"Hi".
Annalise got all choked up when she saw Bonnie in front of her. When she opened the door, the last person on Earth she'd expected to see was her former assistant.
Annalise envisioned that very moment many times. She imagined seeing her accidentally on a train, or a ship, or a dull sidewalk. She believed Bonnie would be clever enough to leave town. Maybe she would see her on a warm winter night in Lisbon, or Rome, or Madrid. Maybe she would meet her in Oregon, walking on a white sandy beach.
She imagined turning her back to her, and by doing that brutally hurting her, so that Bonnie would believe she had been totally forgotten. Just a shadow of her past, or maybe not even that.
She pictured that one day Bonnie would have come back to her, knelt at her feet, cried hopelessly, begged Annalise to forgive her, to take her back.
She imagined confronting Bonnie in court, taking her down and leaving her in the courtroom licking her wounds, not even dignifying her with a single look.
She pictured herself… maybe even killing her, because the pain she'd put her through by disappearing all those months was just too much to handle.
Annalise had suffered enough in her life. She knew that she could never list everything that had happened to her, because no one would ever believe her. It would just be ridiculous, one person can not attract so many misfortunes. Probably people would have struggled to stifle an awkward little laugh.
She had only one anchor, all those years. Not Sam and his affairs, not Eve and her priorities, not Frank and his selfishness.
Bonnie.
She knew Bonnie would do anything for her, that she would stay by her side forever, despite everything, through everything, devoted, loyal. Perhaps one day Annalise would get tired of her or decide that it was too much. She would have granted her assistant a second life, a second chance. But Bonnie was never gonna accept anything like that. She would come back every day, begging Annalise to hire her back, arguing that firing her had been a terrible mistake, showing her how much they needed each other. She would come back every day. Until the end of her days.
Except Bonnie, her Bonnie, was gone. Practically overnight, without a note, a letter, anything. Gone forever.
And now she was looking at her, looking her straight in the eye and couldn't understand that she was there, actually there, before her, and couldn't believe that their meeting was that simple, that common: Bonnie knocking at the door, Annalise opening it and seeing her.
"Hi".
Just one word.
Bonnie wasn't crying, she didn't have her eyes filled with tears or a broken, distraught, sorry gaze. She was looking at her, just looking, purely, simply. She was looking at her with a far-away stare. She was looking at her.
Bonnie was wearing a long coat, which ended just above her knees. Her face seemed more relaxed, the cheekbones less gaunt. But it was her gaze that kept attracting Annalise like a magnet, she couldn't stop staring at her, looking at her straight in the eye. Annalise had never seen so much self-confidence in the woman standing next to her. Did she want to make her believe that their meeting was inconsequential? Maybe it was just a mask, perhaps for the first-time Bonnie was able to wear a facade even before Annalise. Her eyes were now opaque, not transparent as they had always been. They were so opaque that Annalise could no longer see what was behind them.
After a long moment of silence, Bonnie finally asked:
"Can I come in?"