Page 20 of Boundaries

When we got to the car, I shot invisible daggers toward Mason’s truck where Seth and Boyd were sitting, texting on their phones. Boyd looked up and grinned, giving us a sarcastic wave.

I lied to Alex and asked him to take me home, saying I could feel a headache coming on.

Whatever the hell had transpired between me and my childhood tormentor, it wasn’t good.

I’d never understood upped the ante, but after the run-in with Mason, I totally got it, in spades.

He’d also put a huge question mark over my relationship with Alex. Something was wrong. It was like he was suggesting that either Alex wasn’t into me or I wasn’t really into Alex. Either that or they were trying to suggest Alex was gay.

What had been a childhood, battle of wits to come out on top had just changed into something much more grown up. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

I thought back to what Mason had revealed about his plans for a fight. I hadn’t had a chance to use my camera lately. It would be great to get some action shots.

I sat on my bed later that night, and cleaned all my camera equipment, thoughts of the unknown pulsating through me.

Four

Over the next couple of days, I spent time taking pictures of obscure things, to get some practice in. I didn’t use the automatic settings on my Nikon, as that would be cheating and interfere with my creative flow.

I snapped a dead badger by the road outside our farm. It didn’t take long for me to delete it, when the hell had I become interested in capturing images of roadkill? I liked taking pictures of tragedies, documenting what would eventually be in the past. But I captured pain in an artistic way, so the animal carcass just had to go.

I’d messaged my friend Betty and told her to ask James if he’d heard that Mason and Nixon were hosting a fight later that night. It took her most of the day to reply, but when she did, she confirmed that James’s friend Chris was going. Interesting. I had made up my mind as soon as Mason asked his brothers to put the message out, that I would go.

I spent the rest of that afternoon in the darkroom my father had made for me years ago. Turning off the red lights, I flicked the normal switch on which cast a more natural glow into the room. The room was a mess, as I hadn’t been in there for a few weeks due to working at the stables so much.

Filing some old shots, I fired up the laptop and skipped through some digital images I had taken of the lambs at Mason’s place. I didn’t use the darkroom as much as I used to, as processing the images was quite time-consuming. The shots were also much clearer when using my DSLR gear.

As I rearranged some of the filing cabinet drawers, I fell upon the folder containing the shots from the fire at Mason’s house. I hadn’t looked at them in years. Dragging a couple of wide lens shots out, I scattered them on the table I used to view my work.

It was all so very upsetting. Haunting even. I had only seen the flames from the distance and had arrived after the fire brigade had managed to put out the fire. So, I’d caught the aftermath, that pain and loss that everyone had experienced. I hadn’t even let the police view the images after arson was suggested. As I said, I didn’t want it to look like my family had anything to do with it. There was also nothing to identify how the fire started in the shots, and so what would have been the point? If I could have helped the police, I would have.

I left those two main images out, as they were old traditional shots and had started to curl at the edges from being shoved in the cabinet. They showed a small crowd of people surrounding the property, local families that had come to help, as well as Nixon and his father. Their body language, oozing with angst. Melanie McKenna was on one of the images wrapped in a blanket; her numb face covered with soot. I ran my finger over the slightly blurred image of what would have been an eighteen-year-old Mason at the time. The shots were taken from a distance, but you could clearly see who was who.

Jenna had said that there was a huge fight between Nixon and my dad that night.

Releasing a sharp breath, I turned away, suddenly riddled with guilt to be looking in on someone’s misery like that. Yes, I joked about their house being destroyed, but I didn’t mean it, not really. I wouldn’t have wished that type of thing on anyone, even the McKenna family.

Even though Nixon had initially blamed us for the fire, my folks had offered to help whilst they rebuilt. The truce didn’t last long however as Nixon just couldn’t let it go, and a herd of cows had spent most of a weekend eating my father’s harvest whilst they were away in Portugal.

It was getting late and so I prepared my cameras. I’d taken a sandwich to my room and told my parents that I had a camera project I was working on. They were flying out on holiday early morning and so I said my goodbyes and kissed them there and then.

Chrissy was at her friend’s house; Jenna was in her room and I hadn’t a clue where Mattie had snuck off to. His behaviour over the last two days had been odd, to say the least.

I looked out of the window several times over at the McKenna’s place, but it was dead and after staying up on purpose until after ten in the evening, I gave it up as a bad job, dressed in my PJs and fell asleep on the top of my bed.

It was only later, after I must have been asleep for well over an hour that I awoke to go to the bathroom and glanced out of the window. I could see a flicker of light in the distance. The McKenna boys appeared to have visitors; I could just see part of the crowd in the distance. So, the fight was going ahead, but it was a late one. Interesting.

I shoved my feet into my sliders, grabbed my camera and flew out of the house as quietly as possible.

Once I got in through the main gates of Lamb Hill, there were cars parked everywhere, if you could call them that. Strewn or abandoned, may have been a better description. It was almost midnight and the night air was cool against my skin. I hadn’t pulled my robe on and was dressed in pale pink silky shortie PJs. The breeze caressed my bare thighs, another reason I couldn’t be caught!

I made my way in between the cars, crouching low so that I wouldn’t be seen by anyone who hadn’t yet made it out of their vehicle and up toward the house.

I wondered fleetingly where Mason’s parents were, before I became distracted by the shouts and cheers in the distance. This suggested that the fighting had started. I tugged my camera protectively against my chest and made sure the safety strap was secure around my neck.

I had left my hair down and part of it was trapped under the leather strap which held my Nikon. The camera had been a gift from my father one Christmas.

Standing still for a moment, I removed my hair from under the strap and straightened my clothing. Thank goodness it was mild; the top of my PJs was a camisole with spaghetti straps. It was tight against my skin and highlighted the curves of my breasts. This was the nightwear I would wear the first time Alex and I had sex. It was comfortable but still sexy. The shorts showed the globes of my bottom cheeks they were that tiny.

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