It was Christmas Day.
Roger whistled happily as he climbed the endless flats of stairs to get to their apartment. It was Christmas Day, and he had gotten April the most perfect present he could think of.
Before April had met Roger, she had wanted to go to college at NYU. Unfortunately, her father's deep disapproval of her new boyfriend ("long-haired loser," indeed) meant that he felt no compulsion to support her attempts at a degree. And there was no way Roger could afford to pay for her education—not on the money he made as a rock musician.
April seemed happy enough with her life in their squat. But he still saw her sometimes, reading books that appeared to be written in English but on closer inspection turned out to actually be in math, or idly working out a calculus problem on her napkin on slow times while she was a waitress. (She'd wanted to be an astrophysicist, before. How cool was that?) And so Roger had found himself, one day in the middle of July, talking to an admissions councilor at NYU.
He'd worn his nicest clothing, which, admittedly, meant that his blue jeans didn't actually have any holes in them and he wasn't wearing eyeliner. Even though it was sweltering outside Roger still wore his leather jacket to cover his track marks and gloves to hide his tattoos. But even so he felt awkward, pretending to read pamphlets full of successful people with scarily large smiles and attempting to ignore the open stares.
Finally he was paged through and found himself facing an admissions councilor who bore a distinct resemblance to Roger's father.
The councilor looked down his horn-rimmed glasses. "What brings you here, young man?"
Roger was going to take a deep breath and then explain exactly why he was here. Really, he was. But then his mouth opened and started saying words without his brain having much to do with it. "See, my girlfriend, April, she's this total genius at math, actually you accepted her before, but her dad wouldn't pay for her to go, because she was, um, dating me, and he didn't like me at all, and she chose me over school which is really romantic, if you think about it, but stupid too, because she wanted to be an astrophysicist, and now she isn't going to be anything besides a waitress, because they don't pay rock musicians anything nowadays, and it's not like I'm good enough to get a record contract yet so... yeah." Roger thrust a handful of paper napkins with theorems on them at the admissions councilor. "See, really smart."
The councilor smiled widely. "All right. Very good. Now why don't you say all of that again, but slower this time." He opened a notepad. "You say she was accepted here before?"
And so, several months of meetings (and Roger covertly stealing mathematical proofs to prove that April was, yes, that smart) later, the admissions councilor and the financial-aid bureau had agreed to grant April a full ride to NYU, to begin the fall of next year. He'd even thrown in a job for Roger making coffee, that would earn money more consistently than nightclub gigs and help April pay for books.
Roger had selected a basic group of classes he thought she'd like and was currently carrying under his arm, badly wrapped in cheap brown paper, her textbooks for all the classes. And he'd taken a side trip to the Man and purchased a few… supplies so April and he could have a private, and very merry, Christmas party.
He couldn't wait to see her face open wide in that huge, beaming smile he loved so much.
And now Roger was whistling and happy and nothing could ruin his day. Of course, it was always possible that they would end up in one of those situations like in that crappy Christmas story his mom had read to him once, where the lady sold her hair to buy her husband a watch-chain and he pawned his watch to get her hair-combs and no one ended up with presents at all. But it was hard to imagine how, exactly, April would get him a present that would mean she couldn't go to college. Besides, Mark and his girlfriend the performance artist would do things like that, what with the way they carried on, arguing and breaking up and having loud make-up sex that the thin walls of their apartment did nothing to muffle and God, were he and Benny really that bad? But Roger and April were a more sensible couple, utterly in love of course, but more tender and less passionate.
Well, if you didn't count Roger's latest college endeavors.
Finally Roger reached the top of the stairs, panting a little for breath. The door was stuck—the door was always stuck—and someone had taken out the little piece of cardboard that usually held it open when someone was home. Well, that made sense; it was cold out, and April wouldn't want the extra breeze.
Roger pounded on the door. "April, open up!" His breath made little puffs of smoke in the breeze.
He waited, but the door didn't open, and no shout of "be there in a minute" came. Damn. Annoyance surged through Roger. April must have started without him. Now she'd be high all night and he'd have to wait until December 26th to tell her all about it, because when April was high she couldn't concentrate on or understand anything, except possibly differential calculus, her deep desire for a nap and her even deeper desire for more heroin. And what kind of pathetic Christmas present showed up the day afterwards? But it was her own damn fault.
Roger sighed and, putting his back into it, yanked the door open. "April?" he shouted.
No answer.
Their usual shooting gallery was the living room, much to Mark's great annoyance ("Can't you shoot up somewhere else? I mean, it's your lives you're screwing up, but I'm editing a movie here!"). And yet she wasn't there. Huh. Maybe she was taking a nap. Roger's annoyance dissipated. He loved looking at April as she slept—she was so childlike, so innocent, like she hadn't a care in the whole world.
"April?" Roger called again, more quietly.
Roger tiptoed past Mark's bedroom, in which his performance-artist girlfriend was, no doubt, still comatose until noon and would start chewing him out if he interrupted her beauty sleep. Quietly he opened the door to their bedroom, not wanting to disturb her.
She wasn't on their bed, either.
"April?" Roger said, louder, not caring if Mark's stupid girlfriend woke up. "April? April, where are you?"
A low groan came from inside the bathroom.
Roger hurried over.
"Oh, no," he whispered.
This, this couldn't have happened. This was not right. This was some kind of prank or something. April, and the blood, and—no. Any moment now she would stand up and they would laugh together at how gullible he was and everything would be all right.
But April took one last long shuddering breath, and then she didn't move again.
The only thing his eyes could fix on (this couldn't be happening, not to him, not to April, they were young and in love, they were immortal) was a note, which read, "We have AIDS. Love, from April."
"I… I brought you a present." Roger's voice cracked, and he cradled her body in his arms, his tears mixing with her blood until there was just one red liquid on the floor that, no matter how hard Roger would scrub in the future, he would never get clean.