Page 66 of Promise Me Nothing
“Hey girl, don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.”
I sit up straight. “Excuse me?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “What did you just say?”
Sienna dives into a story about her boyfriend Jerome and a sex party they went to a few weeks before I left town. I’m a little blown away, since Sienna hasn’t ever struck me as a particularly kinky type. But I guess you can think you know someone as well as possible and they can still surprise you.
We talk for a while longer about life in Phoenix, about her mom’s new job. We talk about my own job at Bennie’s and she gives me suggestions on ways to make money this summer with my mediocre photography skills, something I hadn’t even considered.
“Alright, sexy lady. I have to head over to Jerome’s. He just got off work and mama is in desperate need of something thick between her legs.”
I burst into laughter, that same squeamish discomfort running through me at the mention of sex.
Of the two of us, Sienna was always the one more comfortable talking about sex and sexuality. Like I told Lucas the other night, it just wasn’t something that was discussed in the houses I lived in. So now I’m left with this kind of awkward bumbling and lack of certainty, just giggling at what other people say.
“Have fun tonight,” she says. “Get out and take some photos of that gorgeous beach, girl. And then send them my way!”
We say goodbye and then I hang up the phone, resting my head back against the cushion on the lounger.
She might have been joking, but Sienna hit on something real. Something I’ve already had on my mind once or twice. It just goes to show how close we are that she was able to pick up on it without me even saying anything to her.
Lucas lives in this grandiose house all by himself. And while I’m sure that’s great for partying and having freedom, it seems like it would also be really easy to struggle with feeling lonely.
I lived for eight years in small houses packed with people, oftentimes sharing bedrooms with multiple bunk beds and three or four other young girls. Before that, we had a tiny two-bedroom apartment as a family and Joshua and I shared a bedroom even though I was so much younger than him.
So a large empty house might sound great in theory. But I’ve only been here two weeks, and sitting here by myself, watching the sun as it begins to dip in the sky… I can feel that sense of loneliness begin to creep in at the edges.Havebeen feeling it moving towards me as I spend the majority of my free time on my own.
Forcing myself not to focus on that feeling, I hop up and head inside, taking the stairs two at a time all the way up to the top floor, down the hall to my room. I dig into my duffle bag and pull out my camera.
It isn’t particularly nice. I got it for sale at a pawnshop and then took it to the photography teacher at my high school to ask for help with repairing it. It’s pretty old, definitely not digital, and the F-stop sticks and decides not to work of its own will.
But I’ve been able to figure out how to take pretty good photos with it anyway. The hardest part about having an older camera like this is that I have to use film, which is expensive and doesn’t provide me with the instant results I want in order to teach myself to be better.
And if I want to try and grow my amateur photography into any type of business in the future, I’llhaveto get better. I mean, who wants to hire a photographer with a broken camera?
I wander out onto the patio, turning my lens down the length of The Strand to snag photos of three guys skateboarding while holding surfboards.
I capture a big group of birds rising as a flock into the air to escape a toddler on the sand racing towards them.
A pair of friends playing volleyball.
Then I head further out into the sand, closer to the water, the end-of-day sand feeling cool on my feet.
I tilt my camera up to the lifeguard tower, snapping a shot of a leggy blonde in red shorts and a white sweatshirt sitting on a chair and looking out at the water.
Taking the photos buoys my spirits a bit, and I spend the next while trying to capture the slice of beach directly in front of Lucas’ house.
Finally, as the sun dips lower in the sky, the last of the beach goers begin to pack up their belongings, and I head back to the patio and plop down on one of the loungers.
A part of me wants to keep taking pictures to see if I can get a good shot of the sun. But another part of me knows I should take a moment to sit and enjoy it. Even if I do have to enjoy it alone.
The photography would only be so distracting. Eventually I’d feel this loneliness again anyways. Might as well learn to get past it instead of avoiding it by hiding behind a lens.
I wonder if I made a mistake coming here all by myself. If trying to meet Lucas should have been done on different terms. Maybe coming out for a few weekends this summer instead of moving.
Because it feels like I might have made a mistake. No one really cares about me, how I’m doing, whether I’ve been happy or sad. My whole life has basically been like that, so itshouldn’tbe that hard to deal with.
But it is.
I guess that’s what happens when you build up expectations that aren’t met.
