A/N: This is for the religious people reading this. I take God's name in vain a few times. It just kinda happens, and without it, the chapter isn't the same. I tried to change it. Sorry. If it offends anyone, you have been warned.
I didn't even reach the floor of our loft before I heard Roger throwing a tantrum. I contemplated leaving and going to Joanne's early and wait for her to get home from work. She knew I was having a hard time staying at the loft, and so she gave me a key to her apartment. I felt strange when I was there alone, like I was invading her personal space. Joanne never seemed to mind, though.
I finally decided that I couldn't leave Mark in there alone with a drug craving Roger. It wasn't fair. I had known about Roger's addiction long before Mark found out. I owed it to Mark to help.
I pulled the door to the loft open and ducked as one of the three mis matched plates we had flew by my head and shattered somewhere behind me. Mark was following Roger around the loft tentatively, trying to calm him down.
"Roger..."
"No, I don't give a fuck what you have to say. This is my life." An argument I'd heard many times over.
I took a few steps into the loft slowly, trying to think of something to do. In the back of my mind I noticed that Mark's old projector was up.
"You do give a fuck, damn it!" Mark yelled back quickly.
"I'm gonna kill her. Just like she killed April." My heart sank into my shoes. They were fighting about me. I stopped breathing.
"Roger, you need to calm down. You're going to fucking break something else!" Mark screamed. He never said that April's death wasn't my fault. If he wasn't going to defend me, than I would do it myself.
"I didn't kill April." His eyes fell on me like a wild animal about to pounce on it's wounded prey.
"You stupid bitch, you did kill her!" He took a few steps closer to me. Mark took a few steps back.
"April slit her own wrists, Roger." My voice was soft and emotionless, my eyes never leaving his face. I could see the storm brewing in his eyes.
"It's you're fault!"
Roger never had the chance to really mourn April. He was going through with drawl. Hell, he was still going through with drawl. I didn't want to push him over the edge. Who knows what he could do.
April did, a small voice answered in the back of my mind.
"There was nothing any of us could do." I didn't want to yell at him. I didn't want to hate him. But I did.
"If you hadn't been so desperate to get off than you would have been paying attention to what was happening around you. You're just a stupid whore." My breath caught in my throat. I couldn't believe that he had just called me a whore.
Mark just stood looking at me. I started to wonder why I had stayed with Mark for so long when he obviously didn't love me like I thought he had. I decided it was easier to ignore Mark and focus on Roger.
"What the fuck would you know about what happened that night? You were out sleeping with other women every night. Mark had to drag you out of a bar and tell you that your girlfriend was dead, Roger..."
" You didn't even care! April was locked up in the bathroom and you were screwing Mark to take your mind off of y our own problems."
Roger was moving closer now, too close. I started to back away slowly, my hands behind me to make sure I didn't walk directly into the wall. The look in Roger's eye was scaring me. But I couldn't let him know that.
"You were high! How in the hell do you know what happened?" I held my head high, setting my jaw and holding his gaze. He glanced back at Mark.
Of course, that stupid damn camera. That was why he set the projector up. Mark showed Roger the footage he shot the night April died.
"How could you show him that, Mark? What the fuck were you thinking?" I was walking towards him now, forgetting about Roger for the moment.
Before Mark had the chance to answer me, Roger grabbed my by the arm and pulled me to him. "Don't you care that April's dead?" I ripped away from him and moved to the other side of the loft.
"Don't ever touch me again." My voice was low and full of venom.
"What, every other man in the city's had his hands on you. What makes me different?" He smirked at me.
I looked at Mark, expecting him to stand up for me. He looked away slowly. I started shaking. My entire body was cold in an instant. I was alone. I completely alone.
"You were out fucking around on April every god damn night! What makes you any better than me?" I wasn't going to deny cheating on Mark. There was no point.
"I was on drugs, Maureen! I didn't know what the fuck I was doing! That's what makes me better than you. Oh, and I cared about April!"
I laughed bitterly.
"Bull shit! Do you know why April was in the bathroom that night, Roger?" I was moving across the loft, moving towards Roger. My face was red. My eyes were wide. Finally Roger was quiet.
"She was in the bathroom because of you. Because you two had a fight. Because you would never listen to her. Because you were always out fucking any whore that would have you. Because, Roger, she had AIDS."
Nobody had mentioned the disease since the night April died, especially not in front of Roger. A line was crossed that night. Nothing was ever going to be the same.
"You are a self absorbed bitch. You don't care about anyone but yourself. All you're worried about is going out and getting laid. You don't have any real emotions. You can't feel. April's death is on you, Maureen."
I stopped breathing. I looked Roger in the eye and I snapped. Everything that I had been holding back since April died came pouring out of me at once.
"You think I don't care about April? She was my best friend, you self rituous bastard. I watched her waste away in this stuffy loft day after day, waiting for you to pull your head out of your ass. She tried to quit so many times, but you wouldn't have it!"
I was crying now, tears pouring down my face. My make up was everywhere. My arms were crossed tightly, trying to keep warm. I wasn't sure why it was so cold in the loft. Maybe it was the sun setting in the distance. Maybe it was the fact that summer was slowly fading away. Roger's cynical laughter pulled me out of my thoughts.
"That's right, Maureen, cry. You always did love the attention. Come on, you didn't cry when you came home at four in the morning after sleeping with some random guy you picked up at a bar." He was smiling at me.
Before I could stop myself I slapped him.
"Damn it, Maureen, what the fuck?"
Mark had me by the arms, dragging me away from Roger. I couldn't believe Mark was protecting Roger. I wrestled my way out of Mark's grip and stood there in the middle of the loft, struggling to breath. I must have looked like a wild woman, standing there, my hair a mess of crazy brown curls down around my face, my eyes blazing a trail from Mark to Roger and then back again. My jaw was clenched in anger. I could feel the muscles in my jaw twitching in rhythm with my hands that were clenching and unclenching at my sides.
The bright red hand print on Roger's face made me feel better some how. Like now he was covered in red. Like April.
"Go to hell." I didn't even realize I was the one that had said it. My voice sounded distant, faint, echoing off the walls of the open loft.
"I'll meet you there." Roger stalked off to his bedroom. My breathing began to slow and my eyes fell on Mark with a sigh.
"What the hell was that? Why did you hit him?" Mark asked, taking a step closer to me.
"Is that a real question, Mark? He called me a whore." I looked him in the eye. He turned and started packing up his projector.
"Mark?" I took a step closer to him, a look of confusion on my face.
"Well Jesus, Maureen, you've been out with a different guy every night for the past two months." My jaw hit the floor. I couldn't believe that he was agreeing with Roger.
"So you think I'm a whore too. Great." I walked off to my bedroom and grabbed a clean pair of pants, a bra, and my leather jacket.
"I don't think you're a whore, Mo. But you've been sleeping around for months now. What the hell am I supposed to do, huh?" He was pissed now.
I was done hiding what I felt. Fuck trying to be what everybody else expected.
"How about asking me what my problem was, Mark? Did it ever cross your mind that maybe I missed April too? Did it ever occur to you that maybe I might need you?"
I was crying again. I hated crying. I began to take deep breaths, trying to calm my nerves. It wasn't working.
"Right, everybody needs Mark. Good old reliable Mark. Well fuck, Maureen, I can't do everything. You've got to get by on your own sometimes." His blue eyes were burning into my green ones.
"I've been getting by on my own for months now. Of course, you wouldn't know that because you're always either with Roger our out filming the world for your damn movie. I give up, Mark. I can't keep doing this. I'm sorry."
I walked to Mark and kissed him on the cheek.
"Maureen?"
"I'll be back for the rest of my stuff soon. I don't know when, but I will get my stuff out of here." I was heading for the door.
"You aren't leaving. You can't leave. I won't let you." His arms were around my waste. He was crying.
"Mark, we can't keep hurting each other like this. It's not going to work." I turned in his arms slowly, brushing away his tears. I hated seeing him cry.
"Don't cry." My voice was soft. He closed his eyes and pressed his face into my hand.
"I love you." His eyes were boring into mine.
"Mark..."
"And you love me. I know you do." My heart broke. I don't know why, but part of me will always love Mark. No matter how many times we hurt each other, Mark and I will always be close.
I pressed a soft kiss to his lips and slid out of his arms.
"I'm sorry, Mark. I can't. I don't." He walked off to Roger's room, his head down, picking up his camera on the way. I left the loft for Joanne's apartment.
I fought back my tears as I walked to Joanne's apartment. Yes, I know I was the one to leave Mark. But it hurt. It hurt a lot. I didn't like not being in a relationship. If I wasn't in a relationship, if I wasn't someone's girlfriend, than what the hell was I? Maybe I was just a stupid whore.
I didn't really care what Roger thought. Roger could kiss my ass, really. But maybe he was right. I was in love with a woman and sleeping with men that I barely knew. I hated that Roger had a point. I didn't realize that I had reached Joanne's apartment until I caught my reflection in the glass doors of her building. I looked like hell.
My eyes were puffy and red, mascara was all over my face, my hair was everywhere, and my nose was red.
I made my way into the building slowly, my arms crossed over my chest and my head down. I didn't want anybody to see me but Joanne. She was my safety. The ride in the elevator seemed to take hours. I couldn't wait to get out of the elevator and see Jo, but I wasn't looking forward to telling her what had happened.
When the elevator dinged I stepped out and took a deep breath, walking to her apartment. The door was unlocked. She was home.
I walked in without knocking, like I always did. She was sitting on the couch in a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt. She smiled up at me and slid over on the couch, waiting for me to sit with her.
I stood before her in the living room, just looking at her. She was perfect. I could feel my chin begin to tremble. I was about to break.
I felt like, not only had I been cheating on Mark for months, but I had been cheating on Joanne. And that hurt more than anything.
A tear escaped my eye and rolled down my face. Joanne's expression instantly turned to one of concern.
"Maureen?" She sounded confused. Who wouldn't be? She'd never seen me like this.
I felt her arms slip around me, holding me up as best she could. I crumbled. I clung to Joanne and sank to the floor. She was my support.
As I lay there on the floor, sobbing in Joanne's arms, I couldn't stop myself from thinking about how Mark never made me feel safe like Joanne always did. And that made me cry harder.
I never imagined that she could love me the way I loved her. Hell, sometimes I still wonder why she loves me.