“Scarlett! Come out here and pose for a picture!”
Scarlett fixed the angle of her mortarboard in the mirror one last time, adjusting a bobby pin holding it secure. “I’m coming!”
Megan was waiting impatiently in the living room, tapping her foot, that instant camera held aloft in anticipation. She stopped tapping as soon as Scarlett appeared, gasping and holding her hands over her mouth. “Look at you!” She blinked rapidly.
“Are you crying? Don’t cry.” If Megan started to cry, Scarlett was going to start to cry.
“I’m not crying.” Megan shook her head way too fast for that to be true, sniffed once, and held up the camera. “Okay. Strike a pose. This one’s for the scrapbook.”
Scarlett posed, and Megan snapped the photo, which whirred out of the little slot at the bottom. In what had become a tradition now, they both crowded around the photo while it developed, watching the blank slate resolve into first muted, then full colors. In a few minutes, they’d put this one into the new scrapbook, the one that had grown to catalog their first years together. Megan had already put together a page for Scarlett’s college graduation, decorated with headings but with plenty of room for the photos and the program from the ceremony itself.
“Can we put it in the book now?” Megan looked at the clock. “I don’t want you to be late for the ceremony.”
“We’ve got time.” Scarlett was used to Megan’s fastidiousness around documentation, her desire to get photos into the book. Already, the scrapbook lay open on the kitchen table to the right page. After Megan affixed this photo, she went to grab something out of the other room, leaving Scarlett to leaf through the last few pages. There was one for Megan’s radio job, decorated with photos of her in the studio and the temporary name badge she’d worn at her orientation, plus a cutout newspaper clipping advertising her as a new on-air personality. A page back was Scarlett’s acceptance letter to the university. She’d talked Megan out of putting the full document of her transfer credits in here, too, but she’d posed for a photo beside the giant sign at the campus entrance. Although the Scarlett in the photo was rolling her eyes, she still looked happy, and the photo brought back that same sense of nervous exhilaration she’d felt upon going back to school. Megan’s confidence had carried her through, though; Megan had believed in her even when she’d doubted herself, had even insisted on putting some of her ten thousand dollars toward Scarlett’s first semester. The rest she’d invested, because—as she’d told Scarlett—they were going to want a house of their own someday.
Scarlett smiled until her face hurt whenever she thought about it.
Tonight, after graduation, they were headed up to Tybee Island for an extended getaway weekend, and Scarlett had agreed that Megan could get her up to watch the sunrise again. Hopefully, they’d be putting a new page in the scrapbook, a page Scarlett had been secretly crafting for weeks now. Tied to the page with ribbon was a simple gold ring.
“You ready?” Megan stood at the table, beaming with excitement, holding her bag and camera.
Scarlett took her hand. “I’m ready.”
Reviews are an invaluable tool when it comes to spreading the word about great reads.
Please consider leaving an honest review for this or any of Carina Press’s other titles that you’ve read on your favorite retailer or review site.
To purchase and read more books by Elia Winters, please visit her website at eliawinters.com/books.