𝙵𝙾𝚁𝙶𝙴𝚃 𝙷𝙴𝚁࿐ ྂ ᴊᴇꜰꜰ ʙᴜᴄᴋʟᴇʏ

ᴛᴇɴ

JUNE, 1990
NYC .ೃ࿐

POLLY'S SEMESTER WOULD SOON END,

and she would be able to have much-needed free time once more.

Well, she would, if Johnny Clement would stop calling her.

Johnny was an acting student who shared a photography class with Polly. He had asked her out three times. On the third, she had agreed.

He had taken her out to a fancy restaurant and wore a collared shirt to the dinner- which no man Polly had been with had ever done such a thing as affording nice clothes.

She didn't actually care for him.

And she wasn't sure if that made her a dirtbag or a slut, but in her twisted thoughts, it was better that way.

If she didn't care for the guy, she didn't care if she was good enough for them.

Johnny didn't write her songs or light her cigarettes, (she had started smoking again,) but that didn't matter to Polly. She simply entertained him in the fake almost-relationship they had.

She still saw Jeff of course, but there was a strain on their friendship. The strain was the constant want they both had to be in the short-lived relationship they had a month prior once more.

Through Brooke, Jeff had found out about Polly's 'cute classmate,' and as much as he wanted to believe he wasn't mad, that simply was not true.

He wondered if everything she'd told him was a lie. It would make sense because she had almost immediately gone on to be involved with another guy.

But like bunches of other feelings, he shoved the angst to the back of his mind to deal with it later, usually in a song or an endless journal entry.

Jeff's hand ached as he scribbled down the empty pages of a notebook, spiraling thoughts, poems, and lyrics into one.

Polly walked through Gramercy Park, film camera in hand as she snapped pictures of the greenery on the winding paths.

She was avoiding everything in her apartment, her ringing phone, that maroon guitar, and everything Jeff had left behind being replaced by Johnny's shit.

She felt calm while she looked at everything through a viewfinder.

With a whir, the roll of film inside the camera winded up and Polly figured it was time to retreat to her place.

Everything was showered in red as she walked into her dark room. She hung the photos up to dry, not quite looking at the images upon them, just hanging them tiredly.

Polly walked through the pictures one last time, making sure all of them were alright quality.

Most of the thirty-six prints were of the park, but the last twelve or so caught her eye.

It was Jeff.

A few pictures of him in her bed, shirtless with messy hair, a few candids of him walking down the street, playing guitar.

The last two were the ones that drew her attention the most. A smiling Jeff, the first time he'd been to her apartment, and then a blurred photo of Polly, smiling too at the man behind the camera.