A/N: 08-16-02--Sincere apologies for the delay. Hopefully next time won't
be as long. I've missed you guys, and this story; it's good to be getting
another chapter up. I don't know if I'm happy with it though; it's been a
long time since I've worked on this story, I'm afraid maybe I've lost the
feel for it. Tell me what you think. I'd go back and read the last chapter
or so first, if I were you--that's what I had to do. :P
The usual disclaimer. ::bursts into song:: "I don't expect you to be mine..." Sigh. I love Matt.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
15. [M]
The loft hadn't been cloaked in such a mass of tension since... God, since when? Since he came back from withdrawal, perhaps. Maybe even going back as far as when Maureen left me. But something was noticeably different at those times. What was it...?
Ah, yes. Roger didn't hate me then.
He had disappeared again, however temporarily, to retrieve his few belongings from Collins' apartment, and the silence was far from comforting. Mimi's voice was beginning to echo in my head, the same way it had for months, after we'd had an argument and she'd made a particularly poignant remark, for which I couldn't possibly have formulated an impressive riposte. And so her words would haunt my thoughts interminably for the rest of the day, to the point where I was useless for any aspects of work, conversation, or daily routine.
But then she'd creep into my room, silently wrapping her arms around my waist, letting her lips slide over my ear as she whispered apologies and endearments. And with those soft reassurances, the relentless echoes would vanish.
But no matter how long I waited today, sprawled out on my bed and somehow still waiting for that door to ease open... it never did.
How would the echoes ever leave me now?
*He hasn't done anything wrong...*
Personally I was a little unclear on that, but willing to go along with it.
Even if she was right--even if I had been the perfect innocent; the loving, supportive boyfriend... it was all shot to hell now. I'd intruded shamelessly on the private words she'd intended only for Roger. Something she never meant for me to see. The one single, small part of her life I was requested to stay out of... and still I couldn't do it.
The opening of the front door interrupted this typically troubling reflection. Again. How unfair that an inanimate object could have such control over something powerful enough in itself--my thoughts.
When I overcame the bitterness of having been distracted, I looked up to see Roger stumbling through the door with a duffel bag full of God knows what... and I suddenly wondered where it had all come from, seeing as he'd originally stormed out with nothing in his hands but clenched fists.
I slowly crossed the room, picking up a stray backpack he'd dropped upon his entrance, and followed him silently into his room, where I placed it on the floor.
He glanced up at me, most likely resenting me for making it so difficult to ignore my presence. "Thanks," he mumbled.
I tried to leave, but my feet had other plans--namely, to stay firmly planted on the floor. "Um... are you done with the TV? I was going to work on some--"
"Yeah, sorry. Take it." He attempted half-heartedly to unplug a few cords, but gave up when I knelt down to finish the task myself.
I thought twice before hauling the VCR back to the living room... and first gently removed the tape from its slot. I avoided looking at it at all costs as I placed it on his dresser. As though, were I to make eye contact with it, Roger would see the anxiety in my face and fingerprints on the tape, put two and two together, and realize what I'd done.
But when I turned back to look at him, he was far too busy pretending to page through a notebook.
How strange he looked, without his guitar. It hadn't always been in his arms, of course, but... it was there. A necessary presence, an attachment of either himself or the room he currently occupied. He was different without it. Less, somehow. But far more transparent.
I wondered if I was more transparent without my camera.
At this consideration, an uneasiness crept over me. I scampered out of the room, closed the door, and snatched my camera off the kitchen table, where it had laid untouched for nearly two weeks.
Roger's bedroom door never reopened that night. I kept hoping that it would, for reasons beyond my comprehension, or even the desire for comprehension. Certainly it was too soon to hope or try for any resolution between us, if such a feat was even possible... but just being around him, having another life form around the apartment... it was a comfort. Shuffling in the next room; the sound of water running for a shower that wasn't mine; the refrigerator door closing across the room. Sounds that reminded me of a time in my life when... when...
Well... when I felt alive.
I waited until midnight, fiddling with my camera, only marginally diverted by the fact that I finally had the energy to hold it again. But he never left his room.
And even all those sleepless hours later, when I pulled myself out of bed for a three a.m. snack and spotted him out on the fire escape... it still didn't qualify, in my mind, as having left his room. It was as though he'd been locked away behind his door, and then somehow magically transported out the window. But there was no real change. He was as inaccessible to me now as he was then. It's not like I could actually say anything. And I wasn't used to that--discovering a clearly troubled individual perched just outside the window, and knowing I couldn't go to them.
He would be, forever and always, my closest link to her. Which, right now, was a curse. With that image of him hunched over the railing, watching the dark, empty lot below... it was her birthday all over again.
It hadn't been a particularly cold night for January, but even if it had, I don't think any of us would have noticed. There was a heated loft and chocolate cake and Twister and laughter. And, scarcely an hour after everyone had left us to ourselves, there was...
There was us. Just us.
We'd fallen asleep together when it was all over, that much I was certain of. But when I was pulled from slumber some hours later by an unknown force, I was alone. There were certainly enough hints that I hadn't dreamt it all; the scent of her perfume on the pillow, on the sheets, on me... The small tangle of long-forgotten clothes at the foot of the bed, spilling over onto the floor...
Not one moment of it had whirled by in a blur. My mind was still spinning, of course... but my heart, which seemed to be functioning independently of my mind at the moment, had retained every last detail.
It was nothing like I imagined it would be... not that I'd imagined it all that often, seeing as she'd been Roger's girlfriend. It was a side of her I'd only been allowed to see over the last month, and was still utterly, hopelessly entranced by it. There were no ritualistic Harlequin novel acts of ripping off clothes or falling to the floor in a fit of passion. It was all silent--at least to us. There was no traffic on the streets or wind howling on the other side of the paper-thin walls. Not to us.
To us, it was all a slow, lingering perfection... each moment simply melting into the next... until, at last, everything became still. The moments after became a fusion of whispers and touches and soft, random kisses, almost taking on an anonymity in the darkness. After our heartbeats had finally slowed to normal, she nestled herself against my side and mumbled something unintelligible but obviously in Spanish. When I asked her what it meant, she lifted her head, shot me one of those seductive grins, and replied, "Wouldn't *you* like to know..."
[A/N: The fluffiness is killing me; someone make it stop. :P]
I felt around her side of the bed in the darkness, but the only warmth beneath my hands was the sheet that she'd obviously abandoned only a short time ago. Pulling on a thick sweatshirt I'd inherited from Roger, I climbed out of bed and stumbled my way to the living room.
Maybe it was the few remaining sprinkles of glitter in her hair that caused the light to reflect at just the right angle... or maybe it was simply that I was drawn to her presence, whether I was even aware of it or not. But whatever the reason, I spotted her instantly. The window in front of the fire escape was cracked open, and she was seated outside on one of the steps leading to the roof.
I pushed open the window and crawled out after her, with somewhat more difficulty than I suspected she'd had, being significantly smaller... and found myself at a loss for words.
She looked up at me with a smile, but it wasn't the smile that warmed an entire room. It was the non-smile; the kind you use when you don't feel like smiling at all, but love someone too much to break their heart with a frown.
I normally would--and probably should--have begun whining about how fucking cold it was out here, how she was going to catch pneumonia, and how crazy she was. But in point of fact, it actually wasn't that freezing, it was obvious she wasn't about to move from that spot, and upon further musing of her intentions, my impending flow of words shifted from panic to apology.
"I--I'm sorry," I stammered. "Did you want to be alone?"
She shook her head, holding out her hand. I took it, crawling under the blanket that was draped across her legs, and snuggled against her.
"You're going to freeze out here," I added, unable to resist pointing it out in some way, shape, or form. She tried to smile again, but the attempts were growing increasingly less convincing. I touched her cheek. "Are you okay?"
Taking my hand, she laced her fingers through mine and nodded silently. This was not convincing enough for my standards.
"...Mimi?"
Her eyes met mine, which was more than I'd have hoped for. "I know... he's the one who left," she began cautiously. "But... I still feel like, somehow... I'm betraying him."
I didn't see that coming.
Swallowing the anxiety in my throat, I forced out a string of coherent, rational words. "What are you saying?"
"I don't know."
"Do you regret--"
"No." She shook her head solemnly, placing a finger under my chin and drawing me close to her. "Not for a second."
There was a 'but' coming. And I was going to stop it. I had to...
Her hand dropped back to her side, and she slowly turned away. "I just need some time to think. It's overwhelming."
I found myself nodding, pulling myself to my feet, even taking a step towards the window... when I knew all I should have been doing was trying to convince her that this was right. It had to be. I loved her and she loved me, and Roger wasn't here. But I knew there was nothing more I could do. I looked at her again, huddled under the blanket on the stairs... and she seemed smaller. "I love you," I said--at this time, the only words I trusted.
Her lips formed an echo of the words, but any sound was drowned out by the wind.
For the next half hour, I lay in bed, tossing and turning and not even bothering to try to sleep. I had no trouble admitting that I was scared of what she would say when she came back. The fact I refused to confess was that I was even more afraid she wouldn't come back at all.
Her silhouette suddenly appeared in the doorway, and I watched it transform from a black shape into a person, crawling onto the bed until our faces were mere centimeters apart.
And then she kissed me.
At last we broke apart, our hands tangled in each other's hair. I took a deep breath, wondering if the three words resonating in my head, begging to escape, would ruin everything.
"Are you sure?" I whispered.
She nodded, brushing her lips against mine for reassurance. And there was no doubt in my mind, from that moment on, that we would ever leave each other's side.
I stared at him now, through the half-open window... wondering how long it would be before he realized he was being watched. It wasn't a reaction I was particularly eager to be present for-and without a word, I returned to my room. But this time, I knew he'd still be around the next morning.
~ ~ ~
[The Next Morning.]
"Goddamn it, Mark!!"
My eyes slid open and I peered over the top of the blanket, waiting for the footsteps that would inevitably lead to my room. Silence. Silence. A sneeze? More silence. ...Ah, there they were. Angrier than the ones I was used to, though.
The door of my bedroom swung open, and taking its place was Roger-a box of lotion-kissed Kleenex in one hand and a half-eaten bagel in the other. "What the fuck is this?" I knew I wasn't going to have time to answer, so I continued to stare. "Since when do you buy *egg* bagels?!"
I yawned. "Since... forever," I mumbled, only half-alert. To me, at this hour of the morning, six months was close enough to 'forever'. I'd started buying them after Roger left. Mimi loved egg bagels; she detested 'normal' bagels. It wasn't a hard decision. I'd started buying egg bagels.
A final, protracted yawn of awakening, blended with Roger's death glare, brought me to full consciousness.
Mimi was gone.
Roger was allergic to eggs.
"Shit," I noted. "I'm sorry. I, uh... I'm going shopping today. I'll get regular ones."
"Fuck that," he declared, blowing his nose loudly and emphatically like a two-year-old. "*I'll* go shopping."
"No," I stated, and from his raised eyebrow and obviously increasing temper, I chose to elaborate. "You don't know where the pie crusts are."
"...*Pie crusts*?"
"Um... Mimi loved them. Just... plain, doughy pie crusts. She kind of... got me hooked on them."
His death glare had definitely shifted, but the nature of the shift was yet to be determined. I couldn't tell if it was more hateful than before, absolutely befuddled, or painfully wounded at the very mention of her. "Well, *you* don't know where the cashews are. I got hooked on them in Santa Fe."
"Fine. So come with me."
"Fine."
And this, embellished with a silent, three-feet-of-space-between-us-at-all- times stroll to the Food Emporium, was how we ended up where we were now, planted firmly in front of the great glass doors of the frozen food aisle, peering in at the boxes of TV dinners. Roger held his bag of cashews firmly in one hand, and I clutched my pie crusts in a similarly protective manner.
"We only have four bucks left," I reminded him, slowly and dully, for the thousandth time.
"I want the pizza."
"Well, I hate frozen pizza. I want the fettuccine Alfredo."
"Well I DON'T! It's girly and pretentious!"
At any other time, this might have been laughable.
"Fine." I handed him his two dollars and kept my own to myself. "Buy a chocolate bar or something."
"I don't *want* a-"
This was not your usual tongue-tied pause. Roger wasn't one to get tongue- tied in an argument. In a moment of truth; an emotional heart-to-heart conversation; yes. In an argument... practically never. I looked up to find his gaze focused neither on me nor his woefully unattainable pizza, but rather on something behind us.
I looked.
It was... her.
It was all her, everything about her. To the rest of the supermarket she was simply a beautiful Latina, scarcely out of her teens, I'm sure... a random, attractive shopper. But to us, she was Mimi incarnate. The spitting image. The hair, the smile, the eyes. The familiar stretchy tank top. The way her jeans embraced her body so perfectly that I'd been too often unable to resist walking up behind her and sliding my arms around her waist.
But I couldn't do that now. Because... it wasn't her.
This woman possessed something Mimi never had. A child. A little girl, perched happily in the front of the shopping cart, playing with a can of soup and smiling at us. She couldn't have been more than a year old; and what was so striking about her was, despite her uncanny resemblance to her mother... she had blue eyes.
*She was two months pregnant...*
I couldn't help (and honestly, I did try; these thoughts were far from pleasant) wonder what would have happened if Mimi was with me now, and if our little girl would have had her mother's dark, curly hair and my blue eyes and loved playing with cans of soup and smiling at strangers in the frozen foods aisle...
Something told me, very strongly: yes. Yes, she would have.
But I would never know for sure, would I?
I felt a hand on my shoulder. It had to be my imagination. All of this had to be. A trip to the Food Emporium couldn't possibly be this traumatizing.
"Look, uh, Mark..." No... this was definitely not my imagination. But his voice had softened distinctly from the whiny, pizza-obsessed tone I remembered from just moments ago. "Let's go, okay?"
I shook my head, letting my pie crusts fall listlessly into our scantly loaded shopping cart, and tore away from him--out of the frozen foods aisle, and out of the Food Emporium.
The loft hadn't even settled into its quiet, deserted state yet--the kind of state it assumed when having been unoccupied for some time. It was a quiet, languid state that was always welcoming to return home to, especially when you felt like being alone. But we'd been away scarcely twenty minutes, and that state had not yet settled in. The kitchen still smelled of egg bagels and orange juice, and arguments, and in only seconds I found myself collapsed against a wall by the couch, my eyes burning with a wetness that hadn't yet divided into the hundred tears I knew were imminent.
I'm not sure what made me think I would have the place to myself for very long. Perhaps I'd naively assumed that Roger would simply give up on me, on us, on everything, and return, defeated, to Santa Fe.
No such luck.
A key turned in the lock, and he appeared some seconds later--an entrance much less rough and enraged than mine had been minutes before. I glanced up, eyeing the items he unloaded gently on the table--pie crusts, cashews... and fettuccine Alfredo.
I looked at him, but said nothing.
"Mark..." he began quietly, "You can't keep doing this." I remained mute. "She's gone. You--you can't fucking go on like this. You may have let me get away with this shit when April died, but I'm not that tolerant. And in case you haven't noticed, I was in love with Mimi too. You're not the only one suffering."
I let a bitter chuckle escape my lips immediately, voiding any meaning or significance these obviously difficult words may have contained. "Easy for you to say," I commented. "You at least got some sort of goodbye."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
I gestured wildly, frustrated to no end that he hadn't a clue what I was talking about, and even more frustrated that I had yet to confess this. "The video..." I concluded lamely.
I could literally feel his eyes narrowing in complete bewilderment. "...What?"
"I'm sorry!" I exploded--in truth, apologetic only for my own selfish guilt in the matter. "I watched it! Okay? You just *left* it there and I know it was yours and she never meant for me to see it and it was completely selfish and idiotic of me to barge in on the one thing she'd ever kept from me, but I did it, and I'm sorry."
I waited for it all to come crashing down--screaming, throwing things. The usual. But it didn't. Only silence.
"Well... Jesus, Mark, didn't you watch the whole thing?"
My voice began to shake. "Of... course..." Or, maybe, "I... don't know?" Yeah. Maybe that.
"You turned it off after she said she loved me, didn't you?"
"Y-yes..." Yes... yes I had. But I had the very distinct feeling that I shouldn't have.
No sooner had the syllable left my mouth than he was stalking off to his bedroom, returning almost instantly, and holding out the tape. "She made a whole segment just for you, you know."
My eyes fluttered hesitantly to the tape in his hands, ashamed to even look at it. "Wh--what--why didn't you tell me?"
"I knew you'd end up watching it. I just didn't think you'd actually turn it off the first time the screen went blue."
I hated how well he knew me. Sometimes it was acceptable. Even helpful. Even amusing. But now... I hated it. And I hated him for it.
I took the tape from him. *My* tape, now. He'd had his turn with it, and although I didn't deserve it, there was something on this that was meant for my eyes only. And there was no way I would even try to resist.
Slowly, I stepped toward the television and reached for the plug, intending to drag it to my room just as he had done. But, almost immediately--
"Don't bother," he offered bitterly, grabbing his coat and keys off the table and opening the front door. "Oh, and by the way." We both turned around, realizing that the awkwardness in catching one another's eye had long since been surpassed. "I didn't watch it."
And with this sanctimonious finale, he was gone.
[Three chapters left. Next chapter: In which Marky gets his test results back. Woot. :)]
The usual disclaimer. ::bursts into song:: "I don't expect you to be mine..." Sigh. I love Matt.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
15. [M]
The loft hadn't been cloaked in such a mass of tension since... God, since when? Since he came back from withdrawal, perhaps. Maybe even going back as far as when Maureen left me. But something was noticeably different at those times. What was it...?
Ah, yes. Roger didn't hate me then.
He had disappeared again, however temporarily, to retrieve his few belongings from Collins' apartment, and the silence was far from comforting. Mimi's voice was beginning to echo in my head, the same way it had for months, after we'd had an argument and she'd made a particularly poignant remark, for which I couldn't possibly have formulated an impressive riposte. And so her words would haunt my thoughts interminably for the rest of the day, to the point where I was useless for any aspects of work, conversation, or daily routine.
But then she'd creep into my room, silently wrapping her arms around my waist, letting her lips slide over my ear as she whispered apologies and endearments. And with those soft reassurances, the relentless echoes would vanish.
But no matter how long I waited today, sprawled out on my bed and somehow still waiting for that door to ease open... it never did.
How would the echoes ever leave me now?
*He hasn't done anything wrong...*
Personally I was a little unclear on that, but willing to go along with it.
Even if she was right--even if I had been the perfect innocent; the loving, supportive boyfriend... it was all shot to hell now. I'd intruded shamelessly on the private words she'd intended only for Roger. Something she never meant for me to see. The one single, small part of her life I was requested to stay out of... and still I couldn't do it.
The opening of the front door interrupted this typically troubling reflection. Again. How unfair that an inanimate object could have such control over something powerful enough in itself--my thoughts.
When I overcame the bitterness of having been distracted, I looked up to see Roger stumbling through the door with a duffel bag full of God knows what... and I suddenly wondered where it had all come from, seeing as he'd originally stormed out with nothing in his hands but clenched fists.
I slowly crossed the room, picking up a stray backpack he'd dropped upon his entrance, and followed him silently into his room, where I placed it on the floor.
He glanced up at me, most likely resenting me for making it so difficult to ignore my presence. "Thanks," he mumbled.
I tried to leave, but my feet had other plans--namely, to stay firmly planted on the floor. "Um... are you done with the TV? I was going to work on some--"
"Yeah, sorry. Take it." He attempted half-heartedly to unplug a few cords, but gave up when I knelt down to finish the task myself.
I thought twice before hauling the VCR back to the living room... and first gently removed the tape from its slot. I avoided looking at it at all costs as I placed it on his dresser. As though, were I to make eye contact with it, Roger would see the anxiety in my face and fingerprints on the tape, put two and two together, and realize what I'd done.
But when I turned back to look at him, he was far too busy pretending to page through a notebook.
How strange he looked, without his guitar. It hadn't always been in his arms, of course, but... it was there. A necessary presence, an attachment of either himself or the room he currently occupied. He was different without it. Less, somehow. But far more transparent.
I wondered if I was more transparent without my camera.
At this consideration, an uneasiness crept over me. I scampered out of the room, closed the door, and snatched my camera off the kitchen table, where it had laid untouched for nearly two weeks.
Roger's bedroom door never reopened that night. I kept hoping that it would, for reasons beyond my comprehension, or even the desire for comprehension. Certainly it was too soon to hope or try for any resolution between us, if such a feat was even possible... but just being around him, having another life form around the apartment... it was a comfort. Shuffling in the next room; the sound of water running for a shower that wasn't mine; the refrigerator door closing across the room. Sounds that reminded me of a time in my life when... when...
Well... when I felt alive.
I waited until midnight, fiddling with my camera, only marginally diverted by the fact that I finally had the energy to hold it again. But he never left his room.
And even all those sleepless hours later, when I pulled myself out of bed for a three a.m. snack and spotted him out on the fire escape... it still didn't qualify, in my mind, as having left his room. It was as though he'd been locked away behind his door, and then somehow magically transported out the window. But there was no real change. He was as inaccessible to me now as he was then. It's not like I could actually say anything. And I wasn't used to that--discovering a clearly troubled individual perched just outside the window, and knowing I couldn't go to them.
He would be, forever and always, my closest link to her. Which, right now, was a curse. With that image of him hunched over the railing, watching the dark, empty lot below... it was her birthday all over again.
It hadn't been a particularly cold night for January, but even if it had, I don't think any of us would have noticed. There was a heated loft and chocolate cake and Twister and laughter. And, scarcely an hour after everyone had left us to ourselves, there was...
There was us. Just us.
We'd fallen asleep together when it was all over, that much I was certain of. But when I was pulled from slumber some hours later by an unknown force, I was alone. There were certainly enough hints that I hadn't dreamt it all; the scent of her perfume on the pillow, on the sheets, on me... The small tangle of long-forgotten clothes at the foot of the bed, spilling over onto the floor...
Not one moment of it had whirled by in a blur. My mind was still spinning, of course... but my heart, which seemed to be functioning independently of my mind at the moment, had retained every last detail.
It was nothing like I imagined it would be... not that I'd imagined it all that often, seeing as she'd been Roger's girlfriend. It was a side of her I'd only been allowed to see over the last month, and was still utterly, hopelessly entranced by it. There were no ritualistic Harlequin novel acts of ripping off clothes or falling to the floor in a fit of passion. It was all silent--at least to us. There was no traffic on the streets or wind howling on the other side of the paper-thin walls. Not to us.
To us, it was all a slow, lingering perfection... each moment simply melting into the next... until, at last, everything became still. The moments after became a fusion of whispers and touches and soft, random kisses, almost taking on an anonymity in the darkness. After our heartbeats had finally slowed to normal, she nestled herself against my side and mumbled something unintelligible but obviously in Spanish. When I asked her what it meant, she lifted her head, shot me one of those seductive grins, and replied, "Wouldn't *you* like to know..."
[A/N: The fluffiness is killing me; someone make it stop. :P]
I felt around her side of the bed in the darkness, but the only warmth beneath my hands was the sheet that she'd obviously abandoned only a short time ago. Pulling on a thick sweatshirt I'd inherited from Roger, I climbed out of bed and stumbled my way to the living room.
Maybe it was the few remaining sprinkles of glitter in her hair that caused the light to reflect at just the right angle... or maybe it was simply that I was drawn to her presence, whether I was even aware of it or not. But whatever the reason, I spotted her instantly. The window in front of the fire escape was cracked open, and she was seated outside on one of the steps leading to the roof.
I pushed open the window and crawled out after her, with somewhat more difficulty than I suspected she'd had, being significantly smaller... and found myself at a loss for words.
She looked up at me with a smile, but it wasn't the smile that warmed an entire room. It was the non-smile; the kind you use when you don't feel like smiling at all, but love someone too much to break their heart with a frown.
I normally would--and probably should--have begun whining about how fucking cold it was out here, how she was going to catch pneumonia, and how crazy she was. But in point of fact, it actually wasn't that freezing, it was obvious she wasn't about to move from that spot, and upon further musing of her intentions, my impending flow of words shifted from panic to apology.
"I--I'm sorry," I stammered. "Did you want to be alone?"
She shook her head, holding out her hand. I took it, crawling under the blanket that was draped across her legs, and snuggled against her.
"You're going to freeze out here," I added, unable to resist pointing it out in some way, shape, or form. She tried to smile again, but the attempts were growing increasingly less convincing. I touched her cheek. "Are you okay?"
Taking my hand, she laced her fingers through mine and nodded silently. This was not convincing enough for my standards.
"...Mimi?"
Her eyes met mine, which was more than I'd have hoped for. "I know... he's the one who left," she began cautiously. "But... I still feel like, somehow... I'm betraying him."
I didn't see that coming.
Swallowing the anxiety in my throat, I forced out a string of coherent, rational words. "What are you saying?"
"I don't know."
"Do you regret--"
"No." She shook her head solemnly, placing a finger under my chin and drawing me close to her. "Not for a second."
There was a 'but' coming. And I was going to stop it. I had to...
Her hand dropped back to her side, and she slowly turned away. "I just need some time to think. It's overwhelming."
I found myself nodding, pulling myself to my feet, even taking a step towards the window... when I knew all I should have been doing was trying to convince her that this was right. It had to be. I loved her and she loved me, and Roger wasn't here. But I knew there was nothing more I could do. I looked at her again, huddled under the blanket on the stairs... and she seemed smaller. "I love you," I said--at this time, the only words I trusted.
Her lips formed an echo of the words, but any sound was drowned out by the wind.
For the next half hour, I lay in bed, tossing and turning and not even bothering to try to sleep. I had no trouble admitting that I was scared of what she would say when she came back. The fact I refused to confess was that I was even more afraid she wouldn't come back at all.
Her silhouette suddenly appeared in the doorway, and I watched it transform from a black shape into a person, crawling onto the bed until our faces were mere centimeters apart.
And then she kissed me.
At last we broke apart, our hands tangled in each other's hair. I took a deep breath, wondering if the three words resonating in my head, begging to escape, would ruin everything.
"Are you sure?" I whispered.
She nodded, brushing her lips against mine for reassurance. And there was no doubt in my mind, from that moment on, that we would ever leave each other's side.
I stared at him now, through the half-open window... wondering how long it would be before he realized he was being watched. It wasn't a reaction I was particularly eager to be present for-and without a word, I returned to my room. But this time, I knew he'd still be around the next morning.
~ ~ ~
[The Next Morning.]
"Goddamn it, Mark!!"
My eyes slid open and I peered over the top of the blanket, waiting for the footsteps that would inevitably lead to my room. Silence. Silence. A sneeze? More silence. ...Ah, there they were. Angrier than the ones I was used to, though.
The door of my bedroom swung open, and taking its place was Roger-a box of lotion-kissed Kleenex in one hand and a half-eaten bagel in the other. "What the fuck is this?" I knew I wasn't going to have time to answer, so I continued to stare. "Since when do you buy *egg* bagels?!"
I yawned. "Since... forever," I mumbled, only half-alert. To me, at this hour of the morning, six months was close enough to 'forever'. I'd started buying them after Roger left. Mimi loved egg bagels; she detested 'normal' bagels. It wasn't a hard decision. I'd started buying egg bagels.
A final, protracted yawn of awakening, blended with Roger's death glare, brought me to full consciousness.
Mimi was gone.
Roger was allergic to eggs.
"Shit," I noted. "I'm sorry. I, uh... I'm going shopping today. I'll get regular ones."
"Fuck that," he declared, blowing his nose loudly and emphatically like a two-year-old. "*I'll* go shopping."
"No," I stated, and from his raised eyebrow and obviously increasing temper, I chose to elaborate. "You don't know where the pie crusts are."
"...*Pie crusts*?"
"Um... Mimi loved them. Just... plain, doughy pie crusts. She kind of... got me hooked on them."
His death glare had definitely shifted, but the nature of the shift was yet to be determined. I couldn't tell if it was more hateful than before, absolutely befuddled, or painfully wounded at the very mention of her. "Well, *you* don't know where the cashews are. I got hooked on them in Santa Fe."
"Fine. So come with me."
"Fine."
And this, embellished with a silent, three-feet-of-space-between-us-at-all- times stroll to the Food Emporium, was how we ended up where we were now, planted firmly in front of the great glass doors of the frozen food aisle, peering in at the boxes of TV dinners. Roger held his bag of cashews firmly in one hand, and I clutched my pie crusts in a similarly protective manner.
"We only have four bucks left," I reminded him, slowly and dully, for the thousandth time.
"I want the pizza."
"Well, I hate frozen pizza. I want the fettuccine Alfredo."
"Well I DON'T! It's girly and pretentious!"
At any other time, this might have been laughable.
"Fine." I handed him his two dollars and kept my own to myself. "Buy a chocolate bar or something."
"I don't *want* a-"
This was not your usual tongue-tied pause. Roger wasn't one to get tongue- tied in an argument. In a moment of truth; an emotional heart-to-heart conversation; yes. In an argument... practically never. I looked up to find his gaze focused neither on me nor his woefully unattainable pizza, but rather on something behind us.
I looked.
It was... her.
It was all her, everything about her. To the rest of the supermarket she was simply a beautiful Latina, scarcely out of her teens, I'm sure... a random, attractive shopper. But to us, she was Mimi incarnate. The spitting image. The hair, the smile, the eyes. The familiar stretchy tank top. The way her jeans embraced her body so perfectly that I'd been too often unable to resist walking up behind her and sliding my arms around her waist.
But I couldn't do that now. Because... it wasn't her.
This woman possessed something Mimi never had. A child. A little girl, perched happily in the front of the shopping cart, playing with a can of soup and smiling at us. She couldn't have been more than a year old; and what was so striking about her was, despite her uncanny resemblance to her mother... she had blue eyes.
*She was two months pregnant...*
I couldn't help (and honestly, I did try; these thoughts were far from pleasant) wonder what would have happened if Mimi was with me now, and if our little girl would have had her mother's dark, curly hair and my blue eyes and loved playing with cans of soup and smiling at strangers in the frozen foods aisle...
Something told me, very strongly: yes. Yes, she would have.
But I would never know for sure, would I?
I felt a hand on my shoulder. It had to be my imagination. All of this had to be. A trip to the Food Emporium couldn't possibly be this traumatizing.
"Look, uh, Mark..." No... this was definitely not my imagination. But his voice had softened distinctly from the whiny, pizza-obsessed tone I remembered from just moments ago. "Let's go, okay?"
I shook my head, letting my pie crusts fall listlessly into our scantly loaded shopping cart, and tore away from him--out of the frozen foods aisle, and out of the Food Emporium.
The loft hadn't even settled into its quiet, deserted state yet--the kind of state it assumed when having been unoccupied for some time. It was a quiet, languid state that was always welcoming to return home to, especially when you felt like being alone. But we'd been away scarcely twenty minutes, and that state had not yet settled in. The kitchen still smelled of egg bagels and orange juice, and arguments, and in only seconds I found myself collapsed against a wall by the couch, my eyes burning with a wetness that hadn't yet divided into the hundred tears I knew were imminent.
I'm not sure what made me think I would have the place to myself for very long. Perhaps I'd naively assumed that Roger would simply give up on me, on us, on everything, and return, defeated, to Santa Fe.
No such luck.
A key turned in the lock, and he appeared some seconds later--an entrance much less rough and enraged than mine had been minutes before. I glanced up, eyeing the items he unloaded gently on the table--pie crusts, cashews... and fettuccine Alfredo.
I looked at him, but said nothing.
"Mark..." he began quietly, "You can't keep doing this." I remained mute. "She's gone. You--you can't fucking go on like this. You may have let me get away with this shit when April died, but I'm not that tolerant. And in case you haven't noticed, I was in love with Mimi too. You're not the only one suffering."
I let a bitter chuckle escape my lips immediately, voiding any meaning or significance these obviously difficult words may have contained. "Easy for you to say," I commented. "You at least got some sort of goodbye."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
I gestured wildly, frustrated to no end that he hadn't a clue what I was talking about, and even more frustrated that I had yet to confess this. "The video..." I concluded lamely.
I could literally feel his eyes narrowing in complete bewilderment. "...What?"
"I'm sorry!" I exploded--in truth, apologetic only for my own selfish guilt in the matter. "I watched it! Okay? You just *left* it there and I know it was yours and she never meant for me to see it and it was completely selfish and idiotic of me to barge in on the one thing she'd ever kept from me, but I did it, and I'm sorry."
I waited for it all to come crashing down--screaming, throwing things. The usual. But it didn't. Only silence.
"Well... Jesus, Mark, didn't you watch the whole thing?"
My voice began to shake. "Of... course..." Or, maybe, "I... don't know?" Yeah. Maybe that.
"You turned it off after she said she loved me, didn't you?"
"Y-yes..." Yes... yes I had. But I had the very distinct feeling that I shouldn't have.
No sooner had the syllable left my mouth than he was stalking off to his bedroom, returning almost instantly, and holding out the tape. "She made a whole segment just for you, you know."
My eyes fluttered hesitantly to the tape in his hands, ashamed to even look at it. "Wh--what--why didn't you tell me?"
"I knew you'd end up watching it. I just didn't think you'd actually turn it off the first time the screen went blue."
I hated how well he knew me. Sometimes it was acceptable. Even helpful. Even amusing. But now... I hated it. And I hated him for it.
I took the tape from him. *My* tape, now. He'd had his turn with it, and although I didn't deserve it, there was something on this that was meant for my eyes only. And there was no way I would even try to resist.
Slowly, I stepped toward the television and reached for the plug, intending to drag it to my room just as he had done. But, almost immediately--
"Don't bother," he offered bitterly, grabbing his coat and keys off the table and opening the front door. "Oh, and by the way." We both turned around, realizing that the awkwardness in catching one another's eye had long since been surpassed. "I didn't watch it."
And with this sanctimonious finale, he was gone.
[Three chapters left. Next chapter: In which Marky gets his test results back. Woot. :)]