Slowly but surely. I think most of you reading this read Beneath the Surface, so you know what to expect. (By the way, I greatly appreciate those of you re-reading this. I hope the final chapter makes it worth it for you.) For anyone reading who didn't read it in its first incarnation, just a little clarification. This story takes place in a world completely separate from RENT. It's the same characters, but I'm not obeying the RENT rules, so don't expect this to lead to 'we begin on Christmas Eve', because it certainly isn't going to. :) That's it! Thanks so much for reading and reviewing; you can't imagine how much I appreciate it.
I don't own them.
V.
Mark opened the door to the loft, vaguely surprised to find it unlocked. He stepped into the darkened front room, pulling off his jacket and dropping it on a table near the doorway. As his eyes adjusted, he noticed Roger sitting on the table, staring out of the window, his tense back to him. Mark frowned in confusion and reached over to flip on the lights.
"Roger?" he said. "You okay? Why are you sitting here in the dark?"
The musician turned to look at him, blinking at the sudden intrusion of light into the room. His eyes fell on Mark with great ambivalence, torn between what he thought he should do and the vehemence of Maureen's words, dread that he couldn't avoid the decision any longer and relief that Mark was home. Roger stared at his friend, thinking of what the tortured half-life he had consigned himself to would be like if he didn't have Mark there with him. If Maureen was right, if he really could lose him over this, it was a bigger risk than he felt like he was prepared to take. Mark couldn't leave him; he wouldn't survive it.
"Roger?" Mark repeated softly when his friend didn't respond. "Is everything okay? Do- do you feel alright?"
Roger smiled slightly at the trace of rising panic in his voice. "I'm fine Mark."
"Good," he replied, rummaging around in the refrigerator. He poured two glasses of orange juice as Roger came over to lean on the other side of the kitchen counter and handed one to the musician along with a handful of pills from a bottle in the corner. Roger quickly swallowed them without comment.
"Did you get the piece for your camera?" Roger asked with a wicked grin.
Mark looked up at him with a smile. "No. The place was closed by the time I got there."
"That's a shame."
"Yeah."
"So you had to leave the bar for nothing."
"Uh-huh. Bummer."
Roger tried to laugh, but the sound got lodged in his throat. An hour of sitting in the dark and silence had not brought him any closer to knowing what he should do. He wanted to tell Mark so badly, and every moment that he didn't multiplied the overwhelming guilt that he felt exponentially. But whenever he felt finally resolved, he thought of what Maureen had said. Was it selfishness to tell him? Was he just out to relieve his own guilt, headless of whether it was really in Mark's best interest? The thought of watching Mark's face fall from the effortless kind of happiness that he had now, which had been so rare in the last year, and knowing that he was entirely responsible for it was almost more than Roger could take. Would he just be compounding the wrong he had done by ripping Mark's eyes open to the betrayal that had been done to him by the two people he loved most in the world? Or would keeping it from him ultimately be worse?
"Roger?" the filmmaker's voice was soft, rousing him from his thoughts. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Mark laid his hand over his friends' where they were clenched on the countertop. Roger glanced up into his concerned blue gaze before looking down at the hand on top of his. He could still feel Maureen's hair between his fingers, and the maddening sensation juxtaposed with Mark's soft, caring touch was enough to push him over the edge.
"Mark," he said, his voice coming out on a breath. "I need to tell you something."
"What is it?"
Roger laid one of his own hands on top of Mark's. God, let this be for the best.
"I kissed Maureen."
Mark stared at him in blank incomprehension.
"What?" he asked.
"I kissed Maureen," Roger confirmed in a cracking voice. He squeezed Mark's nerveless hand. "I'm so sorry. You have to believe me, I never meant for it to happen, but we had been drinking..."
Mark suddenly recoiled violently, as if Roger's touch had burned him. He stared at him with horrible eyes, brimming with every destroyed, destructive kind of emotion.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked in a small, flat voice, as though it were coming across a far distance.
Roger closed his eyes in misery. "Because I thought you deserved to know."
"Deserved it?" Mark said, his voice suddenly back, the force of his emotion propelling him through the stunned wall he had been momentarily caught behind. "You thought this was what I deserved?"
"God, Mark, no! That's not what I--"
"Fuck you Roger. I deserve a goddamn friend, I deserve someone who loves me!"
"Mark," Roger whispered with a true depth of sincerity, not knowing what else he could do. "I'm sorry."
Mark seemed to subside slightly at that, and he stared at Roger with trembling eyes.
"Why couldn't you let me be happy with her?" he asked. His tone wasn't accusatory, just heartbroken.
Roger's eyes widened. "What?"
"This was the one thing I had Roger. Why the hell does it always have to be about you? Why couldn't you let her love me?"
And it was then that Roger realized what exactly it was that he had done to the best friend he had ever had. Without hearing it in Mark's own words, the act lacked its true significance. But now he knew just how awful of a thing it had been. Mark thought no one loved him, because of him. The bitter irony of it was nearly overwhelming. Roger would do anything to take it back, but it was too late now. Maureen was right, he thought incredulously, wondering how she had known. There was only one thing he could think of that would partially redeem this situation, and it scared him beyond all measure. As he took in Mark's distressed, shaking form, however, he knew that he had no choice. Mark was the only thing in the world that mattered, and he'd do anything to try to alleviate the misery that was radiating off of the young filmmaker.
"She does love you Mark," he said slowly, deliberately. "Of course she loves you. It was all my fault."
"What are you talking about?" Mark whispered. He was resting his elbows on the counter, his face buried in his hands.
"It was me," Roger continued, clenching his fingers. "She didn't want any part of it, but I-I was drunk. I wanted her - Mark, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it - but I pulled her toward me and wouldn't let go..."
Roger laid his hand on Mark's bent shoulder, but his friend pulled away instantly, hitting his hand away. His face was contorted with rage and betrayal.
"No," he said. "You're lying Roger. I can tell. Don't lie to me."
"It's true Mark," he said, tears welling in his eyes without his control. "It's true..."
"It's not!" Mark flung himself away from the kitchen counter. He held his head between his hands, as though he were trying to physically calm the tumbling of his thoughts. "It's not..."
"Mark," Roger whispered, agonized. "You have to know, I... I never meant to hurt you..."
"Oh, fuck you Roger. You always hurt me, and this time you knew exactly what you were doing. Did you just want to prove to me that she doesn't love me, that no one does, or were you afraid that maybe she actually does care?"
Something in Roger snapped, and the bitter words escaped his mouth before he could check them.
"She doesn't love you Mark! Christ, she never has, and she never could!"
The anger and truth of Roger's outburst shattered the intense hurt and anger flying through the air past their heads, leaving the room dead silent in its wake. The words lay on the ground between the two of them, clear and exposed, dividing them. Roger looked across it to Mark's face, stunned with misery, and realized that they might never be able to cross that divide again. He had made it too deep and wide. The musician's sick terror eclipsed all the other emotions raging inside of him as some part of his mind whispered revengefully to him to remember this moment. Remember the moment when he truly lost Mark.
She doesn't love you Mark, and she never will, because she can't see how special you are. But that doesn't mean that no one does.
"You're right," Mark finally said softly after many silent moments, his eyes looking inward. He choked back a wretched sob. "She doesn't, does she? Why do I always..."
...love people who will never love me back?
Roger made a slight movement toward him, to reach out and apologize and maybe confess, but Mark held up a hand to stay him and turned away. He walked quickly toward his bedroom but stopped short in the doorway, caught off guard by the evidence of Maureen's hasty departure apparent everywhere. She was gone. The closet was open and noticeably emptier, several of her hangers dropped on the ground. The things that normally inhabited the bedside table - a tube of lipstick and her earrings and her address book - had been swept away, presumably into a bag. He wasn't prepared for this irrefutable proof of what had happened. The room had a feeling of desolation, as if no one had ever lived there at all. She had given up, and she was gone.
Mark felt rather than heard Roger come up behind him. His friend's hands slowly touched his shoulders, hesitantly, certain of rough rejection. But Mark didn't have the strength to move or recoil, or the willpower to walk away. Roger slowly let his forehead rest at the base of Mark's neck, and there was nothing Mark could do but wince. He willed himself to leave but he knew that he never would, and he hated himself for it. He leaned back slightly, letting his back rest against Roger's chest, feeling the musician's quick heartbeat.
"I'm sorry Mark," Roger whispered brokenly, his breath warm against Mark's neck. "I'm so, so sorry..."
"I know you are," Mark managed around the knot in his throat. And he meant it. He knew that Roger would never do anything - even something like this - with the intention of hurting him. Roger squeezed his shoulders with his next words.
"It's just that.. ever since April..."
Mark tensed. "Don't."
"Mark, please, I need you to know--"
"Don't talk about her," Mark said, finding that in anger he had the strength to pull away. "You have no right to bring her into this; she has nothing to do with this."
"But she does!" Roger countered, following his friend back into the front room, watching as he paced back and forth in front of the couch. He sighed. "Did you think that I didn't see it too? I knew all of those nights when she left our bed that she went to sleep with you. And Mark, sometimes it drove me out of my mind--"
Mark abruptly stopped pacing and turned to look at Roger with wide, outraged eyes. Roger bit back the rest of his sentence, unable to speak with Mark's eyes staring so coldly into his.
"What exactly are you saying?" Mark asked quietly, complete incomprehension written across his features. "What -- you think I was cheating with April?"
Roger started toward his friend but stopped at his furious, stony expression. "God, no," he choked. "I-I didn't say that--"
"But that's what you meant, isn't it? Christ Roger, what the fuck is wrong with you? Not everyone betrays their best friend with his girlfriend."
Mark suddenly couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't bear to be in the room with him and his treacherous eyes and arms any longer.
"I've got to go," he mumbled, and headed for the door.
"No, wait..."
Roger panicked and grabbed Mark's hands, pulling him close, determined to let nothing go unsaid this time.
"Mark, listen..."
But Mark was deaf to his words and shook him off furiously, tears finally blurring his vision.
"I'm going," he said. Shaking but deliberate, he opened the door and stepped through it, quietly closing it on his friend. He made it down two flights of stairs before he sank onto the cement steps, squeezing his eyes shut as the stinging, bitter tears came.
Roger stared at the closed door for a long moment, stunned into silence, before dropping into a chair and burying his face in his hands.