Disclaimer: Not mine.
Roger stared blankly at the grave in front of him. He replaced the dying flowers with new ones. He wondered for a moment who had put the others there. Family? Friends? It didn't matter now. The cool winter air stung his face as he shuddered. The loft was cold, but it everything seemed magnified outside. The sun burned brighter. The wind was colder. The pain was fresher. She had been gone for five whole months. And for five months he hadn't left the loft despite Mark's constant nagging for him to leave for a little while at least. He left. He started walking and this is where he ended up. In a cemetery, staring at a grave.
"Probably not what Mark had in mind," he mumbled quietly to no one in particular as he lifted his gaze away from the grave and allowing a small smile for himself, but then quickly suppressing it. It didn't feel right to be happy when she wasn't there.
"I've been thinking, April," he said as he brought his eyes back to the name etched into the stone in front of him. "For five months, I've been wondering why. Why you did it. Why it had to happen to us. Could I have stopped you – saved you – if I had gotten there sooner? All of these questions just keep running through my mind and for five months I've been trying to find answers."
Roger stopped, unable to talk to the cold stone that represented her anymore. It wasn't her. She always seemed to have life in her. The stone wasn't her. She wasn't buried beneath it. She was just gone.
"If there was one thing I could change," he said looking up into the sky now, almost like a prayer. "Just one thing. I wish I'd never started using. She'd still be alive, then, wouldn't she? If I hadn't decided to try it that one day. If I hadn't convinced her to try it, everything would be fine. She'd be fine."
Roger closed his eyes, wishing that somehow the clock would turn back. That it would be five months, no two years earlier. That she'd be back. Alive. They'd both be clean it would be better. Everything would be better.
He slowly opened his eyes. He was still in the cemetery. Roger sharply turned to face the grave he had been staring at earlier. It was still there. Her name was still on there. Nothing had changed. Tears stung the corner of his eyes as he lifted his hand to dry them. He silently turned and left the cemetery without stopping until he reached the loft. He fell onto the couch and in a moment sleep had overtaken him causing him to temporarily forget all the pain as her face appeared before him again for the first time in five months.
"April," he whispered mumbled sleepily, trying not to wake up. Because he knew once he woke up, she would be gone again.
"Have another dream about her?" a voice asked shaking him from his dream. Roger opened his eyes and saw Mark standing over him.
"Who?" Roger asked confused. He'd never dreamt of April until now.
"April," Mark answered, appearing greatly concerned as he watched his friend. "I know you've been having dreams about her since she died. There's nothing you could have done if you were there."
"I could have stopped her. I could have made sure she didn't do that to herself," Roger protested. He had run all of the different possible outcomes of what could have happened in his mind. If things had gone a little different, he was sure he could have saved her before she did anything.
"Stopped her? From what?" Mark asked sounding slightly confused. "From going down that alley that night. You were always telling her not to take shortcuts through alleys. That was all you could do. She made a mistake and didn't listen."
"What happened?" Roger asked, barely wanting to know. Almost nothing could be as bad as finding her in the bathtub. Covered in all of that blood. What could be worse than that. Almost nothing.
"You know what happened Roger," Mark replied, but withered under the glare that Roger sent him. "She was shot."
"Shot?" Roger repeated slowly. The words weighed down on his tongue. Shot? "She found out we had AIDS. She committed suicide."
"What are you talking about Roger?" Mark asked looking genuinely confused. "April didn't commit suicide. And neither of you had AIDS. Are you feeling okay?"
"The drugs," Roger said slowly as his mind flickered back to what had happened in the cemetery yesterday. "We never did any drugs did we? April and I?"
"Come on, Roger, we both know neither of you would ever touch that kind of stuff. Especially, not now. Not after what happened to April," Mark said, appearing to become more worried about his friend as each second passed.
"What?" Roger asked sharply. How had drugs still ruined everything? It should "You said we would never touch that stuff."
"The guy who shot her was high. Hallucinating. Thought she was attacking him," Mark told him heavily, becoming more and more concerned for his friend as each second passed.
"She was shot?" he asked, struggling to get the words out.
"Yeah, five months ago," Mark responded. "Did you hit your head or something?"
"Yeah, that must've been it," Roger lied too focused on what Mark had just told him to disagree. Five months ago. That was the same time she had died before. Before. Before, she had committed suicide. She left a note and slit her wrists in the bathroom. The memory of yesterday in the cemetery floated back across his brain again. It had changed. Somehow, miraculously, it had all changed. No AIDS. No drugs. And yet everything was still the same. She was still dead. April was dead. And she had died in a way that was almost worst. And he was still there without her.