In sophomore year religion class, I stare at the pair of feet under the desk next to mine. They’re like canoes, covered in blue plaid Chuck Taylors with taut laces. They belong to a Taiwanese exchange student. Sometimes I use my peripheral vision to peek at his doodles, but they’re the same every day: headshots of women with hair shaped like lightning.
“That won’t ever happen,” I’d say, jaw tight.
“In what language?” I asked.
My grandpa played that song on one of our drives to the airport. It was the first time I heard the real lyrics. It’d be a few years till I understood.
I like him fine without thought or effort—he’s quick with directions and flips omelets like a professional—but these cowboy boot moments test my trust in him. I start to imagine cement crumbling around bricks. Every time he uses the word perfect, every time he answers his mom’s phone calls when I’m lying in bed beside him, I pull a brick from the wall and stick a piece of paper in the gap. I know he won’t read them.
“Then what?”
