Chapter Seventeen Who Framed Roger Rabbit, dir. by Robert Zemeckis #3
There’s still no answer, and Eli lets his head fall against the iron gate. If Peter isn’t here, then he doesn’t know where he could be. He doesn’t know where to go to tell Peter the truth.
He doesn’t know what to do.
“Eli?”
Eli hears the voice from behind, whipping around to face Peter dressed in his climbing clothes, an empty cup of iced coffee
in hand.
“You’re soaking wet.”
“Hey...” Eli’s voice manages to cut through the rain.
“Everything okay? I thought we were getting dinner?” Peter asks him, as if Eli’s world hasn’t been ending for the last hour.
“About that...” Eli starts to say.
“Come inside. You can shower and then we can head out if you want.” Peter steps closer, pulling his keys free of his pocket.
“Or we can eat here? I don’t have many groceries, but maybe we could order something?”
“Peter, I came here because I need to talk to you.”
“Okay, well, we can talk. Let’s go inside.” Peter swings the gate open, letting himself and Eli into the small apartment entrance.
“Is everything okay?”
“No, it’s not,” Eli says, knowing that this can’t wait, knowing that if he allows himself to step into Peter’s apartment,
he’ll never want to admit the truth.
“Are you all right? Did something happen at work?” Peter asks over the echoes of the rain that’s starting to fall again outside.
Eli hates the careful nature of his voice.
“I fucked up,” Eli tells him, plain and simple.
Except there’s nothing simple about this.
Peter stares, obviously confused. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad, we can—”
“You know the article I was writing about you? It wasn’t what I said it was. Well, it was, but it wasn’t.”
“Okay?” Peter stares, confused. A totally valid reaction.
“I wrote two articles. I wrote the article about you, about being gay in the South, about your experiences. But that’s not
what I told my editor, Michael, I was writing. I sprung that piece on him in the hopes that he’d want to publish it.”
Eli can see Peter doing the math in his head. “So, what was the other article?”
“About dating you,” Eli finally says, the words hurting as they leave his lips. “This entire thing, our fake relationship,
me trying to fix you.”
Peter doesn’t say a word.
Eli pulls out his phone, opening his browser where the article sits. He hands Peter the phone, watching as he reads through
it. Eli waits for the revelation, for the confusion to lift, the anger to settle in. He wants Peter to throw his phone down
and smash it into a million tiny pieces; he wants Peter to yell at him, to call him every nasty, terrible name that he can
think of. He wants Peter to hate him, because that would make things so much easier to understand. Instead, Peter gives him
a numb look as he hands Eli back his phone.
His expression hasn’t changed once.
“I don’t understand what this is...” Peter says, hurt carrying his voice. Eli can’t see how there’s any room for misinterpreting
what he’s done. It’s like he wants Eli to explain it to him, though Eli doubts Peter is that cruel. “‘The naivete was a precious defense mechanism, but his
lack of experience slowed him down.’ What is this?”
“It’s an article about fixing you,” Eli admits. “I gave the idea to rehabilitate you to my editor. I thought that I could
trick Michael into reading my other article about you and publishing that instead.”
“My name isn’t in it.”
“I know, I changed it. To protect you.” Which seems hilarious now.
“You wrote this about me?” Peter asks, his voice so soft the rain does its best to hide it.
“Yes. I did. And I’m so sorry, Peter. I don’t have enough words to tell you how sorry I am—”
“So that’s what this was really about? Is this why you wanted to help me? So I could be a subject for this article?” The hurt
in Peter’s voice twists into Eli like a knife. “So you could do this article and get your writer job?”
“No,” Eli tells him. “I never meant for him to publish this article. Most of this isn’t mine, in fact; Keith had to finish
it.”
“But you still wrote everything else?” Peter can only stare at Eli, his expression contorting with the hurt. “You wrote all
of these cruel words, you lied to me, went behind my back, and still wrote this article.”
“Peter, I’m sorry. No one was ever supposed to see it.”
“But people did,” Peter says plainly, with no anger in his voice. Eli hates that he almost wishes Peter would yell, then his
feelings might be clearer.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” Peter says, turning, readying his keys for the door to the garage.
“Peter, please. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to talk to you, Eli. Please, just go home.”
“Peter.”
“You know what the worst part of this is?” Peter asks. “You’re my friend. I knew that a part of this was fake, that this whole
situation was weird, that we were only friends because you wanted something out of me, and I wanted something out of you.
But I really thought...” He pauses. “I thought over these last few weeks that we’d actually become friends. I thought I
finally had someone.”
“You do, you’re—”
“Is this all I am to you? A ‘loser who seems incapable of forming a genuine social connection’?” Eli can’t remember the words exactly, but he can recall seeing a similar string of them in the article. “I can’t believe you’d play with my feelings like this. That you’d write these things about me.”
“That wasn’t me. My editor, he changed what I had, he—”
“Is that really what you think of me?”
“Peter, no! Please! Just let me talk to you.” Eli reaches for Peter, but Peter yanks himself away, as if Eli’s touch burns.
“And you thought you’d get away with it.” Peter huffs, turning away. “Just leave, please.”
“Peter...”
He slides his key into the lock, twisting it. “Go home, Eli,” Peter says, his hand on the doorknob, face hidden in the corner.
“I’m sorry that I ever agreed to this.”
“Peter, please...” Eli feels the desperation rising in his throat. “I... I’m in love with you.” He shouldn’t say the
words. It feels like a guilt trip, but they slip out without his permission.
Peter remains unmoving.
“I’m sorry. I know that I’m going to be saying that for the rest of my life, but I’m sorry. I wish that I could go back and
change things, I wish that I didn’t write this article, and I wish that I had the courage to tell you when I first started
to feel this way, but I didn’t. Just like I can’t change how I feel about you, and how I’m glad that I got to spend time with
you, that I gave you a second chance.” Eli breathes so carefully, as if the world is truly that fragile.
Perhaps it is.
“I’m sorry, Peter. I have so, so many regrets, but you’re not one of them.”
Another long silence filled by the rain that continues to pour down in gallons just a few feet away. A car drives by, honking
at another car, hitting a dip in the street that causes water to splash somewhere.
The seconds turn to minutes, turn to hours as Eli stands there, hoping for something.
For anything at all.
But he has to recognize that he isn’t owed that. He hurt Peter, and whatever reaction he has is a valid one. Eli has to consider
how he’d react if the tables were turned, if Peter had used him for clout, to further his career in a pathetic attempt to
make something of his life.
No matter what, though, that’s not what happened.
He hurt Peter, and no number of imaginary scenarios will ever change that Eli is the one at fault here.
No one else.
“Yeah, I was in love with you too,” Peter finally says, turning the doorknob. “But I guess we both made the wrong choice.”
Peter opens the door, stepping into the garage. And Eli nearly follows him after it slams closed, nearly bangs on the door,
pleads with Peter to hear him out.
But he doesn’t do any of that, because Eli has to be okay with what just happened. He has to accept the truth of the matter.
Because there’s no changing it. Only moving on.
So, with nothing else left to do, he does what Peter told him to.
He goes home.