Mark is thankful that looking at other people's wrists is taboo, because if anyone looked at his he'd probably never live it down.
"There's no shame in loving people, Mark," Maureen used to say as she kissed over them – all of them, more than ten, all of them red. He knows that one of them is hers, and that makes this even more depressing. She knows it too, but she doesn't let it interfere with their sex life.
He's glad for that, at least. If he can't have love, he wants to at least have this.
But Maureen doesn't last forever. No one ever does. Even his roommates are slowly pulling away from him, and all that's left is the cold, empty apartment, Roger sulking in the other room, a broken hotplate, and these damning marks on his wrist.
The tally marks appear constantly, have done since he was only twelve. He's afraid to look, sometimes, in the shower or before bed – afraid there will be another. But it's impossible not to get close to people, not to love them. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do. What he must be doing wrong.
Collins had a theory about it, something about pheromones and naturally high levels of something or other. Mark wonders if he was just trying to make him feel better. If he was, it hadn't worked.
They climb up the inside of his forearm, from wrists nearly all the way to his elbows. Red and red and red and red.
He doesn't know what he'd do if one of them changed. Would he be happy? Relieved? Scared out of his fucking wits, more like it.
On Christmas Day of 1989 he wakes up itching the crook of his elbow and groans out loud when he sees it. Another fucking tally.
God, he was pathetic. Who had he even met yesterday?
The girl downstairs comes to mind – Mimi.
Fuck.
He can't be in love with her, just like he can't be in love with Roger, or Maureen, or – Lord, he hates to admit it – Benny Coffin. He doesn't want it. Everything would be so much easier if he could just keep his goddamn emotions in check, and yet it keeps happening.
But he can't be in love with Mimi. Roger's got a thing for her – she's got a thing for Roger. It's doomed from the beginning, dead on arrival just like the rest of his love life.
He lies back and stares miserably at the ceiling, and tries not to think about it.
There's nothing he can do. He'll just have to deal with it.
And if it aches a little more to look at Mimi, and at Roger, after that – well, nobody has to know.
It's not the Christmas after the next that it happens.
Roger had practically moved his entire life down into Mimi's apartment before she'd asked about moving in with them, and Mark had spent the entire week preceding the holiday helping the two of them lug everything back up the stairs. No one has lived with them since Collins moved out, and adding Mimi's shit to the pile makes it seem almost cheerful.
They set up her tree, and end up having to prop it against a couple of boxes when the stand unexpectedly snaps. The cheap plastic angel twinkles lopsidedly from the top of it, threatening to fall off at any moment.
Despite everything that's happened in the past two years, they are happy. There's heat, now, and Maureen and Joanne write regularly from California, where they're staying indefinitely. Collins isn't coming home for Christmas this year, either, but he's alive and he's finally starting to move on. It's all Mark could have asked for, for all of his friends.
Everyone has something to be happy about. Even him. For the past year, since Mimi's dramatic return, there have been no new marks.
He wakes sleepily, early on Christmas morning, and plods to the bathroom. As he's washing his hands, he sees it.
And screams.
"Mark? Jesus, Mark, are you okay?!"
That's Roger, pounding on the door. Mark immediately lurches for it, feeling horribly guilty for reminding him of April, even accidentally. "Mark! Fuck, you're going to give me a heart attack! What's wrong!"
Mark has his hand clutched over the crook of his elbow, shaking his head, white-faced. Mimi appears, looking bleary, at Roger's side. "Qué pasa…?"
She yawns behind her hand. His heart pounds.
Slowly, he looks down and parts his fingers. They're still there. Two black marks.
Roger grabs his arm and tugs it into the light. He peers owlishly at them. "Oh," he says, dismissively, as if this isn't mind-boggling. "Took it's time, didn't it."
"What?" Mark manages, squeaking, eyes flickering between them. Mimi is hiding a smile now. Both of them are looking at him expectantly and his mind makes the leap with a jarring snap.
Those marks. Those marks belonged to Roger… and Mimi.
Both of them?
It must be too good to be true – but Roger moves in with a smirk, grasping his chin. "In case you need convincing."
And he's kissing him, and Mark nearly cries, because this is the only thing he's wanted for Christmas for the past fourteen years.
Mimi slides around him and hugs him from behind, nuzzling into his neck. Roger twists his fingers into his hair.
Mark whimpers. Merry fucking Christmas.