Picture Perfect Night Sky

21 ¦ Margaret Fellice

I fidget my camera in my hand. Trying to look around to see a beautiful view, but there's none, I can't see any good angle. I let out a sigh knowing that I'm being useless again.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Nancy's voice sweeps into my ear, breaking me free from my thoughts.

I glance at her, but she has her focus on the road, which is good. "Just trying to be useful as possible." Still fidgeting my camera on my hand.

Nancy hums with the birds chirping across the horizon. I could take a picture to that, but the sky however is dim—like my father's soul. Good thing he's not in the house when I pay to visit just to take my camera. If he was in the house, I would just bail and leave the camera. I just don't want to be in his presence.

"You know, I can always tell if there's something bothering you." Nancy takes a quick glance at me in the front mirror. "And it's not just about finding a way to be useful. I can feel there's something else." I forgot about Nancy's superpower. She always can tell from my facial expression whenever I have something else in my mind. It's getting quite annoying actually, but this is my cue to rant to her, I guess. "Come on, you can tell me what's wrong. I won't judge, I promise."

I'm trying to come up with something that will distract her attention to my current problem, but I can't think of anything in this state of my mind. To be honest, I don't want her to know my real problem, the problem about my father, not yet really. I still trying you find that courage to reach out. Yes, even if she's my best friend, I'm still scared to reach out, even to Noah. If I found that courage, perhaps I'll tell them, but for now, I need to come up with something that can distract Nancy from my real problem, or can I say, someone.

"There's this guy that caught my attention recently, actually." Fidgeting my camera more vigorous than before, feeling quite nervous about her opinion about this guy. This is not entirely a lie, because I'm really having this problem with this guy.

"Who is this guy?" After a second, she gasps loudly that made me jump slightly from my seat. "Don't tell me you're in love with this Jacob guy?"

"What? No!" I immediately protest, the thought of me feeling lovey-dovey to that guy makes me want to jump off this moving car. "That's the most disturbing thing I've heard from you so far."

She laughs so hard that she's practically coughing right now. "Sorry, but just tell me who's this guy that caught your attention?"

"His name is Amon Mason." I stare out of the window, staring the sun that is about to set down. He really caught my attention, and I don't know why.

"What about this Amon guy anyway?" She takes another quick glance at me in the front mirror.

"Uh, he seems like a nice guy but..." I let out a shaky breath, "I think there's something about him that I want to know. On the surface he looks fine, but somewhere deep down, that's what I want to know about him."

"He caught your attention because he's like you, huh?"

I shrug off that insight. "Perhaps."

After a minute, I glance at Nancy's perplexed face. "So, are you telling me you liked him because he reminded you of yourself?"

Letting out a deep sigh, "I don't know, actually. I really don't know, and I know this wasn't the answer you're looking for, I just really don't know what makes me curious about this Amon guy."

Nancy also lets out a deep sigh, her gaze still fixed on the road. "Are you still shocked about that text message you got earlier? Is that the reason why you're like this?"

Oh, that's right, I totally forgot that I need to meet Jacob in the library. Why is that anyway? "Jacob just texted me out of nowhere." I hear Nancy gasps out when I said his name. "He wanted me to meet him in the school library." I add. "But I just don't know what's the reason to it."