Goodbye Love
So….Angel, I thought you might like to hear the full story behind Roger leaving us.
I walked into the apartment yesterday afternoon to find one suitcase already sitting by the couch and Roger visible through his open bedroom door, packing another. Although I had know for a while that he was planning to leave, this evidence was almost too much to bear on top of the grief I was feeling since your funeral that morning.
I knew he wouldn't listen to me, even if I had felt I had to strength to argue with him about his decision. So I attempted the old standby and made small talk. "I hear there are great restaurants out west" to which he rather distractedly replied "some of the best" and then turned from his packing to talk to me "How could Mimi do this to me?" He's always been great at ignoring his own faults; he was the one who pushed her away after all, which I was quick to point out.
In a tradition as old as our friendship he dodged the subject and changed the conversation to that of your death and funeral. How could we lose Angel? He asks me. How? Where was he the last few weeks that you spent wasting away in a hospital bed? "Maybe you would know if you would stop running and face your problems. Take Angel's advice, face your fears, and find something to live for. At least then her death won't have been in vain."
"Her death was in vain, I don't have anything to live for." He said to me. I couldn't believe how incredible stupid he was being. If you had been there you would have smacked him over the head with a drum-stick and told him to snap out of it, but since it was just me…well…I did the best that I could. He just doesn't see that he does have something to live for, he's got me and he's got Mimi, but apparently she has too much "baggage."
"Face it Roger, you've got as much baggage as she does, maybe more. Can't you just listen to advice for once?" He wanted to know why I have the right to tell him what to do. I'm his friend, Angel, I just want to help him. He says he doesn't even know who I am. He knows me best of all though, everyone thinks that I live for my art, I'm in love with my art, but he's the only one to realize that I use it to hide. I think he's the only one who would dare call me on that.
"You're too busy hiding from your own failures, your own loneliness, and your own lies to be my friend. What is this 'find something to live for' crap? Why do you get to be numb, but I have to face the world.
I don't think he's even considered that I'm withdrawing because, out of all of my friends, I'm the only one who is going to survive. This damn disease is going to pick each and every one of you off and I'll be left here by myself. That's why I detach from life. Even as I told him these things, things I hadn't told anyone other than you, I could tell that he didn't care. He's too wrapped up in his own pain, always has been, he can't see anyone else.
Of course I'm stubborn; I never leave well enough alone. "Mimi still loves you" I tell him. "I don't think you're leaving out of jealousy, you just don't want to watch her die." I know he knows she hasn't got much time. "She's only getting weaker, Roger. Mimi doesn't have a lot of time left. You're leaving right when she needs you the most." I didn't mention that maybe he shouldn't leave because I needed him as well.
He told me that he couldn't do this, couldn't talk about it right then. He walked toward the door and said that he would call, even though we both knew that he wouldn't. That isn't the way running away works. And then he's gone.
The door slams and I'm alone again.