Ping.

Mark looked up from his copy of The Great Gatsby that refused to read itself and wrinkled his nose.

Ping.

There it was again. Something hitting his window. Mark tossed the book aside and threw open his window. Roger stood below, arm reared back and ready to launch.

"Don't!" Mark hissed, not sure if he was more terrified of getting beamed with stones from his mother's Zen rock garden or of the neighbors overhearing. If they heard Mark shouting at a boy throwing rocks at the Cohen house, word would be all over Scarsdale in days. They were giant gossips; it was Westchester, after all.

"Can I come up?" Roger hissed back, dropping his weapon next to the tiny rake of peaceful tranquility.

Mark sighed. He really needed to choose better best friends. Calmer ones. Maybe that kid who always hid in the library during lunch and gym. But that kid picked his nose and didn't play the guitar and probably knew jackshit about cinematography. He sighed again. "Yeah, but stay there. I'll come downstairs."

He didn't exactly run down the stairs, not wanting to get his mother involved since that would definitely be a disaster. She was probably in bed already, but she also had ears like a German Shepherd, specifically trained to the exact pressure of Mark's sneakers. Or so it seemed to him. But throwing rocks at Mark's window wasn't Roger's style. Mark was usually the one tagging after Roger, but Roger never seemed to mind especially if Mark had his parents' camcorder with him, so Mark just kept on doing it. Still, even on the few occasions where Roger had come to him instead of the other way around, he'd rung the doorbell.

When Mark opened the door, he noticed that Roger had a backpack slung over his shoulder and his guitar case clutched in one hand. He also had a wild look in his eyes that nicely matched the black-and-blue that was surrounding one of them. He definitely hadn't had that this afternoon.

"My mother's boyfriend," Roger said by way of explanation, and Mark nodded and forced himself not to freak out yet. He pressed his finger to his lips and gestured wordlessly toward the stairs, grabbing a package of peas from the freezer almost as an afterthought. If anyone asked, he'd say he'd had a craving. It wasn't like anyone was lining up to give Mark an award for the most normal member of his family anyway.

When they got to Mark's bedroom, Mark made Roger sit on the bed and held the frozen peas to Roger's face. Roger shivered, but he didn't complain.

"So what happened with Larry?"

Roger shrugged. "We got into it a little. He called me a lazy ass, which maybe I am, and then said I'd leech off my mom my whole life, which I wouldn't."

That was true. Roger talked about moving to Manhattan almost as often as Mark thought about it. That was the reason for Gatsby; his family was under the impression that all of Mark's movie talk -- his babble about New York City being the center of the universe -- was his precursor to film school at NYU. Mark didn't want to go to film school, he wanted to make films, but he was still a year off from that discussion, so he kept up the ruse. Mark got decent grades, and this way he didn't have to return his bar mitzvah gifts.

"He hit you," Mark said.

"I hit him back. Got in a good couple before he got my eye, too. My mom was screaming and telling us not to fight and I...I--"

Roger's fingers closed around Mark's wrist, and Mark blinked, but Roger only shifted the frozen peas.

"What?" Mark asked. Huh. His voice hadn't cracked like that in nearly a year.

"I told her that she had to pick between us because I couldn't have such a huge asshole around me so much."

"Oh."

Roger exhaled and his shoulders slumped; it made him look deflated, like Mark's bike tire after he rode it through that construction site.

"She didn't pick him," said Roger, his grip tightening a little. "But she didn't say anything. I guess I just snapped. The next thing I know, I'm throwing shit into a backpack and grabbing my guitar and heading over here."

"Oh," Mark said again, awkwardly. He didn't know why Roger would come here, and he was no good with these emotional kinds of things anyway. Not that he'd ever had a fight that serious with his parents before, unless the time when he didn't eat for two days because he wanted a later bedtime so he could watch Hill Street Blues counted. "What are you going to do?"

"Going to the city." Roger let go of Mark's wrist and pulled the peas off his face. Mark winced at the purple swelling, and Roger let out a crazy-sounding laugh. "God, I hope I didn't pack a bunch of Hawaiian shirts and a jock strap."

"Do you even have Hawaiian shirts?" Mark asked. "Do you have a jock strap?"

Roger laughed again and this time it sounded more natural. "I dunno, check the backpack. You wanna come with?"

Mark's eyes got big. "What, to Manhattan? Roger, fuck, we're sixteen! What would we even do?"

Roger shrugged. "Get crappy jobs. I'd join a band, you could film me. We could be roommates! I know a couple of guys who'd let me crash with them...for a little while, at least. You don't mind cockroaches, do you?"

Mark didn't know if he did. And the idea of being free, finally, and free with Roger was killing him with possibility. But parental intervention was a scary thing. He could just see half of the NYPD out searching for him, hauling him out of some dive bar he'd gotten into with a fake ID made by a guy named Fat Tony or something, and driving him back to Scarsdale, lecturing him about the fatality rates of teenaged runaways and then at the end -- at the end of all of that -- his father. Mark shuddered.

"Why don't you just apologize?" Mark said finally.

"I can't do that." Roger's voice was low, soothing. It sounded like he'd known Mark was going to turn him down all along, but just had to ask anyway. "My mom...she'd probably take me back, but the ass will still be there. And I can't anymore. It's not like she's going to send the cops after me or something...I'll call her in a couple days, let her know I'm all right. I need to go."

Roger stood up and grabbed Mark around the neck, pulling him into a manly hug. Mark immediately pressed his forehead into Roger's shoulder and stayed there until Roger muttered into his ear: "Next year, you won't have any excuse."

Mark looked up. Roger pulled away. "Wait," said Mark.

"Can't," said Roger, but he leaned in and pressed a sloppy kiss to Mark's lips. "Later. Thanks for the peas."

Mark wished he could stop Roger, wished he knew what to say to make him stay. But Roger always did what he wanted and Mark could only follow. He sighed and unlocked his door.

"Mark, are you talking to someone?" called his mother from downstairs.

"Shit," Mark muttered, but when he looked behind him, the room was empty and the leaves on the tree outside his window shook, even though there was no breeze. "It's nothing, Mom," he shouted down.

Mark wiped his mouth and wondered how many Hawaiian shirts would fit into a backpack.

END.