Beauty Killed the Beast

“Scarlet, are you ready to go pick up the boys from the airport?” Gwen called down the hall to her friend and roommate, Scarlet. The girls met in college and had been inseparable ever since.

It had been almost three years since the last time Gwen had seen Ronnie. She knew Ronnie had been bad news since the day she met him and he pointed a loaded gun right at her face. It had only been a matter of time before he got arrested and sent to prison for two years. Now, a year after his release, she was finally going to see him again. Scarlet had developed a relationship with his new band’s guitar player, Jacky Vincent and the two girls were going to pick up Jacky and Ronnie at the airport.

“There’s nothing to be scared of. It’s just Ronnie.” Scarlet tried to soothe Gwen’s racing nerves.

Gwen shook her head, taking deep breaths. “What if he’s not the same Ronnie I used to know? I mean, I know he’s going to be different. But what if prison changed him into a person that I’m not going to like?”

“Would you just relax?” Scarlet tried to lighten Gwen’s mood. She could feel the tension Gwen was having with her Ronnie problems and wished she could do something to help. Scarlet didn’t know much about Gwen’s past with Ronnie. All she knew was that they had gone to high school together and developed a relationship. She had no idea what else had happened between the two.

The airport was loud and busy as usual. They didn’t expect it to be anything but. They passed by families with crying kids, business men and women yapping on their cellphones, dragging suitcases behind them, and the occasional married couple who just wanted to get away from everyone so they could be alone.

The girls stood at the glass wall and watched the planes land. Each plane that landed could have been carrying Ronnie inside of it. After two different planes, Ronnie and Jacky’s finally landed. When Gwen saw Ronnie emerge from the tunnel, she was brought back in time to the moment he confided in her for the very first time.

“How come no one is ever home?” Gwen asked, playing with the tassels on her bag.

Ronnie became suspiciously quiet. He just looked down at his feet and ran a hand through his dark hair. “She’s the reason I do all this bad stuff, you know. She’s why I do drugs and stupid shit. She left us.”
“Your mother?” Gwen took a guess.

“And my dad,” Ronnie continued. “He never has the time for us. My brother is a drug addict, my mother isn’t ever around and my father is doing all that he can to try and support us on his own. She took a piece of me the day she went away.”

“I’m so sorry, Ronnie.” Gwen reached out her hand and placed it on his knee.

Ronnie looked at Gwen’s hand and then let his eyes travel up her arm. “Where did those bruises come from?”

Gwen pulled her arm away quickly. “Nowhere. I-I fell. That’s all.”

Ronnie knew that she was lying but he could tell she didn’t want to get into it. She just wanted to drop the subject. Clearly, it wasn’t important enough to her. He was more important to her than anything else going on in her own life.

He stood up sharply and walked over to the window, pulling the curtains open. He looked back at her, the sunlight pouring in and brightening his shadowed face. “You fell so hard that you’re killing yourself.”