Pretty by Jillian Lauren

Author:Jillian Lauren
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Literary, Life Change Events, Contemporary Women, General, Psychological, Self-Realization in Women, Self-Help, Personal Growth, fiction, Self-Actualization (Psychology)
ISBN: 9780452297340
Publisher: Plume
Published: 2010-12-31T05:00:00+00:00

I trudge upstairs, sick with myself, and find Violet lying in leopard print jammies on top of her leopard print comforter, staring at a flickering votive candle on her bedside table. Five others burn in different places around the room. Violet carves her intentions onto the surface of the candles with a safety pin and then lights them. Powerful witchcraft, she assures me. And I have tried it a time or two, I admit. Once, shortly after I arrived here, I just wrote “help.” It was the next day when a bunch of us were hanging out on the front porch that Jake handed me a drawing of wild roses.

“I brought you flowers,” he said.

They were the prettiest flowers. Jake can do things like draw flowers and make them not cheesy at all.

Tonight, leaning against one of the votive candles is an index card, across which Violet has written “Help Is Not on the Way.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“I got it from a Buddhist book I was reading earlier. I meant it to be an inspiration.”

“How’s it working?”

“About as well as anything. How was Jesus?” Violet asks, without moving.

“You know. A ray of sunshine in a dark world,” I say, sitting down on the edge of Violet’s bed. She moves her legs to make room for me and rolls over onto her back with one arm behind her head. She nods to show she is listening. They teach us these things in group: (1) nod to demonstrate active listening; (2) take a breath and pause when agitated.

“Bad?”

“Bad. But it started out killer. You would have loved it. We broke into the Ambassador.”

This stirs Violet to a sitting position.

“Oh, my God! I’m so jealous. He’s a freak, that Jesus, but he truly is so cool.”

She’s right, I think. He is cool. And I’m an asshole.

“Did you see ghosts?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

In Violet’s excitement she forgets to conceal her forearm and, where her pajama sleeve has lifted, I see the raw, fresh, cigarette-sized burn marks. Five of them in an angry circle.

“Oh, Vi.” I grab her wrist and pull her arm toward me, assessing the damage. “Bad?”

“Bad.”

I go down the hall to the bathroom and return with hydrogen peroxide, a cotton square, gauze, and tape. She doesn’t protest when I wipe down the wounds and they fizz up white. I tape a clean square of gauze over the area and pull back the comforter. She slumps down again and wedges herself under the blanket. I crawl behind her on the bed and lie down, shaping myself around her rigid bends and putting my arm around her.

“It’s okay. Just go to sleep now.”

“We’re getting out of here, right?”

“Of course.”

“You swear?”

I link my pinkie with hers.

“I swear.”

I lie there until she sleeps, exhausted by her own misery. Then I go back to my own bed, where mine keeps me awake and staring at the ceiling until the curtain is seamed with the electric blue of the dawn and I finally drop off to sleep.

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