Page 3 of Free to Live
I don’t want life. I just want death. I jerk the gun back and try to take aim at my head again.
There’s a hard struggle between us before the gun goes off. The scent after the chamber ejects is almost identical to the moment when a wood match has been blown out—acrid, bitter. It taints the air around it before it dissipates into the air, leaving behind a flickering flame.
I look down, expecting to see my own blood. But it’s not mine.
It’s Maria’s.
The burn in my chest is equal to the one I feel in my eyes, hot and unrelenting.
* * *
Years later,I don’t regret pulling the trigger. I know I would do it again, live through what I had to after, if it would lead me to where I am right now.
Alive.
Living as Holly Freeman.
1
Holly
People spend so much time primping for pictures by brushing their hair, adding more makeup, arranging themselves, when in reality a perfect photo has nothing to do with any of that. It has to do with the expression on their face. That moment I capture their joy, their tears, the bittersweet longing, and their laughter. Sometimes, I manage to get it all in one shot if I time it just right.
All it takes is one perfect shot to change a life.
It’s not just my job to look through a lens to take pictures that will be printed or shared digitally; it’s a need that burns inside of me. I want people always to have a connection to that pivotal moment when I need to press my finger down on the shutter. That somehow, I’ll be able to transport them back to that instant where their feelings are on display.
I use my skills with a camera to give people a gateway to talk about their memories.
It’s a beautiful feeling to know I’ve captured something timeless. I have this eternal hope the moments I hand over will somehow help each couple to make it to their first anniversary, their fifth, their fiftieth. And when they pull out their photo album, they may not remember my name, but perhaps will remember how they felt in that nanosecond when their lips brushed or when their eyes met.
Using a critical eye, I make a copy of the photo I’m editing in my home office. There’s a longing on the groom’s face I know the bride will melt over. He’d just finished swinging her out and back during their first dance. Instead of capturing her right hand with his left, he reached for her left and brought it to his lips.
Zooming in, there’s a combination of shock, awe, and such a deep hunger in his gaze as his lips touch his new wife’s fingers gently above the ring he slid on just a few hours earlier. I smile in satisfaction. These are the shots I strive for when I have my camera in my hand. It’s not about taking a pretty picture, it’s capturing real ones. Art should make you have an emotion. It should evoke something in your senses, whether that’s beauty or pain. It shouldn’t be passive. My photos are about making sure I twist the soul of the person viewing them.
Saving the file in both color and black and white, I smirk to myself. I wonder how many times over the lifetime of their marriage this image will stop a fight in its tracks or bring a new life into the world. Because if a man ever looked at me this way… I fan myself. Damn.
Uploading the files to my cloud drive at Amaryllis Events, my family’s wedding- and event-planning business, I stretch. Hearing the small cracks up and down my spine, I realize I’ve been at the computer for way too long. I need a break.
I push away from my desk in my open loft area and make my way toward the stairs around the massive stone fireplace that dominates both the first and second floors of the home I built years ago. Before descending, I pause, admiring the space I created for myself, the smallest house on the property my siblings and I all live on. When we bought the farm almost thirteen years ago, the deal Ali struck with the town of Collyer was that we would build our homes on the foundations that already existed. Even though my foundation is by no means small, I turned a large part of it into an outdoor patio. Since it’s just me, I don’t need a huge house to maintain. Three bedrooms and a loft are more than ample space.
My oldest sister, Cassidy, looked at the plans I drew up with our contractor in consternation. “Don’t you want something bigger for when you have a family, Holly?”
Even though I knew back then I was too tainted by what I had done to entertain the idea of a husband and children, I calmed her objections. “Look, Cass, the side wall has nothing major running through it. If I ever have the need to add on, I’ll be able to simply by giving up the patio space. For now, this is perfect.”
So even as my brother and sisters began to build their dream homes, which accommodate their now expanding families, I created my rustic retreat which is absolutely stunning. As I glide down the stairs, bright light filters in through the cathedral-style windows, bouncing off the numerous frames gracing every available surface. Of course, I decorated every available space in the pictures I’ve taken from the first time I was ever given a camera.
I’ve found there’s no better way than to comfort myself than with the people I love who have accepted me for who and what I am.
There are photos of my family from the time we briefly lived in a run-down trailer in Charleston and from when we first moved to Collyer, bunking down in the building that now exclusively holds the office of Amaryllis Events. There are photos of me, Ali, and Corinna at college together in our tiny apartment, learning not only about our chosen courses but how to live again as people after what we survived together. As I wander through my memories on my way toward the kitchen, my eye lands on a picture I managed to capture of Phil tossing Corinna into Candlewood Lake—the very day he met his husband, Jason. Picking it up, I shake my head. It’s so long ago now, it’s incredible how we’ve all come so far. Setting the frame back down, I reach for the next one, taken at Phil and Jason’s wedding day about eight years ago. They were both so handsome, so in love. They still are. I smile looking at the rest of my sisters and me crowded around them. We all look so young, I muse. And yet so scared of the unknown.
Putting it back, my fingers glance over a frame of Cassidy and Caleb dancing so intimately on their wedding day; one of his hands is wrapped around her neck, pulling her close, the other pressed against her stomach. Moments earlier, she had just told him she was pregnant. There wasn’t a dry eye in any of the photos I took, including my own.
Next is an image of Ali proposing to Keene right before their wedding at Daniela Trattoria in New York City. She’s sitting in Keene’s lap, and her dazzling smile is only overshadowed by the love radiating from Keene’s darkly handsome face. I managed to capture him sliding her engagement ring on her finger. They’d both gone to the restaurant that night with the same idea: to make sure neither of them could ever run from the other ever again. It was to all of our delight when Ali took things one step further and told Keene she’d arranged for them to get married that night.
Grinning, I look down at the picture of the box being tossed midair by Colby from center stage of the Brendan Blake concert as he proposed to Corinna. Having survived long years where they were both in love with each other and refused to admit it, Colby went big in his proposal. My lips tilt as I stare down at the enraptured look on Corinna’s face. I guess proposing to the woman you love in front of 21,000 people in Madison Square Garden certainly qualifies as go big or go home.
Their wedding this upcoming summer has been three years in the making. Neither of them has been in any hurry. Privately, Corinna told me that Colby wanted his grandfather, Senator Zachary Hunt from the state of Virginia, to be out of office so it didn’t turn into a media circus. While we all appreciate receiving notoriety for the work we do, we treasure our privacy. Zachary, who had already been planning on retiring after his sixth term in the Senate, agreed wholeheartedly. Now, he’s looking forward to walking Corinna down the aisle to the grandson he reconciled with after many years of a family misunderstanding.
