A/N 7/21/02: Sigh. The end of this chapter has been edited a bit. Its not much, but it does change a couple of things in the long run. You might want to reread it before moving along to part three. Sorry about that-this thing has a mind of its own.
Thanks everyone! And, as always, reviews are appreciated.
**
[Roger]
"Mimi!"
One moment, her slight form was glaring at me, stalking angrily away, then suddenly she's falling, falling, falling. The dull thud of her head on the wood floor reverberated in my mind. I scrambled over to her side, my hands frantically pushing aside her thick curls to find a pulse.
"God, Mimi...." I whispered. Her pulse was strong, and she didn't seem to be too badly hurt. I noticed the chunk of wood in her tiny palm that caused her last outburst. Shaking my head, I gathered her into my arms and carried her into the bedroom trying to ignore how light she was. Mimi was small to begin with, but she couldn't weigh more than 90 pounds now. I knocked aside random clothes and pieces of paper to clear a place for her on the bed. Sirens wailed outside her open bedroom window while I tore apart her bathroom searching for tweezers to try to fix her hand before she woke up. I settled back on to the bed with a crinkle, pulled a piece of paper out from under my ass, and began my impromptu surgery.
After a few minutes, I sighed with relief. There was a reason I never wanted to become a doctor. I hate seeing anything injured or in pain. I remember a few months ago Mark and I were out walking in Central Park on a sunny, breezy weekday afternoon. He had decided it was perfect filming weather (though I'd yet to seem him declare something much less than perfect for filming. Ever the optimist, our Mark), so we were out walking. The usual tourists were out, but it was early so the park was a bit more deserted than usual. We came across a place where the path bent and three huge willow trees shaded everything. Under a bench we spotted a bird with a broken wing hopping along helplessly, crying out for help with every ineffectual flap of its broken wing. Mark, of course, whipped out his camera and started filming. For someone with such a huge heart, Mark was able to look at most anything with a detached gaze...this is one of the things that has always amazed me about him. I, however, had to walk on by and try to push the bird out of my mind. I met up with Mark a bit later on a park bench where I had been trying to pick out something meaningful on my guitar (as usual, I hadn't gotten very far). Mark kept calling the bird 'beautiful' for the rest of the day, amazed that he was able to find such a great shot. I don't know about most people, but I've never been able to find anything beautiful about death or suffering. Maybe it stems from a difference in viewpoint, but I can't tolerate seeing something in pain.
Mimi's suffering was just about killing me. As difficult as my own withdrawal had been, it was nothing compared to watching it through the eyes of another. I would never tell her this, but I was so close to going out to find 'the man', as we had so dubbed him in a fit of post-sex giggles, and buying her anything I could wheedle out of him with what little money I had in my wallet. Anything to take her suffering away. I was strong enough to give up my decade long drug addiction, but I wasn't strong enough to help my girlfriend get through hers.
I needed help. Before I even realized what I was doing, I was out the door.
**
[Mark]
The door to the loft slammed shut, causing me to jump. I pushed my glasses back up my nose and looked up from my spot in the back bedroom where I was surrounded by hundreds of reels of film, attempting to cut something coherent together.
"Hey Mark...you in here?" Roger called, his heavy footfall echoing across the loft.
"Yeah!" I shouted. "Back room."
"Sounds seedy," Roger grinned.
I laughed, smiling back at him. "So hows it going?" I asked. After a bad night at the club, Mimi had gone to him and asked for his help. Naturally, all of us were thrilled with her change of heart. But this had been six days ago and no one had heard from either of them until now.
I looked up at Roger. His usually bright blue eyes were dull and lifeless, heavy dark smudges under each of them. He looked exhausted. It was clear the past week had not been kind to him. "You're not wearing shoes," I observed, looking down at his bare, dusty feet. I couldn't believe he'd run up five nasty flights of stairs without shoes. In this building.
Roger glanced down at his feet, seeming genuinely surprised. "Oh."
"You okay, man?" I had to ask.
He shook his head. "No. No I'm not." His shoulders slumped forward, and his head dropped towards his chest. He was more than simply tired, I realized. He looked defeated. I'd known Roger for years and I don't think I had ever seen his look this dead.
God, what a horrible choice of words.
"Mimi," I began. "Is she okay?"
"Yeah, shes fine I guess. I mean, shes tired and bitchy. She can't eat, she has the shakes...headaches," he sighed, coming to sit next to me on the worn black futon we kept back in the so-called 'film room'. I nodded in understanding. There was something infinitely fucked up about our collective knowledge of the finer points of heroin withdrawal, I noted sadly.
"I can't do this, Mark," he said. His eyes sought me out, begging me to understand. "I can't watch her...hurt like that."
My eyes fluttered closed and I sighed deeply. Roger had an artist's soul, Collins had said late one night after some heavy drinking. He was slightly troubled and felt things twice as deeply as the rest of us. I had always known this, but at times it his sensitivity still blindsided me.
"Where is she now?"
"Shes downstairs," he replied.
"Alone?!" I asked, incredulous.
"Christ, Mark, shes sleeping! I just came up here to grab my guitar," Roger snapped. "She was sitting there screaming at me, went to get up and fell. She hit her head. She's fine. I only came up here for a minute anyway." He stood up angrily and went to storm out of the room in a classic, clichéd Roger manner.
"Rog?"
He stopped, turning abruptly. "Yeah?"
"Did you need to talk?"
Roger shook his head. "I've got to go." I nodded, turning back to my film. Images of the past year flickered by frame by frame on the small black and white television we had set up in the room.
"Mark?"
"Yeah Rog?"
"Thanks."
I turned to stare at him, my eyes narrowing. "What?"
"For taking care of me. I know I never thanked you, and well, I know I wouldn't be here if you hadn't done...what you did. God, I owe you everything," Roger stammered softly. He ran his hands through his hair.
I stood and went over to embrace him. "Don't even worry about it, man. We're friends. You don't owe me a thing." Roger sniffled, and I could feel his hot tears as they fell onto my sweater. His entire body began to quake with giant sobs.
"I just...don't think I can do it, Mark," he gasped, his face still pressed into my shoulder. He looked up at me with warm, wet eyes. "How did you do it?"
I forced a small smile, more for my own sake than his. I knew he could see right through it. "I had to keep believing that no matter how angry you were, I was doing the right thing. That's all you can do, Rog. Just keep believing. In Mimi, and in yourself. She loves you."
"But the things she said to me, Mark."
I had to laugh at this. "Do you even remember half of what you said to me?"
He chuckled. "You do have a point." Roger paused, looking pensive. "I-"
I finished for him. "You need to go check on that beautiful girlfriend of yours. I bet she'll be waking up soon," I grinned, already turning back to my film.
"I'll see you later, then," Roger called, halfway out the door.
A shot from Christmas last year showed up on the screen. Mimi and Roger were looking deeply into each other eyes, seemingly oblivious to the outside world as the rest of our ragtag family carried on quite the rowdy conversation in a blurry, surreal backdrop.
They'd make it, I decided. Meanwhile, I had a film to finish.
**
[Mimi]
The door to my apartment slammed; it had to be Roger. God love him, but he never was much on doing things quietly. I sat up in bed gingerly, testing how my head was going to react to being in a vertical position. Not too bad, I decided, swinging my legs over the side and standing up. No major harm done. It wasn't like you could really add to my headache, anyway.
"I'm in here, Roger," I called out to him, moving to the closet and picking up a pair of cut off jean shorts off of the floor. I quickly pulled off my jeans, and slid the shorts up my legs. My body's thermometer was so whacked out-I was hot now. Figures.
"Did you take your AZT?" he asked, already in my room with two of the aforementioned little white pills and a glass of water. Wordlessly, he handed one to me, and waited until I had drank about half of the water. He took the glass back and swallowed the other pill himself, draining the rest of the glass. He turned and headed back into the kitchen, refilling the glass and setting it on the small table next to my bed.
God. Was this how we were going to spend the rest of our life? Lining up pills on the kitchen counter and counting our days until the end? Of course, what really was the alternative?
I pushed all thoughts of tomorrow out of my mind. "Thanks hon," I said, perching on my toes to kiss him softly.
He grinned back at me. "Always."
For the first time since I'd woken up, I noticed the band-aid on the palm of my hand. I smiled wryly at him. "You fixed my hand,"
"I did," he replied quietly, glancing down at the floor. Roger was so adorable when he was embarrassed. For someone who longed to perform in front of crowds, he could be so fragile. I let my hand glide over the soft quasi-beard on his cheek, and he turned his head to kiss my wounded palm. I melted.
"Thank you," I managed to get out, my voice raspy even to my own ears.
He nodded. "Feeling a bit better?"
"Mmhmm," I answered, "I think the worst of it is over."
"I hope so," he whispered, echoing my thoughts. I reached up to hug him, wrapping my arms around his neck and running my fingers through his short hair. His arms went around my waist tightly and he sighed into my neck.
"Love you," he mumbled.
"You too, baby. You too."
**
Two weeks later I found myself out on the fourth floor fire escape looking off into the distance, trying in vain to see something other than the city's skyline. There had to be something more, just outside of the city limits. One day I'd see it. For now, I was stuck.
Roger and I had had yet another fight. The only difference was that this time I had beaten him to the storming out part. Somehow over the past couple of weeks our seemingly perfect love had begun to dissolve into its usual chaotic state. I had started going out again with some girls from the club-at first he had protested this and wouldn't let me go out at all. Finally, I decided I was going to live my life and just left for the night. It had taken two days for him to speak to me after that. Since then, I'd been hanging close to the apartment to avoid any major meltdowns. I hadn't really seen anyone other than Roger in a week, and God knew we didn't speak to each other more than what was absolutely necessary.
I'd never been a particularly needy person, but I was lonely. I'm not ashamed to admit it.
I loved Roger. Of course I loved Roger. But that didn't mean that I was going to let him run my life. I told him exactly that and he had exploded, I had yelled back then promptly gotten the hell out of the apartment. That was six hours ago.
Which left me here. Out on a fire escape, and probably locked out of my own apartment.
A clinking of footsteps against the metal grate above me shook me out of my thoughts. Who in the--? I looked up, seeing the soles of sneakers and black pants. "Mark?"
A blonde head looked over the railing, its face completely obscured in the darkness. "Mimi?"
"What are you doing out here?" I asked, pulling myself back up to my feet. I brushed bits of black paint and rust off of my cutoffs and red tank top then looked back up at him.
"Can't sleep. You and Roger..." he trailed off, but I knew exactly what he was going to ask.
"Yep,"
"I figured. I heard most of it,"
What? "How?"
"Your window must have been open. You leave your windows open a lot," he said. Though I couldn't see his face, I could hear the smirk in his voice. Smartass.
"You know you like it," I said lightly, pulling the bottom rung of the ladder down. It slid down with a loud clank. "Mind if I come up?"
"Nope. I could use the company,"
Me too, I thought, climbing quickly up the ladder. I poked my head above the platform, finally seeing Mark sitting back against the brick wall of the building. His camera sat next to him, untouched.
"So how long have you been out here?" he asked, finally looking up at me.
I fidgeted with the hem of my shorts. "Six hours or so. I'm alright."
He shook his head, a rueful smile playing upon his lips. I couldn't quite get a read on his expression, and it bothered me; usually I was excellent at reading people. I sighed, sitting down opposite him with my back against the railing.
"Are you really, Mimi?"
I sighed. No, I wasn't okay. But I also wasn't going to tell Mark this. First of all, we were little more than acquaintances. We'd been brought together through Roger, and once Roger and I were through-as was looking more and more likely by the day-Mark would disappear from my life as well.
"Yeah," I murmured, my eyes darting down to my lap. "I'm fine."
Mark reached for his camera and flipped it on. Mentally, I rolled my eyes.
"Close on Mimi," he began, more than just a hint of sarcasm in his voice as he zoomed in on my face. "She almost has herself convinced she's happy."
"Ass," I spat out, turning away.
"I'm sorry," Mark said immediately, setting his camera down gently on the metal platform. "I just worry about you."
That made two of us. He was still talking, though. "But you and Roger will work through everything. You always do. And then it'll all go back to normal. You guys love each other, no matter how much you fight."
I choked out a bitter laugh. "But in the meantime, I'm locked out of my own damned apartment."
"But at least you're not alone anymore," he pointed out.
I almost smiled at that. "True." Looking over at Mark, his eyes were busy looking at his camera for God-knows-what. Maybe he was just looking at it to stall for time. But his eyes gave him away. Realization smacked into me.
"You miss him, don't you?" I asked softly, pulling my knees up to my chest.
Mark nodded, gazing off somewhere behind me. "It gets lonely up here," he paused. "Of course, its not like Roger is always the greatest of company."
That was certainly true. "But at least there's someone there," I murmured, catching his gaze with my own. Understanding flickered in his eyes.
He looked at me curiously, his head cocked to the side. "Why haven't we talked, Mimi? I mean, since Roger came back I've barely seen you."
I shrugged. "Couldn't tell you,"
"Me either," he replied. "But I'm glad we did."
I smiled. "Me too,"
Mark stood up. "I was going to head inside. You're welcome to take my room if you want. I was going to sleep out on the couch anyway."
I shook my head. "I should really get back downstairs,"
He crinkled his nose in distaste. "Good luck with that." Offering me his hand, he pulled me to my feet then turned to climb back through the window. I began my long trek back down the fire escape ladders. "Hey Mimi," he called, sticking his head back out the window.
"Yeah?"
"If you ever need anything.... I'm just up here. Anytime," he said, smiling sadly. His camera was tucked safely under an arm.
"Thanks," I paused for a moment. "Mark?"
"Yeah?"
"Same goes for you. Anything. Anytime."
Mark grinned at me. "Anything?"
I bit back a laugh. "You heard what I said," I called, continuing down the ladders.
"Goodnight,"
"Night," I replied, smiling to myself. It was rare that life shocked the hell out of you. I was just thrilled that even after all I had been through, simple kindness won out. Still grinning, I walked back into the apartment feeling more hopeful than I had in the past few weeks. Mark and I-friends. Who would have guessed? Meanwhile, Roger and I would fix our battered relationship and everything would work out. It had to. Didn't it?
**
Thanks everyone! And, as always, reviews are appreciated.
**
[Roger]
"Mimi!"
One moment, her slight form was glaring at me, stalking angrily away, then suddenly she's falling, falling, falling. The dull thud of her head on the wood floor reverberated in my mind. I scrambled over to her side, my hands frantically pushing aside her thick curls to find a pulse.
"God, Mimi...." I whispered. Her pulse was strong, and she didn't seem to be too badly hurt. I noticed the chunk of wood in her tiny palm that caused her last outburst. Shaking my head, I gathered her into my arms and carried her into the bedroom trying to ignore how light she was. Mimi was small to begin with, but she couldn't weigh more than 90 pounds now. I knocked aside random clothes and pieces of paper to clear a place for her on the bed. Sirens wailed outside her open bedroom window while I tore apart her bathroom searching for tweezers to try to fix her hand before she woke up. I settled back on to the bed with a crinkle, pulled a piece of paper out from under my ass, and began my impromptu surgery.
After a few minutes, I sighed with relief. There was a reason I never wanted to become a doctor. I hate seeing anything injured or in pain. I remember a few months ago Mark and I were out walking in Central Park on a sunny, breezy weekday afternoon. He had decided it was perfect filming weather (though I'd yet to seem him declare something much less than perfect for filming. Ever the optimist, our Mark), so we were out walking. The usual tourists were out, but it was early so the park was a bit more deserted than usual. We came across a place where the path bent and three huge willow trees shaded everything. Under a bench we spotted a bird with a broken wing hopping along helplessly, crying out for help with every ineffectual flap of its broken wing. Mark, of course, whipped out his camera and started filming. For someone with such a huge heart, Mark was able to look at most anything with a detached gaze...this is one of the things that has always amazed me about him. I, however, had to walk on by and try to push the bird out of my mind. I met up with Mark a bit later on a park bench where I had been trying to pick out something meaningful on my guitar (as usual, I hadn't gotten very far). Mark kept calling the bird 'beautiful' for the rest of the day, amazed that he was able to find such a great shot. I don't know about most people, but I've never been able to find anything beautiful about death or suffering. Maybe it stems from a difference in viewpoint, but I can't tolerate seeing something in pain.
Mimi's suffering was just about killing me. As difficult as my own withdrawal had been, it was nothing compared to watching it through the eyes of another. I would never tell her this, but I was so close to going out to find 'the man', as we had so dubbed him in a fit of post-sex giggles, and buying her anything I could wheedle out of him with what little money I had in my wallet. Anything to take her suffering away. I was strong enough to give up my decade long drug addiction, but I wasn't strong enough to help my girlfriend get through hers.
I needed help. Before I even realized what I was doing, I was out the door.
**
[Mark]
The door to the loft slammed shut, causing me to jump. I pushed my glasses back up my nose and looked up from my spot in the back bedroom where I was surrounded by hundreds of reels of film, attempting to cut something coherent together.
"Hey Mark...you in here?" Roger called, his heavy footfall echoing across the loft.
"Yeah!" I shouted. "Back room."
"Sounds seedy," Roger grinned.
I laughed, smiling back at him. "So hows it going?" I asked. After a bad night at the club, Mimi had gone to him and asked for his help. Naturally, all of us were thrilled with her change of heart. But this had been six days ago and no one had heard from either of them until now.
I looked up at Roger. His usually bright blue eyes were dull and lifeless, heavy dark smudges under each of them. He looked exhausted. It was clear the past week had not been kind to him. "You're not wearing shoes," I observed, looking down at his bare, dusty feet. I couldn't believe he'd run up five nasty flights of stairs without shoes. In this building.
Roger glanced down at his feet, seeming genuinely surprised. "Oh."
"You okay, man?" I had to ask.
He shook his head. "No. No I'm not." His shoulders slumped forward, and his head dropped towards his chest. He was more than simply tired, I realized. He looked defeated. I'd known Roger for years and I don't think I had ever seen his look this dead.
God, what a horrible choice of words.
"Mimi," I began. "Is she okay?"
"Yeah, shes fine I guess. I mean, shes tired and bitchy. She can't eat, she has the shakes...headaches," he sighed, coming to sit next to me on the worn black futon we kept back in the so-called 'film room'. I nodded in understanding. There was something infinitely fucked up about our collective knowledge of the finer points of heroin withdrawal, I noted sadly.
"I can't do this, Mark," he said. His eyes sought me out, begging me to understand. "I can't watch her...hurt like that."
My eyes fluttered closed and I sighed deeply. Roger had an artist's soul, Collins had said late one night after some heavy drinking. He was slightly troubled and felt things twice as deeply as the rest of us. I had always known this, but at times it his sensitivity still blindsided me.
"Where is she now?"
"Shes downstairs," he replied.
"Alone?!" I asked, incredulous.
"Christ, Mark, shes sleeping! I just came up here to grab my guitar," Roger snapped. "She was sitting there screaming at me, went to get up and fell. She hit her head. She's fine. I only came up here for a minute anyway." He stood up angrily and went to storm out of the room in a classic, clichéd Roger manner.
"Rog?"
He stopped, turning abruptly. "Yeah?"
"Did you need to talk?"
Roger shook his head. "I've got to go." I nodded, turning back to my film. Images of the past year flickered by frame by frame on the small black and white television we had set up in the room.
"Mark?"
"Yeah Rog?"
"Thanks."
I turned to stare at him, my eyes narrowing. "What?"
"For taking care of me. I know I never thanked you, and well, I know I wouldn't be here if you hadn't done...what you did. God, I owe you everything," Roger stammered softly. He ran his hands through his hair.
I stood and went over to embrace him. "Don't even worry about it, man. We're friends. You don't owe me a thing." Roger sniffled, and I could feel his hot tears as they fell onto my sweater. His entire body began to quake with giant sobs.
"I just...don't think I can do it, Mark," he gasped, his face still pressed into my shoulder. He looked up at me with warm, wet eyes. "How did you do it?"
I forced a small smile, more for my own sake than his. I knew he could see right through it. "I had to keep believing that no matter how angry you were, I was doing the right thing. That's all you can do, Rog. Just keep believing. In Mimi, and in yourself. She loves you."
"But the things she said to me, Mark."
I had to laugh at this. "Do you even remember half of what you said to me?"
He chuckled. "You do have a point." Roger paused, looking pensive. "I-"
I finished for him. "You need to go check on that beautiful girlfriend of yours. I bet she'll be waking up soon," I grinned, already turning back to my film.
"I'll see you later, then," Roger called, halfway out the door.
A shot from Christmas last year showed up on the screen. Mimi and Roger were looking deeply into each other eyes, seemingly oblivious to the outside world as the rest of our ragtag family carried on quite the rowdy conversation in a blurry, surreal backdrop.
They'd make it, I decided. Meanwhile, I had a film to finish.
**
[Mimi]
The door to my apartment slammed; it had to be Roger. God love him, but he never was much on doing things quietly. I sat up in bed gingerly, testing how my head was going to react to being in a vertical position. Not too bad, I decided, swinging my legs over the side and standing up. No major harm done. It wasn't like you could really add to my headache, anyway.
"I'm in here, Roger," I called out to him, moving to the closet and picking up a pair of cut off jean shorts off of the floor. I quickly pulled off my jeans, and slid the shorts up my legs. My body's thermometer was so whacked out-I was hot now. Figures.
"Did you take your AZT?" he asked, already in my room with two of the aforementioned little white pills and a glass of water. Wordlessly, he handed one to me, and waited until I had drank about half of the water. He took the glass back and swallowed the other pill himself, draining the rest of the glass. He turned and headed back into the kitchen, refilling the glass and setting it on the small table next to my bed.
God. Was this how we were going to spend the rest of our life? Lining up pills on the kitchen counter and counting our days until the end? Of course, what really was the alternative?
I pushed all thoughts of tomorrow out of my mind. "Thanks hon," I said, perching on my toes to kiss him softly.
He grinned back at me. "Always."
For the first time since I'd woken up, I noticed the band-aid on the palm of my hand. I smiled wryly at him. "You fixed my hand,"
"I did," he replied quietly, glancing down at the floor. Roger was so adorable when he was embarrassed. For someone who longed to perform in front of crowds, he could be so fragile. I let my hand glide over the soft quasi-beard on his cheek, and he turned his head to kiss my wounded palm. I melted.
"Thank you," I managed to get out, my voice raspy even to my own ears.
He nodded. "Feeling a bit better?"
"Mmhmm," I answered, "I think the worst of it is over."
"I hope so," he whispered, echoing my thoughts. I reached up to hug him, wrapping my arms around his neck and running my fingers through his short hair. His arms went around my waist tightly and he sighed into my neck.
"Love you," he mumbled.
"You too, baby. You too."
**
Two weeks later I found myself out on the fourth floor fire escape looking off into the distance, trying in vain to see something other than the city's skyline. There had to be something more, just outside of the city limits. One day I'd see it. For now, I was stuck.
Roger and I had had yet another fight. The only difference was that this time I had beaten him to the storming out part. Somehow over the past couple of weeks our seemingly perfect love had begun to dissolve into its usual chaotic state. I had started going out again with some girls from the club-at first he had protested this and wouldn't let me go out at all. Finally, I decided I was going to live my life and just left for the night. It had taken two days for him to speak to me after that. Since then, I'd been hanging close to the apartment to avoid any major meltdowns. I hadn't really seen anyone other than Roger in a week, and God knew we didn't speak to each other more than what was absolutely necessary.
I'd never been a particularly needy person, but I was lonely. I'm not ashamed to admit it.
I loved Roger. Of course I loved Roger. But that didn't mean that I was going to let him run my life. I told him exactly that and he had exploded, I had yelled back then promptly gotten the hell out of the apartment. That was six hours ago.
Which left me here. Out on a fire escape, and probably locked out of my own apartment.
A clinking of footsteps against the metal grate above me shook me out of my thoughts. Who in the--? I looked up, seeing the soles of sneakers and black pants. "Mark?"
A blonde head looked over the railing, its face completely obscured in the darkness. "Mimi?"
"What are you doing out here?" I asked, pulling myself back up to my feet. I brushed bits of black paint and rust off of my cutoffs and red tank top then looked back up at him.
"Can't sleep. You and Roger..." he trailed off, but I knew exactly what he was going to ask.
"Yep,"
"I figured. I heard most of it,"
What? "How?"
"Your window must have been open. You leave your windows open a lot," he said. Though I couldn't see his face, I could hear the smirk in his voice. Smartass.
"You know you like it," I said lightly, pulling the bottom rung of the ladder down. It slid down with a loud clank. "Mind if I come up?"
"Nope. I could use the company,"
Me too, I thought, climbing quickly up the ladder. I poked my head above the platform, finally seeing Mark sitting back against the brick wall of the building. His camera sat next to him, untouched.
"So how long have you been out here?" he asked, finally looking up at me.
I fidgeted with the hem of my shorts. "Six hours or so. I'm alright."
He shook his head, a rueful smile playing upon his lips. I couldn't quite get a read on his expression, and it bothered me; usually I was excellent at reading people. I sighed, sitting down opposite him with my back against the railing.
"Are you really, Mimi?"
I sighed. No, I wasn't okay. But I also wasn't going to tell Mark this. First of all, we were little more than acquaintances. We'd been brought together through Roger, and once Roger and I were through-as was looking more and more likely by the day-Mark would disappear from my life as well.
"Yeah," I murmured, my eyes darting down to my lap. "I'm fine."
Mark reached for his camera and flipped it on. Mentally, I rolled my eyes.
"Close on Mimi," he began, more than just a hint of sarcasm in his voice as he zoomed in on my face. "She almost has herself convinced she's happy."
"Ass," I spat out, turning away.
"I'm sorry," Mark said immediately, setting his camera down gently on the metal platform. "I just worry about you."
That made two of us. He was still talking, though. "But you and Roger will work through everything. You always do. And then it'll all go back to normal. You guys love each other, no matter how much you fight."
I choked out a bitter laugh. "But in the meantime, I'm locked out of my own damned apartment."
"But at least you're not alone anymore," he pointed out.
I almost smiled at that. "True." Looking over at Mark, his eyes were busy looking at his camera for God-knows-what. Maybe he was just looking at it to stall for time. But his eyes gave him away. Realization smacked into me.
"You miss him, don't you?" I asked softly, pulling my knees up to my chest.
Mark nodded, gazing off somewhere behind me. "It gets lonely up here," he paused. "Of course, its not like Roger is always the greatest of company."
That was certainly true. "But at least there's someone there," I murmured, catching his gaze with my own. Understanding flickered in his eyes.
He looked at me curiously, his head cocked to the side. "Why haven't we talked, Mimi? I mean, since Roger came back I've barely seen you."
I shrugged. "Couldn't tell you,"
"Me either," he replied. "But I'm glad we did."
I smiled. "Me too,"
Mark stood up. "I was going to head inside. You're welcome to take my room if you want. I was going to sleep out on the couch anyway."
I shook my head. "I should really get back downstairs,"
He crinkled his nose in distaste. "Good luck with that." Offering me his hand, he pulled me to my feet then turned to climb back through the window. I began my long trek back down the fire escape ladders. "Hey Mimi," he called, sticking his head back out the window.
"Yeah?"
"If you ever need anything.... I'm just up here. Anytime," he said, smiling sadly. His camera was tucked safely under an arm.
"Thanks," I paused for a moment. "Mark?"
"Yeah?"
"Same goes for you. Anything. Anytime."
Mark grinned at me. "Anything?"
I bit back a laugh. "You heard what I said," I called, continuing down the ladders.
"Goodnight,"
"Night," I replied, smiling to myself. It was rare that life shocked the hell out of you. I was just thrilled that even after all I had been through, simple kindness won out. Still grinning, I walked back into the apartment feeling more hopeful than I had in the past few weeks. Mark and I-friends. Who would have guessed? Meanwhile, Roger and I would fix our battered relationship and everything would work out. It had to. Didn't it?
**
