A/N: 06-01-02. Apologies for the update delay. My first real case of
writer's block in about two years. Thanks to all who nagged. And to my evil
beta, Dulcey, known to most of you as Anti-M/R, for the cliffhanger. :) And
also many thanks to my honeybear for her diligent, however unsuccessful,
attempts to bring me back from the dark side. :P Love ya babe!!!
Oh, yeah, almost forgot. I own nothing. Except my Rent CD, and lots of Playbills and ticket stubs. Those have, uh, kinda inspired this. I don't own the Aladdin Hotel either (nor do I care to), but I *have* stayed there, and believe me... every bit is based on personal experience.
This is for Becca, for finally writing The Kiss.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
11. [R]
I wasn't using again.
[A/N: There, we cleared that up. :P]
It was the truth, so why was it so hard to just go and tell him?
Oh. Right. Because he slept with my girlfriend, got her pregnant, and never told me. My best friend, ladies and gentlemen.
I felt the man tug the wad of bills from my grasp as I turned my attention to the presence across the park. A slight, blond man in a fluffy plaid jacket and a blue and white scarf. At first I thought it was just coincidence—after all, where was the camera? He was already walking away when I spotted him. Quickly, efficiently, willing himself out of sight. But I knew he'd seen me.
Mark always saw everything.
And so I watched him walk away. I dutifully took a few steps towards him; at least I could say I tried. But he darted around a corner, and vanished. It was so strange seeing him. It had only been a week, but it was a lonelier week than any six months in Santa Fe.
Sometimes it's harder to be apart from someone when they're so close.
I shouldn't have cared. It shouldn't have mattered to me one bit, that just seeing me like this was going to hurt him so much. But it did. And that just made it harder. It shouldn't matter. I shouldn't care what he thinks. In fact, I should be purposely *not* caring about anything relating to Mark in any context. He betrayed me. End of story.
There. That made it a little easier.
In a few hours, it wouldn't matter anyway. I wouldn't matter. This little white bag in my hands wouldn't matter. Mimi wouldn't matter. Mark wouldn't...
Yeah, he would. Whether I liked it or not, Mark would matter for as long as I lived.
Which, by my calculations, as I glanced at the plastic bag in my hands... should be about three more hours.
It made so much sense, ever since I woke up that morning at four o'clock and decided there was no way my life was going to get any worse, or any better. That's a rare point to reach. Once you reach it, you feel almost... privileged. Not many people do reach it, after all, and those who do... well, they're not around anymore. If I tried hard enough, it was almost peaceful.
Who was I kidding? I was scared shitless.
Shooting up was one thing, and frightening enough to think about now that I hadn't touched the stuff in two years. Suicide... that was another story. I'd already debated it all in my mind. I'd rationalized it, repressed basically every memory of April I'd ever had, and came up with a thousand reasons why I could—and had to—do this. I'd forgotten most of them by now, but that didn't matter.
I'd been staying with Collins for almost a week, after one completely horrendous night at the Aladdin Hotel. An obscure place on West 45th, with purple walls in the lobby and lime green walls in the rooms. The carpet turned my feet black, the (shared, I might add) bathrooms were about a hundred and ten degrees, strange people would pound on the door at three in the morning, and I swear to God, there were bits of barley on the floor. As much as I adored my independence, it wasn't worth it.
And as I sat here now, in the comfort of a bathroom with a much milder climate, my sense of déjà vu was growing just a little too strong.
Two years ago... was it really that long?
Just two years since I'd come home from rehearsal to find an ambulance in the parking space we never used. I'd bounded up the stairs to find my roommate talking frantically to the paramedics who were carrying a lifeless body out of the bathroom, which, from the doorway, was scarcely more than a red-stained room. Pools of blood were everywhere. I couldn't see beneath the blanketed form on the stretcher. I had no idea who it was. Through the sick, spinning sensation in my head, all I remember thinking was that, whatever happened... thank God it wasn't Mark.
Then he took my arm and pulled me over to a corner of the room, and told me it was April.
This would just bring everything full circle, and rather nicely, wouldn't it?
For one solid hour, I remained seated on that fluffy maroon bathmat, with the needle and little plastic bag laid out neatly in front of me. Every few moments I would rearrange them. Straighten a wrinkle in the bag. Adjust the needle so that it lay perpendicular to the wall. Glance at my watch. Still two hours before Collins would be home.
This was insane. I'd done this a thousand times, what was one more? What would I really be losing? Nothing. I'd already lost everything. My love, and my best friend. To each other, no less. My future—hell, I'd lost that years ago—just hours after April's death, when Mark, engrossed in another session of aimlessly pacing the floor of the loft, found her note taped to the bathroom door.
I suppose the only thing I had left to lose was memories. But you can never lose those. Not even if you try.
Last summer.
We were celebrating our six-month anniversary at an amusement park. Well... to be entirely accurate, I'd made the stupid mistake of telling her we could go anywhere she liked, so she basically had to drag me by a leash to follow her into this madhouse. Screaming kids, the aroma of ketchup and funnel cakes, and loud, obnoxious roller coasters that I wouldn't get on if you paid me. Mimi particularly enjoyed this issue, making fun of the tough rock star who was afraid to ride the Scream Machine. I suppose I deserved the M&M she threw at me when I commented on how that was one ride I enjoyed just about every night.
She was so divinely adorable when she blushed.
At a hot dog stand, she halted, staring up at a menacingly black and red corkscrew-esque concoction. "Oh, baby..." she breathed.
I looked up as one of the cars zoomed along the tracks, boasting a crowd of screaming teenagers—upside down, sideways, looping... "No WAY!" I insisted, dragging her away.
"Come on, it'll be fun!"
"Fun? Fun like the Twister? Fun like the Dragon's Tail? That kind of fun, huh?"
She put on a pout. "Please?"
I opened my mouth to whine about how I couldn't possibly resist her when she looked at me like that, but I never got the chance. A small hand was tugging on the leg of my jeans, and when I glanced down, a little boy about six or seven was staring up at me.
I blinked. "Um... hi." It was blatantly obvious I hadn't been around children since... well, since I was one.
"Hey." He pushed his glasses up on his nose, eerily reminding me of Mark. Or Harry Potter. It was hard to tell at this age. "Have you seen a lady with blond hair and a blue dress?"
I glanced around. Was he talking to me? "Uh... no, sorry." I took Mimi's hand and started towards the Temple of Doom.
"Roger!" she laughed, carelessly dropping my hand as she returned to the boy and kneeled down beside him. "Are you looking for your mom?" He nodded. "Well, we'll just have to go find her then!" she replied cheerfully, taking his hand and starting in the opposite direction.
Um... hey, I'm *also* here, I felt tempted to call out.
I followed behind them, sulking, feeling childishly excluded for the first hundred feet or so, until I finally began to watch her. Not in hopes of regaining her attention... but just to watch her. I'd tuned out sounds, but I saw the little kid laughing at just about every other thing she said to him. What on earth was she talking about? I wondered. How could one possibly have so much to say to someone that small?
He clung to the end of her shirt sleeve as she led the three of us, slowly but surely, back to the park's main entrance... stopping for ice cream, a glow-in-the-dark balloon, and a picture with some idiot dressed up as a Sorting Hat. I'd never seen this side of her. I'd never seen her smile that way before. And as she walked along, holding his hand and listening to him recount his life story and giving him a piggyback ride... I became suddenly aware of a fact.
This is what she would be like as a mother.
In other words... perfection.
It may have been my imagination, but when we finally located the blond, blue dress-wearing mother, and he ran into her arms... I thought I saw a tear in the corner of her eye.
Mimi took my hand again, for the first time in two hours, leaning against me without a word as we aimlessly made our way over to the picnic area and sat down under a giant tree.
I stared at her until our eyes met. "You're incredible," I blurted suddenly.
The corners of her mouth rose, so slightly that I'm sure only I would have caught it. "Why?"
"Just... *that*. The way you... with..." I was never good at this. "God, you're so great with kids."
She stared a patch of grass beneath us and smiled. "I always wanted to be a mom."
I placed a finger under her chin, joining her gaze with mine. "You would make the most amazing mother in the world, you know that?"
She watched me, not blinking, not moving. And then, as those little tears sparkled once again the corners of her eyes, she leaned in and kissed me.
It felt like so long ago... but it wasn't even a year.
And now my ears were ringing.
"This is Tom Collins. I'm not here, but... you probably figured that out by now. Leave a message."
...Or, it could be the phone. I leaned over, pulling the bathroom door open just enough to hear the click of the answering machine.
"Collins, hey, um... it's Mark."
Oh, fabulous.
"I... I saw Roger today. I mean, I didn't... talk to him. I just saw him. And he... he was..."
Go ahead, Marky. Be a fucking tattletale and rat me out. It doesn't matter now.
"God, I'm scared. Just call me."
I scrambled off the bathroom rug and reached the answering machine in an awkward leap. I'd learned that sometimes, if you erase a message quickly enough, it's almost as if it never happened. Like it was all a voice in your head, and you just dreamed the whole thing up. Maybe you did. Once it's gone, after all, who's to know?
I angrily punched 2 on the keypad.
"Message saved."
FUCK! What kind of possessed piece of shit was this?!
As tempted as I was to rip the machine out of the wall and toss it out the window, a knock at the door converted all my frustration to fear. No, this was insane—it wasn't Mark. Mark didn't have a cell. Just the thought of him walking around in a business suit with a little black phone pressed to his ear was enough to put a small, however authentic, smile on my face. Which, in turn, put me at ease enough to remember that Collins was expecting a package today, and had asked me to sign for it.
Fine. Deliverymen I could deal with. As far as I knew, they hadn't killed any of my girlfriends.
I swung open the door, overly prepared with a pen in my hand, and froze.
Maureen.
No doubt she was as shocked as I was, but Maureen had a much quicker recovery rate than any of us. Not quite three seconds passed before she captured me in her embrace. Another two and she was pushing me aside, punctuating this with a reproachful whack on my arm.
"What are you doing here?"
"What are *you* doing here?"
She cast me her 'Don't mess with me' look. It never worked. "How long have you been here?"
"A week. And you've been here long enough already," I added, taking her arm and dragging her towards the door.
Her jaw dropped as she pulled away. "Collins didn't tell us..."
"I asked him not to. Mimi really had a great idea with the whole refugee thing."
She opened her mouth to retort, but, miraculously, no sound came out. Maureen... speechless? Was it even possible? Wow. I was better at this than I thought. This was a gift. I'd have to let Mark in on this.
Except... that was the old me talking, about the old Mark. The current me would remember that this new, deceitful Mark was the one who knocked up my girlfriend. The current me would remember that in a matter of hours, I wouldn't be around to give a damn about any of this. What a wonderful, terrifying feeling.
And Maureen was still silent.
The look on her face only hit me so forcefully because I recognized it. Not from her... from Mark. It was that same abandoned look that had radiated through his eyes when I'd told him I was leaving for Santa Fe. So completely betrayed. So undeserving of all the horrible things I'd said and done. And although I wouldn't exactly consider Maureen quite as undeserving... she was an actress, after all, and she was very good at creating an illusion of innocence.
That had to count for something.
Her eyes, usually so vivacious, were now nothing beyond lifeless blue pools. Tears sprang forward in a half-hearted attempt to make them shine again, but all it really did was drain the life from the rest of her body as well, and eventually, she collapsed on the couch.
Why was I so good at making people cry?
As much as I hated being trapped in the same room with her, I hated even more having to see her cry. "I'm sorry," I whispered, taking a seat beside her.
Those empty, frightened eyes remained fixated on the wall. "I'm worried about him."
Him. Mark. That's all anything was about, wasn't it? Poor Mark, he'd lost his love. Was I actually supposed to be more sympathetic? I suppose so; after all, it's not like *I'd* lost anything. I turned my gaze as far away from her as I could, hoping that might be a clue that he was the last person on earth I cared about discussing, or cared about at all. But she'd obviously expected this, and placed a warm hand on my arm.
"Every time I try to talk to him, he..." She waited until I had no choice but to look at her. "Roger... he's refusing to get tested."
I sprang from the couch. "Maureen—I don't give a shit, okay?"
"You're his best friend!"
"No," I corrected her quickly. "No, I'm not."
She drew in a tentative breath, obviously suspecting this may be her last opportunity to get out a full sentence. "You have to talk to him."
I found a sardonic laugh escaping my lips. "Forget it."
"Roger—"
"I don't fucking owe him anything!"
"Oh!" It was her turn to laugh, although hers was slightly more genuine than mine. "Really, you don't? Are you sure about that? I mean, it's not like he's the one who kept you from going crazy after April died, or the one who took care of you when you found out you had AIDS, or—"
"Or the one who killed my girlfriend?"
Her eyes drifted shut, and she shook her head slowly. "You left her."
"I came back!!" Why was this so hard for everyone to understand?
"How were they supposed to know that?!" she demanded, leaping off the couch as well. "You can't just put a lifetime claim on someone, then take off and not expect them to move on!"
I crossed to the door and graciously held it open for her. "I don't need this."
She marched right over to me and pushed the door closed. "But he needs you."
"And I needed *her*, and he's the reason she's not here!"
"Jesus, Roger, you're acting like he meant for this to happen!"
"That's it," I muttered, violently pulling open the door and holding it securely in place. "I'm not talking to him, I'm not convincing him to get tested—this is his own damn fault and I'll have nothing to do with it. And I think you should leave."
Having channeled all her remaining energy into this one little argument, there was little hope that she would bother fighting back any further... and with that in mind, I released my hold on the door and stood back. Maureen remained, however, immobile.
"I know you loved her," she said softly.
Well, that made me feel *so* much better.
"But I know he did, too."
Strike two.
It took everything I had to keep from fighting back. There was so much that could be said, after all. I would have relished bringing up all the terrible things she'd done to Mark in her time. But I said nothing, and she took a step towards me—see, this is why silence is fatal. It either shows vulnerability or proves you wrong. In my case, usually both. How very unfair that it took so much strength to do something that gave the appearance of so much weakness.
Her eyes were pleading with mine, but I did my best to ignore it. I was good at that. "Please..." she breathed, all strength having left her. "If you could just—"
"Go."
And she did. She didn't even bother to shoot me a last, pitiful puppy-dog look that was such a trademark of hers. It was almost impossible to realize she'd actually left. Her exits were traditionally, and unfailingly, a spectacle. You always knew when she arrived, and you always knew when she left. And you were always happier at the latter.
Finding myself alone again, I returned to the bathroom and snatched my items off the floor. My hands were no longer shaking, I no longer felt compelled to cram a thousand flashbacks into my last moments. And I was no longer afraid.
Fighting always gave me a high, no matter who my opposition was. It was to a lesser degree with Mark, because he so rarely fought back. But I'd forgotten what a rush it was to get sucked up into an argument with Maureen; she was such a fireball. At any other time and place, it would have been almost a turn-on.
And so I took that energy, got myself a spoon, and began melting down the powder. Suddenly it was all coming back to me—not the terror of addiction and withdrawal and HIV—but the familiarity. How easy it still was after all this time; the entire process felt like second nature. And this time, I wouldn't have to worry about those things like addition and withdrawal and HIV. This time, I wouldn't have to worry about anything at all.
I held the needle up to my arm.
This time... would be the last.
Oh, yeah, almost forgot. I own nothing. Except my Rent CD, and lots of Playbills and ticket stubs. Those have, uh, kinda inspired this. I don't own the Aladdin Hotel either (nor do I care to), but I *have* stayed there, and believe me... every bit is based on personal experience.
This is for Becca, for finally writing The Kiss.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
11. [R]
I wasn't using again.
[A/N: There, we cleared that up. :P]
It was the truth, so why was it so hard to just go and tell him?
Oh. Right. Because he slept with my girlfriend, got her pregnant, and never told me. My best friend, ladies and gentlemen.
I felt the man tug the wad of bills from my grasp as I turned my attention to the presence across the park. A slight, blond man in a fluffy plaid jacket and a blue and white scarf. At first I thought it was just coincidence—after all, where was the camera? He was already walking away when I spotted him. Quickly, efficiently, willing himself out of sight. But I knew he'd seen me.
Mark always saw everything.
And so I watched him walk away. I dutifully took a few steps towards him; at least I could say I tried. But he darted around a corner, and vanished. It was so strange seeing him. It had only been a week, but it was a lonelier week than any six months in Santa Fe.
Sometimes it's harder to be apart from someone when they're so close.
I shouldn't have cared. It shouldn't have mattered to me one bit, that just seeing me like this was going to hurt him so much. But it did. And that just made it harder. It shouldn't matter. I shouldn't care what he thinks. In fact, I should be purposely *not* caring about anything relating to Mark in any context. He betrayed me. End of story.
There. That made it a little easier.
In a few hours, it wouldn't matter anyway. I wouldn't matter. This little white bag in my hands wouldn't matter. Mimi wouldn't matter. Mark wouldn't...
Yeah, he would. Whether I liked it or not, Mark would matter for as long as I lived.
Which, by my calculations, as I glanced at the plastic bag in my hands... should be about three more hours.
It made so much sense, ever since I woke up that morning at four o'clock and decided there was no way my life was going to get any worse, or any better. That's a rare point to reach. Once you reach it, you feel almost... privileged. Not many people do reach it, after all, and those who do... well, they're not around anymore. If I tried hard enough, it was almost peaceful.
Who was I kidding? I was scared shitless.
Shooting up was one thing, and frightening enough to think about now that I hadn't touched the stuff in two years. Suicide... that was another story. I'd already debated it all in my mind. I'd rationalized it, repressed basically every memory of April I'd ever had, and came up with a thousand reasons why I could—and had to—do this. I'd forgotten most of them by now, but that didn't matter.
I'd been staying with Collins for almost a week, after one completely horrendous night at the Aladdin Hotel. An obscure place on West 45th, with purple walls in the lobby and lime green walls in the rooms. The carpet turned my feet black, the (shared, I might add) bathrooms were about a hundred and ten degrees, strange people would pound on the door at three in the morning, and I swear to God, there were bits of barley on the floor. As much as I adored my independence, it wasn't worth it.
And as I sat here now, in the comfort of a bathroom with a much milder climate, my sense of déjà vu was growing just a little too strong.
Two years ago... was it really that long?
Just two years since I'd come home from rehearsal to find an ambulance in the parking space we never used. I'd bounded up the stairs to find my roommate talking frantically to the paramedics who were carrying a lifeless body out of the bathroom, which, from the doorway, was scarcely more than a red-stained room. Pools of blood were everywhere. I couldn't see beneath the blanketed form on the stretcher. I had no idea who it was. Through the sick, spinning sensation in my head, all I remember thinking was that, whatever happened... thank God it wasn't Mark.
Then he took my arm and pulled me over to a corner of the room, and told me it was April.
This would just bring everything full circle, and rather nicely, wouldn't it?
For one solid hour, I remained seated on that fluffy maroon bathmat, with the needle and little plastic bag laid out neatly in front of me. Every few moments I would rearrange them. Straighten a wrinkle in the bag. Adjust the needle so that it lay perpendicular to the wall. Glance at my watch. Still two hours before Collins would be home.
This was insane. I'd done this a thousand times, what was one more? What would I really be losing? Nothing. I'd already lost everything. My love, and my best friend. To each other, no less. My future—hell, I'd lost that years ago—just hours after April's death, when Mark, engrossed in another session of aimlessly pacing the floor of the loft, found her note taped to the bathroom door.
I suppose the only thing I had left to lose was memories. But you can never lose those. Not even if you try.
Last summer.
We were celebrating our six-month anniversary at an amusement park. Well... to be entirely accurate, I'd made the stupid mistake of telling her we could go anywhere she liked, so she basically had to drag me by a leash to follow her into this madhouse. Screaming kids, the aroma of ketchup and funnel cakes, and loud, obnoxious roller coasters that I wouldn't get on if you paid me. Mimi particularly enjoyed this issue, making fun of the tough rock star who was afraid to ride the Scream Machine. I suppose I deserved the M&M she threw at me when I commented on how that was one ride I enjoyed just about every night.
She was so divinely adorable when she blushed.
At a hot dog stand, she halted, staring up at a menacingly black and red corkscrew-esque concoction. "Oh, baby..." she breathed.
I looked up as one of the cars zoomed along the tracks, boasting a crowd of screaming teenagers—upside down, sideways, looping... "No WAY!" I insisted, dragging her away.
"Come on, it'll be fun!"
"Fun? Fun like the Twister? Fun like the Dragon's Tail? That kind of fun, huh?"
She put on a pout. "Please?"
I opened my mouth to whine about how I couldn't possibly resist her when she looked at me like that, but I never got the chance. A small hand was tugging on the leg of my jeans, and when I glanced down, a little boy about six or seven was staring up at me.
I blinked. "Um... hi." It was blatantly obvious I hadn't been around children since... well, since I was one.
"Hey." He pushed his glasses up on his nose, eerily reminding me of Mark. Or Harry Potter. It was hard to tell at this age. "Have you seen a lady with blond hair and a blue dress?"
I glanced around. Was he talking to me? "Uh... no, sorry." I took Mimi's hand and started towards the Temple of Doom.
"Roger!" she laughed, carelessly dropping my hand as she returned to the boy and kneeled down beside him. "Are you looking for your mom?" He nodded. "Well, we'll just have to go find her then!" she replied cheerfully, taking his hand and starting in the opposite direction.
Um... hey, I'm *also* here, I felt tempted to call out.
I followed behind them, sulking, feeling childishly excluded for the first hundred feet or so, until I finally began to watch her. Not in hopes of regaining her attention... but just to watch her. I'd tuned out sounds, but I saw the little kid laughing at just about every other thing she said to him. What on earth was she talking about? I wondered. How could one possibly have so much to say to someone that small?
He clung to the end of her shirt sleeve as she led the three of us, slowly but surely, back to the park's main entrance... stopping for ice cream, a glow-in-the-dark balloon, and a picture with some idiot dressed up as a Sorting Hat. I'd never seen this side of her. I'd never seen her smile that way before. And as she walked along, holding his hand and listening to him recount his life story and giving him a piggyback ride... I became suddenly aware of a fact.
This is what she would be like as a mother.
In other words... perfection.
It may have been my imagination, but when we finally located the blond, blue dress-wearing mother, and he ran into her arms... I thought I saw a tear in the corner of her eye.
Mimi took my hand again, for the first time in two hours, leaning against me without a word as we aimlessly made our way over to the picnic area and sat down under a giant tree.
I stared at her until our eyes met. "You're incredible," I blurted suddenly.
The corners of her mouth rose, so slightly that I'm sure only I would have caught it. "Why?"
"Just... *that*. The way you... with..." I was never good at this. "God, you're so great with kids."
She stared a patch of grass beneath us and smiled. "I always wanted to be a mom."
I placed a finger under her chin, joining her gaze with mine. "You would make the most amazing mother in the world, you know that?"
She watched me, not blinking, not moving. And then, as those little tears sparkled once again the corners of her eyes, she leaned in and kissed me.
It felt like so long ago... but it wasn't even a year.
And now my ears were ringing.
"This is Tom Collins. I'm not here, but... you probably figured that out by now. Leave a message."
...Or, it could be the phone. I leaned over, pulling the bathroom door open just enough to hear the click of the answering machine.
"Collins, hey, um... it's Mark."
Oh, fabulous.
"I... I saw Roger today. I mean, I didn't... talk to him. I just saw him. And he... he was..."
Go ahead, Marky. Be a fucking tattletale and rat me out. It doesn't matter now.
"God, I'm scared. Just call me."
I scrambled off the bathroom rug and reached the answering machine in an awkward leap. I'd learned that sometimes, if you erase a message quickly enough, it's almost as if it never happened. Like it was all a voice in your head, and you just dreamed the whole thing up. Maybe you did. Once it's gone, after all, who's to know?
I angrily punched 2 on the keypad.
"Message saved."
FUCK! What kind of possessed piece of shit was this?!
As tempted as I was to rip the machine out of the wall and toss it out the window, a knock at the door converted all my frustration to fear. No, this was insane—it wasn't Mark. Mark didn't have a cell. Just the thought of him walking around in a business suit with a little black phone pressed to his ear was enough to put a small, however authentic, smile on my face. Which, in turn, put me at ease enough to remember that Collins was expecting a package today, and had asked me to sign for it.
Fine. Deliverymen I could deal with. As far as I knew, they hadn't killed any of my girlfriends.
I swung open the door, overly prepared with a pen in my hand, and froze.
Maureen.
No doubt she was as shocked as I was, but Maureen had a much quicker recovery rate than any of us. Not quite three seconds passed before she captured me in her embrace. Another two and she was pushing me aside, punctuating this with a reproachful whack on my arm.
"What are you doing here?"
"What are *you* doing here?"
She cast me her 'Don't mess with me' look. It never worked. "How long have you been here?"
"A week. And you've been here long enough already," I added, taking her arm and dragging her towards the door.
Her jaw dropped as she pulled away. "Collins didn't tell us..."
"I asked him not to. Mimi really had a great idea with the whole refugee thing."
She opened her mouth to retort, but, miraculously, no sound came out. Maureen... speechless? Was it even possible? Wow. I was better at this than I thought. This was a gift. I'd have to let Mark in on this.
Except... that was the old me talking, about the old Mark. The current me would remember that this new, deceitful Mark was the one who knocked up my girlfriend. The current me would remember that in a matter of hours, I wouldn't be around to give a damn about any of this. What a wonderful, terrifying feeling.
And Maureen was still silent.
The look on her face only hit me so forcefully because I recognized it. Not from her... from Mark. It was that same abandoned look that had radiated through his eyes when I'd told him I was leaving for Santa Fe. So completely betrayed. So undeserving of all the horrible things I'd said and done. And although I wouldn't exactly consider Maureen quite as undeserving... she was an actress, after all, and she was very good at creating an illusion of innocence.
That had to count for something.
Her eyes, usually so vivacious, were now nothing beyond lifeless blue pools. Tears sprang forward in a half-hearted attempt to make them shine again, but all it really did was drain the life from the rest of her body as well, and eventually, she collapsed on the couch.
Why was I so good at making people cry?
As much as I hated being trapped in the same room with her, I hated even more having to see her cry. "I'm sorry," I whispered, taking a seat beside her.
Those empty, frightened eyes remained fixated on the wall. "I'm worried about him."
Him. Mark. That's all anything was about, wasn't it? Poor Mark, he'd lost his love. Was I actually supposed to be more sympathetic? I suppose so; after all, it's not like *I'd* lost anything. I turned my gaze as far away from her as I could, hoping that might be a clue that he was the last person on earth I cared about discussing, or cared about at all. But she'd obviously expected this, and placed a warm hand on my arm.
"Every time I try to talk to him, he..." She waited until I had no choice but to look at her. "Roger... he's refusing to get tested."
I sprang from the couch. "Maureen—I don't give a shit, okay?"
"You're his best friend!"
"No," I corrected her quickly. "No, I'm not."
She drew in a tentative breath, obviously suspecting this may be her last opportunity to get out a full sentence. "You have to talk to him."
I found a sardonic laugh escaping my lips. "Forget it."
"Roger—"
"I don't fucking owe him anything!"
"Oh!" It was her turn to laugh, although hers was slightly more genuine than mine. "Really, you don't? Are you sure about that? I mean, it's not like he's the one who kept you from going crazy after April died, or the one who took care of you when you found out you had AIDS, or—"
"Or the one who killed my girlfriend?"
Her eyes drifted shut, and she shook her head slowly. "You left her."
"I came back!!" Why was this so hard for everyone to understand?
"How were they supposed to know that?!" she demanded, leaping off the couch as well. "You can't just put a lifetime claim on someone, then take off and not expect them to move on!"
I crossed to the door and graciously held it open for her. "I don't need this."
She marched right over to me and pushed the door closed. "But he needs you."
"And I needed *her*, and he's the reason she's not here!"
"Jesus, Roger, you're acting like he meant for this to happen!"
"That's it," I muttered, violently pulling open the door and holding it securely in place. "I'm not talking to him, I'm not convincing him to get tested—this is his own damn fault and I'll have nothing to do with it. And I think you should leave."
Having channeled all her remaining energy into this one little argument, there was little hope that she would bother fighting back any further... and with that in mind, I released my hold on the door and stood back. Maureen remained, however, immobile.
"I know you loved her," she said softly.
Well, that made me feel *so* much better.
"But I know he did, too."
Strike two.
It took everything I had to keep from fighting back. There was so much that could be said, after all. I would have relished bringing up all the terrible things she'd done to Mark in her time. But I said nothing, and she took a step towards me—see, this is why silence is fatal. It either shows vulnerability or proves you wrong. In my case, usually both. How very unfair that it took so much strength to do something that gave the appearance of so much weakness.
Her eyes were pleading with mine, but I did my best to ignore it. I was good at that. "Please..." she breathed, all strength having left her. "If you could just—"
"Go."
And she did. She didn't even bother to shoot me a last, pitiful puppy-dog look that was such a trademark of hers. It was almost impossible to realize she'd actually left. Her exits were traditionally, and unfailingly, a spectacle. You always knew when she arrived, and you always knew when she left. And you were always happier at the latter.
Finding myself alone again, I returned to the bathroom and snatched my items off the floor. My hands were no longer shaking, I no longer felt compelled to cram a thousand flashbacks into my last moments. And I was no longer afraid.
Fighting always gave me a high, no matter who my opposition was. It was to a lesser degree with Mark, because he so rarely fought back. But I'd forgotten what a rush it was to get sucked up into an argument with Maureen; she was such a fireball. At any other time and place, it would have been almost a turn-on.
And so I took that energy, got myself a spoon, and began melting down the powder. Suddenly it was all coming back to me—not the terror of addiction and withdrawal and HIV—but the familiarity. How easy it still was after all this time; the entire process felt like second nature. And this time, I wouldn't have to worry about those things like addition and withdrawal and HIV. This time, I wouldn't have to worry about anything at all.
I held the needle up to my arm.
This time... would be the last.