Mark had tried to hate her. Wanted to hate her, really. He had all the reasons…who wouldn't hate the person who was making your best friend disintegrate before your eyes, who'd been the last straw in making another friend leave, who had essentially fucked it all up for all of them…but something, some strange connection or sympathy or something kept him in a small, secret admiration of her.
Most people would say there wasn't much to admire, and he'd agree to that much. Indeed she'd always seemed skanky, unreliable, too wild. Not wild in the way Roger was wild; Roger's wild was rebellious, punk, but charming. April's wild was the kind that wanted to dabble in everything and didn't care…Mark often told himself she didn't care about Roger, would simply leave him flat, but something kept them together for almost three years. At first it really might have been love…probably was, there was passion there…but it was obvious that soon it became the drugs…he remembered vividly the bitter feuds they'd had, remembered the one on Christmas of their second year together, the two of them screaming with all hell let loose and it had sent April sobbing out the door and down the white-frosted street. Mark and Maureen had watched her, red hair streaming, as she took off, wondering if this would be the time she didn't return. Roger paced in the corner, refusing to look their way.
But April wasn't the only one who cried over their failing love; how many times had he stood outside Roger's door, listening to the low sobs that his friend denied ever indulging in?. Denied them out of pride or something.
Mark wondered why they couldn't just stop. Go to rehab and let someone help them for once, be done with all this shit. Well, he wasn't so dumb as to think it was easy, but didn't they want to get better? They all wondered, but him the most…this wasn't the Roger Davis he'd grown up with, wasn't the hopeful musician who was his best friend- he watched the two of them, Roger and April, shooting up and that was the worst, he thought, that it could possibly get- this Roger merely seemed a shell. Still he convinced himself that it would change.
But by the middle of the second year they'd been together, it seemed hopeless…everyone had started to drift apart by then, anyways. He dug out the duct-taped shoeboxes stuffed with the tapes and photos he'd taken starting then, and even from them he could detect something under the surface, something dulling the group of friends that always seemed so dynamic before- Mark didn't like April; and April didn't like Maureen; Maureen didn't like Benny; Benny didn't like April, either; Roger didn't like Maureen, and Collins was the only one who was civil to everyone. Yes, something had been pulling them apart even back then.
That's when Benny had left. A little after. Officially moved out and pretty much said he didn't give a rat's ass about any of them. He never could stand April; he didn't even bother to be semi-courteous to her as Mark was. Before he'd moved out, he pulled Roger aside and finally told him what he thought of her, and their relationship.
Roger didn't talk to Benny after that.
Mark knew that he was practically pulling himself apart, trying to be on decent terms with everybody. He knew Collins felt it too, and knowing he could identify at least gave him a little encouragement. But a little doesn't go far in New York City, and he felt that frustration, the helplessness seeping into his thoughts. The frustration always came back to their relationships. That always came back to problems, which always came back to April. This was how his mind chased circles around itself each night. He hated it. Hated those circles, the useless hours spent thinking about all of their fuck-ups and listening to the low sounds of arguments in the next room.
Those were the times when he tried to hate her.