| �Jesus, I don�t even know where to begin, Mark,� Roger said gently. �How�s everyone been? How�s Ira doing? She�s what? Twenty nine, thirty years old now?� Roger was too frightened to say the things he wanted to say outright. He stalled and started to come up with excuses. He knew exactly what Mark wanted to know. He wanted to know why he left the city. Quite honestly, Roger wasn�t even sure himself. He just woke up one morning to find a note from a meeting-bound Mark and the walls closing in around him. He knew it was time to leave. And he left. It was that simple. �Ira just turned thirty,� he replied with a nostalgic grin. �I remember her twentieth birthday party still. The one she insisted on having even though I was...� he trailed off and looked at the floor suddenly. Roger blinked for a moment, and then realized what was wrong. Ira�s twentieth birthday was just a month after he left the city. �But, well, she�s thirty now. We threw her a surprise party. She graduated with honors at 23. She majored in Musical Composition and Theory and psychology. She�s been touring a lot, and she bought that used bookstore off of her cousin a few years back. That new age place?� Roger nodded in slow recognition. He remembered the cousin more than the store. Strange man. Very disoriented and befuddled most of the time. Roger didn�t have a clue how he had kept that store running for so long. �Ira kept the band together, huh?� he said softly. �Wow.� Mark chuckled slightly. �Yeah. She was so angry with you...then, after about three weeks, she put out an ad and found a new guitarist and got everyone back together. They�ve been touring ever since. They got a local record deal and they�re pretty popular and up and down this coast. Not wildly popular, but they have a nice sized fan base.� Mark was aware that Roger was stalling. He wasn�t sure if he was angry with the other man, or glad that he had the sense not to rush head on into the topic of his departure. Mark himself still wasn�t sure what he would say. �How the hell could you leave me, I loved you!� just didn�t seem to fit, for one reason or another. So he played along, delivering long familiar responses as his mind whirled for a proper way to beg Roger never to leave his side again. �How about Maureen and Joanne? Are they still together?� Mark couldn�t help but laugh out loud. �As soon as Governor Williams signed the law for homosexual civil union they set a date,� he laughed. �And they�ve been married for almost five years, even though every other week one of them comes stomping into the loft shouting about filing for divorce.� �Collins?� Mark froze on that question. He felt himself very slowly move his eyes from Roger to the tiling of the floor. Collins...Thomas Collins... six years... �Collins...Collins didn�t make it, Roger,� he whispered. �He died six years ago.� Roger closed his eyes briefly. He had expected as much, but a back part of his mind had always prayed that his old friend would survive, at least until H-27 came about. �He didn�t make H-27, huh?� Roger asked gently. Mark laughed softly and shook his head, removing his glasses to wipe his eyes. �No...no...almost...six more months and...and...� He sighed heavily. �The...the doctors said that even if he did make it, he was too sick for H-27 to do him any good. It...it could control the level of the virus, but Collins was so sick and so infected...his blood counts were always high and then...� There was a lengthy pause as Mark stared at the floor and Roger squeezed his eyes shut. �I wish I could have been there for him...� he murmured. Mark glanced up quickly, but before he could interrupt, Roger hastily added, �At least he got to see your film.� Mark�s eyes widened slightly, but from his position he knew that Roger would be unable to see that. So Roger had seen his film. Roger had seen the movie and watched their story unfold. He had witnessed the pain and suffering depicted, seen the torment Mark had gone through without him. It obviously hadn�t phased him in the slightest. �You saw my film?� Mark said slowly, praying that he was wrong. He didn�t look up. He just sat there, stiff with fear and anticipation. He wasn�t sure he wanted an answer from Roger. He wanted to go on thinking that Roger had a reason for not coming back. He wanted to think that this all made sense. He didn't want to destroy so much of his inviting fa�ade in one night. He didn't want to believe that Roger had a choice in not coming back. He didn't know if he could believe it. He honestly did not believe that he would be able to go on if he learned that Roger had made a conscious choice in never returning to the city. It was hard enough knowing that he had left on his own. It had taken him years to think about that without crying. But to learn that he had seen the pain and problems that had taken over Mark's life without once looking back was too much to bear. He had been through too much...put up with more than his share of issues...he couldn't take this now. Roger was unable to read any emotions on Mark's face. His head was bowed, his fair hair dangling in his eyes. He tried to think of something to say, something comforting, something that would make him seem like less of an ogre and more like the lover he once was. He mentally grappled with the problem, blurting out the first thing that came to his mind. "Of course I did!" he whispered hurriedly. "How could I not? The title...your name attached...I saw it five...ten...maybe fifteen times. I always cried over it, Mark. It was my link to you. My connection. I could go to that theater and watch that film and be with you for two and a half hours, be back with you, talking to you and holding you and reminiscing..." He watched Mark carefully, gauging his reaction...ANY reaction...He stiffened. And that was all. His body tensed and his frame gave a single tremble. "You could have gone to some multiplex in a city I've never heard of...or you could have come home." Roger was silent this time. That hurt, but he didn't know what to use as a rebuttal. He was right. Every time he sat through that film, he was overcome with this overpowering feeling of regret. This feeling that enforced the thousands of miles between himself and Mark. As he watched the actors relive the events that tore their family apart and put it back together, he had to suppress the urge to get out of his seat and catch the next flight to New York. As he sobbed through the ending, watching the characters comfort the suicidal artist left by his lover in the big city, he had to physically hold himself from running to the nearest phone and calling up Mark and apologizing and crying and begging for forgiveness. Each time he saw it, those feelings became harder and harder to ignore. Maybe that's why he kept going back. Maybe he had hoped that his resolve would finally break. "That film...Roger, are you fucking blind?" Lyric's eyes widened as Mark snapped at Roger in a calm, even, level voice. This was serious and deep and much more significant than a chance encounter between old friends. She quietly picked up her coffee and backed away from the table. Neither of her companions noticed. Roger was too busy gaping at Mark's demeanor...his handle on what was going on. Mark was too busy trying to keep that handle and still get answers from his friend. Page 5 |