Page 40 of With Stars in Her Eyes
“You okay? You’re a bit wobbly and look a little tired. Not in the—damn—I didn’t mean you look tired in a bad way…”
I put her out of her misery. “Oh, I am tired.”
“When did you get back from your trip?”
“Too late to be night and not quite morning.”
“Christ, I’m sorry. Traffic?”
“No. Just family stuff.”
Courtney rested her elbow on the pile of books. “Badfamily stuff?”
“Dumb family stuff. There was a huge blowup at dinnerbecause I put my foot down about not wanting to take photos at my brother’s law firm partner’s wedding as a favor to them. It seemed like everyone thought I would change my mind. After that, my mom kept me talking long after I should have been on the road because she said she needed to calm down before she had to start worrying about me driving such a long distance alone.”
Well, that was way more detail than she’d asked for. I was normally the person word-vomited at, not the one word-vomiting.
“That’s right, Sam told me you were a photographer.” Courtney considered. “Wait… did they want you to take photos at someone’sweddingfor free?”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
“Why the fuck would anyone do that?”
“My thoughts exactly.” I covered my face and imagined my life when I made it to June, after my last obligatory family event. I would befree. “God, I can’t wait to be done.”
“With?”
“All the events I said I’d do. Basically all my days off between now and June are filled because when I first took this job it wasn’t supposed to start until June, so I thought—ugh. I’m rambling.” I rubbed my eyes, but the action had no effect on my too-loose vocal cords. “I feel like I’m really good at keeping boundaries with everyone except my mom. This vacation I’m going on with them in April will be more of the same. They’ll want me to capture their moments, and it ends up that I’m the one who has taken all the photos in the frames around my parents’ house. I’m not the one in them.”
“Oh…”
“Gosh, that sounded more bitter than I meant for it to. They just… they’ve had weddings and babies, and even last year when we went—this is kind of an annual thing—I had one single thing I wanted to do at the beach.Onething, and I didn’t get to do it because I got sucked into taking family photos at dawn on the day the skies were clear enough.” I ran a hand through my hair. “My family won’t even come visit me here. They’ll go all overfor everyone else’s stuff. One of my sisters is in Atlanta, but my mom still won’t even pick a date to come visit me here over the summer.”
“That sucks.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be complaining about this.”
“I can’t sympathize—or empathize? I can never remember which is which. I don’t have family like that. But I have Nic—Nic’s my cousin. Lives in Texas but visits here a lot. About to come stay with me for a couple weeks actually. And Sam. And…” That same haziness glistened in Courtney’s eyes as before. She blinked a few times, and it was gone. “And I know they would drive to the ends of the earth if I needed them. And it’s shitty that your people can’t squeeze in a visit.” She paused. “What kind of photography do you actuallylikedoing?”
“I like journalistic stuff and nature.”
“Do you do that as a side gig?”
Exhaustion infused a hint of bitterness into my laughter. “No…When I figured out that I could never make a living at it because the odds of becoming an astrophotographer or editorial photographer are basically zero… I never wanted to risk it becoming a slog. I never wanted to risk the magic. I do it for fun on my own terms.”
An odd expression had come over Courtney’s face. Her eyes went unfocused for a second, but then she smiled broadly with a small nod. “And so hopefully during the blowup last night, you told them to go to hell about doing more free photography work?”
I flinched.
“Thea… you didn’t…”
Her saying my name was the hottest thing ever, and it nearly distracted me from answering.
“Please say you did not change your mind about it.”
“Nope. I held firm.”
Courtney narrowed her eyes at me, sensing there was something off.
