AllFreeNovel
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“Hey,” he says, looking around to make sure Ky is backing out of the parking lot in his black BMW.
“Dude, relax. You look like a meth addict on a paranoia trip. What’s with all the cologne?”
“I-I–”
“Breathe,” I quip, interrupting him before he has a stuttering fit.
He inhales and lets out a breath through his mouth and starts again. “I wanted to smell good, and how do you know how a meth addict acts?”
I sigh, not wanting to tell him that part. “Where I come from, I just know. Let’s go.”
He places the car in gear and begins to drive down the street.
He glances at me briefly and then says, “I’m sorry about the cologne.”
I’m sure it would smell good if he didn’t pour the entire bottle all over himself. “It isn’t bad.” I glance and see his mouth breaking out into a little grin. “Keep it to a couple sprays when you’re trying to impress a girl, though.”
I point out the last part because I’m not dumb. It is obvious when a guy is trying to make an impression and I see the way he looks at me when he thinks I’m not looking. I thought he said we were only friends.
“Okay. Got it.”
“I can’t be out too late. I have to get to the party to catch a ride home with Tyler.”
“Do you think you have time so I can show you something? I want to show you my drawings.”
“Where is that exactly?” I notice he is driving toward my old neighborhood in West Park.
“Not far.”
After a ten-minute drive and four blocks from West Lake, I can see abandoned buildings to my right with one streetlight. I recognize the buildings from when I would take the bus to meet Ky when I was younger. I notice some of the buildings now have art and graffiti on the exterior walls.
He pulls into an abandoned parking lot in front of one of the buildings. I follow him out of the car and he has a flashlight in his hands. Wait? This is his art? He is the one doing this?
He shines the flashlight on the wall, and I stand, admiring the wall painted in different colors depicting West Park and West Lake. Rich and poor.
“W-what do you think?” he asks after five minutes.
The mural is a mirror image of the way the two towns separate. Nice big estate homes on one side, and West Park with abandoned buildings, broken down cars, and small houses with overgrown grass. The kids are in the street. One street with nice cars, kids wearing nice clothes with smiles on their faces. The other kids have mismatched clothes and rusted bikes with sadness on their faces. All because one side has more money than the other. One side is looked at as better than the other.
“I think it’s perfect.”
He glances at me. “Really?”
“Yeah, you have talent and an eye for things.”
I don’t want to tell him that I know what it feels like to live on both sides. How different kids become as adults when they are raised a certain way.
“Thanks, Rubi. It means a lot coming from you.”
I turn around to head back to the car and say, “Why?”
“Because I have a feeling you understand both sides.
I open the door to his car. “I guess I do. Thanks for the ride and for showing me your art.” He nods before he gets in the driver’s side.
I understand why he drew it on the building. It is his way to express himself and speak out the only way he knows how, and no one will judge him or know who did it. It is obvious that he feels that he doesn’t belong on either side. It is not your choice where you come from. I’m not a shrink or a therapist and I am so fucked up with my own mess and I am no one to give him advice with whatever he is going through. He is obviously bullied at school. He is talented, though, but there is a part of the mural that is missing. The part that doesn’t show a person’s action that makes them good or bad. People from either side could be good or bad. They could make a wrong decision because they didn’t know better, or judge without knowing the truth.
It is why you shouldn’t judge people. We all have our demons and skeletons in our closet.
