CHAPTER 26

The car seat is soaked from the drench of my steady tears.

I'm keeping my crying silent because it wouldn't be fair to him to make him stop his telling and try to comfort my discomfort with his history.

Mozey's reality.

A sadder story, I've never known.

The bravery it took to tell it—I'll probably never encounter again.

I loved Mozey before, but now I'm in awe of him.

How did he turn out so incredible when his journey wasn't only painful, it was torturous?

"Thank you for telling me that," I say, wiping the snot from my nose on the back of my sleeve.

"It's a truly remarkable story."

"You sound like a social worker, Lana.

Tell me what you really think? Disgusted by how pathetic it is? Does it make you see me as weak?"

"Don't get angry for telling me, Mozey.

You chose to share it with me.

It's a story of great strength not a show of weakness.

Everyone has a tale of origin and not all of them are pretty.

Thing is, it's your starting point, and it doesn't have to define all of you.

It is a remarkable story and you turned into a remarkable person.

" We pull off of the highway into a rest area offering gas and bathrooms and something to eat.

We're suddenly back in civilization after so many miles covered with only the two of us.

Mozey exits the car and slams the door without sharing a plan of why we stopped or of what we're going to do here.

He hates that he made himself vulnerable.

He wants me to see him as strong.

I know from my training in social work and all the years in the field, Mozey hates his own beginning and that means he hates himself.

It's something I can relate to—of course nowhere near as extreme as his own.

But I too often feel tainted by the shadow of my beginning.

It's the unshakeable feeling of wanting to shake off your own history and rewrite yourself.

I drag my feet over to the bathrooms on the side of the gas station.

They stink from the outside so I'm sure it's not going to be pretty.

There are no stalls, only a row of toilets and none of them have seats.

Since we started this trip, I feel like every bathroom in Mexico was left in a state of being incomplete.

Where are all the toilet seats? Don't they come with the toilets? I drag myself over to the darkest corner and reluctantly pull down my pants.

At least I can't understand what people are saying; it gives me a false sense of cover.

There is no toilet paper, of course.

There's an attendant, but I forgot my pesos in the car.

I try to decide what's more humiliating: flagging her down from the pot or not wiping in front of everyone and pulling my pants up despite the drips.

I go with the latter.

I don't care if I'm dirty.

I trudge over to the car, and Mozey is nowhere in sight.

He must have gone to get food and felt like I didn't need an invite.

In other words, he expects me to pull away and confirm the worthlessness that he feels.

I'm trained in this shit.

I know how to deal with it.

I'm being pulled into the undertow of his sea of grief.

The sadness I feel is here for two reasons.

The first is that the man I love has had it really rough.

He hates himself, he feels unworthy.

He is deeply, deeply scarred.

He thinks his sister deserves to be here and the whole incident was his fault.

The second reason is more personal.

Today, more than ever, Mozey has shown me that it's not a good idea to get involved with him.

He needs professional help, and I'm a professional.

His seeking attention and approval from me is symptomatic of the trauma, not a sign he's in love with me.

I can't add myself onto the list of people who have hurt him.

I can't do that to him.

I care about him too much.

He's on a payphone by the entrance of the restaurant, and I can tell from the slump of his shoulders and how his hand grips the box that the conversation isn't a good one.

His strong body looks as if it could be close to breaking down in sobs.

I buy weird looking Mexican chips and candy in the small convenience story by the phones.

I can't peel my eyes off him and the toll the conversation is taking—his whole frame is caving.

I pay for the junk food and make my way closer.

It sounds like he's speaking a bit in Spanish.

My guess is that he's talking to his wife.

Thinking about Brisa probably makes him think about his son.

I don't want to intrude, so I sit on the side of a huge ceramic potted plant.

I tear open a bag of chips still not taking my eyes from him.

Of course they're as hot as lava, all mashed into some cornmeal.

My throat constricts, my eyes water, and I start to cough.

Mosey turns around at my choking and brings the phone to his chest.

"You okay, baby?" he asks.

Oh, for the love of God, DO NOT, call me baby! Especially not in this moment.

I nod my head yes and pound on my chest with my fist.

How does this whole country consume fire food? Don't they get ulcers from eating like this? I watch Mozey's mouth form the words, "gotta go," and he hangs up the phone.

He's coming to save me from my Scoville scale emergency that's my own stupid fault.

"Want some lava lamp chips? They taste like Mount Saint Helens," I ask lamely.

I've just about given up on this trip.

I'm acting dumb to avoid the tension between us.

He says nothing but grabs my hand and pulls me to standing.

"Did you get to the bathroom?" he asks, picking up stride through the parking lot.

"Yeah.

I peed like a champ and then didn't wipe in front of everyone."

"Nice," he replies, looking both ways for cars in the parking lot.

We rush across the lot to our car by the bathrooms.

There doesn't seem to be any organized rhyme or reason to the coming and going of vehicles.

Without signs or traffic signals, the parking lot is mayhem.

We're trying to pass through a jumble of cars that are all stuck in the stalemate of parking lot gridlock.

Mozey pulls my hand, and we attempt to cross, just as a car sees an opening and whizzes right past us, dousing us in dirty puddle water and almost taking my foot off.

Mozey roars with misdirected anger and lunges at the car, which is now stuck in a new spot fifteen feet from where it was before.

He kicks the frame on the underside of the driver's side door.

It probably hurts his foot a lot more than it hurts the car.

He swears loudly in Spanish and offers a spew of insults that make me blush even though I'm not sure what he's saying.

I get the gist of it.

I'm pretty fluent in anger.

I always understood my mother's perfectly.

But I'm not quite fluent in treating it.

If that were the case, I would have cured myself years ago.

"Mo, just leave it!" I shout, with visions of narcos and crooked cops and general lawlessness taking over.

He has no idea who he's kicking, and we should always be careful.

Especially here.

With the both of us, foreigners, no one to look after us or worry if we go missing.

"Mo, you want to paint? I saw a good spot over here," I say, nodding in the direction of the pretend spot that I didn't see.

He perks up like a wolf catching a scent in the breeze.

"Yeah, the side of the bathrooms? I was thinking the same thing."

"Let's do it!" I say, grasping at strings.

Mozey shrugs at the driver who is exiting the car.

His attention has been captured, and his mind is already there, creating the outlines, filling in the color with long and even strokes.

He grabs his backpack from the trunk, and I hear the telltale clanking of full cans of spray paint being jostled and banging.

He's already got the idea, I can tell from looking at him.

His eyes are full of glitter, and his chest is panting.

This man was born to create, and when he does, he's in his element.

I sit in the grass and cool my tongue down with some terrible chocolate and gummy things.

Wouldn't you just know it, most of the Mexican candy even has hot stuff in it.

I finally figured it out.

That's how they do it.

They train their kids young.

Mozey takes a lollipop dipped in chili powder and pops it in his mouth.

I lean back on my arms and decide that this is how I'll always remember him: beanie on his head, barely holding back his hair, brow furrowed in concentration, sucker in his mouth.

I thought he would paint the van or maybe Brisa being taken, but Mozey is painting flowers.

He must have been inspired by Paradise.

There is so much color that it's making me dizzy.

I take out another chili-dipped sucker, tentatively lick it and hold my breath as I stick it in my mouth.

I can't believe I didn't buy water.

I know in a few hours I'm going to regret eating this.

When he comes to the end, after a field full of warm colored flowers, he paints a tall and proud looking Mexican woman who can only be his mother.

She has his Indian features, sharp brow and strong jaw, the same expression of intelligence and defiance that she passed onto her son.

She is holding two giant, tropical orange-red flowers.

In the center of one, is curled a small baby girl.

In the center of the other, Mozey paints his own face.

It takes him so few swipes of the can to create his own likeness to perfection, that I gawk with my jaw open, feeling like I'm watching some kind of magician.

He signs his name in the corner and wipes the sweat from his brow.

He finished a masterpiece before he finished his lollipop.

He pulls me to standing and I brush the dried grass from my butt.

"You are so talented, Mo," I say, looking up at him in awe.

"Save it, Doc.

I'm not going to paint you or kiss you."

It's funny how you can go from being overwhelmed with compassion and emotion in one second to angry frustration from one stupid sentence.

From a little chain of words unleashed as a joke from the lips of the man that you are helplessly in love with.

I ball my fists and go to charge away from him.

He grabs my arm and yanks me back forcefully, and his expression is pained.

"Were you talking to your wife?" I demand, sounding jealous and so, so immature, even to myself.

I don't want to be like this.

I know better.

We aren't even having a relationship.

I'm going to drop him off in Mexico.

"Don't be mad, Lana.

I was talking to my mom."

"You're in touch with her?" I asked surprised.

"It's hard not to be when she's always searching me down looking for money."

"Oh, I thought you were estranged."

I say, jamming my hands in my pockets.

"We should get driving," I say vacantly but my face is now covered in tears.

"I shouldn't have told you that story.

It's too much to hear.

Thanks for this," he says, motioning to the painting.

"Helped get me out of my head."

We walk a few steps and then Mozey stops again.

"Lana? I love it when you watch me paint."

He's so earnest, and he's holding my fingers but gently pulling me toward him.

I sob out loud, and it sounds strange and foreign, like an animal dying or some strangled foghorn; a ship's warning.

How can I get you out of my head? I shouldn't be holding you.

I shouldn't be craving your touch with every single part of me.

"Want me to drive?" I ask, straightening my shoulders.

"You drive me crazy.

I want to see you.

Can you be your true self?" Mozey smashes me into a hug, and my body goes limp.

He kneads the back of my neck and breathes in my scent.

I can feel his heart beating against mine.

I know that I frustrate him.

I know that it's sick to want to both fuck him and save him.

"Thanks for listening to the world's saddest and most awkward story.

Don't let it affect you.

Try not to get lost in it, it's over—for the most part."

"I know it is.

But I can't help but want to save that part of you.

I want to go back in time and protect you from everything bad you ever had to go through."

"Without those experiences, Lana, I wouldn't be standing here in front of you.

I was only messing with you before.

I've been dying to kiss you.

Watching your mouth while you sleep is the worst kind of torture."

Mo walks me backward and presses me up against the wet paint.

I can feel that it's still wet from how my shirt and pants stick to it.

"Be careful.

We'll ruin it."

"I'll ruin you, if you let me."

Do you think that from a kiss you might see the rest of your future? That a kiss can dissolve all the fears you've held onto your entire life? Or that it could assure you that no mistakes were made in solidifying your destiny? That now was meant to be now and everything will turn out fine?

No? Well, then you've never kissed Mozey.

His sweet tongue has never slid between your lips and opened up your whole universe, flooding it with color and emotion.

He's never grabbed the back of your neck and pushed you harder into the wall, pressing the entire length of his body up along yours, letting you feel it all.

All of the sorrow and the pain and the beauty and the desire, a rainstorm of emotion packaged tightly into

one perfect person.

It's funny how perfection can completely change its definition.

How

perfect can become the man whose arms are holding you up.

How perfect, perfectly describes this man whose entire life has been ravaged by imperfections.

My body flushes with heat in response to his desire.

Lana? The one they call Doc.

The social worker? Well, that lady can go fuck herself.

There is no one here to judge us.

It's just him and me, pressed up against a rest stop bathroom, lost on a long highway, on an involuntary road trip to Mexico.

Mozey has his hands against the wall as he greedily consumes my mouth.

When he moves his hand down to touch my body, the bright smears of paint leave stains on my shirt.

I love that his touch leaves a mark on me.

I want to be marked by him, taken and possessed.

I pull him in tighter to focus on really kissing him for the very first time.

After ten minutes of kissing we get back into the car.

My lips are swollen and they hurt in the very best possible way.

I drive this time so Mozey can rest.

I'm not sure how this changes things.

All I can think is that it will lead to sex.

Maybe even tonight if we get a hotel room.

I can't stop thinking about it and glancing over at his crotch.

I'm like a junior high school boy, fixated with his body, especially with his penis.

My brain is on a repeat loop fantasy of touching and undressing him.

And some little part of me feels like a child molester.

Like we just finished a therapy session and I still want to fuck him.

Get him to let his guard down and open up then go in for the kill.

I should write the fucking manual on effective social work with juvenile delinquents.

I make a mental note to reach out to Gunnar Anderson when we stop for the night.

He still works in the system, and he could do a run on Brisa's first name at least.

It probably won't yield much, but it's better than nothing.

From what Mozey has told me it sounds as if she was taken to be raised by that woman and not just kidnapped randomly with some unknown motive.

I'm sure they changed her name, if they even ever knew what it was.

Gunnar could run age and ethnicity but that would put us in the thousands.

Thousands of lost youth, and that's only LA county.

Brisa could be anywhere.

She could be anybody.

I reach my hand out and touch Mozey's arm.

He's asleep.

He's probably emotionally exhausted.

I want to do two things simultaneously.

One, I want to start on forever with him, consummate our relationship and then spend the rest of my life with him.

And two, tell him it's over—that we're completely done.

It was a mistake to take it as far as it's gone.

Tell him I'm sorry, drop him off in Mexico City and then just fucking run.