Life Through a Lens

11. Tea Dates

She opened the one from Ashley; who had written her a novel of a text as per usual.

Ash 4:25pm:  hey Jaz! i hope you're having a great summer so far! and that your photography project with Carter is going better than mine with Jackson...ugh! he doesn't even get it! i mean sure he can take a great photo, but he doesn't get photography inspiration like you or me, or even Emilia! i literally have to tell him what to take a photo of! it's so stressful and i feel like pulling every single piece of my hair out one by one. honestly i don't even know what type of pictures we're supposed to be taking for this project. and i know i'm ranting, but it's literally that bad! and another thing is we've only had one day fully dedicated to taking pictures for the project. if i'm over exaggerating—which i'm not!—i'm sorry. also every time the popular kids hang out, ya know the group he's in? well he makes me go with him! take the ice cream parlor for example, that was just one case in a series of millions of examples. so ya, that's my stressful summer so far and it's hardly even begun! how in the world am I supposed to deal with this for another almost two months?!? oh and btw Emilia and I are headed to the Café later if you wanna join. hope i can see you later so you can dish out some of that great advice that you always have for us! luv ya!!! XOXO

Jasmine read and re-read that giant paragraph a few times, trying to find a way to reply. But it seemed that when you send a novel text; you can't really reply without either sending a novel text back or just saying 'Oh,' what makes it even harder when the sendee of the novel text says 'I hope I can see you later so you can dish out some of that great advice you always have for us!'

"Ugh!" Jasmine huffed throwing herself back onto the fluffy pillows behind her back. "Life," she breathed, dropping her phone and letting her phone flop on her stomach. She sighed and picked her phone back up, tapped on the keys for a moment, deleted all that she typed and turned her phone off again. Really it was just a text and she shouldn't have been getting so stressed out, but Ashley was her best friend, and she wanted to make sure her advice was justice enough.

Jay 6:28pm:  Well if I can come I hope my advice keeps up to your standards! And yes that was an answer of if. Not a yes I'll be there for sure. But otherwise, it's only the beginning of the second week of summer, you'll be fine.

Jasmine turned her phone off, plugged it into the charger on her night stand and ran down stairs. She could smell that dinner was ready from upstairs. When her dad cooked, the aromas filled the entire house. Peyton and her dad were just setting up the table to eat.

"Perfect timing honey," her dad said, without a single trace of harshness. No left-over madness from a few minutes ago when she had come home. She nodded and sat down beside Peyton, who was staring intently at the food their dad had set on the table. It looked as though she wanted to set it on fire with her eyes. 

Dinner was a grilled salmon with wild rice and green beans; a Jasmine favourite and Peyton hate. Things often went like this, meals that Jasmine loved, Peyton wanted to throw up on. They said grace then began to eat; Peyton immediately crossed her arms and huffed very loudly.

"Pey, you haven't even tried it yet. You used to love salmon when you were just an itty-bitty baby," Jasmine teased giving Peyton a poke in the side and a smile. This made Peyton's brow furrow even further, but she eventually picked up a fork and started poking at the salmon.

"Don't play with your food," Jasmine stressed as, after a few more times of Jasmine telling Peyton something, her dad always began to look very cross.

"When you give birth to her, then you can tell her what to do." He said looking down at his plate and continued to eat.

"You didn't give birth to her either," Jasmine snapped under her breath. She wanted so badly to just explode, so many emotions coming over her at once. She loved her dad, and he was more of a parent than her mom. But at most, he was home twice a week during school to see them. This was because he left for work early in the morning and came home late most nights. Jasmine saw him sometimes in the morning when she woke up early, but otherwise she saw him as little as Peyton did. Jasmine practically was raising Peyton. Though she didn't argue back, she continued to silently eat her dinner until everyone was done.