could suck it; family came first. But I wanted to go to MIT, and really, said a voice in my head, shouldn't I get it?
Then I walked into the loft, and I saw Roger sitting cross-legged on the couch with his head bowed. Mark sat before him, and he was reached over to fasten a necklace around Roger's neck. Roger held that star so tightly that, in his sleep, it punctured his hand.
That was when I knew I could leave. I could leave Roger with Mark.
I never considered Roger a burden-- I liked the kid-- but it was so much easier to breathe knowing someone would look after him for me.
To be continued.