Chapter Thirty-One: Your Own Bloodcells Betray
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.—Dylan Thomas
April shuffled through the mail as she walked up the stairs to the loft, most of it unimportant. Some bills—just her luck—along with a package for Mark from his mother, like she tended to send him every other month, and… Underneath, another couple of letters for herself and Roger, from the clinic where they'd got their blood tests. Collins had talked them into it, when he'd been visiting for Benny and Alison's wedding, said that especially if they weren't going to stop using they should at least check to make sure that they were healthy. April had finally got around to actually getting the test two weeks ago, and she'd all but dragged Roger with her. She shoved open the door to the loft, stepped inside and pushed the door closed before walking across the room to toss most of the mail on the table, keeping only the letters from the clinic. She kicked off her shoes at the door and left them there, shedding her thin jacket as well as she walked to the couch.
April opened her letter first, opening the envelope neatly and sliding out the paper as she walked over to the couch. She unfolded the paper and glanced over it quickly—and then froze, suddenly unable to breathe. Her knees went weak, and she dropped onto the couch, unable to stand up any longer. Underneath the bold HIV heading, a single word screamed at her: positive.
No, she thought, suddenly dizzy, her pulse pounding in her ears. No, no, no, no, no…
April ripped open Roger's envelope, almost tearing the letter inside in her hurry to get it out. She pulled out the paper, and flinched. "Oh God," she whispered, and dropped the papers as if burned by them. How long had it been? How long since they'd gotten sick? God, it could have been ages, and… and…
She simply couldn't wrap her mind around the idea that she and Roger were sick. Like Tom, but Tom… Tom was stronger, Tom could handle it, but she couldn't, she knew. The scars and track marks on her arms told her that clearly enough, that she couldn't even deal with life, let alone the promise of death held in those test results.
Suddenly angry, she kicked out with one leg and hit edge of the coffee table, hard enough to flip it over. It hit the floor with a loud crash, and she sat there for a moment, breathing hard, shaking, her entire body just… shaking. It didn't help anything. April stood up and roughly shoved over the end table, watching as it fell to the floor, the phone sliding across the floor as it hit the ground. But she wanted to hit something real, someone, not an inanimate object. She wanted to curl up in a corner and cry or… something, but that wouldn't help anything. Not that overturning furniture would either, but at least it gave her an outlet of sorts.
No longer really thinking, she paced through the loft, lashing out at anything and everything without discrimination. Stacks of Roger's papers that had been on the table, scraps of songs and random sketches, went on the floor, scattering as they fell. A box of film overturned, silverware dumped out of the drawers, some dishes that had been in the sink smashed. She avoided her bedroom—her needles were there, the smack, the razors, everything—and Mark's—he had nothing to do with this. Instead, she went to the bathroom, caught sight of herself in the mirror and stopped, staring at her reflection in silence.
She hadn't realized, before, what the drugs had done to her—she'd seen it in Roger, yes, but never in herself. Her face looked thinner than ever before, with harsh angles that hadn't been there a year ago. Jessica probably wouldn't even recognize her at first glance now, and that was without the tears that had made an absolute mess of her face, tracking down her cheeks and leaving behind smears of ruined makeup. April could only look at her reflection for a minute before slamming the heel of her palm against the mirror several times until it shattered. She backed against the opposite wall and slid to the floor among the broken glass, sobbing brokenly.
It took her a while to notice that she was bleeding—she must have cut her hand in breaking the mirror, or maybe when she sat down she'd put her hand on a shard of glass. It didn't matter. Her tears mingled with the blood, watered it down, and the merged blood and tears ran down her arm to her elbow, running over scars on the way. Gradually, she stopped crying for the most part until her breathing was only occasionally punctuated by sobs, but other than that, she felt… numb. Empty.
April lifted her hand to stare at the blood welling from the cut, focused on that alone with no emotion in her eyes. She would have almost expected something to look different, now that she knew, but no, it was the same vibrant red. Odd, how that blood carried the virus that could—probably would—kill her, but it looked like the most alive part of her. Bright, bright red, running from her palm down her arm…
How long before the virus killed her? How could she tell her parents, Chris, how would she explain it to them? And her sisters? God, how was the going to tell Roger? That they were both sick? And what if… What if, what if, what if? Too much to think about, too much to deal with.
"I can't do this," she whispered. "I can't, I can't, I…" April trailed off, focusing once more on the blood on her hand. Wouldn't take much to escape, just a quick cut or two, not much more than she'd done before, just… deeper. She stood up slowly and walked to the bathtub, starting to fill the tub after first checking that the water was warm. She ignored the part of her that suggested maybe she should stop and think about this, call Tom, Mark, Benny, anyone. Too late, now that the thought had occurred to her, that she knew her escape, nothing but for her to carry through.
April walked out of the bedroom, ignoring the glass from the mirror as it cut into her feet, almost past the point of caring. She went to the bedroom and grabbed one of her notebooks, noticing only vaguely that it was the notebook Mark had given her at Christmas her first year in the loft. She ripped out three sheets of paper and quickly scrawled notes on all three. The first, she folded and tucked in Roger's guitar case, where he would find it eventually, but not immediately. The second she also folded and walked into Mark's room, locating his coat and putting the note carefully in the pocket. It might take him a while to find it, but he would… That would have to do.
The last note she kept with her as she walked to the kitchen, the paper held between two fingers and tucked against her palm—in the hand that wasn't cut, so she wouldn't get blood on the paper, though why she cared at this point, she didn't know. After all, she was tracking blood on the floor with every step… Lucky the floor was uncarpeted, so the others should be able to clean it up without too much trouble. One of the few things she hadn't overturned or upset in the kitchen was the knife block—that still sat on the counter beside the sink, undisturbed. She remembered when Tom had hidden the knives and everything else sharp in the loft, over a year ago now, when he was so worried she might do something stupid… There wasn't anyone to hide things from her now.
She drew one of the thinner blades out of the block and tested it against her thumb. A drop of blood welled up, and she nodded in grim satisfaction. Sharp enough to cut without too much trouble, so long as she didn't hesitate. She walked back into the bathroom, closed and locked the door behind her, and carefully set her last note on the sink counter, among the shards of mirror glass that had fallen there. That done, April turned off the water in the bathtub and slid into the water with her clothes still on. It was hotter than she'd thought it would be, but never mind. That might make things easier, actually.
April lowered both arms into the water, the knife still in hand, and pressed the tip of the blade to her wrist, right where she could see the blue veins just beneath the surface. A second's hesitation, and then with a jerk she cut down, hard as she could. She drew a shocked breath—it hurt far more than any other cut had ever stung before, but it didn't really surprise her except for that initial gasp. Nothing she couldn't handle for the moment, until she bled enough that it wouldn't matter.
She switched the knife to the other hand, her jaw clenched tight against the pain, and cut down once more.