Just a little something I wrote, probably took me an hour? First RENT fanfic, yay! :D Here goes nothing! Hoping to write more RENT fanfics sooooon :D

This whole thing is from Mark's POV, by the way.

Disclaimer: Mark, Maureen, Joanne and their whole messy love story come from the beautiful mind of Jonathon Larson, may he rest in peace!

Finding out that she was cheating on me had been an accident.

I had never had any reason to suspect her of anything until recently. Sure, she flirted around... A lot. But that didn't bother me, at least not as much as it should have. She'd been that way for as long as I had known her, and I came to accept that about her. Besides, it had never gotten serious, so I didn't have reason to think that it ever would. I believed that even if something did happen, she'd always become back, because she loved me, something to took me a long time to believe. That passionate, gorgeous, outgoing young woman loved the quiet, nerdy, shy guy that was me.

To be honest, that was pretty stupid of me. If I'd known then what I know now, maybe I wouldn't have treated her flirtation so lightly... But I had no idea that she would ever do anything like that. Blinded by love? Definitely.

But lately she had been acting strange, and needless to say that bothered me. She was gone a lot and always acted weird whenever she came home, and she lost her temper with me a lot more than usual. We fought a lot, though we would always make up, and then get into another fight. I had a feeling there was something she wasn't saying to me that I needed to know.

It was a warm day near the end of summer when I found out. She was out buying groceries (we were out of food again) and my roommate was holed up in his bedroom, doing god knows what. No one had any idea what he was doing in those days. He was going through some really hard times then. I took the opportunity to clean up a little bit around the apartment. The place was a mess - we'd never been the tidiest people, especially the two people living with me. But every once in a while I'd get this wild desire to start cleaning up, and just start doing a massive clean up all over the place. I had already done the kitchen, and I had just started on our bedroom.

Her clothes were everywhere... Typical. I remember I had gathered them all in a pile, and was digging for something under the bed when something caught my eye. I swore I saw something wedged between the mattress and the boxspring, and I wanted to find out what it was. I lifted up the mattress as best I could to retrieve the thing (a feat in and of itself - I'm not the strongest person in the world).

I immediately recognized her journal. I'd seen her writing in it, though she'd never show me what she wrote. I understood that. The journal was like some sacred thing you were never supposed to touch or go near or look at if you valued your life or if you wanted to keep your testicles intact (she always an angry one when you messed with her stuff). I can still remember the feel of it in my hands, the leather cover smooth and warm. I remember how the pages had been spritzed with her perfume, marking the book as hers. Of course I'd recognize that scent right away too...

At that moment, I faced a dilemma. There were so many things I wanted to know, but wouldn't it be wrong to invade her privacy like that. Secret or not, I had always had a hard time trying to fight my conscience, and I would feel bad if I looked in her journal without her knowing... But curiosity and worry got the better of me, and soon the book was open in my hands. I sat on the floor, resting my back against the bed, and began to read.

In the beginning of the book I didn't see much of anything out of the ordinary. A lot of talk about me, in fact... and all the times we'd had sex. That did happen fairly often. She had quite the libido, that was for sure. It was exciting for a guy like me who wasn't used to getting much action like that, though sometimes it got hard to keep up with her.

I read on through the journal, eventually skipping to the ending, just to see... As I flipped through the most recent pages, a name started coming up over and over again.

Joanne.

Joanne, Joanne... Who was Joanne? A new friend? I was pretty clueless, so I started to look more closely. Eventually I found that this Joanne was a lot more than a friend.

Journal:

I went and saw Joanne again today... She looked beautiful, like everyday. There's something about her that I don't know how to describe, but it fills my stomach with butterflies and makes me feel amazing whenever I'm around her. She makes me forget about my fights with Mark. She makes me feel wanted. I just wish that for once Mark wouldn't ignore me for that damn camera, that he'd look at me the way he did when we first met and tell me how much he loved me. Joanne does.

Suddenly I couldn't read anymore. I felt sick - honestly sick. I hadn't thought I was that bad of a boyfriend. I never meant to ignore her... Couldn't she see that my work was important to me? Couldn't she see that I was trying so hard to make her happy? She thought I was boring, and that I ignored her and that I didn't love her anymore... A million emotions bubbled up in my stomach. Most of all, I was... angry. I didn't get angry often, only when we fought. But she was lying to me. She was seeing someone else right under my nose, and I hadn't even guessed... I also felt ashamed of myself, for not seeing this sort of thing coming. Why hadn't I guessed she'd do something like this?

"Pookie, I'm home!"

Shit. My blood ran cold in my veins. She was home already... And here I was, with her journal open in my lap, anger tearing at my insides, towards her... What did I do? Did I confront her? Did I let her catch me with the journal? Did I put it away and just pretend everything was fine between us? In my angry mind, the third simply wasn't an option.

"Pookie? Where are you?"

I snapped the journal shut in my hands, grasping it so hard that my knuckles turned white from the effort. What did I do? What did I say? I didn't know how to handle this situation, this had never happened to me before. But I was just so pissed off...

"I'm in here." I called out, my sounding lifeless as I pulled myself to my feet, not quite sure what I'd say when I saw her. She opened the door and looked in, a smile on her full pink lips, her curly brown hair pulled back in a bushy ponytail.

"Hey, baby, what's the...?" She started to ask, then stopped when she saw the journal in my hands, her brow furrowing in confusion. "Is that my journal?"

"We need to talk, Maureen." I still sounded so emotionless, though my voice was actually shaking, from sadness or anger, I couldn't begin to guess.

"You read my journal?" Came the shriek of protest, her overdramatic side already in full swing, lashing out. She snatched the offending object from my hand, stabbing my pale skin with her sharp nails in the process. "What the hell did you do that for? This journal is private, dammit!"

"You're cheating on me, aren't you?"

"How could you just invade my privacy like that, I can't believe-"

"Aren't you?" I repeated a bit more forcefully, grabbing her shoulders with some unfamiliar strength I'd never known that I actually had. "Maureen!" She clenched her jaw and said nothing, avoiding my gaze. I stared at her a long moment, then dropped my hands suddenly, stepping away from her as though she had some deadly, contagious disease. "It's true..." I whispered, more to myself than to her. She still looked pissed off, and the fight had suddenly gone out of me and I sat on the edge of the bed, my face pale with disbelief.

"I can't believe you just took my journal like that!"

"Your journal?" I practically spat, laughing a little, the way an insane person laughs when they're ranting. "You're mad at me over the fucking journal? You lied to me! You went behind my back for weeks, maybe even months!"

"Well I wasn't going to get attention from you, so I had to go and look elsewhere!" She snapped back, throwing her journal down on the bed beside me. "Joanne loves me and she listens to me and she makes me happy and doesn't ignore me for a piece of shit camera!" Now she was yelling, and Roger and probably half the neighbors could hear, but I couldn't bring myself to care, not anymore.

"I'm sorry I wanted to have a life, Mo! I'm sorry I couldn't pay attention to you 24/7 like you wanted me to, but you know how much the film thing makes to me, I wanted to finish something for once. I've been trying to make you happy, but you don't even pay attention when I try." How could I begin to make her understand! Didn't she get it at all?

"Because you're boring me Mark! I'm just not interested anymore." She shouted back at me in frustration. "You spend so much time with that camera and those stupid machines, trying to figure out a way to finish making a stupid movie!" She sighed, taking a deep breath, then looked at me, her brown pools swimming with tears of anger. "Just answer one question for me Mark. Just tell me something, and be honest. Does that movie mean more to you than I do?"

I stared at her in disbelief, shaking my head. How could she even think that? "No, of course not." I spoke, my voice hard. "It could never mean more to me than you do, you know that."

She shook her own head and laughed bitterly to herself. "You're such a shitty liar, Marky." She picked the journal up off the bed and pulled her suitcase down from the closet. My heart skipped a beat as I watched her, my breath catching in my throat as she threw different clothing into the suitcase.

"What're you doing? You're just going to leave me now? Just like that?"

"Well I can't stay here, can I?" She demanded of me, getting no response from me. "It's over anyway. It's been over. You know I was going to break up with you later on... Guess you just made it easier on me, Marky."

"Mo, we don't have to..." What? What was I doing? Just like that I was about to beg her to stay with me, even though she was cheating on me, even though she said she didn't want me anymore.

"I told you I'm not interested." The reply came briskly. "I think I'm just done with men. Can't trust them..." She looked down at her journal for a moment before tossing it in her suitcase and slamming the thing shut.

"Fine." I said harshly. "Go, then. I hope you're happy with Joanne." I didn't mean to sound so spiteful when I said the name, but I couldn't help myself at that moment. I was just so confused. I was angry, but deep down, I still loved her, no matter what... "...You'll come back, though. I know you, Mo; you always end up coming back."

"Not this time." Was her only response, and she clutched the suitcase handle in her hand, giving me an angry, tight smile. "Good luck with your film, Marky." And with that, she opened the bedroom door and slammed it shut behind her, leaving me standing there at the foot of the bed, numb to the core, wishing I could say something or do something to bring her back, to take it all back and start again. But no... She was gone, and though I hoped in my head she'd return and want me to take her back, my heart told me something totally different.

And I was missing her already.

Maureen: I was wrong to say you bored me.
Mark: I was wrong when I ran.
Maureen: I was hurt when you ignored me.
Mark: That's when you met Joanne.
Maureen: You were wrong to read my journal.
Mark: You were wrong to deceive.
Both: We were wrong to think love's eternal.

-Because You Were Right, Rent demo, 1994"

So… Reviews are appreciated! :D Please let me know how I did!