Page 7 of Romeo vs Romeo

Yesterday morning, I saw the twins at the church again. She had worn a white and gold dress, and he had worn his white shirt, but his pants had been dark green instead of last week’s blue. Throughout the Mass, I had given up on looking at her. He had pulled my attention away from her way too many times, although he didn’t know I existed.

And it wasn’t anything about him exactly. I’d looked at him because he sat right before me by some chance. Whenever my gaze settled on him, anger bubbled deep in my stomach. Anger and hatred, just like Roman Cross had said.

He knew.

I didn’t know how he knew it, but he knew exactly what it felt like.We’ve all been there. Every single one of us. But I couldn’t accept that as truth. None of them had been in my shoes. Had they had to live the way I lived, they wouldn’t be dancing their hearts out every goddamn night.

Whatever the case, Roman Cross had scratched the surface enough to see what was beneath it. Hatred. So much goddamn hatred existed in me that it weighed me down. Literally. It rested on my chest every morning, and I couldn’t lift myself out of the bed.

I sat in my desk chair, drinking my coffee and staring at the dead screen of my laptop. I wondered what I should wear today. It wasn’t like I had anywhere to go. Since graduating from college last year and taking some time off, I’d retreated from all my old circles. At first, it had been the fear of falling into the depravities of my fraternity that had motivated me to never bring down the walls between myself and them, but later, it simply became a habit. When I was alone, nobody tried digging too deep to know me. And when no one knew me, I could be sure my secrets were still mine.

Picking up my phone, I scrolled through photos of people I followed. Good Catholic girls and pious boys, college acquaintances, family members. Then, on a page that didn’t consist of those I followed but was created by an algorithm based on what held my attention, fashion models strolled the runways like peacocks or photographed themselves at all the world’s most visited beaches.

I wondered if I’d soon visit those places on my own. In December, on my twenty-fifth birthday, the trust fund my father had set up for me would finally be released. I wouldn’t need to declare my expenses to my parents anymore. With twelve million dollars in my pockets, I’d be able to go to Mykonos and see all those pretty boys sunbathing on the beaches. I’d go to the Amalfi Coast and lounge in a line of bronze, sweaty guys whose only job in life was to look pretty. Nobody could ask me to justify the bills.

To be perfectly honest with myself, I knew that looking at them like this wasn’t just to get a better sense of fashion. If Iwanted to settle that, I could just hire a stylist. My father was a New York developer responsible for some of the most luxurious locations in the city. There wasn’t a physical problem that his money couldn’t solve. The truth was that—and I often lied to myself about it—I liked looking at them. I liked this moment of fear, of outright panic, of sweat breaking over my palms and my stomach feeling hollow when I scrolled too deep and ended in this wild loop of topless guys flaunting their swimming shorts or underwear.

Lucifer is testing you, I told myself, but the words rang so hollow and fake that I knew they meant nothing to me.He is tempting you with these irresistible things so you will sell your soul to him.But I didn’t believe it. Not truly.

I had lost my faith at the start of college. I didn’t know it until much later, but those were the days that had eradicated what little had been left of my beliefs in a higher power. Dean had done it, although he hadn’t been aware of it. He wasn’t the first or the last guy I had felt this twisted thing for, but he was the one whose touch seared me the most. It was a literal touch that had done it, as if Lucifer’s long finger had reached right where my heart was and burned my faith out of me.

Dean and I had been close friends for the first few months of college. It was a friendship that came quickly, explosively, like something you never thought could happen to you. We both enjoyed baseball, worked out a lot, read the same books, and liked Elvis and the Beatles when other students listened to foul music. It was an easy friendship. Except it wasn’t exactly friendship at all. It was more like an infatuation.

And Dean was aware of it sooner than I had been.

It had happened in the locker room after a workout. We had just showered and began to dress beside each other when he hesitated. He turned to me, stood a little too close for comfort, and said he really liked hanging out with me. Even then, I hadfelt the heat come into my face, but I was too stunned to pull away until he pressed his hand hard against my bare chest and leaned in.

I’d freaked out, leaped back from him, and stared at him wordlessly as all the disgust and shock ripped through me. My face must have shown enough of it for Dean to understand.

He apologized hurriedly, then surrendered to anger as if he had the right to be angry. He cooled off from me because I wouldn’t let him touch me.

Liar, I snapped at myself.He cooled off because you looked at him as if he’d just stabbed you.

My lips curled into a sneer as I remembered it.

Dean fucked off from my life that day, but he had left me a devastated wreck. I thought it was losing a friendship that hurt so much, but I still prayed every night for God to take away these feelings.

He hadn’t been the first boy I looked at with longing, and he sure as hell wasn’t the last, but when Dean gave up on me, it hurt the most. I missed him every day; I missed his laughter, stupid jokes, and casual confidence.

God didn’t take the longing away. He didn’t remove the desire to go back in time and let Dean touch me however he liked. He didn’t heal me, so I turned my back on Him. What difference did it make? He had abandoned me, and I decided He wasn’t real.

But it was too late to reverse all the damage. My parents had brought me up by microdosing guilt into my life, and it was something I could never break free from. Even scrolling down the rabbit hole of shirtless models advertising shorts and underwear filled me with enough bitterness that I thought it might kill me.

Day after day after day, I walked in the dark, banged my head against the wall, and wished there was a way to pretend I wasnormal. To pretend so hard that I believed it. Because it didn’t matter whether He existed or not, my parents, my old friends, and everyone we knew believed. And they had no room in their lives for someone like me.

Those who were like me congregated elsewhere.

Roman

I finished my Wednesday morning shift at Neon Nights, where I picked up odd hours at Mama Viv’s convenience to pad my wallet when I had to. I didn’t mind the work, but I had better things to do with my time. On this particular Wednesday, I hurried to Wall Street in my worn-out jeans and a black T-shirt.

By three in the afternoon, a significant crowd had gathered on Wall Street. There were quite a few familiar faces, although most were strangers to me even after nearly two years of joining causes and movements I believed in. I was often invited to these events because I had introduced myself to the right people early on. To me, it didn’t matter if I earned some connections for networking. I was doing just fine in that department with more friends than I could count off the top of my head. What mattered was that I showed up.

Five minutes past three, there was a tiny, palpable relaxing of the traffic, just enough for a dozen of us to step onto the street and not get run over. Whistles appeared in mouths around me to attract the attention of the drivers. In less than thirty seconds, two dozen of us were in the middle of the street, staging a die-in on Wall Street.

I lay on my back and held my breath for a moment.

Our planet is dying.

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