Camera Shy || Ben Barlow

Twenty Eight

Today was the much anticipated, long-awaited first datre that everyone (Cara) had been ranting and raving about since day one. I'd gotten up early and strategically paired my skinny jeans and Ben's Brand New jumper with odd giraffe socks (I couldn't decide between each of my pairs); giraffes were my favourite. I'd even straightened my hair before scraping it back into a bobble. This was some real effort and dedication right here, folks. I decided makeup probably wasn't a good idea. 

"Essa, hurry up," Dani whined, wobbling the top of my laptop as I attempted to upload all the photos from my camera onto the hard-drive so I'd have more memory space for our little day our. 

"What do you mean hurry up? Do you want to bus empty?" 

"I'm coming with you, retard," he said, as though it had been clear as day that he was crashing my first date with Ben. According to him, it had been common knowledge all along. 

"Coming with her where?" West asked, poking his head around the door. What he'd been doing in our bunks, I'd never know (nor did I want to, knowing these boys, although West had always been on the tamer end of the spectrum that was Neck Deep). 

"Ben and Essa are off to the zoo."

"Why did no one invite me?! When are you leaving? I'll come, too."

"Five minutes," Dani screeched as West ran off to presumably get ready to join Dani in gatecrashing my special day. I drummed my fingers on the broken trackpad of my laptop, sighing as I waited for the damn thing to load. All I wanted to do was save my photos and take some more. Preferably, of my love with animals that were ten times as cute as him. 

"You ready?" Ben asked, hopping onto my bus with a happy little smile on his face. He wasn't grinning, but he looked content in a beautiful kind of way. 

"Yeah, but West isn't," I grumbled, fiddling with my camera as I waited for my laptop to actually function in the way it was supposed to. Ben's happy little smile fell into a disgusted scowl. #

"West?"

"I've been ready for ages, Ben," Dani complained. "I'm bored."

"Who said you and West could come?" he asked, accusingly gritting his teeth with a psychotic smile on his face. I pushed my fingers into my temples and hoped he could talk them both into staying here so we could actually have the day that we'd wanted. 

"Essa!" Dani said with a proud grin. 

"I didn't," I screeched immediately. If that child thought he was going to get away with this, he could think again. 

"What's all the commotion about?" Fil asked, rubbing his eyes as he stumbled onto the bus. I hadn't realised Fil even knew words like 'commotion'. Sometimes he was a lot more intelligent than he initially came across. Other times, he was the dumbest piece of shit I'd ever met. Besides Dani, possibly. 

"We're off to the zoo, Fil," Dani said like an excited little boy. "Go get dressed!" It was normally extremely difficult to be angry at Dani due to the baby-faced nature of his appearance (and personality, really), but today I was fully prepared to kick him in the dick and call it a day. 

"Oh, shit. No one told me."

"That's because you're not invited," I told him, standing up and ripping my SD card from my laptop to insert it back into the camera. I'd decided to just leave everything on there and accept that I'd have to limit myself to thirty images, maximum. 

"Fuck it," Ben shouted, throwing his hands into the air. "Go get Sam. We're off on a family outing."

I'd never much liked family outings, for I'd never much liked my family. With Neck Deep, they were different, but today I hadn't mentally prepared myself for a family outing. I'd prepared myself for a semi-awkward semi-first date. I forced Ben to hold my hand as West paid for all of our tickets at the booth (he'd tried to pass Dani and me off as children but it hadn't quite worked), whispering to him that I was getting my first date vibe if it killed me. He told me he wouldn't let it kill me. Dani said that was the lions' job.

It eventually turned out that Dani was kind of terrified of lions and he'd ended up standing behind big (little - turns out the guy was absolutely tiny) brother West most of the time we'd spent wandering around in the wild cat general area. 

eventually, the boys all needed a little sit down because, as we all knew, children couldn't walk for extended periods of time without getting tired (especially with all the exhausting excitement of zoo animals they weren't meant to be seeing), so we stopped at a small cluster of benches near some cats that Sam wanted to take home. 

"Dad! Look how cool these cats are!" A little boy yelled, toddling over to the lynx encloser behind us. "They're lynxes!" he shouted in excitement. He reminded me of Dani but short and white. 

"Let's look at the description board, yeah?" The father asked, dragging his sugar-fueled bundle of torture and sleepless nights to a little information plaque. 

"But the cats!"

"We don't like these ones, mate," he said, solemnly patting his head and lifting him to his hip. "They're communists." I then swiftly discovered that they're found in Russia. 

When the boys were up and ready to go again (after multiple unhealthy snacks and few healthy giggles), Fil decided it was time to go see the penguins. I completely disagreed - I'd been wanting to see the giraffes since I'd woken up that morning if you hadn't already noticed - but apparently, everyone else thought the penguins were a brilliant idea, so off I was dragged to see the little water flyers. 

They were all adorable, which clearly went without saying, but someone had stupidly thought it would be a fantastic idea to name them all after Pingu characters, which made me kind of want to claw my eyes out. I took some photos for Ben nonetheless, leaning over the acrylic plastic barrier and resting my elbows on the rail. Penguins were cunts to take photos of, but I'd promised the boys I'd definitely take at least one good photo of every animal we'd seen (for as long as my camera would allow me to), and I wasn't about to break any promises (namely the one I'd made to Cara months ago about finding out what was in Ben's fucking book). 

Life was good in the penguin enclosure until one fateful little stumble ruined my (and some poor diver's) life - I felt Dani's elbow plunge into my back, muffling my horrified scream as I watched my beloved camera tumble from my hands and into the water. I fell to my knees and hit the glass, frustrated tears threatening to fall for less than a second before they flooded. "My camera!" I croaked, staring open-mouthed into the water that now held at least three quarters of my whole life and soul. 

"Es, we'll buy you a new one," Fil told me, cradling my head. But the thing was, I didn't want a new one. A new camera couldn't replace all of the photos, the precious ones of the boys, that I'd never uploaded through a stupid desire to have them with me at all times. It felt like I'd lost the boys themselves. 

"You don't get it," I mumbled into his elbow as Ben scuffed his jeans to get to me. It occurred to me that I was definitely causing a scene, and a couple of staff members had probably approached to remove us from the situation, but all I could think of was that one beautiful image of Ben's proud little smile as he stood in front of West's swinging legs in that stupid fucking hotel he'd fallen through the floor of. Or the one with the Hawaiian shirt. Or the one were Fil was rubbing Dani's back with a huge grin on his face, despite being sat on a grubby public bathroom floor with his paralytic best friend. 

I'd lost the only things I was capable of loving more than I loved Ben. 

I'd lost them.

A/N: who's as stressed as I am that this is the final chapter before the EPILOGUE?!

anyone guessed what's in the damn book yet?

epilogue either tonight or tomorrow, depending on how much english lit homework I get done before I lose motivation <3