Page 20 of Run, Run, Roommates
We get back to the business of earning points. Marco makes us hot cocoa and we sit at the kitchen table to drink it, working on our candy Christmas tree.
The weird kiss with Marco doesn’t leave my mind, though. I have to tell someone. While Eva’s the most sex-positive person I know, Bea is also the most practical. Bea and I don’t normally have girl chat, but I’ve been hoping to get her to join us at Eva’s brunches, so maybe this would help to open up to her first.
Brin
You won’t believe the week we’ve been having. We’ll tell you all about it when you get home. Hope you’re enjoying the time with your family.
XOXO
Brin and Marco
PS: I may have gotten too much into the holiday spirit and kissed Marco. Argh! What was I thinking?
Bea
I am having a great time. Enjoy your days off and I’ll see you soon.
PS. Wait. Am I supposed to be surprised that you kissed him, or surprised that you haven’t been secretly banging this whole time?
I get that people think we are hooking up since we share a room together. But I think if we didn’t share a room—if I didn’t need to share a room—it would be more likely that something would ever happen between us. Someday, when I’m on better ground, maybe . . .
I don’t know what I would want to happen, and I can’t even begin to dream about it when I still feel so down in the trenches. I react with a surprised face emoji and put my phone back down.
After our edible art is done, we move onto the presents while we have some time before we leave.
There’s a single activity on the list worth six points: attending a school play. Yesterday in the Discord server, someone had created a thread compiling a list of all the plays in the tristate area, and we’d chosen one that worked with my schedule at the restaurant and conveniently wasn’t Christmas-centered or overly religious—more Love, Actually holiday show than a nativity concert at a cathedral.
It’s out in the Bronx, in the afternoon, so we can fit it in before I go to work. On the subway, I swing gently side to side. There’s an elderly Asian person busking, playing “O Holy Night” on a stringed instrument that sits across their lap, also taking up the seat next to them. No one seems to mind, though, and the tune comes out in a hauntingly beautiful, mournful melody.
I look around the subway car, to the middle-aged woman wearing menorah earrings, to the old man wearing a Christmas sweater, to the group of young people with numerous piercings carrying potluck dishes and each sporting the Pride flag in one way or another. This is so different from the little town I grew up in—I didn’t know any Jewish people and the biggest church was conservative Catholic and my mom and her friends would have been scandalized to see a rainbow flag.
If I had gone home this year, like I did last year, I would be headed to church tonight to appease my mom. I’d be listening to a service about the Holy Family being a model for Christian values and how babies are a gift from God. The church would be offering meals to those who need it—with a side of sermon. I’d be listening to people who wouldn’t love Marco and wouldn’t have loved his brother because they’re queer.
Even thinking about it breaks my heart a little.
Our stop is next, so Marco and I make our way to the doors. Marco tosses a bill into the busker’s open instrument case, and I grab on to his jacket as the train sways to a stop.
Out on the street, Marco navigates us to the school, and we join the stream of families filtering into the auditorium. We take two free seats and the obligatory selfie of us with the stage to send in to claim our points.
And then the lights dim, and the show begins right away with a song called “What Do You Celebrate?,” an upbeat number performed by about twenty kids. They sing the song and point to various decorations around the stage. Teachers parade past, holding up paper lanterns and menorahs and drums. Electric candles of all colors line the stage.
The audience claps along, swaying and singing the chorus. Even Marco claps, and I nudge him until he mouths the words along with the rest of us.
When that banger finishes, there’s thunderous applause.
“Holy shit,” I say. “I didn’t know we were in for such a party.”
A man steps out onto the stage, holding his hands up until the audience quiets, and he introduces the program and the next song, “Winter White Hymnal.” A line of teenagers stands, hands over their hearts, and together they pat their chests. The mics pick it up, and a lone singer starts the first lyrics, the rest joining in one by one. The melody is beautiful, another haunting song that reminds me of the busker on the subway. This song is a cappella, nothing but their voices and claps.
There are four more songs, some instrumental and performed by members of the school’s band. Others have backing tracks and are more lyrically focused. Some quiet and low, others upbeat.
One of the quiet and low songs is about coming home, about being loved, no matter where you come from and how you identify. It’s then that I look over and see a tear falling down Marco’s cheek.
He feels my gaze and glances at me before swiping it away. I dig into my purse and find a travel pack of tissues, offering him one. He takes it and wipes his face. When it disappears into his coat pocket, I reach over and thread my fingers through his, squeezing his hand as we watch the rest of the show.
When the performance is over, we rise, still holding hands, and follow the stream of happy families out of the theater.
Our fingers are intertwined and my heart is thudding. My flushed cheeks sting when I exit the building and run smack into the biting wind in the late afternoon.
