Something wet and rough touched my face over and over again, leaving sticky traces all across my skin. "What the fuck?" I whispered and opened one eye. The face of a small dog was looking back at me, panting and giving me a cheesy smile.
"He's like my personal alarm clock." I turned my head towards the sound of Liam's voice. He was still sat on the sofa, rubbing his eyes.
"I didn't know you had a dog," I smiled and scratched behind the beagle's ear.
"Yeah, I was having someone care for him while I was gone but I guess they dropped him off," Liam chuckled. He whistled and the dog jumped from my lap, running into Liam's arms.
"What's his name?" I stood up and arched my back, cracking it in the process. My step-mum would always yell at me for that, but I did it anyways.
"Oscar." The dog perked up at the sound of his name and waited for Liam to give him an order or command.
I nodded my head and yawned. I looked around the room a bit before beginning to fold up the blankets I had used.
"So I think we slept through the whole night," Liam comments and raises the window blinds, letting the early morning light shine through.
"Maybe just a little," I laugh and set the newly folded blankets on the arm of the sofa. "So um..do you want me to walk home, or do we have something planned.."
"I have a little idea in mind," he smiles. "And guess what? You don't even need to change!"
"Ew, Liam, I probably smell like a month old burrito." I lifted the collar of my shirt to my nose as Liam laughed uncontrollably at my comment.
"You don't smell like a month old burrito," he promises, finally being able to quiet his laughter.
"Thanks."
"Let me feed Oscar then we can go." I grabbed my backpack from the back of a dining room chair and met Liam outside his car a few minutes later. "Do you have like a purse or something?"
"Nope, I don't own one of those things. I got everything I need to survive right here." I held my backpack out for him to examine. He looked thoroughly confused.
"Wait," he shifted his weight to his other hip and aimed his hand at me. "You, a girl, don't own a purse or small bag of any kind?"
"That's correct," I say with a smile.
"I've never heard of that before, wow."
"I told you before, I'm a bit different than the average girl. Purses are annoying and they can't even hold that much stuff. This, I can put on my shoulders and have two free hands, while carrying more things."
Liam said, "That's actually really smart," giving me an impressed look.
"Thank you," I say and climb into the front passenger seat of his car. He climbed into the driver's side and the car rumbled to life.
After a few slow minutes of silent driving, I asked, "So where are we going, exactly?"
"I was thinking we could just drive around and see if anything looks appealing," Liam suggests, turning to me for my input.
"Yeah, okay," I nod my head. I folded my legs beneath my body and stared out the window, looking for anything that seemed exciting.
Several minutes and some small talk later, I spotted a place I wanted to go. "Stop the car!" I scream. Liam slammed on the breaks and I went tumbling forwards into the dashboard. "Ow..okay, I had that coming."
"You kind of did," he chuckles, covering his mouth as if it would hide his laughter. "But um, what's here?"
"C'mon," I open the door and step out onto the wet, leafy ground. I breathed in the smell of rain, letting the mind-settling scent lift me away into a calm state.
I walked forward between two bushes into what looked to be an old, abandoned park. I spotted two bats lying in a sand box and grabbed them, handing one over to Liam.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" he asks, wiping away the sand so the label could be read.
"Parks are just about the most cliché things to exist. You know, the couple holding hands, the squirrels running from noises, children crying because they fell off the swings. Nothing's ever different in them."
"And that answers my question how?"
"We," I held up the bat with a michevious smile, "are gonna make a change."
"How? The world's first two-person baseball game?" I couldn't stifle my laugh.
"No. We're gonna rearrange this old run-down park." I trudged through the piles of leaves over to a water fountain. I lifted my bat and swung at the nozzle, knocking it clean off. I jumped backwards as water began spraying in every direction and laughed.
"What the fuck, Ashley?" Liam screams, ripping the bat out of my hands. "What are you doing?"
"I'm making a change." Smiling still, I took the bat back from him and wandered over to a sidewalk light. It was, for some unknown reason, still on. I stared up at it, trying to figure out how I could destroy it.
Hearing the sound of chains braking may be unpleasant to the average person, but it was like music to my ears. I whipped my head around to watch as Liam swung his bat a second time, breaking another chain on the next swing. He flashed me a smile before continuing to demolish the swing set.
I turned back to my street lamp and raised the bat over my head. I rested the end of it against the glass, swung back, then blew the bat into it. A piece of glass flew into my face, but I didn't pay any mind to it. I was having way too much fun.
We spent about an hour dismantling and destroying what used to be a cute little park, but was now a ripped apart junk yard. Liam and I stood at the entrance and examined our hard work. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and let out a satisfied sigh.
Water sprayed from the broken fountain, sparks crackled out of the street lamp, swings hung lop-sided onto the ground, the slides had holes and gashes in them, the sandbox was flipped over with sand spilling out everywhere, trash was strung all over the place, and the benches were no longer able to be sat in, having the boards broken out of them.
"It's almost picture perfect," Liam laughs.
"Not quite. Wait here." I run back to his car and open my door. I dug around in my backpack until my hand found what I was looking for, then I ran back to Liam.
"Do you just carry spray paint in your backpack?"
"Never know when you might need it," I shrug and un-cap it. "Help me clear a space on this concrete."
Together, we cleared a nice, large space, just big enough for two letters and a symbol. I stood back and envisioned how I wanted this to look, shaking the can of red paint.
"What are you doing?" Liam asks, taking a few steps forward so he was in line with me, staring down at the cleaned cement.
"Leaving a mark," I reply and begin spraying over the gray surface. By the time I was done, 'A & L' could be easily read.
"Ashley and Liam," he smiles down at me and I return one.
I stood up and looked around once more. "It looks good. We make a great team, you and I."
"What should we destroy next?" Liam asked after we returned to his car and were driving down the highway again.
"A refrigerator. I'm starving." My stomach took that as it's cue and made a noise, signaling that it was lunch time.
"That makes two of us then," he chuckles. "Where should we go?"
"Wherever the traffic flow takes us!"
~*~
praying the whole destroying a park thing isn't cliché
