"Fuck off, Mark. Just leave me alone." And I just walked away. I went to my room and locked the door. I can't believe I did that to him. Again.
All he was doing was trying to get me to go out. I haven't so much as stepped out of the loft in over three months. I know how much he hates seeing me like this. But I can't help it. Outside there is so much temptation. I'm so afraid that I'll see one of my dealers, or one of the guys I used to hit up with. I don't know if I'm ready yet. I don't know if I'm strong enough.
I can't keep doing this. I can't keep hurting him for trying to help.
Things would be so much better if I had never existed.
I curl up into a ball on my bed against the wall. Mark's knocking on the door, apologizing through the thin wood. I wish he would stop. It's not his fault I'm such a fuck-up.
I feel the tears begin to gather in my eyes. I hear Mark sigh and shuffle away to his own room. I wish he would just give up on me; I'm not worth the effort.
The tears fall just before I drift off to sleep.
"Roger," I hear someone calling. "Roger, open your eyes." I know that voice, I just can't place it. "C'mon Roger."
And finally I manage to open them.
"April?" She smiles at me. That sexy smile that sent shivers down my spine and made me fall so fucking hard for her. She looks good, much better than I remember her. The drug-induced glaze she always had is gone.
"Hi Roger."
All around us there is nothing but white space that seems to go on forever. "Where are we?"
"Nowhere."
"How can we be nowhere?"
"You wished yourself here." I raise my eyebrows at her. She laughs. "You said that things would be better if you never existed. So you don't exist."
"Is this like some whacked out episode of the Twilight Zone?" I'm expecting Collins to jump out any minute and tell me this is all a big joke. Maybe Mark is filming this to send into one of those dumb TV shows.
She laughs again. "No, more like It's A Wonderful Life. I'm here to show you what the world would be like without you."
"Somehow I never imagined that you would be my angel," I say.
"I'm not an angel. Not yet."
I smile at her and step a little closer. "I miss you," I tell her. Whenever I find myself unable to sleep at night she is always on my mind.
"I miss you too, Roger. But things are better. You're clean now."
"I'm not happy," I argue.
"Not yet. But you will be." She takes my hand. "C'mon, we've got things to see."
I hear a pop, and suddenly the empty space is replaced with a room. It looks like the living room of my old house, back before Mom and I moved to Scarsdale. I hear scuffling and muffled screams. In the corner I see my mom, cowering on the floor. Dad stands above her, kicking and punching.
"Stop it!" I yell, rushing forward to push him off. April grabs my arm before I can get too far.
"They can't hear you. You don't exist, Roger. You can't help her." I stop struggling against her, but she keeps hold of my arm. "You weren't there when he first hit her, so you didn't call the police. You didn't get her to move to Scarsdale, so she stayed with your dad."
Dad stops hitting her and walks away. I hear a door slam, and another strangled sob escapes from Mom's lips.
April takes my hand again, and I hear another pop. The loft appears before my eyes, but it's different. All the furniture is gone. The only evidence that anyone lives here are the empty liquor bottles scattered all over the floor and a blanket in the corner.
"What happened here?" I ask.
"Collins never met you, and you didn't exist to introduce him to Mark. You and Mark weren't there to keep Collins motivated enough to go to MIT, or anywhere else. He started drinking all the time, and he stopped taking his medicine."
The loft door slides open. Collins walks in with another bottle. He looks terrible; he's a lot smaller than I ever remember him being, and that spark of life he always had is gone. He sits on the blanket and opens the bottle, taking a long swig.
"He's dying," April tells me.
"Show me Mark," I say.
"You won't like it."
"Show me anyway."
She takes my hand, and the room changes again with another pop. We're outside now, at the back of a big group of people. I walk around the edge of the crowd so I can see what's going on.
And there it is; a simple wooden casket being lowered slowly into the ground. Mark's mom is bawling in a chair a few feet away. His dad stands in front of the group, speaking Hebrew and tearing a white cloth in half. Mark told me about this once; at Jewish funerals they rip a cloth in half to signify what the mourners feel.
I'm on my knees now, tears streaming down my face. That can't be my best friend they just lowered into the ground. I thought everyone would be better off without me.
April places a hand on my shoulder. I lay my head in my hands. "Mark never left Scarsdale. You never taught him to rebel against his parents, so he never moved to Alphabet City. His dad wanted him to follow in his footsteps and be a doctor, so Mark went to college to be a paramedic. He was working late one night, and he fell asleep at the wheel. He drove off a bridge and drowned."
I hear the familiar pop. I lift my head up to see that we're back where we started; nowhere.
"You really have a good life, Roger. It may not seem like it sometimes, but things will get better. Just don't give up." April smiles at me again. She kisses my cheek. "I love you, Roger. Say hi to Mark for me."
When I wake up the clock tells me I've only been asleep for two hours. I almost want to hug that clock.
I fling the door open, scaring Mark. He's sitting on the couch doing who knows what with his camera. I grab it out of his hands and hug him so tight his lungs are likely to explode.
When I pull away he stares at me, looking incredibly surprised. "Roger, are you ok?"
"I'm great," I answer. "Hey, do you want to go for a walk or something?"
He looks worried. "Are you sure you're ok?"
I laugh quietly. "I'm fine. So do you want to go walk?"
"Let me get my coat," he says. I can tell he's still confused as fuck. But this is kind of my apology to him. This is my way of showing how much I care.
This is the point where I'm going to try to stop being so miserable. I hope he knows that.
"Oh by the way," I say as I close the loft door, "April says hi."