Autumn in Santa Fe feels more like summer to Roger. November is t-shirt weather, and he loves it. He loves the sharp angles of mountains off in the distance, he loves the sharp contrast between the land and the sky, and he loves seeing horizon all around. He lives in his car and he has to bathe in gas station bathrooms, washing his hair in the sink, but for once he's making his life work. He's making a living - a small one, but a living - with his music again, and he forgot that once, a long time ago, it was like this. The songs just kept coming, and he doubted he could have stopped them if he'd wanted to.
But eventually, he feels like he's writing the same songs over and over again, and he knows none of them is the song he came here to write. He knows that the people here, though pleasant, aren't friends, and he realizes that he doesn't even know them.
"There is so much to care about. There's me - there's Mimi." He didn't even notice it then, but it's been on his mind for weeks now, how it almost sounded like Mark was trying to correct himself, as if he didn't mean to mention himself first.
Roger does miss Mimi; he worries about her all the time, and he hopes that Benny's able to help her more than he could. He hates that he didn't stop himself from yelling so much, telling her that he was fucking sick of it and sick of her and every other thing he said to her that didn't help her at all, everything that he regrets now. He misses her, and he wishes he could tell her that he's sorry.
He did everything wrong, trying to help her get clean. Mark never yelled, never told him he was sick of all of it, even though he must have been.
It was summer when he finally got over it. All he can really think about is being in Central Park, leaving the loft for the first time in weeks. He remembers lying in the shade, on the grass, Mark nearby. Neither of them saying much of anything because of a ridiculous, almost superstitious anxiety. Like maybe if they mentioned that Roger was two months clean then something would happen and he wouldn't be clean anymore, and Roger knew neither of them would be able to handle that.
"Mark?" he'd said then, sitting up, leaning against the tree. Mark looked over at him then, and Roger added, "Thanks."
Mark smiled then, and Roger realized he hadn't seen it much for a long time. "Hey, I'm glad I could help you, and ... you know." You're clean. You're better.
"Yeah." Roger paused, and added, "I wouldn't have been able to do it on my own, you know."
"Most people wouldn't have. I wanted to help you." Roger's hand had been gripping Mark's knee for a few moments, and he didn't move when they lapsed back into that uneasy silence. Roger hadn't felt, even then, that 'thanks' was enough, but what else could he say?
So he didn't say anything, just watched his friend out of the corner of his eye. Watched him fidgeting with a few blades of grass he'd pulled from the ground; watched him shifting carefully so he was always in the shade, trying to avoid a sunburn; watched him push his hands through his hair, opening his mouth, looking like he was about to say something, then thinking better of it and concentrating on his blades of grass again; watched him giving up on the grass and gnawing on his fingernails.
There was so much Roger wanted to say then, but the words hadn't come. He'd spent so much time as removed as he could be from everyone that he felt like he'd lost the ability to communicate. He was terrified that he would never be able to write lyrics again, or to form chord progressions and bridges and refrains. He didn't think he could even speak anymore, much less sing.
Speak.
He wanted to say he was sorry for scaring the hell out of Mark all those times. For relapsing when he hadn't even really gotten clean in the first place. For effectively saying so many times that he didn't care if drugs killed him before disease got a chance to, and fuck anyone who did care. For the time he locked the bathroom door before he passed out, and making Mark kick the door down to get to him.
It was hard for him to find the right words, but it was even harder to keep himself from saying the wrong words. And there were a lot of wrong words he could have said. Best friends might make better lovers, but everyone knows that if that kind of relationship fails, you're losing more than a lover. More often than not, you lose a friend too, and Roger didn't have such a huge number of friends back then, and he definitely wouldn't have been able to find anyone quite like Mark if he fucked everything up.
He was terrified. Because while he'd been talking himself out of saying all of those wrong words, Mark had been inching closer and closer, still trying to escape the sun. Roger's hand was still on Mark's knee, and he took it away abruptly and reminded himself not to do anything stupid. That was two years ago, and he'd done stupid shit anyway, like fucking things up with everyone he knew, including Mark, and he hadn't even had to fuck him to do it.
Right now, a few weeks before Christmas, standing under the bluest sky he's ever seen, two thousand miles away from everyone he cares about, he doesn't want to be alone. He knows Mark is alone, under that cold gray sky in New York, hating every minute of it, and Roger can't believe that he's still here. After he sells his car, he's got enough money for a bus ticket home, and when he's not trying to write a new song, he's sleeping, and he's dreaming about summer.