Camera

12 - Drift

 yay for weekend update :3 unedited, so you can point out typos for me to fix ^_^

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13 - Drift

Luke Waters

I was re-reading The Catcher in the Rye, lying back against the pillows and she was sitting by my feet with my laptop, unusually silent. I couldn’t really focus though.

 I looked at her over the top of the book.

 She was scrolling through my photos, biting down on her lip furiously in a way that made me think strange things, her eyebrows knitted together and the other hand stroking Blu absently. It was impossible to decipher her thoughts from her expressions, so I uneasily refocused my gaze on the book.

 After a few minutes there was the sound of the laptop being closed. I looked back up at Maya again. She met my gaze immediately.

 “Luke, this…”

 I waited, but she didn’t say anything more.

  “This….what?”

 Her expression became unreadable again, a cross between a vicious frown and intense thought.

 “Your photos are fucking brilliant.”

 I blinked at her for a moment.

 “Oh.”

 Then we were just looking at each other, and she grinned.

 “Luke! I’m serious!”

 Then I started grinning too, when what she said registered, because a compliment from one of the most honest people I know really does mean a lot.

 And it was a compliment from a beautiful girl, but oh well – I didn’t want to seem like a dork.

 “Thanks,” I said, “but I still have a lot to learn.”

 She pooh-ed with a wave of her hand.

 “Whatever.”

 Abruptly her expression became serious.

 “Luke, you really have a future in this.”

 I clenched my jaw and sat back, trying to focus on the book again.

 “Luke.”

 “What?”

 “Talk to me.”

 There was one second of silence in which I stared at the word ‘Phoebe’ in the book blankly, and then I shut it.

 “I might have a future in it.”

 Her expression became one of consternation, concern, something I didn’t feel I deserved.

 “Tell me about your dad, Luke.”

 She was saying my name a lot. Tell me, Luke. Talk to me, Luke.

 I crossed my arms. “There’s nothing to tell about him.”

 “There has to be something.”

 My gaze drifted back to her. She was sitting, completely open, arms by her sides with her palms spread wide on the bedspread, eyes wide and shoulders shrugged up, the most open I’d seen her in a long time, and I wondered why she was that way, it was almost as if she was daring me to –

 I swallowed.

 “Maya, it’s not easy doing something like this, when you thought that someone who would give you all their support turns around like that. And I’m not saying I’m not doing photography. I will. It’s…it’s become like…like…”