His guitar shined under the spotlight as his rough voice rang throughout the local CBGB in New York City 1983. The crowd moved with his lyrics of love, passion. She was his muse. His reason for waking every morning. His reason for everything. Roger smiled to himself shaking his head as he strummed the strings on his guitar. He’d met April here. The love of his life. He wanted to marry her. He had wanted to have children with her.

They were going to start trying when they got the news. The disease had entered their body through a shared needle. Smack was smack and when they needed it, they needed it. It had gone from just a pastime to something stronger than cigarettes. He didn’t care that he had Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. He had her. That was all that mattered.

He missed her red hair on this particular evening. The way that it fell across her shoulders intrigued him. How had he gotten so lucky? His lips touched the microphone lightly as he strummed the last notes of the song, his voice turning smooth and melodic. The women melted when they heard his voice. He brought his right hand up, running his fingers through his bleached blonde hair. “That’s it for me tonight guys. I’ll be back next week,” he murmured into the microphone, the crowd screaming with delight.

It was four o’clock in the morning and everything was great. He made his way backstage to get changed and ready to go home. A gig was a gig. Hopefully by the end of the summer, he was going to have enough money saved up for him and April to move upstate and get out of the shit hole loft on 10th Street and Avenue B.

On his way out of the door, his best friend and roommate Mark pulled up on his bike. “Yo, Roger, you on your way home, man?” he asked. “No, Mark, I’m going to walk around the city and become a bum for the next few hours. Wanna join?” he answered, sarcastically. Mark’s smile instantly turned into a frown. Roger started laughing and shook his head. “Come on, let’s go home. I miss my April,” he said. “I miss my Maureen,” Mark exclaimed.

Roger lightly punched Mark in the shoulder as they began to walk the several blocks back home. Roger had begun to come up with lyrics to yet another song about April while he walked home. She was his muse. She could smile and he’d write a song about it. She could raise her eyebrow and he’d do the same. She could, quite literally, stand there and do nothing but look at him and he would find the lyrics to describe everything about how he felt about her.

They finally reached their apartment and began to make their way up the stairs of the five floor walk up. The place was a hell hole, but it was free, and if it was free, it was for those boys. Roger moved his guitar case from his right hand to his left in order to grab a hold of the latch to pull open the sliding metal door. Once he had pulled the heavy object aside, they entered the loft. His eyes scanned their apartment, looking for a trace of the one person he loved more than his own guitar, and that was saying a lot.

When he couldn’t see her, his heart began to race. Something was wrong and he knew it. Something didn’t feel right, and he set his guitar down and stormed into his room, leaving Mark behind to eat his dust. She wasn’t in the bedroom. She wasn’t in Mark’s room. She wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room. That left one place. “Baby?” he called out. Nothing. His eyebrows furrowed as he made his way to the bathroom and opened the door.

There she was. She laid in the bathtub, naked, covered in her own blood. His heart stopped. “Please tell me this is a nightmare,” he thought to himself. “MARK!” he screamed, hearing the pitter-patter of the filmmaker’s feet running to see what he had needed. Mark gasped, his hand covering his mouth at the sight. Tears welled up in Roger’s eyes. She was gone. He saw a piece of paper on the floor next to her and grabbed it. He made his way over to her dead body and pulled her head to his chest, his arm wrapping around her to pull her to him. She was ice cold.

He pulled her out of the tub and laid her naked body on the ground, covering her with a towel as he laid next to her. He pulled her body towards his, holding onto her as sobs escaped his throat. He’d never get to see her beautiful smile, her fiery red hair, her crystal blue eyes again. He kissed the top of her head as he opened the note. It said a mere six words. “I’m sorry, baby. I love you.”

Sobs came from the depths of his soul as he realized she was gone. The love of his life had left him in the cruelest way. Everything died inside of him at that point. She was gone and so was he. He didn’t know who he was anymore. He brought her wrists to his lips, kissing the cuts that she had used to finish her life. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her shoulders, and her lips for one last time as tears streamed down his cheeks. He stood up, making his way into his and her bedroom, grabbing his stash he had hidden from Mark.

Once the drug entered his vein, the world seemed to stop spinning for a moment, allowing him to sleep. He crawled into his bed and pulled her pillow to him, his arms wrapping around it as if it were her. It smelled like her and that was what he needed. He was over. He was nothing without her. He loved her more at that moment than he ever had.