⌜ • ° + ° • ⌝
Tap tap tap... Hattie fiddled with her pencil, hitting the eraser against her notebook, her page sat there blank, minus the small doodles that danced up the margin of the page. The other students all sat restlessly, Hattie's eyes studying each one, just to pass time. Her eyes landed on a girl in the back row, she was asleep on her desk, her name was Max Caulfield, Hattie wasn't that familiar with her, she never went out of her way to strike up conversations with her or anything. She shrugged off the sight of her sleeping, it wasn't like none of the other students never slept in class, it was pretty normal, so she just shifted back in her seat to face forward and attempted to pay attention to the lesson.
"Alfred Hitchcock famously called film, 'little pieces of time,' but he could be talking about photography, as he likely was..." The class instructor, Mr. Jefferson, said to the class, he walked around the front of the classroom and made eye contact with Hattie as he continued, "These pieces of time can frame us in our glory and our sorrow, from light to shadow from color to chiarscuro," He lectured on. Hattie noticed Taylor Christensen throw a wad of paper at Kate Marsh and Hattie rolled her eyes at the child-like behavior. She leaned back in her chair, letting out a sigh, focusing her attention back on Mr. Jefferson, "Now, can you give me an example of a photographer who perfectly captured the human condition in black and white?" Mr. Jefferson's eyes scanned the classroom, "Anybody? Bueller?" He waited for an answer, as he waited in silence, Victoria Chase's phone vibrated and she looked down at it for a moment before she looked back up at Mr. Jefferson.
"Diane Arbus," Victoria answered his question, everyone else still sat in their seats silently.
"There you go, Victoria! Why Arbus?" Mr. Jefferson questioned her once again and he turned his body to face her completely, smiling in approval.
Victoria shifted her body to match Mr. Jefferson's energy, "Because of her images of hopeless faces, you feel like- totally haunted by the eyes of those sad mothers and children."
Hattie let out yet another sigh and looked over to the clock, as she did this, Mr. Jefferson started to go on a tangent, Hattie zoned out of most of this conversation, but, one particular thing that he said caught her attention, "I could frame any one of you in a dark corner and capture you in a moment of desperation and any one of you could do that to me, isn't that too easy? Too obvious? What if Arbus chose to capture people at the height of their beauty or innocence?" Hattie felt a shiver down her spine as he said this statement. It was a weird and unsettling comment, but, he did have a point. She wrote the statement in her notebook as he continued his tagent. Then, there was a click followed with a flash behind her, Hattie rose a brow and quickly looked over her shoulder to see what had happened. Mr. Jefferson also noticed this, he put a finger to his lips, "Shh... I believe Max has taken what you kids call a 'selfie' a dumb work for a wonderful photographic tradition... And Max has a gift," Mr. Jefferson was quick to shift his focus on Max, "Of course, as you all know, the photo portrait has been popular since the early 1800s." Hattie flipped to a fresh page in her notebook and started to draw a portrait of her boyfriend, Nathan Prescott, from memory. Once she started the process of shading, Mr. Jefferson asked yet another question, "Max, since you've captured our interest, and clearly want to join the conversation... Can you please tell us the name of the process that gave birth to the first self-portraits."
There was a small moment of silence before Max spoke, "You're asking me?" She fixed her posture and cleared her throat, "Let me think- uh..." Max was struggling to find an answer. This caused Mr. Jefferson's demeanor to quickly change, he sounded a bit more anger when he spoke now.
"You either know this or not, Max... Is there anybody out there who knows their stuff?"
Hattie looked back down at her notebook and rolled her eyes, she didn't understand why he was being so hostile, not everyone had to know everything, that was the point of teaching, wasn't it? To teach the kids what they didn't know? And, of course, Victoria spoke up again, "Louis Daguerre was a French painter who created 'daguerreotypes' a process that-" Hattie shook her head and stopped listening to Victoira speak about the process, but, she heard the last few words she said, they were targeted at Max, "Now you're totally stuck in the Retro Zone.... Sad face," Victoria gave a fake pout, this gained a laugh from Taylor.
Hattie looked at Victoria, "Oh, drop it," Hattie mumbled lazily at her, this caused her to eye her down and let out a huff in response. And, yet again, Mr. Jefferson started on another lecture right up until the bell rang.
"And don't forget the deadline to submit a photo in the 'Everyday Heroes' contest! I'll fly out with the winner to San Francisco, where you'll be feted by the art world!" Mr. Jefferson said to the class and Hattie grabbed her stuff, rushing out fot the classroom quickly to head to her locker. Once at her locker, she placed her stuff at the bottom, the inside of ther locker was decorated with polaroids and drawings. Most of the polaroids were of her and Nathan, or ones that she took of him. Her drawings were a mixture of nature scenes or flowers. She took the one she had just drawn of Nathan and hund it up before she closed it, her eyes scanning the hall. She was searching for Nathan, but he was nowhere in sight. She shrugged it off and started to head to the bathroom. As she approached the door, Nathan walked into the girl's restroom, this raised suspicion for Hattie and she stopped in her tracks for a moment.
"What the hell," She said under her breath before she walked into the bathroom, Nathan stood there, mumbling some stuff to himself, he didn't notice that she had walked in at first.
"It's cool, Nathan... Don't stress. You're okay, bro. Just count to three, don't be scared, you own this school, if I wanted, I could blow it up... You're the boss," He was pacing back and forth, looking down at the ground, he ran into Hattie after he turned around.
"Nathan? Are you okay?" Hattie put her hand on his shoulder and he looked up at her as she spoke, he seemed to looked worried that she was there.
"You're not supposed to be here... You should leave-" He was cut off by a girl entering the bathroom. She was tall, lanky, and wore a black beanie. Her hair was short and blue, Hattie had never seen her before, she wasn't even sure if she went to school here or not. Nathan gently pushed Hattie to stand off to the side and he turned to the girl, "So what do you want?" He asked her.
She looked over at Hattie, raising brow before turning her attention back to Nathan, "Got back up? Whatever, I hope you checked the rest of the perimeter... As my step-ass would say... Now, let's talk bidness," She said as she opened the stall doors and looked inside each one. Hattie stood in the corner, watching carefully, staying silent. She had no idea what was going on, or what Nathan had gotten into. So, she just observed the conversation at first, carefully taking in each detail. Making sure nothing happened.
"I got nothing for you," Nathan said to her, he looked frustrated, he looked over to Hattie for a moment, she gave him a confused look. The girl also looked over to Hattie for a second, looking her up and down before she looked at Nathan.
"Wrong. You got hella cash."
"That's my family, not me," Nathan ran his fingers through his hair, shaking his head as he spoke, obviously growing more frustrated. Hattie had a careful eye on him, making sure nothing escalated too quickly.
"Oh... Boohoo... Poor little rich kid. I know you been pumpin' drugs 'n' shit to kids around here," The girl crossed her eyes, she was eyeballing Hattie as she said this, just to try to get a reaction, "I bet your respectable family would help me out if I went to them... Man, I can see the headlines now-" She said this and dramatically held her hands out.
"Shut up," Hattie spoke up, the girl was quick to raise an eyebrow, "You know, I hate people like you, just get the hell out of here."
"Oh? You want to get involved too? I bet you would make a great headline too," The girl gave Hattie a cold smirk.
"Leave her out of this, bitch," Nathan said and the girl took a step back, letting out a small laugh.
"I can tell everybody Nathan Prescott is a punk ass who begs like a little girl, talks to himself, and lets his girlfriend fight his fights-" She was cut off by Nathan, he pulled a gun out of his pocket and shoved it towards her, pointing it at her, staring down the barrel. The girl started to back up and her back hit the wall, Nathan positioned himself to stand in front of her, one arm against the wall, the gun pointed at her stomach, Hattie covered her mouth in a moment of shock and immediately felt fear running through her body.
"You don't know who the fuck I am, who she is, or who you're messing with!" Nathan looked over to Hattie as he said this, his eyes lingering on her for a moment, then he turned to look at the girl in front of him.
"Where did you get that?" The girl's demeanor was suddenly changed, she was scared now, she slumped back a little, "What are you doing? Come on, put that thing down!"
Hattie stared at Nathan, her eyes following the scene, she swallowed a lump in her throat, she was scared as well, she didn't know what to do, "Nathan..." She whispered, but, he ignored her, not even looking at her.
"Don't ever tell me what to do! Don't threaten my girlfriend, or me! I am so sick of people trying to control me!" His voice was harsh, Hattie had never heard him speak like this before, his voice was strained.
The girl looked at Nathan with a confused expression, her voice was shaky now, she didn't feel so powerful now, "You are going to get in hella more trouble for this than drugs-"
"Nobody would ever even miss your punk-ass, would they?" Nathan pushed the gun against her stomach with more force, getting into her face even more.
"Get that gun away from me, psycho!" She yelled and then she put her arm out, pushing him away from her, as Nathan got pushed back, he pulled the trigger, causing the gun to fire. This caused Hattie to let out a scream and she went forward, grabbing his arm, Nathan's eyes widened, shocked at what he had done. A yell came from somewhere in the bathroom, Hattie turned to look where it came from, Max came around the corner and her arm was outstretched, Hattie made eye contact with her, this was when her world went black and she got a pounding headache.