The Way Art Cracks

1.

I think when artists create a child, it's kind of like a collaboration into making a masterpiece. They mold their bodies together and every space and unoccupied angle of each other's body to make a child.
Sometimes, I guess they press themselves too close, and like clay in a furnace, the heat exposure and the incorrectly molded piece of clay results in a cracked masterpiece.
I see this now in my friend, Hannah.Her smile looked less like a purposeful physical movement and more like a permanent disfigurement. Not to say that she isn't lovely, but it's a sad attempt of a mask, and the attempt itself seems disfigured.
"Shut up. You don't know what you're talking about. You need to learn how to have fun."
"Hannah, I really don't think you actually know how to have fun."
"I know plenty. It involves getting off your ass."
"But I don't know if I can."
And when I look down at the pile of candy wrappers that have accumulated on my lap, I actually pause to think how hard it would be to get up. I can feel the weight of each wrapper.
"That's what I'm here for; motivational speeches and stuff." Hannah raises from her bed and pulls on my arm. This somehow leads to me standing up, walking, walking farther, and taking a few more steps up someone's brick porch.
The porch leads to a red door which leads to a white room that opens up into an entire house.  
"Golly, what a place." I breathe this out longer than I'm supposed to and Hnnah ignores my comment.  
The walls and the furniture are almost overwhelmingly plain. White walls, kaki toned couches and matching hard wood flooring. It's so plain I can feel my brain cells dying from lack of stimulation.
They aren't just shriveling up either, they are kissing their children, drowning the family pets, and offing themselves. It's pretty fucking awful.  "Hey, Hannah. Didn't think you'd make it."
A breathless guy with oily hair stands in front of us, his axe body spray doing a less than decent job of hiding the smell of unwashed teenage boy.  
"Lucky for you I did. This is my friend, Kaitlyn." She motions towards me with her eyes and smiles. It's ridiculous how calmly she takes socializing.  
"Party is upstairs, but you know that."
He smiles and sluggishly walks up the steps.  He leads us up the stairs and takes a left down a white hallway, then opens the right of the two white doors. Smoke billows through the doorway, followed by the shouting of five or so people. Each of these people say something along the lines of, "Shut that fucking door, man!"  
Hannah motions for me to follow but doesn't turn to me until we've sat on the chair together, facing the television.  
"Am I having fun yet?"  
"You're about to." She smiles as the Axe guy appears with two joints. And the smoke feels heavy and it lightens my body. I'm giggly and I can only imagine how horribly unnatractive I am.
Red eyes, wide smile, messy hair, and harsh laughter are not highly sought after, even for pot heads. I cuddle into Hannah, who cuddles back. Her hair smells like strawberries and cigarettes and her hands are warm.

The air becomes thick around us, and the socializing that is occurring on the couch and floor beside us muffles itself. We stay like that for a while, silent.
"When are you going to write your book?" Hannah glances up at me, wrapping her index finger around my hair.
"When I have the time."
"You have the time now, you're just wasting it on me."
"Not really wasting it. Writing comes from experience. I can't be a great writer if I never leave my house."
"So you are going to be a great writer?"
"As great as I can be."
"And you're going to write about this? A bunch of sad kids getting high in some rich guy's house? A bunch of bums?"
"We're not bums."
"You might not be now. But you're going to be if you keep this up." Hannah sits up and the air fills in the unoccupied space.
"You should leave."
"Okay, lets go." She shakes her head, "No, just you." And I don't know what she means, but the order makes me panic. The tired look on her face. "You can't tell me what to do." Because I have nothing better to say. "You're right. I'm just making a suggestion. Because otherwise, who are you? What makes you different from us? You're a writer. A good one. I've read what you can do. Don't waste that." Hannah pauses. "We don't have anything. Some of us have our mommies and daddies money, but some don't have that. And none of us have anything like what you have. Those grades? They'll get you places. Your writing? You'll create places. You have the possibility of doing so  much, and we just don't." She curles herself into a ball, and leans back into me.
"Do you see that girl over there? Redish brown hair? She won the spelling bee when we were twelve. She made the highest grades in elementary school. Duke sent her letters and stuff ‘cause she's so smart, right? And now she's here. She's tired. The fight is gone, and she's just laying here like the rest of us. She's not special anymore."
"Hannah, everyone is special some way. You can't give in to this way that you see everything. Everyone here is more than what this room may try to limit us to."
"I'll see you tomorrow, Kaitlyn."
And that's it. I look at her, my best friend, looking away from me, and I realize that I've failed some how. Like our differences are making her sad.
So I stand up and walk across the room. When I turn at the door, I see the guy with the axe body spray leaning over the chair to talk to Hannah, and she's laughing, the noise echoing out like a rock hitting something hollow inside of her. When she looks at me, she recovers by standing up and walking off with the Axe guy. And I don't know if I can take what is going to happen next so I leave. I leave instead of trying to stop her.