Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. This song is not mine. See Jonathon Larson and U2 respectively.
"Running to Stand Still"
By Annie
And so she woke up
Woke up from where she was
Lying still
Said I gotta do something
About where we're going
At the time, Roger hadn't understood it. April had woken in the late afternoon sun to the sound of Roger plucking lightly at his guitar from his perch at the foot of his bed. They'd actually made it to one of their own places the night before, a rare occurrence. He'd seen the change in her the day before when she had returned from being simply "out." Later, he'd seen it left behind with the prick of a needle.
It was back now, he had noticed, the strange melancholy, and she started yammering on about needing to stop and going clean. She rose from the sheets and began pacing the small room, still prattling on, until she collapsed into a heap on the floor near Roger, her body still too weak from the chemicals in her system to let her do much more than sit there and sob quietly.
And then, Roger remembered distinctly, April had looked up at him with suddenly sad, watery eyes and said, "I need to forget." Roger hadn't understood anything she'd said, but he understood that.
Step on a steam train
Step out of the driving rain, maybe
Run from the darkness in the night
Singing ha, ah la la la de day
Ah la la la de day
Ah la la de day
Roger had led her by the hand up the stairs to the apartment where the party du jour was. She had been fidgeting nervously, eyes flicking around in a strange, frightened manner Roger chalked up to the pot in her system. It was all they had left in the loft, which is why they were here.
April had always liked to be the first to shoot up and liked having Roger do it for her, leaning back and watching the tip slide into her skin. That night though, Roger remembered, she'd quietly watched everyone else go before she would even touch the needle. Then and only then did she press the plunger down.
Soon enough, whatever it was that had her so frightened had apparently been forgotten. She was up dancing around, though there was no music, and singing. She always sang when she was high. It was one of Roger's favorite things about her. She fancied herself a poet and used to make up music to her rhymes. "Dance with me, Roger," she'd said to him, quietly laughing at nothing. "One last time."
Sweet the sin
Bitter taste in my mouth
I see seven towers
But I only see one way out
One thing Roger knew he'd never forget was how heroin could make the worst situation seem like a walk in the park. Just the quick, sweet sting of a needle and things seemed suddenly not so bad. The unsolvable suddenly had a solution; a firm hand gripped the uncontrollable.
Roger supposed it was when she was dancing and singing that April was happiest, when she had that unanswerable answer. He supposed that was when she had decided what had to be done with her life.
You got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice
Looking back, Roger should have known. She had been screaming at him, begging to be saved and he should have seen it. The life of a heroin addict, however, dictated that you suffered silently. Even if you could work up a plea for help, chances are no one was listening.
Roger certainly hadn't been, but now it was all he could hear. It was odd that he had to struggle to remember any sort of detail from most nights during those few months, but every bit of that night, the night, was ingrained permanently into his mind. Odd, he thought, and unfair.
Roger should have seen it, yes, but it was unfair that he could remember it so clearly now. Unfair that every night for a year, without fail, he was awoken by her silent screams for help; her hazel eyes pleading for him to do something, anything. It was so unfair that hindsight was 20/20.
You know I took the poison
From the poison stream
Then I floated out of here
Singing ha la la la de day
Ha la la la de day
Ha la la de day
He hadn't seen it, though, had barely even registered her slipping from the party. Roger was distracted by drugs and beer and smoke and people, and when she'd wandered up to him and said, "I'm so sorry. You're lovely. I'm sorry," and wandered off, he hadn't thought much of it. April had always been pretty cryptic when high, saying things that made sense only to her and assuming you understood them.
Roger often wished he hadn't accepted that first needle, but he had and countless others after it. He'd gone willingly into that life and there was no changing it now. But maybe if he hadn't, he could have gotten April to stop. Maybe she'd still be with him, alive and healthy.
April had slipped from the apartment and Roger remembered taking a drag from a passing joint, shrugging off her odd behavior, and then talking at great length about the value of different brands of guitars. Some time later, he'd realized he was talking to a lamp and laughed loudly for a long while before he thought he heard April singing and sang along with her. April was always singing and Roger loved that about her.
She runs through the street
With her eyes painted red
Under black belly of cloud in the rain
Roger had several versions of what happened after that, all totally different, but each with the same gruesome end. One, however, he had come to accept as fact. If asked what events had transpired that night, he would offer this as truth though there was no way of really knowing for sure.
He imagined she'd left the party and walked out onto the streets of Alphabet City, blinking rain from bloodshot eyes before tearing down the sidewalk. She'd have had to rush back to the loft—not her place for some reason, but the loft—to beat Mark and Maureen home. She couldn't let them talk her out of what she'd already decided.
In through a doorway she brings me
White gold and pearls stolen from the sea
On her way up the stairs she would have thought about him and all of the times they'd had together. She'd have remembered how she liked to leave him presents on his pillow or in his guitar case. Snippets of poems or small baggies of their latest favorite drug or, once, an orange, because she knew Roger liked the taste.
She'd have remembered how happy she made Roger and how she'd left him one last gift. Something he'd have to carry with him for the rest of his life.
She is raging
She is raging
And the storm blows up in her eyes
She will…
April would have entered the loft quietly, Roger thought, and checked for other inhabitants before ripping the place apart in an angry fit. By the time he'd seen it clearly, Maureen had already started picking things up and it still looked like World War III in his small home.
April would have tipped over tables that now sat funny, smashed chairs they had yet to replace, and punched the still-cracked bathroom mirror. Then she'd have scribbled a hastily written message on the back of the fee invoice for her doctor's visit before collapsing, ending up in the tiny bathroom.
Suffer the needle chill
She's running to stand…
Roger imagined she would have fingered the syringe in her hands, remembering the past several months of debauchery and maybe feeling one last pang for the sweet liquid lucidity to flow through her disease-ridden veins before smashing it on the tile. April would've picked up the largest piece left, maybe examined the way the light reflected through it before pressing it to her skin and feeling an entirely different calm slide over her tired body while she sang. She went singing, Roger decided. Singing and then finally giving in to the cut of the glass because she was always happiest when she was singing and Roger had always loved that about her.
Still.