A/N:  The thoughts of Roger in this chapter are not those of my own. Please review, tell me what you think so far.

Mark POV:

            When I get back to the loft, Roger is still in his room, sound asleep. His sleeve is still rolled up a bit and I wince when I see the red spots through the thick bandaging…it must have bled through.

            I don't want to disturb him tonight but tomorrow, first thing in the morning, I'm going to talk to him about what I didn't have a chance to tonight and tell him about the program Collins told me about.

            I quietly close the door to his room and then take the books Collins lent me into my room and stay up the rest of the night, reading and thinking about Roger.

            At around 3:00, I hear Roger stir in the room next to mine and I close the book I had been reading and listen closely as he paces the room in quick steps. I can hear a few drawers banging closed and then his door creaks open and he walks quietly into the bathroom, where I can hear the soft squeak of the medicine cabinet opening.

            That's weird…why would Roger be…?

            Oh shit. Razors. There are still razors in the bathroom…

            I open my door quietly and tiptoe to the bathroom and watch what he's doing through the open door. He takes something – I can't make out what it is – out of the cabinet and holds it to his arm and…

            "Roger!"

            He jumps, obviously startled at the intrusion, and drops what I can see to be a razor, on the floor.

            "Mark, what the fuck?! You scared the shit out of me!"

            "Yeah, I can say the same," I say, motioning to the razor by his feet.

            He kicks it under the sink, as if I would forget about what I saw if it was no longer in sight, and glares at me.

            "What are you still doing up? And why are you following me?"

            "I'm not following you. I couldn't fall asleep and I heard you so I came to see what you were doing."

            He raises an eyebrow. "You came to see what I was doing in the bathroom?"

            I sigh. "Roger, cut the crap. And hand over the razor," I say, holding out my hand.

            He glares at me again and kicks the razor towards me angrily, not bothering to bend down and pick it up.

            I snatch it from the ground before he has the chance to rethink the action, and shove it in my pocket, making a mental note to get rid of the rest of the razors in here later.

            "Roger…" I shake my head disapprovingly. "Why? Why did you want to do it again?"

            "Just leave me alone," he hisses and shoves his way past me, back into his room again.

            I follow quickly, before he has the chance to lock me out again, and sit down next to him on his bed.

            "C'mon Rog, I'm just trying to help…"

            He pauses. "You wouldn't understand."

            "So help me to."

            He sighs and just looks down at his sheets, not saying anything for a few moments before looking up at me again with sadness in his eyes.

Roger POV:

            "Just leave me alone Mark. If you really want to help me, just leave me alone."

            He shakes his head.

            "No, I've been ignoring it for too long. I'm not going to deny the problem anymore Roger, just tell me what happened. Why did you want to cut yourself again?"

            I cringe at the words "cut yourself" and get the impulse to do it all over again. The reason I wanted to do it in the first place was because I had woken up from a sleep filled with nightmares and flashbacks, replaying the events of the evening over and over in my head. Remembering how he had walked in on me with a razor to my arm, bleeding so heavily that he had thought I tried to kill myself, how he had seen the cuts for himself as he bandaged my arms, how he'd witnessed me actually cutting into my own flesh with a razor.

            It was just so humiliating, he discovered my deepest darkest secret, the one I had intended to keep to myself forever because I knew if anybody ever found out they'd think I was absolutely disgusting and crazy. Because who "tears open your arms" for pleasure? Who actually finds comfort and relief from the pain of a razor blade or knife slashing through their skin? Sick people. Crazy people. Me.           

            And the knowledge that Mark knew all these things about me now set me off again, made me embarrassed and ashamed, and in need of my razor.

            I hadn't meant for him to have heard me in the bathroom. I had thought he was asleep and since he had taken my razor from me before, I thought I would be safe sneaking into the bathroom to get another one. But I was wrong apparently, and now all this has done is probably made him even madder, or made him think I'm even crazier than he did to begin with.

            "Roger?" he asks worriedly and it is then that I realize that I haven't said anything for about the past five minutes.

            I look at him again and notice that he's staring down at me arms and I realize that I'm not wearing a shirt…my arms are fully revealed, showing off the crimes from the past, my scars, and the now blood soaked bandage that is covering them.

            "Um…I think your cuts opened up…"

            I quickly throw the threadbare blanket on my bed around myself, covering my arms and chest, and get up angrily, shoving him out the door and locking it.

            He bangs on the door for a few minutes, yelling and begging to be let in, but I don't do anything, don't even move from my spot on the bed as I stare at the white bandages that are becoming more wet and red with every second that passes.

            Finally I hear him yell, "Roger, I swear if you don't open the door I'm calling Benny right now and getting that lock removed!!"

            I laugh at that. "Yeah right, I'm sure he'd come up at three in the morning to take the lock off the door of a tenant he doesn't even like."

            He pauses.

            "Well then I'll either take the hinges off myself or I'll call an ambulance!"

            "An ambulance? And what would they do? Unscrew the hinges with their needles?"

            "No, they would use them to sew up your arms!"

            At this comment I jump off my bed, my blanket still around me, and open the door, glaring at him.

            "You wouldn't dare."

            "Yes I would, if you didn't let me help you myself I'd call them so fast you wouldn't even know what was happening."

            I glare at him and he crosses his arms, refusing to back down.

            "Fuck you Mark! Why can't you just leave me alone for once in your goddamn life?"

            His expression turns sad and I can hear his voice soften as he says, "Because if I did, you'd die."

            I don't say anything for a second, not believing this, but not wanting to say anything to upset him either.

            He looks down at my arms again, still covered in the blanket and he pulls it off, revealing again the red soaked bandages.

            "Hey," I start to protest but before I can slam my door in his face again he's pulling me into the bathroom with him and taking out more gauze and bandages.

            "Mark, stop. Don't touch me, STOP!" I shout as he reaches for my arm anyway.

            He looks frightened for a second but then finally seems to get it as he opens the cabinet again and puts on gloves before cleaning up and dressing my wounds again.

            When he's done, I pull away angrily, upset that he's treating me like a baby.

            "You know, I could have done it myself…"

            He shakes his head. "You wouldn't have."

            I glare at him. "You don't know that."

            "Yes I do. You haven't ever done it in these past six months, why would you have this time?"
            I don't say anything because I know he's right. But, not about to give him the satisfaction of knowing that, I go in my room again and slam the door, but in my embarrassment and fury, I forget to lock it.

            After a few minutes of sitting by myself in silence, trying to forget everything that's happened these past two days, I hear him knock on my door again come in without waiting for a response.

            "Hey! I didn't sat you could come in!"

            He sighs. "Roger, what's with you tonight? I haven't done anything but try to help you, why are you so mad?"

            "Because you're prying into things that are none of your business."

            "But this is my business… Don't you want to stop? Don't you want help?"

            "No it's not, yes, and no."

            He pauses for a second, trying to figure that all out, and then says, "You want to stop…but you don't want help…?"

            I nod. "Yes. I can stop by myself."

            He gives me a look.

            "Then why haven't you already?"

            I pause. "I haven't wanted to. But I do now, so you can just leave it the fuck alone."

            He shakes his head.

            "You know that's not true, Rog. It's an addiction thing, you can't stop just like that, just because someone wants you to."

            I look at him in shock, wondering how he knew that…how he knew how addictive it was and how hard it is to stop.

            "See? I do understand a little."

            I cross my freshly bandaged arms. "No, you really don't. You don't know what it's like, you've never been through it, so stop pretending you know everything about it and that you understand exactly what it's like. You don't."

            He sighs. "Okay, you're right. I don't understand exactly what it's like because I never have been through it. But other people have, and they would understand…right?"

            I pause, not sure what he's getting at. I nod hesitantly.

            "Wouldn't you like to be somewhere where everyone understood what it's like? Understood how hard it is to stop, to even admit that it's a problem in the first place?"

            "Um…"

            "Collins told me about this place…"

I cut him off. "Collins? You told Collins?!"

"Yeah…was I not supposed to?"

"Would you want all your friends to know that you're slicing yourself up?"

I see him shudder a bit.

"Well, no, I guess not… But Collins doesn't care. He's just worried, and I didn't tell anyone else. Why is it such a big deal?"

"Because I don't want the entire world to know I'm crazy! I don't want everyone to know that I'm doing this!"

            "But…no one thinks you're crazy, Roger. You're not crazy, and no one thinks you are."

            I look at him closely, trying to decide if he's telling the truth or not. "You mean you don't think I'm crazy for 'tearing open my arms?'"

He sighs. "I told you I was sorry for saying that before, Rog. And no, I don't think you're crazy at all."

            "Yeah right."

            "Roger, you're not crazy! Just…in need of help."

            I glare at him. "What does that mean?"

"It means that for whatever reason, pain is the only thing that can comfort you right now, and that needs to be changed."

            I look at him suspiciously, wondering how he could possibly know all that.

            "Yeah, well I can change it by myself."

            "How?" he challenges.

            I pause. "I just can, okay?"

            He doesn't say anything but gives me a look like he doesn't believe that for a second.

            "Mark, please, just leave me alone…"

            "I will. Just hear me out first, okay?"

            I nod slowly, deciding that I could sit through one of his lectures if it meant he would leave me alone.

"When I went to see Collins before he told me about this program, in Chicago. It specializes in, um, self-injury. Which means that the only people there would be people like you, that understand and can help you."

I shake my head. "No way, I'm not going."

            "Why not Roger?"

            "Because I don't need it. Programs like that are for people who are really bad…the people who have been to hospitals dozens of times for stitches, or can't live normally because it's gotten so bad. I'm not like that, I don't need to be there."

            Right, like you live normally now," he says sarcastically.

            "I do live normally!"

            'Uh huh, sure. You never go out of the loft anymore, you haven't spoken to anyone, including me, in weeks, it's over 90 degrees outside and you're stuck wearing long sleeves and pants all the time, you haven't touched your guitar in months, your girlfriend left you because you were acting strangely, your only source of comfort is your blood and a razor, you have scars on your arms that are probably never going to fade completely, and you almost never leave your room anymore. That's really living normally."

            "Shut up Mark! Just shut the hell up! It's worth all that you know, it's better than feeling the way I did before I started doing this."

            His face saddens considerably when I say that.

            "It's worth all you're going through now just for a little comfort now and then?"

            I sigh, trying to think of a way to get him to understand what I don't even fully understand myself.

            "It's not 'just a little comfort now and then.' It's…I don't know. It's a way not to feel all the things that were eating me up before. Did you know I was thinking of killing myself a few months ago?"

            He gasps. "Oh my God Roger…you were?"

            I nod. "Yeah. I'm not anymore though. Because all the frustration and anger and hurt that was making me want to do it have a way to get out now. I didn't have that before. You don't understand what it's like to have to have all that inside of you with no way to get it out. It's the worst feeling in the world, Mark, and now I don't have that anymore."

            "But…Roger, now you have so many other things. You may not be in pain…um, emotional pain anymore, but you have so many other problems now because of what you do to get rid of it."

            I shrug. "It's worth it Mark. You wouldn't understand, I need this. It's the only thing I have, I need it to survive."

            "No you don't! Come on Roger, do you really want to be cutting yourself for the rest of your life, every time something upsets you? If you keep heading down this path you're eventually going to end up as one of those people who's been to the hospital dozens of times for stitches and who can't function normally in the real world anymore."

            As I listen to Mark I start to get really uncomfortable again with the knowledge that he knows my secret, that he knows the thing that I've kept to myself for months now and never ever wanted anyone to find out.

            I look at my watch and realize that it's 6:30 already. Wow, it hardly seems like an hour has passed. Mark's still talking but I've tuned him out, and I stand up, going over to my closet and throwing on a shirt.

            "Roger…what are you doing?"

"I'm going out."

            He looks at me in surprise. "You're going out of the loft?"

"Yeah."

            I start to head out the door but he calls me back.

            "Wait Rog," he says as he glances me over. "Aren't you going to be hot in that?" he asks, motioning to my long-sleeved black Well Hungarians shirt and plaid pants.

            I shrug. "It's early. It's not too bad out yet."

            He tries one more time to keep me inside as he steps in front of me, blocking the entrance to the door.

            "Roger, this is insane. Are you going to dress like that all summer just because you're scared of what other people think?"

"No, I dress like this so they won't be scared. Now if you'll excuse me…"

I push him aside and walk out the door, ignoring him as he says, "Wait, Roger, where are you going?"

One on the street I realize just how hot it is and sit down on a bench in the shade for a few minutes, thinking about the conversation I'd just had with Mark and everything that's happened these past two days.

            I know he's right about some of the things he said, like how I had to stop now before it gets even more out of control. But with some of the other things, he just doesn't understand, doesn't know what it's like, and therefore has no right no lecture me about it and tell me what's right for me.

            The truth is though, that I really would like his help. But I'd never admit it to him. I'd never accept it, never willingly let him help me, because I know that if I did he'd get disgusted and think I was absolutely insane. I know how it is. People don't like to talk about something like cutting, they get uncomfortable and grossed out. They offer to help, but they're doing it to be polite, so they won't look like a bad friend.

            And I already know that's what Mark is doing because he even admitted that he felt like he was being a bad friend. The truth is that cutting is just a subject that people would do anything to avoid. Mark is no exception. I saw his expression when I was talking about it, and saw the look on his face when he was bandaging my wounds and cleaning me up.

            To take him up on his offer to help wouldn't be fair to him. So I'm not going to do it. And besides, I don't even think I'd really be comfortable talking to Mark about it.

            He is right though, when he said I needed to stop. I know I do. And I will. Tomorrow.

            Tomorrow I'll start writing music again, tomorrow I'll start up a new band, tomorrow I'll get back together with Mimi…tomorrow.