Guilty Pleasure: "Bad" Books & Why I Read Them II

By Kristin Bivens

If you've read my previous post, you know I like my bookshelf to make me look like a cool cat.

Well, here's an honest confession, and that is…

I have a lot of books that most people would consider LAME sitting on my shelf. I typically put those on the bottom shelf, where the cool people that wander into my office, can't see.

You know Sara's post about her guilty pleasure of reading Twilight? That was my doing. I made her read that book, because I finally gave into the craze, though I held out as long as I possibly could.

And don't worry, all four Twilight books are sitting on my shelf, displayed. For everyone to see.

I usually will confess to someone that I read some "awful" books. But admitting it is half the battle, in my opinion.

I have some pretty hefty, classical literature sitting on my bookshelf, most of which I have gotten around to reading. But the books that really do it for me, the ones that I just can't seem to get enough of are Young Adult books. You got it. I am now twenty seven and I still read books made for teenagers. And, frankly, I'm totally okay with it.

Because those things are good reads.

I think a book should take you somewhere else. It should get you interested in people that are both like and unlike you, lives that are similar and yes completely different than yours. I like the easy flow of young adult books. I like the ability to actually understand what is going on the first time I read the book (ahem: Wuthering Heights made more sense the second time around). And the covers, what really draws me in at the bookstore, are usually pretty bright, colorful and quirky.

I'm not even going to lie, Sarah Dessen takes up about a whole shelf worth of my bookshelf. I hide her books if I take them out in public, and a lot of them have similar story lines, but dammit, I get attached to her characters and her stories. Although, her covers, I am not a fan of at all. It's her stories, not her covers that draw me in there.

Oh, and I may be completely in love with the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Those books were some of my favorite books. The scenery of the south, all the strong women in the story. I'm a huge fan of Southern set literature. I try to keep that series on the down low, though, mostly because I feel like people automatically think of the movie (which, I liked) and that looks to be set for old women. I am not an old woman, though twenty seven I may be.

I just think guilty pleasures tend to be easier to read. They may not always be the most intricate writing or story lines, they may not win awards or by hailed on the NY Times Bestseller's List, but someone wrote them. Someone put their time and heart and sweat and tears into them, and they deserve to be recognized for it.

Book vs. Movie: "Divergent"

     By Kristin Bivens

   
     I've written movie reviews, but mostly critical reviews where I had to detail every waking moment of the movie, which led to pages and pages of dissection. I'll save you the yawning of that layout as much as I can.

     But, bare with me, because I'm not sure how this review of the fiftieth movie I've watched this year is going to go.

     Friday night, 9:05 p.m., Niles, Michigan. The local Wonderland Cinema was packed with young and old alike, eating popcorn and waiting for Divergent to begin. I typically try to stay away from Friday night, just came out at midnight the night before, blockbusters, but at Shiny Happy People, we like to be timely with our movie reviews.

     If you haven't read Divergent, it is about a world (set in the future Chicago that was ravaged by war) made up of five factions: Candor, Amity, Erudite, Dauntless and Abnegation. 

     Here's the breakdown of each faction:

• Candor--They never tell a lie.
• Amity--I like to call this faction the "hippies."
• Erudite--Valedictorians. 
• Dauntless--The tattooed and, though maybe that's not what they started out as, a bit reckless.
• Abnegation--Plain Janes who only think of others and feed the homeless in Chicago.

     When a child turns sixteen, they can leave the faction they were born into or they can stay where they are at forever. Typically, a simulation test provides the kid with some guidance by telling them which faction it looks like they belong to. Surprisingly enough though, they still have their free will to choose a different one if they prefer. Obviously, there has to be some controversy with the main character so Tris is one of those oddballs that just doesn't fit anywhere. She's Divergent, as they call those that don't belong to any specific faction. But the powers that be, specifically those of the Erudite, who have created the simulation tests that are supposed to provide the young kids with answers to choose the rest of their life, aren't big fans of Divergent so Tris has to keep it on the down low. She's not sure why at first. A lot of the story is her trying to figure out just what she is. 

     When it comes time for her to choose a faction, she chooses Dauntless. They're edgy. They jump off trains. They are not Abnegation, that's for sure. So, she leaves her family and joins a new faction.

     Anyways, I should probably get to the movie part now. After all, this is a movie review.

     First off, I'd just like to say that no one in the movie looked how I thought they would look. This is probably trivial and perhaps subjective, but both our main character, Tris (Shailene Woodley), and her mother (Ashley Judd) clearly had make up on in the movie and honestly, didn't look plain to me at all. In their faction, Abnegation, you are plain. You only get to look in a mirror every third month. And dang it, I need a mirror to put my make up on! In Abnegation, you do not take care to look a certain way because your life is not about you. In the movie, the women just wore sacks of gray to dress them down and yet had perfect glowing complexions. The guys for the most part played the part, except for Tris' brother Caleb. He had a want to be Edward Cullen thing going on. 

     In the book, Tris' creates a circle of really close friends when she joins the Dauntless faction, and though we meet those friends in the movie, they just aren't represented very well. But her relationship with Four, the "hunky" Dauntless trainer, is kept at the fore front. Which is all good and fine because that is a vital part to the story, but, the friends she makes at Dauntless are important, too. When one of them dies tragically in the book, you actually feel sad because you know him, you know his situation and he was an under dog you were rooting for. But in the movie, he's just a guy in the background. We know his name and that he may not be the best initiate to the Dauntless group, but that's it. I really didn't feel much of anything when, on the movie screen, they pulled him up from the river he had jumped into.
     In a vital part of the book, we find out that Tris' mother isn't all she appears to be. We find this out in the book at "Family Day," when the initiates families can come visit their kids. When you join a different faction than the one you were born into, you typically don't see your family because the faction is now your family. Tris doesn't expect her mother or father to show, as in her mind she betrayed them. But, her mom does come. At first, she asks how everything is going. Then, she leads in to asking what Tris' test results really were. At the end of the conversation, she tells Tris to go see her brother Caleb, who joined the Erudite faction. They are creating some sort of serum in partnership with the Dauntless and Caleb needs to do some research on it, according to his mother. At the end of the conversation, Tris realizes something very important about her mom. She was Dauntless born.
     In the movie, this whole scene is not as well done. Tris is loading up sacks of what are probably grains into a truck and sees a flashing light out of the corner of her eye. She goes back to see what it is and surprise! It's her mother, come to see her and hiding behind pallets. She shows up out of nowhere. Gets right to the point of "What were your test results?" She tells Tris not to let anyone know what she really is. And never mentions a word about going to see her brother. Which, honestly, is a pretty important turn in the story. Instead, Tris and Four just stumble upon some Erudite loading boxes into the Dauntless compound  and Four whips out this orange serum he stole from a secure Dauntless location.  I really did not like the way this was done. In the book, with her mom coming and slowly getting to the point of the conversation, I instantly began to like her mother more and more. In the movie, it was more like "what's she doing there?" You weren't able to establish a connection with her through that scene, not like you do in the book.
     The general plot line was solid, though scenes and scenarios were maybe switched around for a more dramatic effect. I appreciated the scenery of a ravaged Chicago. The Tris and Four story line followed just as it should have, though, movies always make the romance cheesy, don't they? Of course Four had to take off his shirt and show his awesome tattoo. But then did they absolutely have to kiss afterward while his muscles glistened for the camera? Okay, I guess maybe they did.
     My friend Sarah Braun was my date to the movie and she had this to say, "I enjoyed the movie! I thought the filmmakers did a great job of showing the stark contrast between each of the factions, from their thoughts and actions all the way down to the details of their clothing."
     I don't mean to sound like I'm only criticizing the movie, because even if it may not sound like it, I did enjoy watching it, just as Sarah said above. It was an adventure to be sure. But having read the book, I believe it lacked some substance and certain details. But then again, sometimes books don't translate as well to film as we might like. Because if they did, they'd be ten hours long.
   

Series 3, Post 2 Creative Writing Series---A Story About Jones:Part 2

By Kristin Bivens
Catch Part 1 of Jones' story here.

“Try not to become a hippie,” Jones said, as I was packing up my Beetle three weeks later, preparing for my migration to the West Coast.

 “I’ll try not to. At least not a dirty one,” I smiled. 

 Leaving home was harder than I thought. I was leaving everything I’d ever known and moving far enough away that I couldn’t even come home for the weekend.

 “And please send me a copy of every article you write for this magazine.”

 “I will, as long as I can afford the stamps.”

 “Also, don’t worry about me either, I’ll be fine. I always have been,” she looked at me sincerely when she said it, but I still felt a little uneasy about leaving her. Since painting over the awful silver color, she hadn’t touched a paint brush in three weeks. The room was now a bright cerulean with the West facing wall painted Sunset orange, representing my trip to the West Coast. I felt a little better about leaving now that she hadn’t painted in weeks. She had worked off her stress instead by smoking a pack a day, but eventually, I hoped she’d quit that, too. Baby steps, that’s all I asked for. I hoped she wasn’t just trying to fool me into thinking she would be ok. She was still with Clint, of course, and without me there to somewhat monitor their relationship, I feared she may fall right back into her dark hole. She had gone weeks without painting before only to slip up and start the vicious cycle all over again.
       “I better go. I need to be on the road in two hours and mom will probably take three of them to stop crying,” I said, trying to hold back tears. 

  I officially realized how alone I would be in California.
       “Yeeea…I’m not good at goodbyes, you know that. So call me when you get there…” she grabbed me tightly and hugged me. We held on for a good five minutes before she broke away, nodded, took a cigarette out of her pocket and walked back towards her house.
      “Bye,” I whispered to myself.

California was the land of dreams, completely unlike our tiny Michigan sky line. Lake Michigan didn’t hold a candle to the sunset across the Pacific Ocean. I could see why Manifest Destiny was such a big deal. Who wouldn’t want California as part of their territory?

      The job, well, the job was exactly what I had hoped it would be. I got the big bosses a little more coffee than I originally intended to, but everyone had to start somewhere. I was writing stories, stories that would never have presented themselves at home. I was going out and spending Friday nights in VIP rooms with editors from various up and coming magazines. I was living the journalist’s life and I was more excited about living than I had ever been.
       California was my drug; it was my version of painting walls. So, when I called Jones back home once a week and found out she hadn’t painted since I left, I felt relief. Maybe this was going to change both of us. Maybe she’d eventually become restless enough and make a change, just like I had. I didn’t mean to say I was the cause of her improvements, but who knows; maybe I had caused her to take a look at her life.
      “I haven’t given up smoking yet, though,” she said during a Thursday night conversation,”Baby steps.”
       I laughed, “I agree. You can’t take all the crutches away at once.”
      “Your mom misses you,” she said, “She’s been calling me every day, asking me to come over for dinner.”
     “I know. She leaves me a message every morning. She’s ridiculous.”
     “You miss home at all?” Jones asked, almost worried.
     “I do, there’s no place like home, Tin Man. But California is where I’m supposed to be right now, ya know? I can feel it. Even if next month I have to come crawling back home because I drank my life away and spent all my money, at least I know I did something for a little bit.”
     “Yea…” Jones went quiet.
     “Hey, Jones, I didn’t mean anything by that, you know that, right?”
     “Oh yea, sure. I mean, you’ve always known what you wanted to do with your life. I haven’t. So that’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to figure it out. Until then, I’m here.”
     “Just remember, you are always invited to be my roommate. You’d love Cali, I know it.”
     “Maybe I’ll come visit next month. In the mean time, where the hell are your articles?”
     I told Jones I’d send them out as soon as I got off the phone with her. We said our goodbyes and promised to talk in a couple days.
     I was amazed at her spirits. They were completely unlike her. She seemed, content, I guess the word is. Or at least on the road to content.
     I went to sleep that night feeling like the world was in a perfect state and nothing could possibly go wrong.

     “Hey.” Jones called me the next day while I was running to an interview. I was surprised to hear from her.
     “I broke up with Clint,” she said.
     And she wasn’t even crying.
     “You did?” I said, shocked.
     “I did, can you believe it? And I meant it this time.” She seemed so confident, so unlike, well, Jones.
     “What happened exactly?” I said, taking a sip of coffee. The streets were all a buzz this morning.
     “I was over at his apartment last night, watching The Blues Brothers and I looked over at him and, I don’t know, I just saw my future with him and it was dark. I said, ‘Clint, this is never going to work,’ and I walked out.”
     “And he didn’t come running after you?”
     “Oh, he did. And he’s called me every five minutes since I left. But, we’re done. It’s time for me, and him, to move on.”
     I told Jones how happy I was for her, “You’re changing before my eyes, chic.”
     “It feels great. I’m painting canvases instead of walls, though. But that’s more artistic, not angst.” I could tell she was smiling when she said it.
     It was amazing what a break up could do.

     Things continued to look up for Jones. She was looking at grad schools out in California and painting beautiful pieces of art based on her years of painting walls. She was working on getting an exhibit at the art gallery back home.
     This had all happened within a month and four days of me leaving for the West Coast.
     One morning before work, I went to the post office and mailed her all the articles I had written for the magazine so far. She had been nagging me about them for weeks.
     “I need them for something I’m working on,” she said. I figured she needed them for some sort of scrapbook or something. She liked to collect my work and put it in one place for me.                              

     “Would you like me to autograph them, as well?” I teased. I kissed the envelope and threw it in the mail.

      “I love the one about the hippie that sits on the corner reading Jack Kerouac out loud. You really made him sound like someone I would love to be friends with,” she said four days later when she had finally received my package.

      “He’s seriously the coolest guy. I buy him a coffee every Tuesday.” Jones mentioned a couple of other pieces she liked, and those she didn’t care for too much. She was a good critic when it came to my writing. I could always depend on her to be honest with me. 

      “When are you going to be able to come home?” she asked abruptly.

      “Uhm, probably next month. Hopefully.”

      “Ok, well, I better get started on this project then,” she said.

      “It better be good.” 

      “It’s life changing,” she said, hanging up.

Guilty Pleasure: "Bad" Books & Why I Read Them

By Sara E Thompto

I enjoy reading a wide range of books. Most books I read out in the open, with no hesitation. However, throughout the years there have been a few books I'd rather not be seen reading. I've perfected holding the cover down low, dodging questions by co-workers about what I'm currently reading, and taking off dust-jackets to take away easy recognition. 

But, why read these books if they're so embarrassing to read?

There's really only one answer: Because they're a guilty pleasure. 

My balance between guilty pleasures and what I think society deems as actual good literature is a fairly 50/50 mix. After all, I think the number one reason why I read is for a sort of escapism effect. Diving into another world far from my own is something I enjoy, because many times, the more serious literary pieces I read tend to touch home in some way or another. And, sometimes, you just want a break and it's easy to jump into someone else's world. 

Take Twilight for example; teen vampires that sparkle in the daylight, and a human who ends up forming a fairly unhealthy relationship with one of them. In that one sentence synopsis that seems to be thrown around a lot by Twilight critics, it's not particularly something I would think would grab my attention nor something I would typically find as "good literature." But, during my sophomore year in college, when my friends started telling me I just had to read it, I decided to give it a go. 

Although while reading the books I hid them under my desk while in class, covered as much of the cover as I could while on the train, and tried not to get into any conversations about the books while in public... in the end, I loved the story of Bella and Edward.

I've never quite been a Twi-Hard. I just can't bring myself to defend the series that much. But, as someone who is a sucker for true love, and is a hopeless romantic in her heart of hearts... I have to say I actually love the series. With my rose colored goggles on I don't see their relationship as unhealthy, as much as  it is beautiful. Of course, the key phrase here is "rose colored goggles," because, as I said before, it's a guilty pleasure. 

I think another key reason why I like some books that are fairly embarrassing to admit to read, is because they're so different from what my personality actually is in real life.

Gossip Girl, a series I read throughout middle school and high school, was a fun way to look at another world. One in a large city, not rural Iowa. One where rich, well dressed people partied in hotels and famous clubs, not at a place outdoors on a back gravel road. It may have been completely outlandish and nothing close to reality... but it was also one of the books that made me think "what else is out there." A thought that has stayed with me ever sense. 

There was hardly any substance, and it was basically a teenage magazine in the form of a fiction book, so it was most definitely a guilty pleasure. But, I don't think that just because a book is a guilty pleasure, it also has to mean the book has to substance. 

The more I think about the books I read that fall into the guilty pleasure category, the more I think about how important they are in the world of literature. They're a release, and they might even offer new insight or help push your boundaries. 

Every book you read has some sort of value, somewhere within the pages, guilty pleasure or not. 

Series 3, Post 1: Creative Writing- A Story About Jones

     Jones liked to paint on her walls. That’s what she did to relieve stress—she painted her walls a different color.

     “What are you doing Jones?” I’d call and ask her on a random day of the week at midnight or after.                     

     “Painting,” she’d say, almost lethargically. She always got a bit high from the paint fumes. 

     “What color today?” I’d ask. 

     “Peaches and cream.” 

     “Clint out with his friends again?” I knew which colors went with what life crisis. 

     “You know it.”

   Clint was Jones’ boyfriend of two years; they were theoretically engaged but not realistically engaged. He had mentioned it one night after drinking until four a.m. and then never spoke a word about it again. But when he did mention it that one time, she painted her walls white at 4:30 a.m. Like a wedding dress. The next day when he had no memory of their conversation, she painted it black. Like a funeral. Needless to say, Jones was a moody individual who read The Bell Jar more often than she didn’t.

     Peaches and cream meant Clint was out with his irresponsible friends, who also caused Clint to be irresponsible. She felt the shade of the peach calmed her down. But, it could’ve been the cigarette she smoked in between paint strokes. Or the adrenaline rush she got from not blowing herself up by painting in a non-ventilated room while smoking a Camel Light. 

     But, she hadn’t always painted. Growing up, her bedroom had been a quiet pink, the stereotypical color for a growing little girl. She had a mural of the Eiffel Tower painted on the East wall and a gorgeous white bed spread that her father had brought back from one of his many trips to France. For a seven year old, her bedroom was quite cultured, completely unlike my room filled with teddy bears and flowers. And then age eight hit and Jones’ room took on a more drastic appearance. 

      It was a Monday when her dad died. It was a Thursday when she first painted her walls black. As soon as the funeral was over she asked her grandmother to take her to the store where she bought her first can of paint. I watched from her My Little Pony bean bag chair as she spent nine hours covering her beautiful Eiffel Tower. And since then, her walls had been black more times than they have ever been any other color. That was Jones’ sordid little story, dead father, remarried mother, lifetime of pain and angst.

     And paint cans. So many paint cans. She didn’t keep track of how many times she had painted her walls in the last fifteen years, but I did. Each color was recorded in a log with the day of the month and year along with a reason for the paint change. I figured someday, perhaps when the painting stopped, that is, if it ever did, she would find it interesting to see her life in colors. The amount of paint coats was up to 2448, with 100 different shades. And counting.

• Deep orange meant she felt bohemian, one of her more common colors.
• Eggplant meant she was happy, which was a very rare color and usually got repainted over in a matter of hours.
• Tickle me pink meant Clint had made her feel special.
• Grassy Green meant Jones was feeling appreciated and noticed.
• Red meant she was in love, also a short lived color because...
• Peaches and cream would show up before you knew it. It was a color I never really understood, but it was common nonetheless.
• Dark blue meant her mom had pissed her off.
• Burnt yellow meant she was feeling feisty and you had better watch your back.
• One week, her walls were even poop brown. That was a bad week; we call that the ‘lost week.’

  
  

There was a myriad of other colors throughout the years, colors that were results of moods she couldn’t explain. It was amazing the colors she would discover, sometimes inventing her own.

“How’s about this color?” Jones asked one Wednesday afternoon at Sherwin Williams. Sometimes, when she had money to burn or thought she might have the paint on her walls for more than a week, Jones would buy fancy paint at a paint store. Other times, she went to Wal-Mart.

“It looks like squished peas,” I answered, distantly. 

 “Perfect, because I feel like vomiting after Clint hit on the waitress last night at the bar. This will be perfect.”

 She grabbed the can of paint and started walking to the counter. 

 “And then he’ll buy you flowers this afternoon and we’ll be back here buying deep red.” 

“Guess you’ll have to keep the afternoon open then, won’t you?” she sneered.

 I sighed. It wasn’t that I didn’t want Jones to relieve her stress; she was much more pleasant after she had finished painting. I was just worried about what the painting was doing to her life. Now that we were in our 20’s, it seemed like she should find some other way of dealing with life and its everyday stresses. She didn’t sleep. When she painted, she didn’t eat. She smoked like a chimney. But there was something else happening, something I never thought was physically possible. Her room was getting smaller and smaller, the paint becoming thicker and thicker until, I feared, there would be no room for her to paint in. And quite possibly, no her.

 “When you move out are you going to stop painting?” I asked, while watching the squished pea green painting over the bright red shade from Tuesday. 

 “Will life stop being a bitch every other day of the week?” she laughed a little when she said it, but I heard the seriousness in her voice. 

 She honestly had no idea how to live day to day without a different shade of paint. I didn’t know where to go from there. The truth is, I handled life with a pen and paper, which led to bookshelves full of journals, but the fumes from those weren’t as violent as the fumes from the coats and coats of paint. Not only that, but my method didn’t interrupt my life as much as hours and hours of painting interrupted hers. 

 “Have you talked to Clint today then?” I picked up a paint brush and began painting along the baseboard. 

 “He’s called about forty four times, but no.” She sighed softly. 

 The problem with Clint was, he was an absolute jackass 98.6 percent of the time and she still loved him. I tried to convince her to just get rid of him, to move on, but she couldn’t live without Clint just as much as she couldn’t live without paint. 

 “J, I hate to say this, but I really think he’s your problem.”

 I looked out of the corner of my eye to see her reaction, but her face was completely unrecognizable. She continued painting with long, soft strokes, speaking not a word.

 I continued on, “I mean, he’s the only thing keeping you here and he has become a pretty bad reason. He didn’t used to be, but we both know he isn’t the Clint who you fell in love with.” 

“He still is. He just isn’t right now. He’ll come around. He always does, always has.” 

 I shook my head, used to her saying those same exact words, always Clint’s defender. Despite the hopelessness that Jones seemed to possess, she was amazingly hopeful when it came to him—her biggest downfall. 

 “Do you realize how small your room has gotten in the past fifteen years, Jones?” 

 “Yea,” she laughed a little, “Mom told me the other night that I was going to have to move out soon because my twin bed wouldn’t fit in this hallway anymore.”

 “Ever think that might be a good reason to give up painting?” I tried to be passive aggressive when it came to Jones. It never worked. 

 “I don’t need a bed; I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Jones was my best friend, my only real friend and I stayed around in our Podunk town because I worried if I didn’t, no one would watch over her. No one would be worried about her obsessive painting or her mood swings. But at 23, I was ready to move on with my life so when I got a job at a magazine in California, I couldn’t pass it up. 

 “I’ll have my own office, not a cubicle, an office. And I’ll be on salary. And I can write. And I can get paid to write. Paid cash money, not in paid in ‘experience’.” I was telling Jones all this over the phone while pacing back and forth in my room. 

 “That’s great.” 

 “I still can’t believe I actually got the job. I just…ah, I can’t believe it.” I was smiling. Jones, I could tell, was not. 

 “Listen, I gotta go,” she said abruptly. 

 “Jones, are you ok? I’m sorry. I know that this means I’ll be thousands of miles away. You know I’ll miss you. In fact, I want you to come with me.” The truth is I wasn’t sure how to live without Jones either.

 “I can’t leave, you know that.” 

 “Clint isn’t worth it, Jones.” 

 “I know, but that doesn’t mean I can just pack up and move to California.” 

 “You could. You are 23 with nothing holding you back.”

 “Except myself, I know. Seriously, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up. 

I knew I should feel worse than I did, but my dreams were coming true. I couldn’t always be worried about what Jones would do without me. I wondered what color she’d be changing her room to in light of this news. She had always told me my color was turquoise. But what was turquoise when it was moving to California and leaving her behind?

"She had always told me my color was turquoise."

I found out exactly what color I had become the next afternoon when I stopped by her house. She was supposed to be at work at three o’clock in the afternoon, not at home. But there she was, painting her room silver. Silver was a color I had only seen once. It was the day her mother told her she was getting remarried. I remember it looking like tin foil when she was done. Tin foil’s significance in a crisis, I was unsure of. 

 “Wow, this is a pretty metal room,” I snickered, “Get it? Silver, metal…” 

 She stared at me with a ‘wtf’ look. 

 “Ok, so, California. I’m moving to California, Jones.”

 “Really? I had no idea. Don’t get too many sun rays out there; I hear they are bad for the skin.”

I took a long hard look around the room that was decreasing in size before my very eyes. The silver hurt my eyes the more wall it covered. It was too harsh. It made my eyes squint. I thought about all the time I had spent in this room, watching my best friend try to make it through her daily life. Now, I wouldn’t be here to see it. She’d have to go it alone. And so would I.

“Seriously, just think about it. You could come with me. You have some money saved up. Just go, find a job when you get there,” I said, knowing she would never take my bait. I knew if I didn’t get her out of there now, she’d never leave. 

 “No. This is where I belong and all that bullshit.” 

 “Right. In a room that gets smaller with each paint coat and a town where a boyfriend that treats you like garbage spends his nights drinking, smoking and hitting on dirty whores. Ok Jones, I get it. You don’t want to go. But you will still be my best friend even if I can’t come over and watch you relieve your angst. You know that, right?” She dropped her paint brush on the plastic sheet covering the floor, walked over to me and hugged me.

“Of course I know that. I’ll be ok.”

“It’s not you that I’m worried about as much as I am your room. This color is horrific.” I pulled away from her hug slowly and smiled. She took a look around and shook her head up and down, “Yea, I was a little drunk when I bought this color. Wal-Mart run?” I put my arm around her shoulder and we left. I would catch glimpses of Jones, the way she used to be, before her dad’s death, and know that someday the painting would stop and she’d be whole again. Until then, I just had to be her friend and tell her when a color needed to be painted over.