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Lilly would miss the colors the most.
Aaron had really managed to get some air on her and now she twirled, like some sick ballerina, high above the family patio. Her hair crossed her eye line. It was caked in red: bright, true red, though growing darker by the second as it fed on the oxygen of the autumnal air. Sticky. Messy. Covering the patio. She could see how it would be.
For now, it was as bright red as the cherry popsicles she had loved to suck when she was young. The flavor had exploded on her tongue and she had let the sticky sweetness cover her chin with glee. She would bob it in and out of her mouth and she’d moan at the cold pleasure. Then her mommy would come out of nowhere with her mouth pinched and her hands clenched. Mommy would snatch the popsicle away and at look down at Lilly as if she were a bad girl and Lilly would wipe her lips with the back of a grimy hand and pout up at Mommy and ask what she’d done wrong.
Her head turned skyward and, at the edge of her vision, a field of
orange flame crept. It flared as it devoured her world.
She had bought the orange pants for him as a joke. Logan had worn them anyway. He said they were precious because they were a gift from her. He could be so saccharin-sweet sometimes that Lilly wanted to gag. Of course, he knew they were a joke, knew it pissed her off every time he actually wore them to school and swaggered down the hall and leaned against her locker. He could be such a prick sometimes that Lilly wanted to scream. Sweetheart and a jackass all at once: that was Logan. Lilly now knew that was hardly the worst thing a man could be.
She could see the edge of the afternoon sun setting behind the house. It winked at her; its bright
yellow cutting through the orange haze like a knife of clarity as she found herself remembering the dress she’d been wearing the day she met Veronica Mars.
The yellow cotton sundress so wasn’t her and she had made a beeline for the old oak tree the second Mom had turned her back. She climbed and she scraped and climbed higher still. Soon the dress would get dirty and – hopefully – rip and Mom could never make her wear it again.
But, halfway up, she couldn’t find a hand hold.
“Hi,” a small voice called down to her.
At first, Lilly could only see a pair of dirty feet attached to scraped white legs, swinging from the branches above. Then the girl had leaned over, her yellow pigtails dangling down as she asked if Lilly needed a hand up.
“I see London! I see France! I see Lilly’s underpants!” Dick yelled up while his little brother laughed. They stopped laughing when a well aimed oak ball had smashed into the middle of Dick’s forehead. The second narrowly missed Beaver’s ducking form. Lilly accepted Veronica’s hand. She marveled at Veronica’s aim and fed her ammo and laughed as the boys ran from them. Boys were so icky.
“Let’s be best friends,” Veronica suggested.
“Forever,” Lilly agreed.
Forever had seemed like such a long time then.
The cold cement slammed into the body. There was a thud. She could hear the thud but she felt nothing. The body wasn’t hers anymore. She could feel the cold of the cement. Or was it everything that felt cold now?
Where had the colors gone? The whole world had been green this afternoon, but she couldn’t see it now. The back lawn had always been a perfect carpet of grass blade tops, each of them just the right height, as Celeste insisted. Lilly loved
green. She even loved her stupid green pep squad outfit. She missed the green already. She knew her eyes were open wide. She should be able to see the green, dammit.
The grass had been green on her knees that first time. James, Jamie, Jacques… Fuck. What had been his name? Behind a pool house, somewhere in France, the grass was damp with dew and the back of her nightgown was wet well before the intersection of her thighs. But that was fine, because your first time was supposed to suck. It was supposed to hurt. And then it got better. And then it got good. And then it was great. She was great.
He had said so.
The nightgown was green – bright green – down the length of her back by the time they were through. Lilly had walked through stillness of the rented house, past Celeste at the breakfast table. A gasp behind her and the rattle of teacup hitting saucer had brought a sly smile to Lilly’s face.
Now Lilly couldn’t smile, couldn’t even gasp.
She could only look at the
blue sky, the last of the world she could see down a dark tunnel of ugliness eating at the boundary her vision. The sky was pale blue under the gray clouds. It was quiet. Unassuming. Peaceful.
“Why do you always let her dress you in blue, Donut?” Lilly grabbed Duncan’s freshly ironed shirt and held it up to the light.
“Uh… because it brings out my beautiful eyes? Now get out of the bathroom, I need to change.” Duncan made a grab for the shirt, but Lilly was too quick for him.
“God! You don’t even get it, do you? You’re like a doll to her. She’d invite you to tea parties if she could. Doesn’t it piss you off?”
Duncan had stared back at her, his face a mask of concern while confusion swirled deep in his passive, blue eyes. He did look good in blue. But that wasn’t the fucking point, and, before Duncan thought to intercede, she had opened, plunged, and flushed. She smirked as she watched the sodden blue scrap whirl in the vortex of the best toilet money could buy.
The vortex was
purple now as it consumed the last of the blue sky. A great deep bruise on the world that would never heal and it was all that Lilly could see. Her eyes felt heavy and dry but she could not blink. She could do nothing but stare into the darkening purple and remember that necklace.
Lynn had worn it with her bikini as she sunned herself poolside and moistened her lips on golden liquor from a cut glass highball. She was so fucking glamorous in her dark, dark shades, and if she flinched when Aaron exited the house with a shout, it was only because she was surprised to see him. He had asked how she liked her new necklace. She said very much.
And then, Aaron had turned to Lilly. His eyes had locked with hers and he’d asked if she liked it.
She’d made sure her hips swayed just so as she approached Lynn’s chair and she’d taken her time bending over, observing the shining jewel as it rose up and down with each of Lynn’s hastily drawn breaths.
Lilly had never seen such a large amethyst before. It was cut so that the many sharp-edged facets flashed in sunlight and she could see herself, in purple miniature, reflected in their shining surfaces. The center was almost black and yet it was the lightest of lilacs around the edge. It called to Lilly as so few things did now. It was cold perfection. It was fabulous. She wanted it to be hers.
She had raised her gaze to Aaron Echolls, and she had darted her tongue to moisten her bottom lip as she had said, “Yes.”
Was it that single syllable the whole reason for where she was now? Or had it started somewhere else, a long time ago? Did she only have herself to blame? She had blamed her mother for so much. But …
And then there were no more colors.
And there was no more Lilly to ask questions.
As it all faded to black.