"We're done."
The words echo in his ears, pounding against his head, throbbing, threatening to start oozing from his ears and mouth and nose. He squeezes his eyes shut, disbelieving, his hands tangled in the scarf, tightening its grip around his neck.
He wants to deny it. He wants to tell her to go fuck herself, that this is a stupid joke, that they're together and they'll always be together and that they're perfect together. He wants to playfully smack her ass, lead her to the bedroom and close the door, renewing the boundaries of their universe. He wants to look out the window and scream until everyone in the fucking city can hear that he and Maureen are together, right now, and they always will be.
The only word that comes out of his mouth is a tiny "No."
Maureen's eyes narrow. "No?" she repeats in disbelief. If there is one thing that can be said for Maureen, she understands what truth is. She accepts what is and is not to be. In the worst situations, she remains calm and cool and collected until confrontation begins. Mark does not offer confrontation. Mark is quiet and careful and, now, terrified.
He shakes his head, stares at his feet. "How could you do this to me?" he whispers. His eyes are tightly closed. He twists his arms around each other again and again before finding a comfortable position, then lets his arms drop limply to his sides. He reaches a single hand slowly up to his glasses, adjusts them, and drops his arm back down again.
"Mark, not everything is about you," Maureen declares coolly, and in any normal situation Mark would laugh and tell her to heed her own preaching. But this isn't normal, it's backwards and twisted and wrong. Mark is being told that nothing concerns him; Maureen is moving on to bigger and better and more female things in life. Everything is crazy, mixed up, and bizarre.
He doesn't know what to say. What could possibly be enough for him to say? What could he say that would make Maureen recoil sharply, wince, apologize and return to him? It seems a tall order, anyway, for the entire future of his love life to depend on having something cutting and witty to say. And it is obscenely unfair that, for the first time in his life, he lacks the malice (or, simply, ability) to say something hurtful.
Mark makes to stand up, but sways on his feet and shudders. Suddenly he remembers how long a walk it will be to his home, from one forlorn apartment to another one, equally so. He squeezes his eyes shut and struggles to make his legs move, one and another, one and another.
"Oh, god," he mumbles as his vision blurs. "Oh…"
Soon there are hands on his shoulders, cool hands whose fingers slither upwards to straighten his neck and keep his head upright. Mark, still so lost and confused, nearly turns around to see who it is, why he is being assisted, but is guided by these smooth hands. He is taken out of the apartment, down the stairs, and onto the street, and, expecting to thank this person for her help but continue on his own, Mark turns. "Thanks, Maureen," he mutters.
She purses her lips. "I should've had you sedated," she declares. "Come on, I'll get you back home."
Mark shakes his head. Of all the help he has received in his life, this is doubtlessly the most bizarre. "You just dumped me," he reminds her. "You don't need to do this, it's fine, I can just get home on my own, and maybe Roger will – "
"You know as well as I do that Roger won't do anything to make you feel better," Maureen chirps, not sounding the least bit upset by it. Smoothly, she continues, "I'll take you up to the loft, make you some tea or something, and be on my way."
Mark nods. He doesn't understand this, could never understand it, but decides to let Maureen do the talking and explaining when she feels like it, and lets himself just shut up. If Maureen wants to take him home, he should let her, and if she wants to convert to lesbianism, well, that's fine too. It's her life. It doesn't concern him, after all.
"What's her name?" Mark asks raspily as Maureen plunges her hand into Mark's pocket to retrieve his keys.
A strange expression comes onto Maureen's face, a contemplative sort of smirk with narrowed eyebrows. Her voice does not waver (she is an actress, and has long since trained her voice to be perfect even in casual speech) as she says, "Joanne."
As the two begin to ascend the stairs, Maureen drops her hand to Mark's waist. Taken aback, Mark lets out a sharp gasp of breath, not complaining but certainly not understanding. His own hands threaten to cross over to Maureen's neck, to wrap his arms around her and not let her go until she takes him back and will love him again. Maureen, as though suddenly realizing that, no, they're over, releases Mark abruptly. He sways, nearly falling, and she grabs his wrist.
"Sorry," she murmurs, and Mark has never known Maureen to apologize.
It may simply be instinct or knowing Mark far more personally than she does any other prominent figures in her life, but Maureen anticipates Mark's next question and begins to consider the answer. "She's a lawyer," she says at last. "Her… she has dark hair and eyes, and she's, well, good about her body image – "
"She's fat," Mark says sharply.
He can't believe this. Suddenly they aren't friends again. Suddenly he hates Joanne and wants to claw her eyes out for taking away the only person who matters in his life. He wants to force her against a wall with a window, bash her head backwards into the glass, and let her corpse hang there limply, half-dangling out the window, half-elevated from the ground inside.
Maureen fixes Mark with an icy glare. She doesn't need to say a word, knows that her stare alone can subdue Mark and remind him that he takes a back seat to whoever the fuck Maureen wants to screw, and he just has to be okay with that. There is no choice.
"Sorry."
Maureen waves a hand in acknowledgement of Mark's apology. They are on the fourth floor now. Two more remain, one of which is currently being moved into at the moment. Mark has caught flashes of the new tenant, a young girl who, in contrast to Alphabet City's callow other new residents, looks like she just may last a week in this place. Her eyes are dark but bright at the same time, just as Maureen's can be, and oh, just like everything else, his thoughts turn to Maureen again.
She speaks slowly now, choosing her words carefully. "Have you… ever had a girlfriend in your life, Mark? Before me?"
His answer is irrelevant. The door opens. Roger stands there limply on the other side, his hands awkwardly held by their thumbs in his pockets. He stares at them.
"Look," says Mark to Maureen quickly, "I have to go." He deftly steps over the garbage on the floor and makes his way over to Roger. "What's wrong?" he asks, his voice low, his hands on Roger's arm. "What do you need?"
Roger looks away. Maureen, feeling uncomfortable, turns to go. Mark holds out a hand to her desperately. "Please, Maureen," he breathes, "if I am anything to you at all, anything other than a complete enemy or stranger, please don't leave."
"She finally dumped you?" Roger sneers. "God. You two are so pathetic."
Maureen shakes her head, her curls bouncing around from shoulder to shoulder. "I'm sorry," she whispers, and races down the steps and out the door.
Mark looks at Roger. He closes his eyes and wraps an arm around his friend's shoulders. "Come on," he says gently. "I'll get you ready for bed."
For this one night only, for the first time in so, so long, Roger does not wrestle out of Mark's grip or dig his nails into his "former" friend's bare arm. Mark is eternally grateful for this one small mercy, and escorts Roger into the bedroom that was once Mark's own (though he now sleeps on the couch) and begins changing Roger into real pajamas, the kind that no bohemian willingly wears.
"Night, Roger," Mark whispers, and now that Maureen has left him, he needs a new closest person in his life.
Roger grunts in acknowledgement.
Mark closes the door.