A/N: Hairspray? Don't own it. This song? Don't own it, either. (It belongs to Sara Evans, for those of you who want to look it up on iTunes.) I own exactly nothing, except this laptop. And, technically, it was a gift.
Backseat of a Greyhound Bus
By Nor of Kiamo Ko
She wore a dress with cherries on it
Goin' somewhere where she'd be wanted
A town this small
All they do is talk
Brenda stared out the streaked, speckled window of the dirty bus as she thought numbly about what she was supposed to do with the rest of her life. She had snuck out of her house with a suitcase at three in the morning a couple of weeks ago, leaving a note for her parents that said only Goodbye. As if they'd care. As if they'd spoken to her at all in the past five months.
She examined her fingernails. I need to paint these again…
No wedding ring, chipped fingernail polish
She always wished that she could go to college
But some dreams fade
They just slip away
All her plans, so vibrant and visible once, had disappeared in one moment. She had been accepted at Maryland on a dance scholarship; well on her way to becoming Miss Hairspray (or at least a close second to Amber Von Tussle—she dimly hoped whoever had replaced her would kick her skinny blonde behind); the fantasy of every boy at Patterson Park High.
That had all changed with one slip. Her hands instinctively went to her belly as she mentally called Corny Collins every bad name she knew.
She started to show
A few months ago
And she had to go
That's how she wound up
On the backseat of a Greyhound Bus
Head on down with the windows up
Staring at the rest of her life
She looked down at the massive bump under her dress. God, how could I be so stupid? She glared down at her stomach for a while, until she felt the bus lurch to a stop to let more people on.
Without looking up, she knew that the passengers boarding the Greyhound were staring at her, judging her before they listened to a single word she had to say.
It was an accident, she told each of them silently. A stupid mistake that I'm paying for, with everything I have.
Everyone in the Council had abandoned her after she left. And why wouldn't they? She was pregnant with a child that half-belonged to Corny Collins. She hadn't told anyone, but they all knew.
She sighed and looked out the window again. All of that was behind her now. It used to make her angry, but these days she didn't feel much anymore…
She never thought this would be the place
Where she would find her saving grace
But she fell in love
She fell in love
On the backseat of a Greyhound Bus
The moon was full
The stars were smiling
God has a funny sense of timing
The baby came
On the Interstate
It happened unbelievably fast: one minute, Brenda was reading a magazine she had picked up at the last bus station, and the next, there was a puddle around her feet. For a moment, she wasn't even sure what happened.
That didn't last long.
The woman next to her gasped and put an arm around her shoulders. "Honey, your water just broke!"
It took a second to sink in. "You mean… I'm having this baby?"
In the blink of an eye, someone had called an ambulance. She sat in the back of it, feeling like there was a buffalo trying to push its way out of her birth canal.
She screamed, but not entirely from pain. This was the first time she'd felt alive in months.
Somewhere between Jackson and Memphis
She finally found what she had been missing
She cried and laughed
While the red lights flashed
Sweet baby girl
She looked into
The face of a new
The face of a brand new world
Three days later, she was standing at the top of the steps on the same bus that had taken her so far away from home. Now she was back in the same place she'd started... but a million things had changed.
"Grace," she whispered to the newborn baby in her arms. "We're home."
And they stepped off the bus together, into a world that neither of them were sure of yet... except for the fact that they had each other.
On the backseat of a Greyhound Bus
Heart so full that it could bust
Staring at the rest of her life
She never thought this would be the place
Where she would find her saving grace
But she fell in love
She fell in love
On the backseat of a Greyhound Bus
Sweet baby girl
She found a brand new world
On the backseat of a Greyhound Bus
Heart so full that it could bust
Staring at the rest of her life
She never thought this would be the place
Where she would find her saving grace
But she fell in love
She fell in love
On the backseat of a Greyhound Bus