A/N: I'd like to dedicate this chapter to my crazy Economics teacher. If he wasn't so crazy and old and boring, I never would have had the time to write this chapter.

I came home from work late one night to an empty loft. "As always." I mumbled, walking into the kitchen.

After grabbing a small bite to eat, small because we had almost nothing in the loft, I decided to pace around until someone came home to amuse me.

Twenty minutes later April charged into the loft, pissed as hell, and went directly to the bathroom.

"April," I said softly, knocking on the bathroom door.

"I don't wanna talk right now, Reena. Roger and I got into a fight. I'm fine. I'm gonna take a bath. I promise, I'm ok." I knew she wasn't fine.

I should have asked her to open the door.

I should have asked her to come out and talk to me.

Instead I agreed to leave her alone for the time being and I walked off to my bedroom to find something to occupy my mind. I found an old magazine and started flipping through it.

An hour passed before I realized it and I jumped when Mark walked into our room with his camera.

"Hey Pookie!" I said happily, jumping off the bed and practically pouncing on him.

"Careful, Maureen. I don't want to drop my camera." He said after kissing me.

Damn camera.

"How's April doing?" I asked, dropping back down on the bed. Mark moved around the bedroom, taking better care of his film than he took care of himself.

" I haven't seen her. Is she even home?" Mark asked, taking his scarf off.

"She was in the bathroom earlier. She and Roger had another fight. She must still be in the tub." He was sitting next to me now and I was curled up against him.

"Should we check on her?" He asked, looking down at me.

I just kissed him.

I hadn't been with Mark in probably two weeks and I reveled in all the attention he was giving me now. I needed Mark and it scared me. I've never needed anyone, not like I needed Mark.

It was killing me that he wanted to spend more time with his camera than with the woman he said he loved.

My body was buzzing with all the attention Mark was giving me.

I'm not used to needing people. Even when I was a kid, I didn't need anybody. I took care of myself. And now here I was, practically begging for Mark to touch me.

I wanted to cry.

As we cuddled afterwards, he kissed my temple and pulled me closer. I couldn't help but sigh.

I wanted to hate him.

I wanted to never want him again.

"You know I love you, right?" He was looking down at me with those big blue eyes and all of my anger melted away.

Instead of telling him what was on my mind I replied in typical Maureen fashion.

"Of course, Pookie. I'm Maureen Johnson. How could you not love me?" I giggled and started playing with my hair.

"I have to go through my film." He kissed me again and then climbed out of bed, pulling on a pair of old jeans and settling his glasses on his nose.

I fell back against the pillows.

Damn him.

Damn him for not paying attention to me.

Damn him for loving that stupid fucking camera more than he loved me.

Damn him for not understanding.

And damn me, for letting him get to me.

I shouldn't want Mark like this. Not if he doesn't want me. I couldn't take it.

"I need a shower." I said, pulling on a pair of pajama pants and the first t-shirt I could find on the floor. It was Mark's.

I made my way across the loft to the bathroom, holding back my tears. I only cried in the shower.

My tears would mix with the water from the shower and even I wouldn't be able to recognize my tears.

The door was locked.

"April, come on. I need a shower." I yelled, knocking on the door.

No answer.

"Damn it, April. This isn't funny." I was getting annoyed. She thought things like this were funny.

"April, did you fall or something?" I called through the door. If she thought she was being cute or dramatic or anything but annoying, she wasn't.

I dropped all of my stuff on the floor and went back to the bedroom to get the screwdriver.

"What's going on?" Mark asked as he loaded more film into the camera.

"April locked herself in the bathroom again because YOUR jackass of a best friend sleeps with any whore that'll spread her legs for him." I said angrily, looking through the bottom dresser drawer, bypassing the condoms we forgot to use twenty minutes ago and grabbing the screwdriver.

"It's not my fault." Mark said, turning on his camera.

"You are NOT taping this! She probably fell and hurt herself and you taping her naked is only going to piss her off."

I was storming back to the bathroom, pissed as hell. I began taking the screws out of the door hinges.

"Maureen..."

"Fuck you, Mark."

I didn't care. My stomach was knotting up with worry. Even April couldn't keep up a joke this long. Something was definitely wrong.

I finally got the door off the hinges. Mark was pacing around the loft, filming. I took a deep breath and waked into the bathroom, preparing myself for what I thought I might find.

I didn't know I was screaming.

Mark came running into the bathroom, that fucking camera in his hands.

Maybe he thought it could save him.

It sure as hell couldn't save April.

The tub was overflowing with water mixed with April's blood.

I almost puked right then and there.

Lifeless emerald eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. The razor, covered in her blood, was on the floor next to the tub where she must have dropped it when she was to weak from the blood loss.

So much blood. I wondered in the back of my mind how so much blood cold fit into someone as small as April.

Especially with all of the drugs in her system.

On the grimy old mirror that we could never seem to clean properly, written in bright red lipstick were the words...

'We've got AIDS. I'm sorry. I love you.'

To much red.

"Go call an ambulance."

Mark just stared blankly at me.

"You and that useless fucking camera!" I screamed at him, running to the phone across the loft.

The call was desperate and it wasn't until the paramedics showed up that I realized I was crying.

When I got back to the bathroom Mark was still standing where I had left him, filming and in shock.

I didn't know what to do. I couldn't know what to do. So I did the only thing I knew how to do when life hurt to much. I shut down.

"If you're going to stand there like that, you could at least stop filming. Let April go with some dignity." My voice was cold and distant, my eyes on April.

I knelt down next to the tub, not caring that my pants were now soaked in her blood. I heard the camera finally stop.

Reaching out, I closed her eyes before brushing her hair back out of her face.

The paramedics arrived only minutes later, pronouncing her dead on the spot.

Of course she's dead, I wanted to scream at them. She bled all over the bathroom. But I held my tongue.

While all of these strange people were walking around the loft, Mark went to put his camera away and I sat on the couch, curled up in a ball.

I couldn't feel.

I couldn't breath.

I couldn't even see.

I was surrounded in red.

"I've got to go find Roger."

Mark was standing in front of me. I just grunted. My only thoughts were on what happened when April came home earlier that night.

This was my fault.

If I hadn't been such a desperate attention whore, begging Mark to need me like I needed him, I would have made April talk to me.

I was questioned by one of the paramedics. Things like "How did you know the deceased?", and "Did she ever show signs of depression before this?"

I didn't want to be there.

"Are we done here?" I must have sounded like a heartless bitch. I know I sounded like a heartless bitch.

I don't deal with death at all. When I was seven, my cat was hit by a car. I never shed a tear. I wouldn't let myself. My mother thought I was crazy. My father thought I was fine. I didn't think about it at all.

"You're free to go."

I didn't bother looking at him. I didn't care. April was gone. That was all my mind could comprehend. April was gone.

I ripped the dirty sheets off of the bed and left them on the floor. I didn't bother getting another set of sheets for the bed, just curled up into a ball, wrapping my body around my pillow.

I cried.

I sobbed.

I didn't hear the paramedics leave with April, but I knew I had been in there for so long, they had to be gone.

I did, however, hear Mark and Roger come home.

Roger was drunk and high. I couldn't understand what he was saying, even though the walls in the loft were paper thin and he was yelling.

I did the best I could to control my sobs, listening to the two of them.

"April's gone, Roger." Mark's voice was soft.

"What do you mean, April's gone?" Roger was louder now, almost yelling.

"She's dead man. She..slit her wrists." My stomach turned.

I heard Roger run to the bathroom and then a gut wrenching sob and then, a crash. I could only imagine he shattered the mirror.

I waited for Mark to calm Roger down and then come get in bed with me.

I knew even he wouldn't be so oblivious to leave me alone.

He never did make it to bed that night.