He was at the door, almost gone, when his mom reached out for . . . something. Some sort of contact. A half hug, a kiss on the cheek, he didn’t know.
It didn’t matter, honestly.
If she touched him right now, if either of them did, he thought he might shatter like that water glass.
He stepped back from her.
Her hand fell to her side, her green eyes stricken behind those familiar glasses.
Late one winter night, when he’d sneaked out of bed to eavesdrop at the cracked door to their tiny bedroom, he’d heard her weeping. In a tear-choked voice, she’d haltingly explained to her husband how much she missed teaching the kids in her prep school, missed working alongside him. She’d admitted that she found it nearly unbearable to sit across a table from their son day after day, trying in vain to reach him in ways his kindergarten and first-grade teachers hadn’t, couldn’t, while Lawrence shone in the brightness of the outside world.
She’d never make the same amount of money as her husband. Never have his seniority in their department, even if she got her position back.
“I’m feel like I’m l-losing essential p-pieces of myself hour by hour, Lawrence,” she’d sobbed. “And I love Marcus, but I’m not getting through to him, and sometimes I want to shake him, but instead I just have to keep trying to get him to learn—”
The words had tumbled over one another, near hysterical, and Marcus couldn’t doubt the truth in them. He’d carried that truth with him back to bed that night and every night.
Even as he suffered, she did too. Because of him.
So despite the bile in his throat now, he gathered her in his arms. Kissed the top of her head, and let her kiss his cheek. Offered her a wave from inside his car window.
Then he got the fuck out of there, with no idea when or if he’d ever return.
JULIUS CAESAR: REDUX
INT. CLEOPATRA’S BEDROOM – MIDNIGHT
CLEOPATRA stretches out naked on a round, velvet-covered bed, pale in the candlelight. She is everything a man wants. Beautiful and insatiable and a sultry mystery, her ample breasts perky and firm and promising all the world to any hapless man who falls under their sway. MARK ANTONY lies beside her, insensate from pleasure. She literally has him by the short hairs.
CLEOPATRA
Caesar must die. Again.
MARK ANTONY
No! Such treason would besmirch my honor!
CLEOPATRA
You must stake him!
She leans over him, her breasts speaking of sexual frenzy, and he cannot look away from their pendulous swing. No man could, in the face of Eve’s temptation.
MARK ANTONY
If you insist, my treacherous flower.
CLEOPATRA
Fear not that he might rise from the dead once more. No twice-murdered, unnatural creatures have taken blood-soaked revenge on their enemies since the last Ides of March, exactly a year ago today.
MARK ANTONY
Woman is the most unnatural creature of all.
10
THEY WERE DOING THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF POSING AND preening at an indoor water park. Still, Marcus hadn’t objected. Hadn’t asked if their plans were meant to serve as a test of some sort, although he suspected they were.
Let’s meet at 11 at the Cal Academy, April had texted last night, while he stood beneath the too-hot spray of his hotel shower and let it scald him. I’ve been meaning to check out the natural history exhibits, and I thought you might enjoy the planetarium. (Resisted making a star joke there. Yay me.) We can grab lunch at the café. Sound good?
After emerging from the shower, he’d read her text, toweled his hair, and considered the logistics. Sounds good. Why don’t we meet at the café for lots of coffee before we look at rocks and recline in a dark theater? j/k
I think I can manage to keep you awake in the dark, she’d returned. But yes, coffee first.
He’d blinked at that message for a minute, wishing he’d made his shower cold instead.
Flirtation. That was definite flirtation.
For the rest of the night, it was enough to take the edge off the slice of pain in his chest every time he thought about how he’d hurt her as Book!AeneasWouldNever, how he’d miss the Lavineas community, and how his parents had watched him in disappointment and disapproval from across that small table.
Now here he was, standing outside a science museum café on a Monday morning, embarrassingly excited about the prospect of seeing literal stars. Even though he appeared to be the only person in sight not towing along at least one child.