A/N: 05-20-02—Well... after the (however amusing) complaints and threats
about chapter 8, I'm back. :) Many thanks for the, er, emotional reviews.
LOL. Believe me, that chapter was as distressing to write as it apparently
was to read. It's nice to know I wasn't the only one who ended up sad and
depressed. :) (I actually got a cold from it. *sniff* So... yeah.)
A list of the characters I own: *holds up a blank sheet of paper*
Liss, you owe me more FMFF! (Ha, try pronouncing that as a word. What fun. :P)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ I know the truth and it haunts me... ~
9. [R]
I think it hit us both at the same time. Not any meaning from those words—no, that was just noise from a woman in a white uniform. What hit us simultaneously was the realization that we were staring at each other. But, in retrospect, he must have realized it a split second later than I had, because he hadn't been quick enough to avert his gaze... and I saw. I saw past those black-rimmed glasses and those liquid blue eyes... and I knew I'd seen enough.
That wasn't just shock behind those eyes.
That was guilt.
The nurse was gone now... unable to stand the tension in the room. What made her think we could either?
Silence again... and my mind wrapped around those words that were so far away now. Maybe far enough to be in another life. Maybe they weren't real after all...
She was two months pregnant.
How it all fit together so nicely now... bringing my completely fucked up life to a nice, tidy close. Not only had I lost her, I'd lost her to *him*.
Benny.
He'd won after all.
She was gone, and he'd won, and I'd lost, and no one had breathed a word. Not even him... not even the one with the black-rimmed glasses and liquid blue eyes. The one who hadn't hidden so much as a candy stash from me since the day we met six years ago.
A fleeting, brilliant flash of memory—six years ago... a small blond man, barely nineteen, hair sticking up in odd places. He was holding a camera, but they way he held it, it looked more like an extension of his arm than a piece of electronic equipment. Bent down on the sidewalk, zoomed in on a patch of grass. I walked past him, muttering "Freak" under my breath, and got a good twenty feet ahead until my curiosity became too much, and I simply had to turn back and ask him what in God's name he was filming.
A butterfly with a broken wing, he told me. And then he pointed to it. And for some reason, it broke my heart.
I don't think we've been away from each other for more than a day at a time since then.
...Not counting the last six months, of course.
Is this what we became when forced apart from each other? Deceitful and withdrawn and untrusting and...
"Roger?"
...And despite it all, he could still own me with a breath of those two syllables.
I looked at him again, and found words coming to my mouth from some place I'd been trying to ignore. Couldn't I keep ignoring it? There were so many wonderful flashbacks I could summon to mind to keep my thoughts away from all of this, if only given the chance... if I only tried hard enough...
"I'll kill him," I whispered.
It felt strange to be back in a position where we could actually open our mouths and speak—words felt so inappropriate now, but I could only suspect his came to him as unforeseen as mine did to me.
"What?"
"Benny," I said to myself. "He did this... he... it's him... he was..."
Something happened in those eyes of his when I turned back for a reaction. They weren't those usual calm pools of cobalt, the way they were so often, even in crisis. How quickly they'd brewed up a storm, turning into a turbulent, unreadable ocean with crashing waves and lightning and...
"Roger... no..."
"Don't you dare cover for him."
"No, you don't understand, I—"
And I was out the door. My feet aimlessly traced the path of the nurse and found their way down the hall, somehow locating an Exit sign. I quickened my pace, hoping that might somehow drown out the voice calling after me from the other end of the hall. The end of the hall I couldn't turn back to. But why? What would happen if I'd turned back?
I'd asked myself that all the way to Santa Fe.
How I even made it to Benny's was a mystery; I hadn't been to his place in over a year, and was surprised I hadn't blocked it out of my memory for obvious reasons. But maybe it was just my fate, offering one last gesture of pity—at any rate, I found myself at his front door twenty minutes later.
How did I get here?
I pounded my fist against the front door, four times. And waited. Nothing. But he was here, I knew he was here. Here, with that guilty conscience, if he even had a conscience. I could feel it. I could almost feel the guilt from inside the building seeping out, eating away at the air, making my breaths short and ragged and faint...
Was it really coming from inside the building?
Could it instead have been that same guilt in those blue eyes, miles away at the hospital?
Certainly not. Guilt like that couldn't travel this far. So he hadn't told me about Benny. So what? He wasn't the one who knocked her up and killed her.
It had nothing to do with the disease, you know.
I heard the nurses—it had taken the twenty-minute drive for me to formulate their hushed voices into a tangible conversation. But I'd heard everything. Did you know she was HIV-positive? they said to each other. But she looked so healthy, another one replied. Of course, answered one more, because it had nothing to do with her death. No... that came from pregnancy complications.
Mimi had spent a year and a half helping me come to terms with the reality that AIDS would someday take her life, and someday take mine.
It hadn't. But she was still gone. How unfair that I wasted all that time, worrying to death whenever she would catch the flu or find out that her T- cell count was lower than they'd hoped... when in the end, none of it mattered. She could have been the healthiest person in the world, and she'd still be gone.
The front door eased open, slowly, and Benny's figure appeared. Only a brief glance at his face told me he knew. He knew she was gone. Maureen had called, or Collins had called, or he was psychic... but he knew.
There was still one thing he didn't know.
That brief glance was all I allowed to pass between us—no words, no exchange—before I stepped forward and sent my fist into his face.
As it was probably the last thing on earth he'd expected at the moment, he reeled backwards—barely retaining his balance, but still keeping a traumatized glare fixated on me. I waited for him to blow up, to punch me right back, to say something, ANYthing. But he only stared at me.
I managed to locate that tool that had once been my voice. But there was no power to it. Just sound. And barely that. Only emotionless shadows of words. "You fucking bastard..."
"Roger..." Ah, so he could speak after all? "I don't know what you—"
"Don't." I shook my head. "Just don't."
This seemed to be a reasonable request, except that he actually honored it and remained silent, and I realized I had no idea what to say.
"How—HOW COULD YOU DO IT?"
"Seriously, I—"
No, no. Questions weren't asking for answers at this point. "She's GONE, Benny—"
"I *know* that! Maureen called me!"
"You killed her!!!"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"*She was pregnant.*"
I wanted so badly to yell that out, maybe disrupt any neighbors in a three- mile radius. But I couldn't. It was a statement I could barely admit to myself, let alone scream it to a person I didn't even want to share it with. I wanted him to feel his own pain from it, yes, of course... but I didn't want him to see mine.
His voice fell to a level so soft I thought maybe some demon of silence had suddenly possessed him. "What?"
"Oh, don't act so fucking surprised! How long did you two wait after I left for Santa Fe? Or was this going on while I was still here?"
"Jesus Christ, Roger!! I'm not the father! I haven't been in a room alone with her in like half a year!"
"You're lying," I stated simply. But decidedly curious about the outrageous plot he might concoct, I persisted. "Who is it then?"
His eyes widened as if the answer were the most obvious one in the world. "MARK! God, they've been going at it for months!"
So that's what it feels like to have your heart stop beating.
I half-watched as he paced the room in shock. "Holy shit, he got her pregnant?"
That was it. I lunged for him, shoving him backward against the nearest wall. "You're a fucking liar!"
"No one TOLD you?!"
"Mark would *never* do that!!"
"Ask him!"
I released him, only because the sick feeling in my stomach had reached a point of driving me to weakness. "He'd never do that," I repeated.
"ASK HIM."
"NO!"
"No?!" an incredulous chuckle escaped his lips. "Well, of course. Because you know it's the truth."
I backed away from him. "How dare you accuse him of this... he hasn't done anything to you! He even kept all this a secret, for YOU! You owe him everything!"
But Benny just shook his head, a mockery of my supposed ignorance. "Ask him. Ask Maureen, ask Joanne, ask Collins! Ask anyone in the whole fucking city! EVERYone knows!"
The final two words echoed in the room as I grasped for a reaction. A reaction that would prove me right. That would somehow prove me right... I was good at this. I could always make someone crumble and confess. I couldn't have lost that talent.
*Everyone knows...*
Another unbidden flashback swamped my thoughts, temporarily paralyzing me from any reaction. And then another, and another, like all the steps of a crazy math problem suddenly dropping right into place on the sheet of paper... a sheet of paper now ripped by excessive erasing and smeared with long-forgotten margin notes. Notes, now completely worthless...
[A/N: Yeah, I've been spending way too much time on math homework.]
A home video tape, under a stack of nine unlabeled ones and two pillows. A cake and candles, and a toast with plastic sporks and Styrofoam cups, and a little girl at the table. Except she wasn't a little girl anymore, she was twenty-one. And she smiled at the camera and whispered 'I love you' to the person behind it...
Clothes strewn about downstairs. Men's clothes. Not hers. Mark's.
*We've been... sharing the apartments. It was pretty lonely around here for awhile.*
No, no, no, no. He wouldn't. She wouldn't. It was ludicrous. It could have been laughable at any other time or place.
*I've kind of been taking care of her.*
No. This was nuts. Losing her was making me lose my mind. Next thing I knew I'd be accusing Maureen of being the one to seduce her. Come to think of it, that would make a hell of a lot more sense than this.
My mind returned to the present. "You're lying," I concluded.
"Roger—"
"YOU'RE LYING!"
And on that final, however unconvincing note, I stormed out.
I'd missed storming out.
Somehow, it wasn't quite so fulfilling this time.
He was there in the loft when I returned... as he always was. If this were in any way normal, he would look up from his camera, timidly offer that half-smile, and all would be over. But when I opened the door, he was standing against a wall by the kitchen, watching the opposite wall. His camera lay on the table, long forgotten. The room was dark—not pitch black, but dark enough to lower any inhibitions, if need be.
Light enough, however, to see the streaks of dried tears on his face.
I closed the door emphatically, making my presence known. "You won't believe this," I announced, tossing my jacket onto a chair by my guitar.
Mark turned his gaze to me, but he didn't move. He didn't have to. Staying frozen against that wall said enough—he was obviously terrified that I'd thrown Benny off a bridge or ran my car over him, or done something equally appealing. I probably should have, come to think of it.
I shrugged helplessly. "He denied it. I confronted him, and he denied it. Can you believe him? What does he have to hide now? It's so obvious!"
"Roger..." His voice was shaking, but the rest of him remained frozen.
"No, no, wait, you haven't heard the best part," I went on. "He accused YOU! Yeah, exactly," I added, pretending there had been some reaction in that expressionless stare. "He's got this whole story that you guys were... y'know—"
His eyes fell shut. "Roger."
"I know, okay, I'm sorry, forget all his sick details. But... but..."
Oh, how I wanted to share this. How I wanted him to tell me I wasn't insane. That Benny was the crazy one. That this was as outrageous as I knew it had to be, because he was my best friend and best friends were supposed to gang up on all the same people.
"The audacity..." I went on, muttering to a spot on the floor. "The fucking nerve... how he could say that about you, about her... after everything he's done..."
I didn't think my rambling had been all that powerful, but something hit Mark the wrong way, and he collapsed into a sobbing heap on the floor—pressed against that same spot in the wall, but huddled close to the ground, hugging his knees.
This was the second time in as many weeks that I'd made him cry. What the hell was the matter with me? He hadn't done anything. He was the victim. He'd loved her too; the loss wasn't mine alone. And then along come bastards like Benny, and me and my thoughtless rambling and fury, and reduce him to this.
I went to his side and sat beside him, wondering what I was supposed to do.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, placing a hand on his shoulder, and then drew it back, resolving that comfort from me was probably the last thing he wanted. "I'm sorry," I repeated. "I'm just so—I can't believe he—I'm sorry, I'll shut up."
But nothing helped. Not words, not the simple reality of my presence, not a comforting touch. I was beginning to wonder if I'd have to leave the room before any of this could get fixed.
Words from mere hours ago filled my head.
*You can't just fix this. You don't even know what's broken.*
"Then tell me."
He actually looked up—this was progress. This was good. "What?"
It was then I realized I'd said that out loud. "I..."
He turned away from me again, burying his face in his arms, and I'd lost another chance.
And so I did all I knew how to do. The only thing that ever worked in the past, on those very rare occasions when it was needed. I put my arms around him, a mess of jackets and scarves and tears, and I said nothing.
I wanted to say something, though. I wanted to tell him it was okay, we would get through this, we were going to survive this—but I couldn't, because in an instant, he violently fought his way out of my embrace and scrambled to his feet, occupying a spot on the floor far away from any walls or furniture, or me.
I stood up as well, but he took a step back. "Roger, it's me."
Of course it was, I knew that. He didn't want me to think he was helpless. He wanted me to think he was the same strong person he always was. He wasn't acting like himself, and neither was I, but forgive us—someone very close to us had just died, and I don't think either of us should be expecting anything from each other at this point.
'It's me,' he was saying, as if I could ever forget who he was or what he meant to me. 'I can take care of myself, remember?'
I waited for an elaboration on this, and received none.
Was that really what he was saying?
"Mark..."
He shook his head and spit all the words out in one breath. "It's me. I'm the father. I'm sorry. You left, and I fell in love with her, and... oh, God, we were so careful, I don't know how this happened..."
No.
He didn't just say that.
Why were *those* words so lucid, so immediately processed and interpreted? Why couldn't they be foreign objects, too, and be pushed aside into some subconscious level until I was ready to hear them, and maybe deny them?
Because this was Mark. He spoke, and I listened. Unfailingly. Whether I wanted to or not. I had no choice. I couldn't push him away. Not him, not his words, not anything in those stormy eyes behind the black-rimmed glasses.
He was taking slow steps backwards now, leaving a clear path between the door and the square of carpet I found myself glued to. He knew me too well.
And I did walk across the room, slowly, because I had nowhere else to go. My guitar sat in front of me, propped against a chair. Aimlessly, I reached out and ran my finger along the edge of it. How little it meant now, and how quickly it had lost all meaning. My hand clasped around the top, lifting it up into my arms a final time.
And then, with little thought and a bit more force, I slammed it into the closest wall.
As the instrument shattered into a mass of strings and color and pieces of wood, I escaped the loft and sent the door crashing closed behind me.
A list of the characters I own: *holds up a blank sheet of paper*
Liss, you owe me more FMFF! (Ha, try pronouncing that as a word. What fun. :P)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ I know the truth and it haunts me... ~
9. [R]
I think it hit us both at the same time. Not any meaning from those words—no, that was just noise from a woman in a white uniform. What hit us simultaneously was the realization that we were staring at each other. But, in retrospect, he must have realized it a split second later than I had, because he hadn't been quick enough to avert his gaze... and I saw. I saw past those black-rimmed glasses and those liquid blue eyes... and I knew I'd seen enough.
That wasn't just shock behind those eyes.
That was guilt.
The nurse was gone now... unable to stand the tension in the room. What made her think we could either?
Silence again... and my mind wrapped around those words that were so far away now. Maybe far enough to be in another life. Maybe they weren't real after all...
She was two months pregnant.
How it all fit together so nicely now... bringing my completely fucked up life to a nice, tidy close. Not only had I lost her, I'd lost her to *him*.
Benny.
He'd won after all.
She was gone, and he'd won, and I'd lost, and no one had breathed a word. Not even him... not even the one with the black-rimmed glasses and liquid blue eyes. The one who hadn't hidden so much as a candy stash from me since the day we met six years ago.
A fleeting, brilliant flash of memory—six years ago... a small blond man, barely nineteen, hair sticking up in odd places. He was holding a camera, but they way he held it, it looked more like an extension of his arm than a piece of electronic equipment. Bent down on the sidewalk, zoomed in on a patch of grass. I walked past him, muttering "Freak" under my breath, and got a good twenty feet ahead until my curiosity became too much, and I simply had to turn back and ask him what in God's name he was filming.
A butterfly with a broken wing, he told me. And then he pointed to it. And for some reason, it broke my heart.
I don't think we've been away from each other for more than a day at a time since then.
...Not counting the last six months, of course.
Is this what we became when forced apart from each other? Deceitful and withdrawn and untrusting and...
"Roger?"
...And despite it all, he could still own me with a breath of those two syllables.
I looked at him again, and found words coming to my mouth from some place I'd been trying to ignore. Couldn't I keep ignoring it? There were so many wonderful flashbacks I could summon to mind to keep my thoughts away from all of this, if only given the chance... if I only tried hard enough...
"I'll kill him," I whispered.
It felt strange to be back in a position where we could actually open our mouths and speak—words felt so inappropriate now, but I could only suspect his came to him as unforeseen as mine did to me.
"What?"
"Benny," I said to myself. "He did this... he... it's him... he was..."
Something happened in those eyes of his when I turned back for a reaction. They weren't those usual calm pools of cobalt, the way they were so often, even in crisis. How quickly they'd brewed up a storm, turning into a turbulent, unreadable ocean with crashing waves and lightning and...
"Roger... no..."
"Don't you dare cover for him."
"No, you don't understand, I—"
And I was out the door. My feet aimlessly traced the path of the nurse and found their way down the hall, somehow locating an Exit sign. I quickened my pace, hoping that might somehow drown out the voice calling after me from the other end of the hall. The end of the hall I couldn't turn back to. But why? What would happen if I'd turned back?
I'd asked myself that all the way to Santa Fe.
How I even made it to Benny's was a mystery; I hadn't been to his place in over a year, and was surprised I hadn't blocked it out of my memory for obvious reasons. But maybe it was just my fate, offering one last gesture of pity—at any rate, I found myself at his front door twenty minutes later.
How did I get here?
I pounded my fist against the front door, four times. And waited. Nothing. But he was here, I knew he was here. Here, with that guilty conscience, if he even had a conscience. I could feel it. I could almost feel the guilt from inside the building seeping out, eating away at the air, making my breaths short and ragged and faint...
Was it really coming from inside the building?
Could it instead have been that same guilt in those blue eyes, miles away at the hospital?
Certainly not. Guilt like that couldn't travel this far. So he hadn't told me about Benny. So what? He wasn't the one who knocked her up and killed her.
It had nothing to do with the disease, you know.
I heard the nurses—it had taken the twenty-minute drive for me to formulate their hushed voices into a tangible conversation. But I'd heard everything. Did you know she was HIV-positive? they said to each other. But she looked so healthy, another one replied. Of course, answered one more, because it had nothing to do with her death. No... that came from pregnancy complications.
Mimi had spent a year and a half helping me come to terms with the reality that AIDS would someday take her life, and someday take mine.
It hadn't. But she was still gone. How unfair that I wasted all that time, worrying to death whenever she would catch the flu or find out that her T- cell count was lower than they'd hoped... when in the end, none of it mattered. She could have been the healthiest person in the world, and she'd still be gone.
The front door eased open, slowly, and Benny's figure appeared. Only a brief glance at his face told me he knew. He knew she was gone. Maureen had called, or Collins had called, or he was psychic... but he knew.
There was still one thing he didn't know.
That brief glance was all I allowed to pass between us—no words, no exchange—before I stepped forward and sent my fist into his face.
As it was probably the last thing on earth he'd expected at the moment, he reeled backwards—barely retaining his balance, but still keeping a traumatized glare fixated on me. I waited for him to blow up, to punch me right back, to say something, ANYthing. But he only stared at me.
I managed to locate that tool that had once been my voice. But there was no power to it. Just sound. And barely that. Only emotionless shadows of words. "You fucking bastard..."
"Roger..." Ah, so he could speak after all? "I don't know what you—"
"Don't." I shook my head. "Just don't."
This seemed to be a reasonable request, except that he actually honored it and remained silent, and I realized I had no idea what to say.
"How—HOW COULD YOU DO IT?"
"Seriously, I—"
No, no. Questions weren't asking for answers at this point. "She's GONE, Benny—"
"I *know* that! Maureen called me!"
"You killed her!!!"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"*She was pregnant.*"
I wanted so badly to yell that out, maybe disrupt any neighbors in a three- mile radius. But I couldn't. It was a statement I could barely admit to myself, let alone scream it to a person I didn't even want to share it with. I wanted him to feel his own pain from it, yes, of course... but I didn't want him to see mine.
His voice fell to a level so soft I thought maybe some demon of silence had suddenly possessed him. "What?"
"Oh, don't act so fucking surprised! How long did you two wait after I left for Santa Fe? Or was this going on while I was still here?"
"Jesus Christ, Roger!! I'm not the father! I haven't been in a room alone with her in like half a year!"
"You're lying," I stated simply. But decidedly curious about the outrageous plot he might concoct, I persisted. "Who is it then?"
His eyes widened as if the answer were the most obvious one in the world. "MARK! God, they've been going at it for months!"
So that's what it feels like to have your heart stop beating.
I half-watched as he paced the room in shock. "Holy shit, he got her pregnant?"
That was it. I lunged for him, shoving him backward against the nearest wall. "You're a fucking liar!"
"No one TOLD you?!"
"Mark would *never* do that!!"
"Ask him!"
I released him, only because the sick feeling in my stomach had reached a point of driving me to weakness. "He'd never do that," I repeated.
"ASK HIM."
"NO!"
"No?!" an incredulous chuckle escaped his lips. "Well, of course. Because you know it's the truth."
I backed away from him. "How dare you accuse him of this... he hasn't done anything to you! He even kept all this a secret, for YOU! You owe him everything!"
But Benny just shook his head, a mockery of my supposed ignorance. "Ask him. Ask Maureen, ask Joanne, ask Collins! Ask anyone in the whole fucking city! EVERYone knows!"
The final two words echoed in the room as I grasped for a reaction. A reaction that would prove me right. That would somehow prove me right... I was good at this. I could always make someone crumble and confess. I couldn't have lost that talent.
*Everyone knows...*
Another unbidden flashback swamped my thoughts, temporarily paralyzing me from any reaction. And then another, and another, like all the steps of a crazy math problem suddenly dropping right into place on the sheet of paper... a sheet of paper now ripped by excessive erasing and smeared with long-forgotten margin notes. Notes, now completely worthless...
[A/N: Yeah, I've been spending way too much time on math homework.]
A home video tape, under a stack of nine unlabeled ones and two pillows. A cake and candles, and a toast with plastic sporks and Styrofoam cups, and a little girl at the table. Except she wasn't a little girl anymore, she was twenty-one. And she smiled at the camera and whispered 'I love you' to the person behind it...
Clothes strewn about downstairs. Men's clothes. Not hers. Mark's.
*We've been... sharing the apartments. It was pretty lonely around here for awhile.*
No, no, no, no. He wouldn't. She wouldn't. It was ludicrous. It could have been laughable at any other time or place.
*I've kind of been taking care of her.*
No. This was nuts. Losing her was making me lose my mind. Next thing I knew I'd be accusing Maureen of being the one to seduce her. Come to think of it, that would make a hell of a lot more sense than this.
My mind returned to the present. "You're lying," I concluded.
"Roger—"
"YOU'RE LYING!"
And on that final, however unconvincing note, I stormed out.
I'd missed storming out.
Somehow, it wasn't quite so fulfilling this time.
He was there in the loft when I returned... as he always was. If this were in any way normal, he would look up from his camera, timidly offer that half-smile, and all would be over. But when I opened the door, he was standing against a wall by the kitchen, watching the opposite wall. His camera lay on the table, long forgotten. The room was dark—not pitch black, but dark enough to lower any inhibitions, if need be.
Light enough, however, to see the streaks of dried tears on his face.
I closed the door emphatically, making my presence known. "You won't believe this," I announced, tossing my jacket onto a chair by my guitar.
Mark turned his gaze to me, but he didn't move. He didn't have to. Staying frozen against that wall said enough—he was obviously terrified that I'd thrown Benny off a bridge or ran my car over him, or done something equally appealing. I probably should have, come to think of it.
I shrugged helplessly. "He denied it. I confronted him, and he denied it. Can you believe him? What does he have to hide now? It's so obvious!"
"Roger..." His voice was shaking, but the rest of him remained frozen.
"No, no, wait, you haven't heard the best part," I went on. "He accused YOU! Yeah, exactly," I added, pretending there had been some reaction in that expressionless stare. "He's got this whole story that you guys were... y'know—"
His eyes fell shut. "Roger."
"I know, okay, I'm sorry, forget all his sick details. But... but..."
Oh, how I wanted to share this. How I wanted him to tell me I wasn't insane. That Benny was the crazy one. That this was as outrageous as I knew it had to be, because he was my best friend and best friends were supposed to gang up on all the same people.
"The audacity..." I went on, muttering to a spot on the floor. "The fucking nerve... how he could say that about you, about her... after everything he's done..."
I didn't think my rambling had been all that powerful, but something hit Mark the wrong way, and he collapsed into a sobbing heap on the floor—pressed against that same spot in the wall, but huddled close to the ground, hugging his knees.
This was the second time in as many weeks that I'd made him cry. What the hell was the matter with me? He hadn't done anything. He was the victim. He'd loved her too; the loss wasn't mine alone. And then along come bastards like Benny, and me and my thoughtless rambling and fury, and reduce him to this.
I went to his side and sat beside him, wondering what I was supposed to do.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, placing a hand on his shoulder, and then drew it back, resolving that comfort from me was probably the last thing he wanted. "I'm sorry," I repeated. "I'm just so—I can't believe he—I'm sorry, I'll shut up."
But nothing helped. Not words, not the simple reality of my presence, not a comforting touch. I was beginning to wonder if I'd have to leave the room before any of this could get fixed.
Words from mere hours ago filled my head.
*You can't just fix this. You don't even know what's broken.*
"Then tell me."
He actually looked up—this was progress. This was good. "What?"
It was then I realized I'd said that out loud. "I..."
He turned away from me again, burying his face in his arms, and I'd lost another chance.
And so I did all I knew how to do. The only thing that ever worked in the past, on those very rare occasions when it was needed. I put my arms around him, a mess of jackets and scarves and tears, and I said nothing.
I wanted to say something, though. I wanted to tell him it was okay, we would get through this, we were going to survive this—but I couldn't, because in an instant, he violently fought his way out of my embrace and scrambled to his feet, occupying a spot on the floor far away from any walls or furniture, or me.
I stood up as well, but he took a step back. "Roger, it's me."
Of course it was, I knew that. He didn't want me to think he was helpless. He wanted me to think he was the same strong person he always was. He wasn't acting like himself, and neither was I, but forgive us—someone very close to us had just died, and I don't think either of us should be expecting anything from each other at this point.
'It's me,' he was saying, as if I could ever forget who he was or what he meant to me. 'I can take care of myself, remember?'
I waited for an elaboration on this, and received none.
Was that really what he was saying?
"Mark..."
He shook his head and spit all the words out in one breath. "It's me. I'm the father. I'm sorry. You left, and I fell in love with her, and... oh, God, we were so careful, I don't know how this happened..."
No.
He didn't just say that.
Why were *those* words so lucid, so immediately processed and interpreted? Why couldn't they be foreign objects, too, and be pushed aside into some subconscious level until I was ready to hear them, and maybe deny them?
Because this was Mark. He spoke, and I listened. Unfailingly. Whether I wanted to or not. I had no choice. I couldn't push him away. Not him, not his words, not anything in those stormy eyes behind the black-rimmed glasses.
He was taking slow steps backwards now, leaving a clear path between the door and the square of carpet I found myself glued to. He knew me too well.
And I did walk across the room, slowly, because I had nowhere else to go. My guitar sat in front of me, propped against a chair. Aimlessly, I reached out and ran my finger along the edge of it. How little it meant now, and how quickly it had lost all meaning. My hand clasped around the top, lifting it up into my arms a final time.
And then, with little thought and a bit more force, I slammed it into the closest wall.
As the instrument shattered into a mass of strings and color and pieces of wood, I escaped the loft and sent the door crashing closed behind me.