Disclaimer: Don't own RENT. Nothing to do with it.
Summary: You look familiar, your smile reminded me of… I always remind people of…
Not quite the Cat Scratch Club. How Mimi and Roger really first met.
Story contains self-plagiarism. Stolen lines from other things I've written. I do that sometimes.
Melpomene
Prologue
It had been autumn yesterday. Today the snow was falling silently, desolately floating to the ground in lonely little dots of white. Mimi tried to ignore the irony. She dug her hand into her pocket, wrapping her fingers around the letter she had found in front of her door earlier.
…some days I can't wait to die, because it means I'll have spent my last night face down in my pillow, staining it with makeup I'm too lazy to take off. Crying until my cheeks are stained with black and no amount of scrubbing or foundation will erase it. I need something. I need someone. There's nothing. There's only heroin. And it's scary, you know? It's really, really scary. He doesn't understand. I don't think he's afraid. He will be, when he knows. I hope it will convince him to give it up. Because living like we do isn't living at all…
A sad little letter from a sad little girl. It was signed with love from April, written to a guy named Mark.
The wind picked up slightly, the snow shifting direction and flying into her face. She squinted and wiped a hand across her eyes, looking away. She pulled her coat tighter and took a separate path to escape the wind.
Mimi closed her eyes, walking blindly in the snow and thought of April. She wanted to sympathize with the girl in the letter but found it difficult. Adolescence and its overwhelmingly trivial troubles seemed far behind her. Her mouth tightened into a straight line and she opened her eyes. But, then again, maybe not so different.
April had a drug addiction. April wanted help and didn't know where to find it. April also wanted to die. But not necessarily the way fate had decided for her. The letter was long, it rambled. April wasn't really sure what she wanted to say, but then again, April was an addict. What did addicts have to say? And if they had something to say, how exactly could they pull together enough conscious brain cells to get it out?
Mark had never gotten his letter. Mimi thought maybe that was the name of the shy boy with glasses that lived in the same building. That maybe April had just been too far gone to know what floor of the building she was on. Possible. She could try to give it to Mark. Maybe. Maybe it was better he didn't know what Mimi knew.
After all, he was his best friend.