After school I check my email. What I’m expecting is garbage, but what I see first is a message from Photo-Op.
Subject: I have to explain.
Click. I open the message.
I know you’re mad at me, but try to understand me and why I took the pictures.
People make fun of me. They call my camera my security blanket—even my brain in a box. I don’t have a life, they say. I’m just this jerk who runs around school taking pictures of everything instead of living.
There’s some truth to that.
Ever since I started going to photo exhibits, the relationship between me and the camera and what it taught me about seeing things became more important than anything else. Edward Steichen said:
“Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man … and that is the most complicated thing on earth.”
For me the best pictures show you things the naked eye misses. You see things in pictures the eye doesn’t focus on because everything around us is in constant motion. Pictures show us hidden relationships and hidden beauty. And that fascinates me.
Maybe you think I see myself as this self-important asshole. Or as this great photographer. Well, asshole, yeah, kind of. But no, I’m no great photographer, not now, maybe not ever. But I’d like to be. And that’s why I take pictures of everything, all the time. And if you don’t know by now, I’m fascinated with you and the way you look.
In a good way, Allie.
By showing you the pictures, I was just trying to show you some of the Allie I see. I’m sorry if you’re mad. You shouldn’t be. It was a compliment. Nothing less.
Don’t be mad anymore.
Please?
I go to the freezer and take out a container of Rocky Road. My mom always opts for healthy, so she must have thought it was sorbet and bought it by mistake. It’s sweet and creamy. When I finish every drop, I go back to the computer and reread his email.
My fingertips sit lightly on the keys, waiting. I lift them to examine my nails. I bite a ragged cuticle. I thought I was mostly invisible to boys, and then David comes along and x-rays me. How am I supposed to feel?
Don’t be mad anymore, he said.
I’m not mad at him anymore; I’m mad at his pictures. A picture is worth a thousand words. That’s the problem.