Look At What Dad Brought Home

5- Impossible

I woke up in a puddle of sweat to Liam's calming words directed at me.
"Sweetness? Its ok. It was just a dream, whatever happened. Do you want me to grab you a coffee or some chocolate? We've stopped at a rest stop so Lizzy could pee. She has the bladder of a squirrel, by the way."
He had his hand in my probably gross sweaty hair as he leaned over me, the little lines between his eyebrows scrubbing up in worry.
Suddenly, as I looked into his annoyingly gorgeous eyes, I realized this was not the Liam from my nightmare. This Liam was an annoying but ok guy. That was some other kind of monster, and wherever we were going I would be ok.
He was still staring at me, concerned.
"Oh right um no. I'm fine thank you very much."
He breathed out a sigh of relief and sat back, awkwardly pulling his hand back.
When he was finally fully sat back in his seat I spoke.
"Oh and if you ever call me sweetness again I will hang you by your eyelids from the ceiling. Then tickle you."
*
"Cor he's a fucking psychopath."
Lizzy whispered in my ear as outside of the car Liam was screaming at himself.
His words were barely understandable, but I could make Out parts.
"HOLY SHIT IVE FAILED YOUVE FAILED IDIOT WEVE FAILED. YOURE SCREWED YOURE SO SCREWED HES SCREWED WERE ALL SCREWED. YOU CANT DO THIS! YOURE ABOUT AS HELPFUL AS HE IS!"
He had taken my cellphone a few minutes ago so he could, as he said, 'contact his homies'. Whatever THAT meant.
So now we were stopped with corn on either sides of us, somewhere on the road to Vegas. With our psychopath outside screaming. To himself mind you, he had hung up ages ago.
It was night by now, and even though the sky looked gorgeous with all those stars that looked as if they'd just been sprinkled in, I was terrified of all the dark and corn. I've SEEN children of the corn I don't plan on dying today.
I looked back out to make sure he wasn't eaten by evil corn munchkins with black soulless eyes, and realized he was now just sitting on the ground.
Turning to Liz for help, I realized she was 'asleep'.
I shook her violently.
"LIZZZZZYYY!"
"Dontdosadpeople." she mumbled, in a fake talking in her sleep way.
After more shaking I realized she wasn't gonna move, so I rolled my eyes and got out.
His back was pressed against the back door of the car and tire, and he just had his eyes closed as he tilted his head towards the sky.
I took a step in his direction, but he immediately stopped me.
"sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
I continued walking, before planting myself next to him.
"There's no use trying. One can't believe impossible things."
I quoted the book back at him and he let out a chuckle.
"Yeah but Cor, what if you just never eat breakfast. Could 7 things not be believed?"
I giggled too.
"I suppose so."
Then we relapsed back in silence, surrounded only by the corn and the soft dirt beneath us. The moon shone brightly over our heads like a little lamp, and those little stars twinkled, even though they'd been dead long before us.
"A child."
I immediately turned to him, brows furrowed in confusion.
"Yours?"
He breathed out, in a saddening way, as though he'd given up on his lungs and just let them collapse into himself.
"Nah. Thankfully. Its my friend Alex's. He got this girl prwgnant ages ago. It was really stupid of him, and now she's refusing to care for it and told him this is his fault, so the second it comes out its his and only his. The thing is the guys got issues. I love him, but he's barely got money for himself and he spends his time painting walls. Illegally."
"Ah. I see." I awkwardly said, not able to relate at all.
"Anyways. The baby's coming soon, and he's not ready at all. That's why I really want to go to Vegas. I need to be there for him."
"So your plan was..?"
"Well I was doing one last painting. As a goodbye to our town and everything that happened there. I mean I hated it, I wanted to leave every moment of my life. But when it came to leaving, I remembered so much. The bad things mostly, but it wasn't all bad. You know the diner on 5th? With the good milkshakes? Well Mr. Benson and his wife used to run it. He taught me how to spiral a football, and helped me pick nectarines from the little tree back there. His death was one of the worst days of my life, and Mrs.Benson sold it to some new man in town. And the giant hill by the grocery store? I used to ride my bike down it everyday and when James Holden was working shifts he's bring a shopping cart and push me down in that. Perkins Elementary school? My first painting. And the high school? My 10th grade art teacher brought us feild tripping to the wall to add stuff. And that was my first spray paint. Anyways, I was painting my way of goodbye on the side of the ice cream shop, because he would be wanted it there, and your dad caught me. I was heading out to Vegas tonight."
I was left kind of speechless.
When he spoke of the wall, I immediately knew he meant Salvation Wall . Down by one of the parks there's a big wall of concrete, leftover from a long gone building, that has no actual use. One legendary graffiti artist painted this huge bird scene on it, the little black silhouettes helpless and tiny in the knot of purples and blues around them. They flew right off the edge, and after that every one came there. Not to put up simple words or initails, but for actual work. It was covered in gorgeous pieces of people and trees and landscapes and animals and each a bit different, overlapping over one another. Each were different in their own ways, but you could see which had been done by the same artist.
If it was considered Salvation Wall because it had survived when the rest of the building had crumbled or because artists went there during times of struggle to get back to basics I did not know. Nor did I know who had named it, but I loved the wall. I constantly went there, to calm myself and get tangled in the swirling images.
Not knowing what to say about the whole baby situation, I leaned my head against his shoulder.
At first I could feel him tense to my touch, and immediately started regretting it. I had JUST met the guy, but felt like I'd known him forever in a way. Just as I was about to pull my head up again, he sighed contently and curled into me, tangled with me on the cool ground.