I respect anyone's views and certainly don't mean to enforce my views on others, but I am pro-choice. Just to clear that up.
Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's. I'm just playin' with the characters. ("It's okay, Roger, lotsa people are bad at hopscotch!")
And a shout-out to Cordyangel for catching the AIDA reference!
Mimi flinched when she saw the needle and instinctively shied away. They wanted to jab her with that? She clutched Collins' hand tightly.
"You're okay," he promised her. "You'll be okay, Mimi."
"Is this going to hurt?" she asked, nibbling her lip.
The doctor-- he was a doctor, right?-- nodded. Mimi wished there had been a female doctor. She didn't want this done by a man. "There will be some pain," he said. "I can administer a shot of valium if you need."
Collins frowned. "I don't see an anesthetist," he said.
"Just do it," Mimi said. She was beginning to lose her nerve.
"Mimi?"
She was curled on her side, lying on his bed. Her body trembled in tiny bucks that reminded Roger all too much of withdrawal as she exhaled hard gasps.
"Hey."
He forced himself to swallow before sitting on the edge of the bed. She breathed, just breathed, and wiped at her eyes. "You must be freezing." Roger pulled the blankets up and settled them around Mimi's body. She whimpered. Roger could think of nothing more to say to her, so he kissed her forehead and headed for the door.
"Roger?" Her quiet call froze him. "Are you angry?"
Being angry won't bring my children back. "No."
A knot in her chest loosened, and Mimi breathed easier. "Will you stay with me?"
I hate you.
The thought sprang unbidden into Roger's mind, and it surprised him. He was not that cold, that callus, and this… Nothing was worth losing Mimi. He had almost lost her at Christmas, he wouldn't be doing that again in a hurry.
"Yeah." He sat on the edge of the bed and unlaced his boots, then slipped his feet free and stretched out on the bed next to Mimi.
He's angry.
She did not need to ask. She knew already. She knew by the way Roger lay beside her, instead of holding her. But Mimi said nothing. What could she gain?
And the last thing Mimi could endure at the moment was rejection. Roger had a special talent for rejection. He could reject and remain the chief thought on her mind. He would not let her forget his rejection.
It's so cold…
Her whimpers echoed in her mind, the tiny sounds she made as the needle entered her body, as she tried and failed to silently endure the pain. Mimi wiped her face and realized that those whimpers were not echoes.
"Mimi."
Roger pulled her body against his, and the cold began to ebb. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry I wasn't there with you, Mimi."
"I'm sorry I killed your babies, Roger." And she was beginning, through suffering the judgment in his eyes, to believe that.
"Shh. I was being selfish." The words were easier now that the choice was made. "It's your body, Mimi. I had no right to dictate how you used it." Now that the choice was made, Roger had nothing to be upset about. It was done. He could not un-abort the babies. Roger wanted children, and he hadn't gotten them.
But I have, he reminded himself. Here, now. I have Mimi. That was what mattered now. No day but today. Right?
he reminded himself. That was what mattered now. No day but today."It hurt so much…"
---
"I did some filming this week," Mark said, fidgeting in the chair. The fabric ranged from threadbare to fuzzy in an artistic vomit. Mark stroked two fuzzy stripes as he spoke.
"What did you film?"
"Uh… I filmed my roommate and, uh, his girlfriend. Talking about her abortion." Mark felt a tiny glimmer of victory as his therapist's face registered surprise. "I thought… She just came in, and told us she'd had it. The abortion. And I had a very horrible thought," Mark admitted. "I thought if Roger broke up with Mimi, I could be there for him again. I would have a chance. But, uh, well, he didn't break up with her, and I kind of felt like… jeez. That's a pretty horrible thing to think, isn't it? I'm… kind of a fuckwad." Mark giggled. "Roger likes that word, fuckwad."
She asked him then, "Did you cut yourself?"
Mark remembered once, Collins had asked if Roger shot up. Roger had been feeling pretty awful. He was physically through with withdrawal, but depressed, more sensitive than usual, and no one truly believed that all of Roger's smack was out of the loft. And something-- Mark forgot what-- had happened, and Collins asked Roger if he shot up.
The result had been fairly horrid. It was one of the few times Mark heard Roger shout at Collins. "I fucked up, I get it, okay? That doesn't mean I don't know how to cope!"
Mark had told him off for it later, gently, reminding him that they were only worried about him. Roger, dead-eyed, had asked Mark to leave the room, and Mark was too frightened to resist.
Now he stood and, without a word, walked out of his therapist's office.
He kept walking through the streets of New York, hands jammed into the pockets of his plaid coat as the wind chapped his cheeks. He kept walking until he had come to Joanne's office, where a nervous secretary "buzzed Ms. Jefferson" to inform her that she "has a visitor, Mark Cohen," the name over enunciated.
"Let him come in," Joanne answered. And as much as Joanne wished she could be waiting for Mark with a hug and hours to spend sorting through his problems, she was busy, and her eyes were on the computer as she told him, "Hey, Mark."
"Hi. If this is a bad time--"
"No, it's fine. Have a seat, please, let me just… there!"
Mark had never seen Joanne at work. He was not completely surprised, or completely impressed. She looked corporate, reliable, powerful but open. He perched on the edge of a chair. "Listen, I wanted to talk to you about, um, that therapist."
He had her full attention now. "Yes?" Joanne asked.
"I…" Mark shook his head, fully aware of how selfish he was going to sound, how ridiculous and childish and weak. "I really don't feel that I should be seeing her."
Joanne's eyes widened a hair. After telling everyone, you want to quit? "Why not?" she asked.
"Well…" and a heavy sigh. "I, um… I have a problem that I just don't think she understands."
"Really?" Joanne clearly did not believe him. "So you want to see someone else?" she asked.
"Um… I don't… that's not… we can just…" Mark sighed. "I'll pay you back somehow," he promised. "I'll find a way, Joanne, I just… I need…"
"Mark, just tell me what you don't like about her."
Mark bit his lip. Joanne wants to help. Joanne cares about you-- so why are you so difficult for her? "I will pay you back," he repeated, then realized suddenly where he had heard those words before.
"I'll pay you back. I'm sorry. I just… one… I just needed one," Roger babbled, shaking from the bleached-blond roots of his hair to the grungy toes of his duct-taped sneakers. "I'll pay you back."
"Roger, look at yourself. Stealing, from your friend. For that. What happened to the Roger I knew? What happened to my friend, where is he? Where, in the drug-infested body--"
"I said I'd pay you back!" he snapped. Roger needed to get past Collins. He needed to get into his room, he needed to take some, a dab would do it, then he could go out, find some work maybe and… and…
Collins wouldn't budge. "Then pay me back." He held out his hand. "Pay me back, Roger, right now."
"I don't have--"
"Yeah, you do. You have something worth exactly what you took. Now pay me back."
"It's okay, Mark. You don't need to pay me back. I just don't like the idea that you spent all that time with her, and she didn't help you."
Mark shook his head. "You know what? This is silly. It has to be tough, right? I had a bad session. No reason to give up."
Joanne gave an encouraging smile, reminded Mark that she was always there for him, then hugged him good-bye. Mark went home to a loft where Mimi had finally cried herself to sleep. Roger was sitting awake on the couch playing a Beatles song.
And Mark could not, for the life of him, understand. His grip fled him, and he could think of nothing to do or say. He stripped down to his underwear and stretched out on his bed. It was late November. Mark wait for his toes to feel numb. His fingers. His feet. His hands.
He rolled himself up in the blanket and fell asleep.
Roger was playing "Desperado."
TO BE CONTINUED!
After next chapter, the pace should pick up.
Reviews would be so very, very appreciated! Please?