Yeah, the boys - sadly - do not belong to me.
***
Mark dropped crosslegged into the grass. He pulled his coat tighter around him to block out the biting wind and leaned forward, tracing his fingertips over the stone in front of him.
"Hi," he said softly. He hated that you could hear the traffic from here. It seemed like such an irreverent, insensitive intrusion. At least the streetlamps here were a soft blue color, unlike the orange lamps outside the loft. If you squinted your eyes you could almost believe they were real moonlight.
"I miss you," he said, not knowing exactly how to speak. He did this ocassionally, maybe too much, and it never really became any easier. "I don't.. I don't exactly know what I'm doing here without you."
In retrospect, he supposed that she seemed perfect to him. Maybe you always remembered people as perfect after they were gone. The temper, the complete unreasonableness when it came to her medicine, the ability to break anything that she touched, none of it really seemed relevant anymore. He felt almost guilty that he remembered those things at all. They couldn't compare with all of the good things, all of the things Mark missed so much about her that he felt like he couldn't breathe sometimes.
Roger still hadn't come out of his room. It had been almost two weeks, and the silent face of his door was staring at Mark, daring him to go crazy. He knew he couldn't get through this alone. He couldn't lose them both.
Mark opened the door to the medicine cabinet violently, rummaging around for some Tylenol. His hand brushed an empty prescription bottle, and it fell into the sink, rolling around against the porcelain surface. He knew immediately what it was and picked it up hesitantly with a sudden feeling of trepidation. It was April's, her medication. She was bi-polar, and as long as she was on her medicine she was fine.
But the bottle was empty.
Mark's mind suddenly flew back to weeks before, a conversation they had had.
"Are you going to the club tonight?" she asked, shaking a pill from the bottle and swallowing it with an ease born of familiarity.
"I don't know. Probably," Mark said, frowning. "You're running low. Do you have enough money for more?"
"Yeah, sure," she replied. "I'm actually feeling fine anyway."
"I know, but you're going to get more right?"
"Yeah, of course."
The number of pills left in the bottom of that bottle couldn't have possibly lasted her more than a few days. She must have been off of her medication for weeks before.. before she...
"Roger!"
Mark burst in on his friend, his eyes tortured and hands shaking almost impercetibly. Roger was lying on his bed, staring idly out of the window. He turned slowly to look up at his friend.
"What?" he asked flatly.
"Take your AZT," Mark replied, tossing the bottle at him. His tone was strangely urgent.
"Damnit Mark, the last fucking thing -- "
"TAKE IT!"
"I should have known," Mark whispered. "I should have done something. You know Roger blames himself, but I could have done something."
The night April died was still unreal to him. It was like watching one of his movies, the way he opened the bathroom door to find Roger rocking on the floor with her in his arms, covered in her blood, sobbing. He replayed it in his mind over and over, trying to find some kind of logic in it, some clue that might give him an explanation. He should have seen it coming, the off-hand way she mentioned that she might not need her medicine anymore, the darkening of her moods just before that night. He still couldn't understand what must have been going through her head, but he should have seen it coming.
The day she died Roger became very still and quiet. Anyone else might have thought it was just supreme stoicism, but Mark recognized the shock deep in the back of his eyes and knew that Roger's true reaction hadn't even begun. Mark might have gone hysterical himself, but the need to take care of Roger kept him sane. With little protest, he took his friend - practically catatonic - home and put him in bed. Roger never reached out for help, but the next morning Mark woke up to find Roger asleep beside him. Mark just stared at him, his face calm and untouched in sleep, in confusion for a long moment before he noticed the note on his bedside table that hadn't been there before.
It was from April.
It wasn't the note they had found stuck to the bathroom mirror, but another one. The first note had been scrawled on a post-it, but this was written on a regular sheet of paper in her calm, even hand.
I love you guys. Take care of each other when I'm gone.
That's all it said, and Mark's guilt and confusion over her death instantly doubled. He wanted to cry and scream at her and demand why she had done such a thing to them, but he couldn't. He couldn't reconcile this overwhelming sadness with his anger, and there were no explanations to help him do it.
Roger began to stir at Mark's movements and slowly opened his eyes. Their gazes met, and there was something in the hopelessness of the other that bound them together.
"I couldn't sleep," Roger offered as a hoarse, devastated explanation. "I found that underneath my pillow."
Mark moved closer to Roger, and they held onto each other tightly, knowing that they were all the other had left. Mark couldn't remember if they cried - he was sure they did - but they just lay there tangled up in each other for hours.
Just don't let go, just don't let go...
After that morning Roger disappeared, locked himself in his room and left Mark to face it all alone.
"God, I wish you were here," Mark said, after just staring at her name etched in the stone for an indeterminate amount of time. "How could you leave us? We needed you so much... I can't do this without you, neither can he. I can't do anything for him. He's not doing very well, and there's nothing I can do and it scares me so much. I'm so lonely here, without you. I have Maureen - I do - but she's not who I need right now. I miss you..."
Mark sighed, knowing that he should be heading home, and stood. He kissed the dandelion he had picked up while walking through the cemetry and placed in on top of her headstone.
"Love you."
*
"We have to tell him."
"No we don't Roger! Are you crazy?" Maureen demanded. "We'd only be hurting him. Isn't that what you're so concerned with avoiding?"
Maureen flung that last question at him like a weapon, but Roger ignored her. He was pacing up and down the loft, trying to sort out his thoughts. What had he been thinking? What had ever possessed him to kiss Maureen? He had pulled away from her almost as quickly as it had begun, the image of Mark's sweet, trusting face in his head, but the damage had been done and he knew it. What had he done?
"He has a right to know," Roger insisted, shaking his head. "Maybe cheating on Mark comes easily to you, but I won't be able to look him in the face."
"You're not cheating on him Roger!" Maureen suddenly burst, leaping up from the couch and turning on him. "Jesus! What is it with you two?"
Roger stopped mid-stride and looked at her as though she were crazy.
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
She laughed. "Please, like you don't know, like you haven't noticed!"
She stalked off to Mark's bedroom, grabbing a few of her belongings from his closet and beginning to shove them into a bag.
"Maureen, I have no idea what you're saying," Roger said from the doorway, watching her gather her things. She slammed dresser drawers shut, and Roger wondered why she was so angry. Maureen brushed past him into the living room, dropping her bag by the door.
"Of course you don't," she said, turning back on him, her voice still incensed but a sort of weariness touching her eyes. "Boys are so fucking blind!"
"Why don't you just say whatever it is you mean to say?"
"Just wait," she replied cryptically, as if Roger hadn't spoken at all. "Go ahead and tell him if you feel like you need to, but I promise you that he's going to be more upset with you than you can imagine."
"Christ Maureen!" Roger said, his complete frustration finally breaking through. "You've been around how long now and you think you know Mark that well? You think you understand him? Give him some fucking credit!"
Maureen looked at him, almost stunned, for a moment before slowly sinking down onto the couch, her anger visibly deflated as she buried her face into her hands. Roger was almost afraid that she had begun to cry and was debating going over to her when she began to speak in a quiet, almost calm voice.
"That's just it," she said. "I don't understand him, not the way you do, and I never will. That's the whole point Roger, can't you see that?"
Roger stared at her, uncomprehending.
"No, of course not," she said, almost to herself. "But you will, and I'll be gone by then. I'm going to go stay with a friend. I'll call Mark tomorrow so that we can do this the right way."
"No, don't! Not because of me," Roger said, suddenly panicked. "I'll take the blame for this one; he needs you."
She smiled sadly as she stood and collected her things.
"No he doesn't," she said. "He needs you, so you've got to be the one who's there for him."
And she was gone, leaving Roger to stare at the closed door in confusion. He backed away from it slowly, Maureen's words revolving in his head, before sitting on the table to wait for Mark to come home.
