PRETTY LOVER BOY - ROGER TAYLOR

XXXIX.

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I invited everyone over to my house for dinner when everything between the boys seemed to fall back into place. It was nice to have people over. As far as I'm concerned, since I moved in, I've been the only one to walk the halls.

"You really know how to pick Chinese, don't you Clems?" Brian laughs as he gets into his car.

"You know me, a takeout connoisseur," I grin, and he shakes his head. "Thank you for coming, seriously."

"Of course, I wouldn't miss it."

I watch as he drives away before turning back to my house, looking up at the stairs.

Everyone's left now, except for Roger who's sitting on the steps. I sigh, meandering up before sitting down next to him, crossing my arms over my knees and setting my chin down on them. It's our first time truly alone in eight years. Just him, me, and the stars as witness.

"How are you?" He asks.

"You look older, it's strange." I reply, dropping my head back loosely to look at him. He seems a little taken back by it but quickly recovers.

"In a hot dad kind of way?" He cocks a brow.

"Yeah, sure, that's exactly what I was going to say," I grin. "No, in a mature kind of way."

"Hmm, I think I'll take it."

It falls silent, and in a weird way, I feel nineteen again, seeing Roger for the first time in that VIP room, feeling his eyes taking me up and down.

"It really is nice to see you again." He says, and whether it's me he's trying to convince or himself, I'm unaware.

"I know I never really said goodbye when I left," I reply, licking my lips, "I wanted to but I thought it would be better if I didn't."

He stares at me for a moment, and I sigh.

"I forgave you, by the way." He tilts his head at me. "For everything. I didn't for a while, I held on to that anger, but it wasn't productive. I had to grow up."

"Was it easy?" He questions.

"Well, the day I decided to forgive you, I pretended that you were sitting on my couch. It took me a while, you know, before everything spilled out. I felt better afterword though. A lot better."

"Do you blame me? For everything?" He asks, out of the blue. I kind of laugh a little, looking up at the stars.

"It was my fault," I pull my legs up, tucking them under me, "I got attached too fast, even though I knew you'd fall in love with someone else eventually. I knew it would happen, I really did. I was glad you held on to me as long as you did though, those were some of the best days of my life. Of course, I woke up for a while, wondering why it had to end. What went wrong. Why we couldn't be forever. It dwindled away, that feeling. You were in love with someone else and I wasn't being fair to myself, I had to let go. No matter how bad I wanted you, I couldn't have you, so I needed to stop."

"I didn't mean to hurt you," he says. I look back over at him, smiling sadly.

"No, I'm glad it did." He stares at me, confused. "That's how I knew it was really love. That absence, that pain, it told me we had something real. That everything was meaningful, somehow."

"Dominique and I got properly divorced a week before you came back," Roger says after a moment.

"I'm sorry," I reply, looking down at my hands.

"We only married to legalize the children," he chuckles, "eight years I dated her. I think the entire time, I was trying to find something in her that wasn't there. She was a fantastic friend, but she didn't have what you did. I don't know what the hell it is that makes you special, but I can't find even a remote copy of it anywhere else."

I glance up at him, those beautiful, melancholy eyes staring right through me, as they did, many times before, and it's real. He's not just saying these things, he means it, with every fiber of his being, I can see it. He means it.

"We would've ruined each other," I say, "we would've torn each other apart, but I don't think I'd have minded. I asked myself every day, what if I never get over you? What if I continue to wake up everyday, with that want deep in my soul, etched there for eternity, like maybe you were the one, but I wasn't."

Roger puts his hands behind him, shifting his weight back on them.

"It killed me to see photographs of you. To see the magazines because all I could think was 'That person used to be mine. She used to be my whole life, my reason to get up in the morning. I loved that person with every bit of my soul.' You wrecked me. We wrecked each other."

"Icarus." I say, and Roger tilts his head. "I loved you the way Icarus loved the sun. It was too close, too much, too fast."

Roger chuckles, looking down. "It's been eight damn years."

"How did we survive it?" I ask, "I don't remember much I don't think. I miss that old apartment sometimes. It was home, but you were too. You were more home to me. I thought leaving would make it better, I don't know why. Maybe it was because I wouldn't have to lay in that bed, stare at the ceiling, feel your presence in the room. It was as much yours as it was mine at that point."

"I think I felt the same way."

"And wasn't it lonely?" I perk up, "when people asked. Did they ask you too? They asked me. God, they asked me. And in those moments, I looked around and I was alone. Impossibly alone. I was isolated. I was for the media, the journalists, the photographers, my chauffeur, that was it. I had no one real."

"I was going to remember you longer than I knew you," he says, wringing his hands in front of him now, elbows on his knees, "I thought about that a lot. It was a few years we knew each other, they felt like forever, but it was nothing compared to that gap. Eight years. Eight years alone."

"Do you remember those talks we used to have on the roof of the coffeehouse?" I ask, looking over at him. He nods. "What did we talk about? I can hardly remember now, hell, I can't remember at all, but it was nice. It was really nice. That's what we were. Hour long talks about nothing important, mindless walks in the park, lounging on the couch at midnight with a shared cigarette. We were art."

"We were a bloody masterpiece." Roger tilts his head back.

"Yes, a bloody fucking masterpiece."

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