Chapter Four

The car stops outside a house. It’s on the smaller side, probably only one or two bedrooms. The sky colored paint looks beautiful against the bright green grass and the spring-colored flowers lining the sidewalk.

“Where are we?” I was so confused.

“You’ll see,” he says as he opens the car door for me.

As we walk up the sidewalk, I smell the beautiful scents of flowers and grass. “It smells beautiful,” I observe.

“It better. I worked hard on this.”

What? Where in the world are we?

 

“Ladies first,” he announces as he opens the door to the house and bows dramatically.

The second the door opens, I see photographs covering every wall. There are pictures of flowers, trees, river, houses and people. Wait, there are pictures of me, too.

“Do you know where we are yet?” he asks as if I would say yes.

I give him a confused look, and he starts explaining.

“This is my photo studio. When I was in Italy, I had a job and saved up all the money I could and bought this little house. Since I got back the other day, I’ve spent all my time setting up this house to show you.

“These are all of the pictures that I took with you before I left for Italy. There’s also a few from when I first arrived, but it doesn’t look too different from what you’d see here.”

He pauses, giving me time to take it in.

As I look at the pictures, I start to remember the beautiful moments we shared together.

I pick up a picture off of a table and hold it up to show him. “Isn’t this from sixth grade when we had our hundredth day of school celebration? You tried to put my hair into one hundred ponytails, but stopped after like ten.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, we were strange children.”

“Were? We still are.” I continue reminiscing over my past as I look at the various pictures of me. “Why are there so many pictures of me?”

After a pause, he answered. “You were my only friend, remember?”

Thinking back, I remember me hanging out with a bunch of different people, but had I really been his only friend? Middle school was hard for him because he wasn’t very social, but I swear he had more than just me.

I walk over and wrap my arms around him. “Well, I may be your only friend now, but being the amazing boy you are, you’ll have a million friends next week.”

He returns the hug, and we just stand there for a few minutes.

 

We separate and I look back at the pictures. I ask him about some, while some I just make up stories for. I wish that he had pictures of us together instead of just me, but that would be quite complicated.

The more I look at the pictures, the more I realize that he is a wonderful photographer.

“Have you ever gotten paid for photography, Anthony?” I ask as I place all of the pictures in my hands back on the table.

“No,” he answers quietly.

“You should; your pictures are perfect.” Even the pictures that are of a simply flower make that flower look superior to the rest of the world. “You could take a picture of a pile of dirt, and it would still look beautiful.”

“Stop being dramatic,” he joked.

“I'm being dead serious. You could make some big money.”

He starts pinning photographs onto a blank spot on the wall, then finally turns to me again. “Brooke, my camera broke, remember? There’s no way I'm going to be able to afford a new one anytime soon.”

How did I forget that? I scold myself. “So you spent all your money putting this house together? Why didn’t you just buy a new camera?”

He looked down for a moment, then looked back up at me, unable to meet my eyes. “I put this house together to display all my artwork to the world. And to you.”

“Do you have any money left over?”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a crumbled twenty dollar bill.

“You didn’t have to take me out to that diner. You should have saved your money.”

He had no reply.

“Can’t we get you another job here? I can even get a job, too. We could get you a new, good camera in a few months.”

“Brooke, it’s not that easy. In Italy, I was homeschooled, so I had a lot of time to spare for working and such. Now we have school. I'm going to find a job to work nights and weekends, but I don’t want you to help. I want you to focus on school.”

I know he was trying to be caring towards me, but it hurt. He didn’t want my help.

 

We spent about three hours just talking and looking through pictures at the house before he decided to take me home.

“I had a great time, Anthony,” I say as I wrap my arms around him for another hug. I finally decided to stop hiding my smile and show him how happy I really was.

His arms pull my body close to his, and we have a soft, silent hug.

“Me too,” he whispers in my ear as he pulls away. “Don’t forget to wear your pink and purple plaid shirt tomorrow.”

I don’t even have words to describe how I'm feeling right now; all I can do is simply smile.

“See you tomorrow,” he yelled from his car.

As I watch him drive away, I can’t help but to keep the smile glued on my face.

Reviews

[Andy Ruffett]

Were? We still are.” I think if you italicized "Were" and "are" or maybe just "are," it would bring more emphasis into what Brooke is saying.

“You should; your pictures are perfect.” Even the pictures that are of a simply flower make that flower look superior to the rest of the world. “You could take a picture of a pile of dirt, and it would still look beautiful.” Get rid of the quotation marks after "perfect" and it's "simple flower." Also, unless Brooke is speaking with a new paragraph, you don't need to end the quotations until the end of her speech, so you don't need beginning quotations after "you."

My Piece:

You know what would be interesting? If Anthony doesn't know Brooke likes him. Typical boy. Sometimes I don't even know if a girl likes me. But, I'll save that for another time. A photographer, cool. It's great that he could afford a whole house to show off his work. The fact that his camera broke gives the story conflict. Now we have two stories intertwined, maybe. The story of Brooke and school and the story of Anthony the photographer. What will the last chapter have in store?

[diannesam]

He's such a romantic guy, I hope he manages to pull some money together. I would feel so bad too if he spent his remaining dollars on me. Loved it!