While the rest of the apartment was fairly tidy, Ronni’s room was a mess: dirty clothes, coffee mugs, and magazines littered surfaces already cluttered with open makeup containers, hair products, and jewelry. Photos of Ronni’s former life still plastered the walls, but a few had fallen from their stations and lay forgotten on the floor. The double bed, unmade, took up most of the space, but in the center of the room, propped on a kitchen chair in lieu of an easel, was the painting.
The deep canvas was about a foot by a foot. The background was painted a dark color, almost black but not black, a combination of gray and brown perhaps. Moving toward the center, the colors lightened, oranges, yellows, greens, until the fulcrum, where a luminous burst of turquoise splattered across the canvas. Hannah knew nothing about abstract art, but the painting was oddly haunting.
“It’s great.”
“It’s what I see out of my right eye.”
See?
Ronni turned to Hannah. For the first time, she didn’t bother to camouflage her eye with her hair. “People think that blind people are in the dark, but that’s not true. . . . Not for me anyway. When I close my other eye, I see all these colors and bursts and clouds.”
“Sounds cool.”
“It’s not.” Ronni turned back to face the painting. “It’s bright. And noisy. I can’t sleep. I can’t even think. . . .”
Hannah stared at the painting. The color was too flat, the technique too rudimentary to convey light, and yet, somehow it did. Somehow, Hannah felt like she was inside Ronni’s head, seeing what Ronni saw.
“I’m sorry,” Hannah said softly, emotion clogging her throat. She turned toward Ronni, but Ronni kept staring at the canvas. Hannah pushed on anyway. “I’m sorry about what happened to you at my house. I’m sorry my parents didn’t check on us before you fell. I wish I never had a birthday party.”
Ronni’s gazed remained fixed. “It’s not your fault. We would have gotten wasted anywhere. I told my mom that. But she won’t stop.”
“My parents have lots of money. They should help you.”
Ronni turned toward her, damaged eye exposed again. “They’ve offered to help, but my mom says it’s not enough. She wants to ‘set me up for the future,’ ’cause, you know, now that I’m a hideous monster, I’ll never go to college, never get a job, never get married. . . .”
“That’s not true,” Hannah said. “You’re not hideous.” But tears were filling her eyes as if to belie her words.
“It is true,” Ronni said blandly. “Didn’t you see my Facebook page? Read the comments—I’m disgusting. I’m a freak. I deserve this because I was such a stuck-up bitch. . . . Maybe they’re right. I wasn’t that nice.”
“They’re disgusting, not you!” Hannah’s voice was quivering and she felt perilously close to tears. She hadn’t come here to fall apart, but she could feel herself slipping closer to the edge. “I’m not friends with any of the popular kids anymore. I hate them. They’re horrible and they’re mean and they’re bullies. They think they’re so cool, but they’re stupid. They’re all going to grow up to be losers and drug addicts and assholes. And you and I can go on with our lives and we’ll never have to see any of them again.”
“But I’ll still look like this.” Ronni looked down then, her hair forming its usual mask. “I was used to people staring at me because I was pretty and hot. And now they stare at me because I’m damaged and ugly.”
“Looks aren’t everything.” God, she sounded like her mom.
Ronni met Hannah’s gaze squarely. “I’m not smart like you are, Hannah. I’m not good at school or sports or anything really. But I was pretty and popular, so I had that. . . . Not anymore.”
“You’re a good artist,” Hannah tried, indicating the painting.
Ronni shrugged. “Yeah . . . I could probably get ten, maybe fifteen bucks for it.”
It took Hannah a second to realize Ronni was joking. She went with it. “I’d push for twenty. . . .” Thankfully, Ronni giggled. It was so good to hear her friend’s laugh, to feel her spirit lift, just a little, that Hannah spontaneously hugged her. Ronni was unresponsive in the embrace—she’d never been affectionate or demonstrative—but eventually, Hannah felt the girl’s arms tighten around her, and her body relax toward her. She felt the shudder as Ronni let go and cried in Hannah’s arms.
Ronni’s sobs, though soft, must have obscured the sound of Lisa’s entry. But suddenly, there she was, standing in the doorway. “No,” the woman said, moving into the room, a gust of hostile energy preceding her.
Instinctively, the girls stepped apart. “Mom—” Ronni started, but Lisa interjected.
“This is not happening.”
Hannah was momentarily confused. Maybe Lisa thought there was something illicit in the girls’ embrace, but she knew Lisa was open-minded and gay-friendly. And yet, her disapproval of the situation was blatant. It had to be about Hannah. Lisa quickly confirmed it.
“You can’t be here, Hannah. You can’t be Ronni’s friend right now.”
Hannah had rehearsed her line about their parents supporting the friendship, but the tension was muddying her mind. How did it go again? Her voice was tremulous. “My mom is willing to let us be friends even though—”
“Don’t talk to me about your mother,” Lisa spat. “She doesn’t care about Ronni.”
“Mom! Stop!” Ronni cried. “Hannah’s literally the only friend who has come to see me. Don’t chase her away.”
“That’s not true,” Lisa said. “Those other girls came by. . . . Phoebe and the other two . . .”
“They’re not my friends! They’re just, like, good Christians who visit people who are having a hard time.”
Hannah tried again. “The lawsuit has nothing to do with me and Ronni. Why can’t we be friends?”
“Because you can’t,” Lisa snapped, grabbing Hannah’s arm rather roughly. “Time to go.”
“Ouch!” Hannah snatched her arm away. It wasn’t painful, exactly, but Lisa’s aggressiveness was frightening.
“Jesus, Mom, you’re hurting her.”
“She’s not hurt,” Lisa spat. “She’s perfectly fine.” Lisa looked at Hannah with such open contempt, that Hannah truly felt Lisa was capable of harming her. Tears sprang to Hannah’s eyes and she knew she had to flee. She had to get away from Lisa, from her rage and hatred, or she was going to fall apart. Hannah pushed her way past Lisa, out of the bedroom, and ran toward the front door.
“Don’t go!” Ronni cried behind her, but Hannah couldn’t stop. She was almost at the door when she heard Ronni turn on Lisa. “Mom! What the fuck?”
“This is for your own good,” Lisa said, then something like, “She is not your friend. Don’t let her fool you.”
Hannah stepped into the stuffy stillness of the hallway and closed the door behind her. As she hurried down the hall, she could still hear mother and daughter yelling at each other. Mercifully, she couldn’t make out what they were saying.
kim
SIXTY-TWO DAYS AFTER