It was more difficult than he ever could have imagined.
Mark was better than he had been, since he hadn't been using for as long.
He could only imagine how difficult it had been for Mark to guide him through withdrawal.
It was with this reminder that he kept going.
After reporting Mimi's incident to the police, they walked home, and Roger had hesitantly told Mimi about Mark.
Although Mimi was proud of Roger for helping his friend, Mimi decided that she couldn't deal with seeing a replay of what she had been through.
She was staying with Maureen and Joanne for the time that Mark was at the loft.
Roger was upset by this, but he didn't say anything as she packed up and left.
After all, Mark was his best friend, and he had asked him for help.
Mark, of course, was undertaking living hell at the moment, so no matter how bad Roger felt for himself, he couldn't help feeling worse for Mark.
From throwing up everything he ate to shivering uncontrollably ever sleepless night, Mark was a constant reminder of everything he had been.
His screaming voice in the dead of night, begging for "just one more" tore Roger's heart apart.
His pleas for everything to end made Roger catch his breath.
And there was the ever present fear that Mark, through a tainted needle, could have contracted what threatened Roger and Mimi's lives.
Until Mark was well enough to go to the hospital, they couldn't get a test done.
So for the past few weeks, they had been living in constant fear.
The worst was yet to come.
Roger comforted Mark as best as he could when he begged for an end, for finality.
But he didn't know how desperately Mark wanted it.
Roger came home from work one day to find Mark holding a bottle of pills, with about twenty in his hand, and a glass of water in front of him.
He looked at the pills in his hand, as if contemplating whether he really wanted to give up yet.
Roger stopped him, but nobody would ever take the incident as seriously as he would, because really, it seemed like everybody he loved ended this way.
April, with the long slits across her wrists, bleeding into the tub, Collins, who shot himself after Angel died, Mimi, with pale, thin scars down her arms, and now Mark.
Each of these people were associated with an image in Roger's mind.
The blood in the bathtub, the finger on the trigger, Mimi on a hospital bed looking weak and helpless.
Now Mark's picture had been set for him.
And if Roger was alive in 30 years, when someone mentioned the name Mark Cohen, Roger would think of Mark at the dining table, staring into his hand.
His camera, his films, his personality, would all be momentarily forgotten.
A/N well, there you go. I had to write that one out by hand, so that's why it's kind of a different style than the other ones, also I wrote it while I was sleep-deprived on a flight to India. So I know the style is weird, get over it. At least I gave you something to read…
rapunzel.in.black