Little Red Balloons

Chapter 6

Three weeks had passed since I have spoken to Melanie or my father. The only times I went home was to pick up either money, clothes or to spend a moment of my time with my mom. I spent all my time now with S at her apartment, we ate ramen noodles and drank a lot. But most importantly we spray painted. By now we had made about 12 pieces together, she also took me to go see all of her old pieces.

That morning was the same as any other, I woke up with S in my arms and I went and got dressed for the day. I grabbed a bowl of cereal and turned on the TV, it was on the news station so I took advantage to see what was going on here the big apple.

“...the police are still trying to capture this dangerous criminal. But on a more positive note, a series of Graffiti works have been showing up around Brooklyn, their popularity has been brought to our attention due to all of it’s coverage in social media. Especially since the artist of these masterpieces is unknown.” The anchorman reported. My heart nearly stopped, on the small screen a slide show of my graffiti started to appear. All I could feel was my bowl of cereal crash to the ground.

“S! S!” I screamed down the hall, slamming my shins against the bed, leaning over her and pulling her up with one tug of my arm. I dragged her to the kitchen where our small Sony sat on the counter, a slideshow of some of our different artworks scrolled along the screen. S screamed and jumped into my arms. A smile ran itself across both of our faces. I leaned in and kissed her, than put her down, smiling. This was one of the best moments of my life, in all the commotion I could hear the kettle screaming on the stove.

“You need to show your dad, or like tell him about your work, it’s amazing. Look how much publicity it is getting! “  S whispered to me, her smile looked sympathetic yet firm because she knew this was not a request it was a demand.

“Ok, I will. But only if you finally answer my question.”

“What question?”

“What is it with you and always drawing these little girls? Is it your signature look, every one of your pieces has a little girl in it… do they represent something?”

“Well,” she cleared her throat, and walked over to pick up the shattered bowl of cereal on the ground, “you know how I told you that my parents left me when I was very young?”

“Yeah, eight right?” I leaned down and picked up the shattered pieces with her. Out of the corner of my eye I saw all the colors drain from her face, like a photograph being edited to black and white.

“Well…. um… I never really had a childhood,” a tear ran down her cheek, I wanted to help her but I didn't know how. “From age eight  I needed to fend for myself in this big fat city, I let my age slip away and I locked up that little girl inside of me.” She sat down, pulled her knees up to her chest and stared blankly at the wall, if I hadn’t known better she looked like a child, crying about the monsters under her bed. For S these monsters didn’t hide under her bed, they stood right behind her and pulled her down into the darkness with them.

“So, you like to create a childhood for this little girl in your artwork?”

“Yeah, a place of color and fantasy, whenever I paint she escapes from inside of me and creates what she wishes she had filled her life with. Fairies, colors, umbrellas to shield her from the rain.” For a second she stopped breathing, I almost worried that she had forgotten how to but then she took a deep breath closing her eyes and wiped the tears from her eyes.

I pushed my body towards her, I wrapped my arms around her. S started to weep into my chest.

“I just can’t stop her,” She whispered between tears, “she needs this, I need this. I can’t keep her in any more.”

“It’s ok, you're doing the right thing.” I rocked her, just how my mom did when she told me her big news. I didn’t want to let S go, not now not ever, so we just sat in our little bubble. I wasn’t going to let her get dragged into the darkness, she was stronger than those little monsters that followed her every step.