#robee

They never fought. For any couple, this was an accomplishment. For a couple involving Roman, this was a miracle. He’d found all throughout his life that there was a certain quality to him that made him difficult to get along with; even in lieu of a problem arising, he had a penchant for digging at the rawest parts of a person. The patience of a Saint, Passero. That’s what his mother had said of Bee when she’d met her. His mother liked Bee. He liked Bee. 

And yet, they were fighting. 

It’d started small: bickering. That, at least, they did often. With Bee it was a sign of affection, the exchange of a fond comment darkened with teasing, the return of an unexpectedly witty reply. “You’re so nosy,” He’d said, tilting his phone screen away from her prying eyes beside him. “You’re always so suspicious.” She’d said back, and he’d taken it as a challenge, a joke. Locked his screen. 

Usually he was good in these situations; Roman was so used to being on offence and defense at the same time, practiced at dishing out and never accepting what was given back. It takes ten thousand hours to master a skill, words from Mr Juarez back in high school that had ticked around in Roman’s head during multiple hours of multiple days spent fine tuning instruments and straining to high notes. He figured he’d spent much longer fighting than he’d ever spent trying to be good at something. 

It was different with Bee. He was taken off guard. Even now, he found himself with a finger reaching for a lock of her hair, hands confused not to be doing what they did for her so often: caress, embrace. Even when they shouldn’t have, when they should have been focused on someone else.   

That roadtrip they’d taken, he’d shown her his home, where he’d grown up. Roman Agnello, is this your little girlfriend? And they’d joked, yes, and before long he’d wanted that. Wanted that more than he’d wanted something outside of simple ambition for a long time. He’d felt comfortable with her, wanted her to know him -- he’d showed her all of the places that he never went back to, because they were all him. 

Douggie. What was then a harmless insight into Roman’s past was now an uncomfortable breach of privacy. This was where we used to meet, this was where we hid from everyone, this was where he worked, this was where they crashed. This was where I thought I loved him for the first time. He wished he could take it back, all the love he’d expressed for a ghost. But there was the issue: Douggie was always in his thoughts, and Bee was always the person he wanted to share his thoughts with. A to B, it was a simple leap. And he’d gotten so used to thinking of Douggie in the past tense, accepted that he’d never come back, never be something for Bee to think twice about. And then.

I don’t know. That was the reply that came to him. After, when that was deemed unworthy, Nothing. But he thought of a night spent on Douggie’s chest, listening to his breath, laughing at his words. He couldn’t say it, didn’t want to lie. Didn’t want her to be through with him. He tugged gently on a curl of her hair. It bounced up and away from his touch. 

“Bee,” He said, and his eyes were on her lips, debating kissing them, debating burying words and replacing them instead with touch. With physicality, surely she’d understand his affection. To her, he was warm. On her, he was coming to depend. Wasn’t that enough? But the edges of her lips -- pink, soft, plump -- were turning down. A setting of her mouth, a resistance. Against what? Saying something else? “It’s not like that.” 

Vague. It could have meant anything, or nothing. But it was all he had. He worked at it. 

“Just believe me. I’m with you. I wouldn’t do that.” That, which he’d done to Aila. That, which had seemed so doable when his feelings for her had faded, when another connection seemed stronger. 

A distant memory of Douggie’s hands in a girls hair, of his phone lighting up with someone else’s name. 

Something uncomfortable turned in his stomach. A thumb traversed Bee’s chin, offered itself to her cheek.