AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Bree snickers.
“I thought you were an English major,” she hums.
“EnglishLit,” I emphasize. “Ask me to recite Edgar Allan Poe’s stories, and I can do that for you. What exactly does urban photography include? Streets, buildings, random people in cities?”
Bree shrugs.
“All of the above. Besides, today rained, and I want to try something new.” She gestures with her head for me to follow her, and I comply.
I watch her zigzag through the crowd of people, her small height making her seem like a dwarf. It’s rush hour. People are leaving their jobs, walking fast, and ignoring everything that surrounds them. Except for her. She’s analyzing every single person that’s walking, the cars passing, and even the birds flying over our heads. Every once in a while, she brings her camera to her eye and captures a couple of moments.
By the time she gets tired, the sun is setting, and the city is getting darker and quieter. The crowd from the rush hour has dissolved, and so have the murmurs from people’s voices.
We’re sitting in front of a park, eating burgers that we bought from a fast-food a couple of streets ago. It’s not the best, but it satisfies the hunger, and it leaves me a chance to talk to her. I let her do her thing in peace. Now it’s my turn to ask the doubts that came to my mind as I watched her in her natural state.
“How do you know?” The question catches her by surprise because she chokes on her fries. Her eyes get fogged by a cloud of confusion. “You photographed a couple of people. How do you know which one?”
“Oh,” Bree pronounces, realization hitting her. “I don’t know. Sometimes they feel right. Their eyes, their expressions… they speak to me, I guess.” Her shoulders shoot up in a shrug, trying to take away the importance of the topic.
“Their eyes?” I interrogate, as I do my best to understand why she’s drawn to taking images of people.
Bree bites her bottom lip and moves her head up and down as she thinks. A couple of seconds pass before she sighs.
“You know how they say that eyes are the doors to the soul?” I nod. “Well, when I have my camera, I try to capture what I perceive from them, what their expressions and souls are willing to give the lense. I like to question what they were going through when they made that expression, what were they thinking. I never know, of course. They’re strangers, but I do my best to read their eyes.”
I can relate to her passion in my own way. She feels what I feel for words and stories. While she tries to put together the soul of a person by a single moment, I try to figure out the mind and essence of a writer by their words.
I stare at her. Bree’s eyes light up when she talks about what she’s passionate about. If I were to read her soul at this moment, I’d see a person that’s so in love with her art that she glows.
“What do my eyes tell you about me?” I wonder in a whisper. Bree trembles, and she passes her hands over her arms, trying to soothe the chill. “Are you cold?”
Bree nods, her gaze straying from me, and my fingers go to the hem of my sweatshirt, taking it off without thinking twice.
“Here,” I tell her, giving her the piece of cloth to cover herself.
“I—I don’t think…”
“Don’t be stubborn, Bree. You’re cold, and I’m not. Take it,” I insist, folding the sweatshirt to help her put it on. Reluctantly, Bree accepts it, allowing it to warm her. “Better?”
Bree looks down to see herself. It’s ridiculous how tiny she is compared to me. My clothes are way too big for her. The sweatshirt is almost a dress for her, and she has to fold the sleeves to have better movement.
“I look awful, but yes. Thank you,” she mutters, playing with the hem of the sleeves, still avoiding my gaze.
“If you had your hoodie with you, maybe you wouldn’t look awful wearing my clothes,” I tell her, rolling my eyes.
Bree scoffs.
“Who are you, my mother?” she snaps back.
“You’re the one behaving like a child.”
Bree holds my gaze for a moment before we both laugh at ourselves and our stupid banter. I don’t think this will ever change. It’s already buried deep in our souls. It’s the way we are. But I can see this going well. She might not notice it, but I do; in front of a park, while she wears my hoodie and stuffs her face with a burger, I feel our friendship rising, uniting us before we’re able to realize what’s going on.
Chapter Twelve
Ithink I’m getting used to Stanley. After spending almost three weeks meeting him practically every day—except during weekends—his presence starts becoming less irritating and more bearable. After that night that we shared in the city, I find us becoming sympathetic and friendly towards each other, which is insane. Part of me still finds it hard to believe that we have a decent alliance… and that I’m enjoying it so much.
I find it hard to believe that the same Stanley that gave me his sweatshirt when I was cold is the same one that asked to copy from me three weeks ago. It’s unbelievable. I don’t know when he managed to change my perspective of him, but he did it. Stanley did what I thought was impossible. I no longer see him as an insensitive and egocentric idiot. I mean, he’s still a little idiot and conceited, but he’s not heartless.
