Hugs & Blows

Photographs

Betsy loved photography. She and Odette used to joke that Odette was a W and Betsy an A, Odette was a writer and woeful, wary and according to Betsy she was wonderful. Betsy was audacious yet anxious, an artist and an addict. Odette did readings at Tic Tac Joe’s but Betsy’s photographs adorned the walls in between bookshelves and below old movie posters the best ones were behind the counter, not the ones that were off the staff and the random celebrities that made their patronage at the coffeshop but  the ones Betsy had taken from all over the country. Pictures of subway graffiti and some snapshots of the random acquaintances they had made doing drugs in clandestine corners. One was of Odette. She remembered the day the picture had been taken clearly. It was early in the morning and the two girls were standing near a ledge, the night before they had broken into a construction site that had been temporarily rained out to party with strangers who could easily have been their new clique of self-destructing young adults, had they been sober enough at the time of meeting to exchange names and telephone numbers. The sun was about to rise and Odette was peering off the wood that wasn’t very secure nor excessively high.

“Can I take a picture of you where your scars show?” Betsy asked her bluntly.

“Sure. Want to punch me in the face?” Odette had responded.

“I can’t tell if you sincerely mean sure and also just happen to want me to hit you, or if you are refusing me.” Betsy replied sounding confused and worn out.

“I just want a new bruise.” Odette said with a shrug, before mock posing “What kind of picture do you want?”

Betsy smirked at her friend’s antics and told her, “One that tells whoever looks at it who you are.”

Odette nodded and asked if the girl had her camera.

“Always.” Betsy declared.

“Get ready to point and shoot.” Odette commanded.

She walked away from Betsy towards the end of the wooden planks. She looked down at the grassy ground beneath her, and turned to face the camera with arms outstretched like wings. She began to lean backwards, prepared to fall. She knew she was not likely to sustain any fatal injuries but she was okay with the idea of dying, especially for something like art. She took a breath a cool spring air and tried to stop herself from hoping that it would be her last. Odette was well aware of how deadly hope could be, and it was not the type of death she was seeking. The flash caused her to blink and she flipped herself around to fling herself to ground facing forwards. She heard the shutter sound of more pictures being taken, she kept her eyes open and watched as the green grass quickly became closer to her. She did not scream but she did instinctively attempt to catch her fall. She groaned against the ground and Betsy yelled down, “You’re okay right?”

“You get the picture?” Odette croaked to her friend.

“I think so.” Betsy told her trying and failing to mask her excitement.

“Good. I think I got my bruises.” Odette said with a smiling busted lip that was bloody and caked with dirt. Betsy took another picture of the smirking girl.

The picture plastered on the white wall of Tic Tac Joe’s between two coffee machines is of Odette, mid turn and barely pre fall. Her scars on one arm are visible and her intent is clear. Her collarbones appear to protrude quite far and her face is masked by her black hair. No one who has ever seen the picture has asked who is in it, but Odette has always assumed that they all knew. The rest of the pictures Betsy took of her are in the bottom drawer of the shiny black nightstand next to her side of the bed she shares with Ethan. She hadn’t flipped through them since the death of her best friend, she wanted too, her left hand ached to write of the times she shared with Betsy. She wanted to create a book about Betsy with the pictures included. But she did have a picture of her and Betsy tapped to the mirror in the bedroom. She felt rather silly, it seemed like an act reserved for teenaged girls only but Betsy after all was her teenage years personified. Self-destructive and beautiful, fun, dangerous, cruel in the brevity of her existence.

Odette stared out of her hospital room window, because she could not in that moment face Ethan, and the sight of the outside caused the feelings of rushing towards the Earth for the sake of a picture to burst into her chest once again. The fall had left her with lovely bruises for quite some time, she had loved being able to press into them and cause herself the blissfully bittersweet pain that only bruises give whenever she desired, even in public. She thought that she needed those bruises again, she wanted to calm herself down, and she wanted to hurt herself in a way that Ethan wouldn’t worry about. She missed the way that Betsy didn’t bother with trying to help her. She examines that thought and was aware of all the ways it was wrong. She knew that Ethan was better than Betsy, that his love was far less likely to result in her a bleeding a dirty lump on the ground.

She doubted that she would include the construction site photographs in her Betsy book. She could not at the time imagine a way to share them that did not say horrible things about both her and her deceased best friend. Most of the time, when she thinks of Betsy she hears “Adams’ song” in her head. She felt the words on her lips, ‘I’m too depressed to go on.” But she wasn’t. She had been going on for quite some time and things had been feeling better. She felt better. She has an urge to whisper “Sixteen just held such better days.” But it hadn’t. She had hated being sixteen, she had hated her life. She didn’t hate her life. She missed her friend but she didn’t miss who she had been, she didn’t miss the way that things had been. Odette smiled and was very proud of herself for being in the hospital because she hadn’t purposely done anything to land herself there.

Part of her hated herself for these realizations. She wished that Betsy wasn’t dead, but if she were to be forced to choose between once again being homeless and aimless with Betsy, or being with Ethan in a state that she hated, she would pick Ethan. Ethan who was sweet and kind and loved her and gave her so much hope for everything, Ethan who was perhaps the personification of recovery and her future. 

“The choice is mine.” She said lightly to herself.

“What?” Ethan asked with a confused smile.

“I love you.” She declared with a bright smile before applying a kiss to his high cheekbones, “I choose you, even though I forget sometimes. I always choose you.”

Ethan kissed her lips gently, smiling and laughing kindly. “I love you too. I always choose you too, though I don’t think I forget.”

“It’s the sadness,” She whispered to him pointing at her temple, “it poisons my thoughts sometimes. It pretends to be Betsy but it isn’t. Sadness can be very sneaky.”

Ethan wasn’t sure what to say, though he understood what she meant. Odette was battling depression and sometimes her guilt over Betsy worsened things. “I’m glad that you realize how sneaky it can be.” He told her. 

“I don’t want to die.” She whispered to him.

“You won’t.” He promised, the doctors had fixed her wrist, he knew she was going to be fine.

“Yes I will.” She argued, “But I don’t want to. Not anymore, well at least not anymore right now. That’s what the sign meant.” She explained.

“I don’t want you to die either.” He said intertwining her small hand with his.