Dedicated to Fanganator because her story Abrogate is amazing and you should definetally check it out (:
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Two
I know better than to sit by my window the next day. As I come down the spiral staircase from my lighthouse window, deciding what to do. Dad is at the doorway, half between being inside the house and outside. He pauses when he sees me, but doesn’t remove his hand from the door knob.
“Good morning, Bam,” he says with a smile. His glasses catch the light from outside and I can’t see his eyes. “Want to come with me to work?”
I shake my head and walk past him towards the hall. “I’m fine.”
I lay sprawled on my mother’s comforter hours later, staring up at the white stucco ceiling despite the bright sun coming in through her square windows. My legs and arms are all stuck out, making me look like more of a crime-scene than simply a teenager who has nothing better to do.
“Why are people so strange?” I ask without realizing I spoke out loud.
My mother’s fingers stop typing on the laptop across the room and her pause makes me wonder if I shouldn’t have said anything at all. Interrupting her writing process while she’s basking in her muse is one thing, but asking her a question – not to mention a random, uncalled for one - for the first time since the accident might have just caused an impending mother-daughter day.
I expect her to go read a parenting handbook for how to respond to such a question or at least ask me why I would say something, but instead, she surprises me.
“What a strange question to ask,” she says. “I actually don’t think I have an answer for that one.”
Instantly, a giant elephant appears in the room and sucks the air out of every corner, ever drawer and I feel like the unsaid tension could suffocate me. The way she said that one leaves a feeling in the air as if everything is fine, as if it wasn’t the first time I spoke to her not only directly, but willingly. Even she herself pauses over her keyboard, wondering if maybe it was something she shouldn’t have said.
Little paws thump on the floor but I don’t lift my head to see. Only a moment goes by before a flash of grey jumps up onto my mother’s bed. My cat, ironically named Cat, pads over to me, testing each step on the cushiony bed before he takes a step. Eventually he makes it to me and stands on my stomach.
“Want to go get your pictures developed today?” Mom asks, turning around in her chair. I can only see her middle from the view underneath Cat.
“I don’t really have that-“ I cough as Cat steps on my throat in attempt to get into a sitting position. “That many pictures. I’ve only taken a few since we got here.”
“But you still have some on your camera from before me moved, don’t you? We could buy some tape and you can stick them to your walls, like you did back home.”
I think about how almost every inch of my four white walls are covered in photographs that are important to me and cringe. So many of them have Cade.
“I’m fine.”
As Cat steps off my stomach, I can see that my mother is looking at me with an expression somewhat close to stern.
“Let’s go, Bama.” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. She’s still backing me into a corner.
I sigh several minutes later as I trudge up to stairs to my room. Eventually I put on a pair of shorts from a pile on the floor and opt for a baggy, short sleeved top. When I’m done, I tie my hair into a braid over my shoulder, grab my camera, slip on my running shoes and make my way downstairs.
Seeing Mermaid Bay through a car window is much different than my walk. Instead of going left towards the creepy side street, we go to the right, following the curve along rows of houses. The whole time I stare out the window, watching the little cottage-town pass us by. As the day grows warmer more people are outside, walking their dogs, jogging or talking to their neighbours. Once we even have to stop for a toddler to push his tricycle across the street.
Eventually we make it into downtown Mermaid which consists of a line of small, old-fashioned looking shops that face the main beach. Already it’s packed, full of people taking pictures on trips or teenagers playing volleyball. I turn my gaze to the windshield as we leave town.
When I hand the man my row of film, I have no idea what will be on it. To be completely honest, I’m even surprised that the store will still develop film. Everyone else has opted for digital cameras and printing photos off themselves, but somehow, in a small town a short drive away from Mermaid, there’s still a photo store in business.
“You can get your pictures in an hour,” the man says, leaving my mother and I alone at the front desk.
“Let’s go get that tape,” she suggests, pulling me out of the store and dragging me down the street to a dollar store. Even after the boring trip down each and every one of the isles, we still haven’t killed much time, so we head to my mother’s beat up station wagon. “Your father will be happy for the surprise visit.” She smiles as we pull onto the pavement and head down the road towards the ocean.
When we pull into a parking lot in front of a large boardwalk, I’m kind of shocked. I had no idea my father worked so close to Mermaid. Of course, I knew he had to switch where he did his work, since we moved for the summer, but I don’t remember him ever mentioning it was here.
I don’t remember asking, either.
My blue Converse creates noises as I walk along the wood of the boardwalk. We find my father shortly after and my mother is overjoyed that he’s here, not out on the boat like usual. Since he’s a marine biologist, he opted to get the samples and do experiments rather than stay in the labs every day.
“What a surprise!” he says cheerfully. He quickly wraps my mother in his arms and kisses her forehead before coming over to hug me. Before he can touch me I flinch, causing him to stop. For a moment, his smile falters, but he starts to act as if it never happened. “What are you two doing here?”
“Ladies day out,” my mother explains. She smiles at me and then my father, before looking out to the ocean. Large waves are crashing against the posts of the boardwalk.
“Ladies day out? I didn’t think I was a lady.” Mom laughs at his joke but I don’t move. I just stare out at the water. “So what have you two been doing?”
“Bam, why don’t you tell him?”
I hate when talking is pinned on me, as I’d rather just stay silent so I mumble an incoherent answer.
“Getting her pictures developed,” Mom says, as if I’ve never answered at all.
After things grew quiet, the three of us stood there, staring out at the ocean. Eventually the hour we’ve been trying to kill died and we went back to grab my envelope of pictures. When we sat in the station wagon, my mother asked me what they look like. I don’t open the envelope.
The drive home feels longer than the drive here. The manila folder starts to burn in my hands, daring me to open, daring me to look, daring me to remember. Ultimately I have to stick my hand in, searching for the bottom of the stack of photographs for my recent ones. When my fingers grasp the thick paper on the very bottom I pull it out, ready to see the scary man’s house.
“What’s it of?” Mom asks.
A boy smiles up at me, holding a small, fluffy bunny in his hands.
Wrong photograph.
I quickly shove it back in and look out my window, pretending the meeting with him never happened.
“Bama,” Mom continues. I can feel her frowning without looking. “I want to see what you took.”
She continues to persist so I have to reach in, this time going for the top of the stack. I pull out a photograph and briefly look at it before handing it to her. She pulls to a stop at an intersection that we need to cross.
“This is beautiful,” she says as she looks it over.
I stare out at the forest in front of us and the skinny road that will read us back into town. On either side trees line a small highway that seems hard to cross.
“I really like this one.” Mom hands the photograph back to me and I look down at it, uninterested. “We should get it framed.”
It’s the one I took of my legs dangling over the edge of my balcony. I guess the photo did turn out when I was kind of hoping all I would get is black.
“I think your father was really happy we surprised him,” Mom continues, trying to keep a conversation with me even though I don’t enjoy talking. “He was excited to see you.”
I don’t see anything as we pull past the shops in the town and turn right down a street I’ve never been down before. I catch the name of it as Highview and try find where this view is. Eventually we turn left. I never saw a high view.
“Are you going to tape your pictures up today?”
I shrug.
Sun shines brightly through the openings in the Oak trees that line the road. There’s no one here except for someone walking on my side, her half-pink and half-blue hair tied up in a topknot that’s impossible to miss.
“She looks about your age,” Mom notes as we pass her.
Her plain brown eyes meet mine and neither one of us smile.