Disclaimer: I don't own RENT. If I did... well I would have already seduced Adam Pascal, and he would be my sex slave, but alas he is not, and there fore I don't own RENT.
Wrong Name
Sometimes you slip. You need something to help you come down, that once you're out makes coming down coming worse. You're okay for about a day, maybe, if you're lucky, two, then it comes at you even worse. More shaking, more cold sweats, more fever, more puking. Some choose methadone, in the end I chose Roger.
Roger, who has more baggage than a flight to Los Angeles during winter break. Somehow I was, and still am, swayed by the hair, and the eyes, and the way that, even though he has memorized Musetta's Waltz front to back, when he is really focused, he messes it up. Roger, who was forever talking and hinting about getting clean, how I was young, how I could still get my life straight.
Then I did.
He was behind me 110 of the way. He held me when I was shaking, he held me during the cold sweats, he held me during the fever, he held me during the puking. We slept in the same bed, knowing exactly what one another had gone through. Being positive. Coming down. Then Angel got sick.
Angel didn't hold us together. We could have stayed together without her. It was just really hard. Joanne was already a stranger, Maureen caused more turmoil than jokes, Roger with his baggage, Mark with his I-could-become-Benny, Benny who was Benny. Collins was probably the only person who was right, except he was with Angel all the time. He wouldn't fall asleep. I remember one time I came into Angel's room and he was sitting there. He was trying to feed her, but his hands were shaking so hard. There were styrofoam cups almost to the brim of the trash can. He hadn't slept and he had been living on hospital coffee. I had that kind of support too.
One night we were in bed. Roger had fallen asleep acouple hours ago, and I was just glad that the worst of my symptoms was a cold sweat. Then Roger started moving around in bed, not exactly rolling as if he was about to fall off, just little hand movements. His brow furrowed, the same way it did when he found the positive papers when we were cleaning out drawers in his room so I could keep some stuff in the loft. Like he wanted to scream but someone had ripped out his voice box.
"April."
That name. That name that makes me want to strangle him, or anyone who says it. In the back of mind it was always that I could never compare to her. Then again,who commits suicide as the easy way out,and is then held on a higher pedestal then someone trying to quit heroin?
"Don't worry."
He was dreaming. He was dreaming that he was telling April not to worry. It's silly to be jealous of someone who is six feet under, but then I think back to the first time I really talked to Roger. I reminded him of her. That bitch.
"I love you."
The next day, I went walking in the park, telling my guy to meet me in the alley. I only I had remembered that we were supposed to go to a special life support meeting. Why did he yell? He was the cause of my relapse. He was supposed to be my methadone. My anti-drug. My reward after going through cold turkey. He wasn't supposed to be the thing that set me back. He was supposed to say my name.
It was supposed to be my name.
"Mimi, how could you do this!"
It wasn't supposed to be in that phrase, though.