A/N: 09-13-02-Uh, yeah, so this is still from Mark's POV... as was last
chapter (...she announced somewhat belatedly :P). I'm used to alternating;
ack, I hate discontinuity... but this is the only way it would work. And
trust me. I spent hours reorganizing the last few chapters. LOL. Anyhow.
Onward.
Got a break from school now until October, so hopefully I can punch out the remaining two chapters of this in that time. We'll see. Reviews help. :) (Honestly. Just tonight I decided to go check my reviews, and there happened to be a new one for last chapter, which was lovely and unexpected. Anyhow, it inspired me to finish the last three pages of this. So, yay. LOL.)
Disclaimer: ::walks out onto empty stage in front of hushed audience; looks around; shrugs:: Enh. ::returns backstage:: :P
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16. [M]
You'd think the guilt would have evaporated by now. I had, within in a five- foot radius of myself, a television, VCR, and tape... and I was completely allowed to make full use of all three. No strings attached. It was my tape; hell, it was my apartment. I was about to see something I was actually *meant* to see. Guilt should be as far from my mind as happiness had been, of late.
But of course, we all know it wasn't. This wasn't really mine. It shouldn't be. I'd stolen straight from the cookie jar before laying eyes on the plate that had already been set out for me. I didn't deserve it.
Then again... she didn't deserve to die. But she was still very, very... gone.
I slipped the tape into the VCR, sighing resignedly as it hummed and clicked and whined its way to Play. The familiar blue screen, and then, from nowhere, an image and a face and a voice that were far too real and alive to fit into this melancholic loft.
"Hey..." She smiled weakly. "Roger, honey... turn it off now, k? I need to say something to Mark." Waiting. "Um... seriously." Another fleeting smile. "Okay. Um."
I inched toward the screen. I wanted to be close to her for this. As close as I would ever be again.
At first, she simply stared at me, her eyes piercing a straight line right through the lens into mine-or, where mine usually were, which was directly behind the camera. That's why I loved filming her more than anyone else. Not simply for the juvenile fact that she was my girlfriend and I was madly in love with her and wanted to capture her beauty and charisma on film. It was because of the way she broke down that barrier of camera and lens and falseness. I could still hide behind it-she knew I often needed to-but when she looked through it into my eyes... it was as though she were hiding with me. Like there was no camera at all, not for us. It was our own world. Our own private escape.
Even now... I could still feel it.
The smile appeared in Cheshire Cat fashion: out of nowhere, and lighting up the whole room. It was the smile she saved for crowded rooms, when the closest we could be was a glance across the sea of unfamiliar faces.
"Hi, baby," she began softly. "I... uh, I don't want to make this all dramatic and morbid, so... I really don't think I have to tell you anything important. Everything I want to tell you, I tell you every night. Though not always through words..." she added with a wink. "So... I'm just going to leave you with this." A wider smile this time, accompanied by... blushing? Impossible. Not my Mimi. "Okay." Deep breath. "Do you remember that time you got me really drunk... or actually, I got you really drunk... anyhow, we both ended up plastered, right? And I let you, um... take those pictures? You know, the ones with..."
...High heels, a feather boa, and nothing else?
She grinned. "Okay, like you'd ever forget that."
Honestly, woman.
"And then I, uh... sobered up the next morning, and stole the camera from you and told you I threw out the film, and you whined all day?"
I wouldn't exactly call it whining. I *sulked*. Severely.
She looked down at her hands, which were fidgeting nervously with the edge of her shirt. "I didn't throw it out. I got it developed. They're in the bottom of your sock drawer."
Thank God for my childish security habit of always sitting with a throw pillow on my lap, because it would have been very painful if my jaw had hit the hard floor of the living room when it dropped like lead from the rest of my face.
Her gaze lifted, and it became quite obvious that the blush was real-not some camera coloring fluke. I couldn't believe it. I'd never seen anything so adorable. And-though it was hard to tell for sure, seeing as I'd completely melted to a puddle of mush and sentiment right there on the living room floor-she smiled. "I love you, Mark."
To this day, those words still sent a shiver down my back every time.
"And... there was one thing. I mean... we always said whatever happened, we'd be in it together. But... if you're watching this... I know that means you're alone. And I wanted to say I'm sorry. If anything happens to you, baby... if you get sick... and if it's my fault..." Her voice grew unsteady, a long-repressed threat of tears drawing near. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry..."
Oh, God.
She knew.
Sheknewsheknewsheknew.
And she wouldn't say it. Not ever. Because she was scared. I knew she was. I always knew she could get that scared. Not many people did, but I did, because I saw sides of her that no one else did, and...
She knew. She knew she was pregnant. She knew I'd have to get tested. She knew... all of it.
"I think I hear footsteps on the stairs," she whispered. "I've got to go. I love you. I swear I do. You'll never know how much."
She scrambled from the chair and turned off the camera. I summoned my remaining energy to fast-forward for a few minutes, on the dwindling off- chance that there might be anything else to see. But there was only blue screens, and snow, and then... more snow.
This was it.
I'd just experienced the last time I would ever sit in front of her and wonder what words would leave those beautiful lips.
She was gone.
My fingers fumbled ineptly with my shoelaces, I reached for my sweater on the edge of a chair, and on a last cautious thought, I relocated the tape to my bedroom. In a drawer. My sock drawer. Maybe someday, I would be able to watch it again. Maybe someday I would be able to look at those pictures. God knows I wanted to. Without a doubt all the guys (and many of the girls) in New York would too if they knew about them.
But today was not that day.
I didn't spend that afternoon searching for escapes, or petty diversions, or a lonely seat in a café, watching the world walk by me in that oblivious yet completely aware manner that New Yorkers seemed to possess. I just found an alley, and I sat down, and breathed in the smells from the Chinese restaurant across the street. It was good for me-it held no memories. We'd never eaten there. We always ordered from the one on 17th. They had better rice. And don't try to tell Mimi all rice is the same. It is not. She convinced me.
However, as much as I wished I could detest the thought of returning to the loft... I missed it. I was in no mood to wander with no purpose. I was neither angry, nor additionally guilty, nor resentful or grief-stricken. No words echoed. It was all so blank... and I needed the comfort of my own home. As comforting as a place like that could be, anyhow-a place that had been home to more death, fights, passion, and pain than it was worth.
But it was still home to *me*, too.
I slipped my key into the lock, turned, and opened the door. Some two feet from my bedroom door stood a figure-namely, Roger's. Watching me, as though I'd been standing there for the past hour. And in his hands was a sickening, mind-spinning curse I've come to know as déjà vu.
Letters. Letters in his handwriting, from my pen, to Mimi's eyes. Forged letters; letters she discovered the truth behind. Yelled at me; which I'd expected. Kissed me... which I had not.
Letters that had been stuffed so far away in my desk, never intended to see the light of day again... were now resting in the hands of the one person whose discovery of them would be more disastrous than hers.
There was nothing wild or enraged about his eyes; perhaps that's what frightened me most. It was the first thing about this scene that differed from its twin, six months ago... aside from the fact that this was Roger. Not Mimi. No hidden love; only hate.
He attempted to blink away the blankness in his eyes, but it was stuck. "What the-"
"Don't," I begged quietly. "Just... please, don't."
A flash of life stirred behind his eyes, and I felt myself jump. "Don't?" he echoed. "You write a fucking book's worth of letters in *my* handwriting to *my* girlfriend and you're telling me... don't?"
He had a point.
"Roger, she was depressed, she missed you, she..." Fuck it. This was impossible to justify in the amount of words and time I knew I had before he would officially blow up.
He wasn't interrupting. He wasn't even reacting. I was starting to question whether I'd really stopped talking. Or whether I'd said a word at all. His shoulders finally slumped as the blankness returned to his eyes in full, focusing instead of the papers in his hands. "Did you ever tell her?"
"She... found out."
"What did she do?"
"She yelled at me."
Eyes never leaving the paper, the corners of his mouth rose and fell so rapidly it may have even been the lighting in the room. "That's it?"
I swallowed. "Um... yeah." Yes. That was it. I wasn't about to tell him that she-
But Roger knew. Roger always knew. Without even eye contact, he could sense the shuffling of feet, the nervous wringing of hands, even the swallowing of a lump in one's throat-any of the telltale signs of lying. He'd used more than enough of them in his own time to be able to detect them in others.
His voice slowed, menacingly. "What did she do?" he repeated.
"She just... started crying, so I hugged her, and..." And she went home and I went to bed alone, the end.
"And what?"
It was useless. No matter what I said from this point, unless it included some narration of physical contact, death, or other form of tragic shock... he'd know I was lying.
"And..." Why was my mouth so dry? "She kissed me."
Nothing. Not a blink, or a flinch, or even a breath. Now that was just insulting. It was quite an admission, after all... but apparently not impressive enough. I was going to have to embellish.
"Actually," I spurted, "I kissed her. Okay? It's my fault. I started this, I stole your girlfriend, I'm the reason she's gone, it's all my doing. Can we move on now?"
I kept watching his eyes for a fading of that blankness... but it suddenly occurred to me that I was watching the wrong thing. His eyes weren't the part of him that was reacting to this. The papers weren't in front of his face; they were in his hands. And his hands were shaking.
All at once the papers were crunched into a tight ball, hurled across the room, and landed with a soft "thump" against the wall-almost a mocking lack of impact for the emotion coursing through the room.
"I wrote her *every day*!" he bellowed at the wall.
"What?"
"Every fucking day, Mark!"
"But she never-"
"Because I never sent them!"
"Well, that's not my fault!"
He took two massive strides toward me. "You had no right to-"
"I KNOW." There was no fury left to my tone; only exasperation. "I know," I echoed. "I've heard it from her, I don't need to hear it from you."
"I-"
"It's in the past, Roger!" I exploded. "All right? It was a mistake. I can't change it."
"But it's *not* in the past, Mark, none of this is! It's all right here!"
And, just to prove this hadn't been punctuated with nearly enough force... the phone rang.
Our gazes lunged for it, but our bodies remained still. It was an insanely welcome distraction, strangely enough. Neither of us wanted to be fighting. Neither of us wanted to talk to anyone else, either though. We were very particular, weren't we? But nonetheless, the machine picked up and we waited, involuntarily, absent-mindedly, as we had done thousands of times before.
"This message is for Mr. Cohen," stated the voice blaring through the cheap, scratchy speaker on the machine. "I'm calling on behalf of the East Side Healthcare Clinic. Your test results are ready..."
She went on about appointments and locations and phone numbers, all information I'm quite positive neither of us heard, before-with a painfully loud, clumsy *click* of the phone-her words evaporated from the room.
Well... the voice did. Her words were still very much here, and ringing, repeatedly, in my ears.
A floorboard creaked insolently behind us, and the way we were both positioned in our respectively stagnant locations, the only place actually *behind* both of us was the front door. And, with identical jumps of shock, we spun around.
Maureen stood in the doorframe, one foot in the living room, one in the hall, with a hand over her mouth.
She'd heard it, too.
I hadn't even wanted to hear that phone call myself, let alone with Roger, and now Maureen. Well, Jesus Christ, why not invite the whole fucking building and make a night out of it? Hey, everyone, Mark's test results are back; come enjoy an evening of music and celebration, BYOB.
At least Roger could recognize the irritation of having just unknowingly shared an argument with an unforeseen audience. I watched as his wild eyes, glistening and dark with rage, dashed between the phone, Maureen, and finally me-before grabbing a jacket off the end of the couch, brushing roughly past her, and storming out.
Storming out, as one likely knows, involves the loud, emphatic slamming of a door. It's practically a prerequisite. And seeing as Maureen had been directly between us and the hallway, I was ever-so-lucky that this particular door-slamming had sent her inside rather than out.
In a matter of seconds, my company, comfort level, and heart rate had been dramatically altered... and not for the better.
My body collapsed on the couch-it wasn't an action I'd consciously permitted; at this point, almost all movement was involuntary. Even as I pulled my feet up onto the couch, hugging my knees and a pillow to my chest, it was several languid, protracted moments before I realized how childlike I must have looked.
Maureen parted with her purse, idly setting it on a chair, and slowly crossed the room. I'd never seen Maureen do anything 'slowly' in her life. Not since Mimi...
I couldn't say it. 'Not since Mimi died.' The last word was always omitted, forcing her name to carry the weight of both the person and the person's fate. This ridiculous habit of fear still gave me chills. As if, by admitting the loss, it would somehow make the loss even... more so.
But loss wasn't something with varying degrees of reality. Something-or someone-was either entirely lost, or entirely here.
And right now, in this moment... I was entirely lost.
I felt her hand cover mine. I had always adored her hands. They were soft and gentle-the only part of her to boast these traits. She'd always been a physically affectionate person-hugging, kissing, touching-she liked to be close to people. She couldn't read people through their eyes or through a lens, the way I could. And so she attempted to read them through contact. The way their hand would reciprocate her touch, or shy from it. It was good for me, when we dated; it forced me to learn how to allow myself to trust someone just that much... enough to let them read me through touch. It was, perhaps, one of the hardest but most valuable things I ever learned.
And so, contrary to popular belief, my years with Maureen weren't all bad.
She pried the pillow away to get closer to me, and I didn't protest. "Marky?"
"What are you doing here?" I mumbled at the couch cushion.
"I brought cookies," she offered softly, gesturing vaguely to the covered plate next to her purse.
"You don't cook."
"No, but the 5th Street bakery does." I almost smiled, and caught myself. Her hand moved to my arm, and she lowered her head, trying to find some-any- form of eye contact. "Are you okay?"
I tried to take deep breaths, but they only came out in short, panicked gulps of air. "They're calling me in. They never call you in unless it's-"
"Mark, that's not true-"
"Unless it's bad news!" I finished stubbornly, far more loudly than I'd begun.
She released my arm, sitting upright, melodramatic and offended. "You're acting like a baby."
"Fuck off, Maureen."
"Hey." She placed a finger under my chin, softly leading my gaze to hers. "I'll come with you tomorrow."
"No."
"Come on, Mark."
"NO."
There was silence, then, which could only mean one of two things-she was giving me the Death Glare, or she was crying. The awful, soundless tears that were worse than any of her tantrums. I looked up, and wasn't surprised to find it was the latter.
She blinked back a pool of tears, but instead they simply splashed down her cheeks. "I miss her."
Every natural instinct told me I had no strength for this; that the very idea of comforting her was more energy than I would have for weeks to come. But somehow, my thoughts ran deeper, and I knew this was my chance to return what she'd taught me, about reading people without a lens. And on that note, I shoved the pillows aside and pulled her into my arms.
Her head buried itself in my chest, remaining there long after the tears had dwindled. "Please," she finally whispered. "Let me be there tomorrow."
I shook my head. "I have to do this alone."
I knew she didn't fully understand why isolation would be more appealing to me than the support of a friend, but I admired her for her acceptance. For respecting me enough to know it was what I needed. She gave a final squeeze to my hand, a soft, comforting brush against my lips, and a hole in the plastic cover of my cookie plate, where she dug in to snatch one for herself before closing the door behind her. [A/N: Not a WORD about Matt and Cookie Jar, folks. :P]
It would have been so much easier if the rest of the world were holding their breath with me that next morning. If the waiting room had been cold and uninviting, with plain white walls and plastic models of intestines on the magazine tables. But it wasn't. It was warm and comforting with a friendly staff and I hated it. I left my chair twice and marched to the door, reasoning that if I never found out, it would never really be true.
My intellectual capacity was somewhat more advanced than this, however, and finally I could no longer bear forcing myself to support this reasoning, and I collapsed, defeated, in my chair.
The only break I got was the fact that it was raining. And even that, at a misty drizzle, was only half-hearted.
A scant ten minutes after my arrival, they called for me. It was too soon. You were supposed to wait two hours, minimum, at these places. It was like, a law. A tacit, informally accepted law, at any rate. A nurse appeared in the waiting room doorway-one of those doors specifically built for clinics, I suppose. They opened every minute or so, but you could never see inside them, no matter where you were sitting. It was just a mass of mysterious hallways or white-walled rooms. I always wondered what secrets they were hiding back there.
Today, I would find out.
"Mr. Cohen?"
I rose from my seat, numbly, hands stuffed in my pockets, and followed the nurse's silent footsteps into the cold, white room I'd been longing for since I got here.
She stared at me. What, no folders to look over? No paperwork to fill out? "Mr. Cohen... I know this is very--"
"Please don't," I interrupted, surprising myself. "Just tell me."
Her lips drew into a tight line, but finally softened as I suspected my gaze grew increasingly more pitiful. Slowly, she nodded, hugging her clipboard to her chest, and took a deep breath. For all this mental preparation, I'd have thought her voice would have at least had strength enough to rise above a whisper.
But I was wrong.
"You've tested positive for HIV. ...I'm sorry."
Got a break from school now until October, so hopefully I can punch out the remaining two chapters of this in that time. We'll see. Reviews help. :) (Honestly. Just tonight I decided to go check my reviews, and there happened to be a new one for last chapter, which was lovely and unexpected. Anyhow, it inspired me to finish the last three pages of this. So, yay. LOL.)
Disclaimer: ::walks out onto empty stage in front of hushed audience; looks around; shrugs:: Enh. ::returns backstage:: :P
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16. [M]
You'd think the guilt would have evaporated by now. I had, within in a five- foot radius of myself, a television, VCR, and tape... and I was completely allowed to make full use of all three. No strings attached. It was my tape; hell, it was my apartment. I was about to see something I was actually *meant* to see. Guilt should be as far from my mind as happiness had been, of late.
But of course, we all know it wasn't. This wasn't really mine. It shouldn't be. I'd stolen straight from the cookie jar before laying eyes on the plate that had already been set out for me. I didn't deserve it.
Then again... she didn't deserve to die. But she was still very, very... gone.
I slipped the tape into the VCR, sighing resignedly as it hummed and clicked and whined its way to Play. The familiar blue screen, and then, from nowhere, an image and a face and a voice that were far too real and alive to fit into this melancholic loft.
"Hey..." She smiled weakly. "Roger, honey... turn it off now, k? I need to say something to Mark." Waiting. "Um... seriously." Another fleeting smile. "Okay. Um."
I inched toward the screen. I wanted to be close to her for this. As close as I would ever be again.
At first, she simply stared at me, her eyes piercing a straight line right through the lens into mine-or, where mine usually were, which was directly behind the camera. That's why I loved filming her more than anyone else. Not simply for the juvenile fact that she was my girlfriend and I was madly in love with her and wanted to capture her beauty and charisma on film. It was because of the way she broke down that barrier of camera and lens and falseness. I could still hide behind it-she knew I often needed to-but when she looked through it into my eyes... it was as though she were hiding with me. Like there was no camera at all, not for us. It was our own world. Our own private escape.
Even now... I could still feel it.
The smile appeared in Cheshire Cat fashion: out of nowhere, and lighting up the whole room. It was the smile she saved for crowded rooms, when the closest we could be was a glance across the sea of unfamiliar faces.
"Hi, baby," she began softly. "I... uh, I don't want to make this all dramatic and morbid, so... I really don't think I have to tell you anything important. Everything I want to tell you, I tell you every night. Though not always through words..." she added with a wink. "So... I'm just going to leave you with this." A wider smile this time, accompanied by... blushing? Impossible. Not my Mimi. "Okay." Deep breath. "Do you remember that time you got me really drunk... or actually, I got you really drunk... anyhow, we both ended up plastered, right? And I let you, um... take those pictures? You know, the ones with..."
...High heels, a feather boa, and nothing else?
She grinned. "Okay, like you'd ever forget that."
Honestly, woman.
"And then I, uh... sobered up the next morning, and stole the camera from you and told you I threw out the film, and you whined all day?"
I wouldn't exactly call it whining. I *sulked*. Severely.
She looked down at her hands, which were fidgeting nervously with the edge of her shirt. "I didn't throw it out. I got it developed. They're in the bottom of your sock drawer."
Thank God for my childish security habit of always sitting with a throw pillow on my lap, because it would have been very painful if my jaw had hit the hard floor of the living room when it dropped like lead from the rest of my face.
Her gaze lifted, and it became quite obvious that the blush was real-not some camera coloring fluke. I couldn't believe it. I'd never seen anything so adorable. And-though it was hard to tell for sure, seeing as I'd completely melted to a puddle of mush and sentiment right there on the living room floor-she smiled. "I love you, Mark."
To this day, those words still sent a shiver down my back every time.
"And... there was one thing. I mean... we always said whatever happened, we'd be in it together. But... if you're watching this... I know that means you're alone. And I wanted to say I'm sorry. If anything happens to you, baby... if you get sick... and if it's my fault..." Her voice grew unsteady, a long-repressed threat of tears drawing near. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry..."
Oh, God.
She knew.
Sheknewsheknewsheknew.
And she wouldn't say it. Not ever. Because she was scared. I knew she was. I always knew she could get that scared. Not many people did, but I did, because I saw sides of her that no one else did, and...
She knew. She knew she was pregnant. She knew I'd have to get tested. She knew... all of it.
"I think I hear footsteps on the stairs," she whispered. "I've got to go. I love you. I swear I do. You'll never know how much."
She scrambled from the chair and turned off the camera. I summoned my remaining energy to fast-forward for a few minutes, on the dwindling off- chance that there might be anything else to see. But there was only blue screens, and snow, and then... more snow.
This was it.
I'd just experienced the last time I would ever sit in front of her and wonder what words would leave those beautiful lips.
She was gone.
My fingers fumbled ineptly with my shoelaces, I reached for my sweater on the edge of a chair, and on a last cautious thought, I relocated the tape to my bedroom. In a drawer. My sock drawer. Maybe someday, I would be able to watch it again. Maybe someday I would be able to look at those pictures. God knows I wanted to. Without a doubt all the guys (and many of the girls) in New York would too if they knew about them.
But today was not that day.
I didn't spend that afternoon searching for escapes, or petty diversions, or a lonely seat in a café, watching the world walk by me in that oblivious yet completely aware manner that New Yorkers seemed to possess. I just found an alley, and I sat down, and breathed in the smells from the Chinese restaurant across the street. It was good for me-it held no memories. We'd never eaten there. We always ordered from the one on 17th. They had better rice. And don't try to tell Mimi all rice is the same. It is not. She convinced me.
However, as much as I wished I could detest the thought of returning to the loft... I missed it. I was in no mood to wander with no purpose. I was neither angry, nor additionally guilty, nor resentful or grief-stricken. No words echoed. It was all so blank... and I needed the comfort of my own home. As comforting as a place like that could be, anyhow-a place that had been home to more death, fights, passion, and pain than it was worth.
But it was still home to *me*, too.
I slipped my key into the lock, turned, and opened the door. Some two feet from my bedroom door stood a figure-namely, Roger's. Watching me, as though I'd been standing there for the past hour. And in his hands was a sickening, mind-spinning curse I've come to know as déjà vu.
Letters. Letters in his handwriting, from my pen, to Mimi's eyes. Forged letters; letters she discovered the truth behind. Yelled at me; which I'd expected. Kissed me... which I had not.
Letters that had been stuffed so far away in my desk, never intended to see the light of day again... were now resting in the hands of the one person whose discovery of them would be more disastrous than hers.
There was nothing wild or enraged about his eyes; perhaps that's what frightened me most. It was the first thing about this scene that differed from its twin, six months ago... aside from the fact that this was Roger. Not Mimi. No hidden love; only hate.
He attempted to blink away the blankness in his eyes, but it was stuck. "What the-"
"Don't," I begged quietly. "Just... please, don't."
A flash of life stirred behind his eyes, and I felt myself jump. "Don't?" he echoed. "You write a fucking book's worth of letters in *my* handwriting to *my* girlfriend and you're telling me... don't?"
He had a point.
"Roger, she was depressed, she missed you, she..." Fuck it. This was impossible to justify in the amount of words and time I knew I had before he would officially blow up.
He wasn't interrupting. He wasn't even reacting. I was starting to question whether I'd really stopped talking. Or whether I'd said a word at all. His shoulders finally slumped as the blankness returned to his eyes in full, focusing instead of the papers in his hands. "Did you ever tell her?"
"She... found out."
"What did she do?"
"She yelled at me."
Eyes never leaving the paper, the corners of his mouth rose and fell so rapidly it may have even been the lighting in the room. "That's it?"
I swallowed. "Um... yeah." Yes. That was it. I wasn't about to tell him that she-
But Roger knew. Roger always knew. Without even eye contact, he could sense the shuffling of feet, the nervous wringing of hands, even the swallowing of a lump in one's throat-any of the telltale signs of lying. He'd used more than enough of them in his own time to be able to detect them in others.
His voice slowed, menacingly. "What did she do?" he repeated.
"She just... started crying, so I hugged her, and..." And she went home and I went to bed alone, the end.
"And what?"
It was useless. No matter what I said from this point, unless it included some narration of physical contact, death, or other form of tragic shock... he'd know I was lying.
"And..." Why was my mouth so dry? "She kissed me."
Nothing. Not a blink, or a flinch, or even a breath. Now that was just insulting. It was quite an admission, after all... but apparently not impressive enough. I was going to have to embellish.
"Actually," I spurted, "I kissed her. Okay? It's my fault. I started this, I stole your girlfriend, I'm the reason she's gone, it's all my doing. Can we move on now?"
I kept watching his eyes for a fading of that blankness... but it suddenly occurred to me that I was watching the wrong thing. His eyes weren't the part of him that was reacting to this. The papers weren't in front of his face; they were in his hands. And his hands were shaking.
All at once the papers were crunched into a tight ball, hurled across the room, and landed with a soft "thump" against the wall-almost a mocking lack of impact for the emotion coursing through the room.
"I wrote her *every day*!" he bellowed at the wall.
"What?"
"Every fucking day, Mark!"
"But she never-"
"Because I never sent them!"
"Well, that's not my fault!"
He took two massive strides toward me. "You had no right to-"
"I KNOW." There was no fury left to my tone; only exasperation. "I know," I echoed. "I've heard it from her, I don't need to hear it from you."
"I-"
"It's in the past, Roger!" I exploded. "All right? It was a mistake. I can't change it."
"But it's *not* in the past, Mark, none of this is! It's all right here!"
And, just to prove this hadn't been punctuated with nearly enough force... the phone rang.
Our gazes lunged for it, but our bodies remained still. It was an insanely welcome distraction, strangely enough. Neither of us wanted to be fighting. Neither of us wanted to talk to anyone else, either though. We were very particular, weren't we? But nonetheless, the machine picked up and we waited, involuntarily, absent-mindedly, as we had done thousands of times before.
"This message is for Mr. Cohen," stated the voice blaring through the cheap, scratchy speaker on the machine. "I'm calling on behalf of the East Side Healthcare Clinic. Your test results are ready..."
She went on about appointments and locations and phone numbers, all information I'm quite positive neither of us heard, before-with a painfully loud, clumsy *click* of the phone-her words evaporated from the room.
Well... the voice did. Her words were still very much here, and ringing, repeatedly, in my ears.
A floorboard creaked insolently behind us, and the way we were both positioned in our respectively stagnant locations, the only place actually *behind* both of us was the front door. And, with identical jumps of shock, we spun around.
Maureen stood in the doorframe, one foot in the living room, one in the hall, with a hand over her mouth.
She'd heard it, too.
I hadn't even wanted to hear that phone call myself, let alone with Roger, and now Maureen. Well, Jesus Christ, why not invite the whole fucking building and make a night out of it? Hey, everyone, Mark's test results are back; come enjoy an evening of music and celebration, BYOB.
At least Roger could recognize the irritation of having just unknowingly shared an argument with an unforeseen audience. I watched as his wild eyes, glistening and dark with rage, dashed between the phone, Maureen, and finally me-before grabbing a jacket off the end of the couch, brushing roughly past her, and storming out.
Storming out, as one likely knows, involves the loud, emphatic slamming of a door. It's practically a prerequisite. And seeing as Maureen had been directly between us and the hallway, I was ever-so-lucky that this particular door-slamming had sent her inside rather than out.
In a matter of seconds, my company, comfort level, and heart rate had been dramatically altered... and not for the better.
My body collapsed on the couch-it wasn't an action I'd consciously permitted; at this point, almost all movement was involuntary. Even as I pulled my feet up onto the couch, hugging my knees and a pillow to my chest, it was several languid, protracted moments before I realized how childlike I must have looked.
Maureen parted with her purse, idly setting it on a chair, and slowly crossed the room. I'd never seen Maureen do anything 'slowly' in her life. Not since Mimi...
I couldn't say it. 'Not since Mimi died.' The last word was always omitted, forcing her name to carry the weight of both the person and the person's fate. This ridiculous habit of fear still gave me chills. As if, by admitting the loss, it would somehow make the loss even... more so.
But loss wasn't something with varying degrees of reality. Something-or someone-was either entirely lost, or entirely here.
And right now, in this moment... I was entirely lost.
I felt her hand cover mine. I had always adored her hands. They were soft and gentle-the only part of her to boast these traits. She'd always been a physically affectionate person-hugging, kissing, touching-she liked to be close to people. She couldn't read people through their eyes or through a lens, the way I could. And so she attempted to read them through contact. The way their hand would reciprocate her touch, or shy from it. It was good for me, when we dated; it forced me to learn how to allow myself to trust someone just that much... enough to let them read me through touch. It was, perhaps, one of the hardest but most valuable things I ever learned.
And so, contrary to popular belief, my years with Maureen weren't all bad.
She pried the pillow away to get closer to me, and I didn't protest. "Marky?"
"What are you doing here?" I mumbled at the couch cushion.
"I brought cookies," she offered softly, gesturing vaguely to the covered plate next to her purse.
"You don't cook."
"No, but the 5th Street bakery does." I almost smiled, and caught myself. Her hand moved to my arm, and she lowered her head, trying to find some-any- form of eye contact. "Are you okay?"
I tried to take deep breaths, but they only came out in short, panicked gulps of air. "They're calling me in. They never call you in unless it's-"
"Mark, that's not true-"
"Unless it's bad news!" I finished stubbornly, far more loudly than I'd begun.
She released my arm, sitting upright, melodramatic and offended. "You're acting like a baby."
"Fuck off, Maureen."
"Hey." She placed a finger under my chin, softly leading my gaze to hers. "I'll come with you tomorrow."
"No."
"Come on, Mark."
"NO."
There was silence, then, which could only mean one of two things-she was giving me the Death Glare, or she was crying. The awful, soundless tears that were worse than any of her tantrums. I looked up, and wasn't surprised to find it was the latter.
She blinked back a pool of tears, but instead they simply splashed down her cheeks. "I miss her."
Every natural instinct told me I had no strength for this; that the very idea of comforting her was more energy than I would have for weeks to come. But somehow, my thoughts ran deeper, and I knew this was my chance to return what she'd taught me, about reading people without a lens. And on that note, I shoved the pillows aside and pulled her into my arms.
Her head buried itself in my chest, remaining there long after the tears had dwindled. "Please," she finally whispered. "Let me be there tomorrow."
I shook my head. "I have to do this alone."
I knew she didn't fully understand why isolation would be more appealing to me than the support of a friend, but I admired her for her acceptance. For respecting me enough to know it was what I needed. She gave a final squeeze to my hand, a soft, comforting brush against my lips, and a hole in the plastic cover of my cookie plate, where she dug in to snatch one for herself before closing the door behind her. [A/N: Not a WORD about Matt and Cookie Jar, folks. :P]
It would have been so much easier if the rest of the world were holding their breath with me that next morning. If the waiting room had been cold and uninviting, with plain white walls and plastic models of intestines on the magazine tables. But it wasn't. It was warm and comforting with a friendly staff and I hated it. I left my chair twice and marched to the door, reasoning that if I never found out, it would never really be true.
My intellectual capacity was somewhat more advanced than this, however, and finally I could no longer bear forcing myself to support this reasoning, and I collapsed, defeated, in my chair.
The only break I got was the fact that it was raining. And even that, at a misty drizzle, was only half-hearted.
A scant ten minutes after my arrival, they called for me. It was too soon. You were supposed to wait two hours, minimum, at these places. It was like, a law. A tacit, informally accepted law, at any rate. A nurse appeared in the waiting room doorway-one of those doors specifically built for clinics, I suppose. They opened every minute or so, but you could never see inside them, no matter where you were sitting. It was just a mass of mysterious hallways or white-walled rooms. I always wondered what secrets they were hiding back there.
Today, I would find out.
"Mr. Cohen?"
I rose from my seat, numbly, hands stuffed in my pockets, and followed the nurse's silent footsteps into the cold, white room I'd been longing for since I got here.
She stared at me. What, no folders to look over? No paperwork to fill out? "Mr. Cohen... I know this is very--"
"Please don't," I interrupted, surprising myself. "Just tell me."
Her lips drew into a tight line, but finally softened as I suspected my gaze grew increasingly more pitiful. Slowly, she nodded, hugging her clipboard to her chest, and took a deep breath. For all this mental preparation, I'd have thought her voice would have at least had strength enough to rise above a whisper.
But I was wrong.
"You've tested positive for HIV. ...I'm sorry."