The Photographer

Chapter 4

Friday, December 16, 2011
Toronto, Canada

A long week had passed by and Vanessa had heard nothing back from Eric at Edge Imaging. She had come to the conclusion that she hadn't got the job and that only made her days worse as she questioned what had went wrong to cause her not to get the position. She was back at square one, still working her shift at Chew Chew's and trying to remain optimistic about life although she had been dealing with the worst.

She had fallen into a constant routine of work then home and the in between did not leave her with much time for herself. Vanessa didn't mind as the busyness kept her mind off the series of unfortunate events that had happened within the past week.

She had even stopped responding to her mother's phone calls and remained completely isolated from her parents altogether. She couldn't face them. She knew her mother would be waiting to tell her I told you so about the whole photography thing and she really didn't feel like being kicked while she was already down.

"So, do you want to go?" Shawnie asked.

She had been daydreaming while talking to her coworker and hadn't realized the woman was now asking her a question.

"I'm sorry Shawnie, what were you saying?" She asked apologetically.

"There's a big sale going on at this store downtown and I wanted to know if you wanted to come with me?"

She smiled and waited for Vanessa's answer. Shawnie was a nice girl and Vanessa had grown to like her within the few months Vanessa had been working at the diner. She didn't really consider Shawnie a friend but she was the closest Vanessa would ever actually get to one so despite her tiredness, Vanessa agreed to go to the store to check out the sale.

When both girls were off the clock, they piled into Vanessa's car and headed to American Apparel on Queen St. The store wasn't extremely crowded for a big sale to be going on but Vanessa didn't think much about it as she and Shawnie got out the car and headed inside.

The two began looking around at the clothes on the sales rack and Shawnie instantly picked out a few items that interested her.

"This top would look so good on you," Shawnie said holding up a black, mid length choker top.

"It's December," Vanessa stated while looking at the frilly top with apprehension.

The store was probably trying to get rid of all the clothes that shoppers weren't prone to buy during the winter season.

"Yes but you could have it for the summer!" Shawnie reasoned.

Vanessa eyed the top and could not deny the fact that it was extremely cute. She smiled and grabbed it from Shawnie, making the girl smile.

"I'm going to check out some more things over here," Shawnie said while pointing towards a clothing rack towards the very back of the store.

Vanessa nodded and headed in the opposite direction to look around until her eyes landed on a table of folded tops. They were all very pretty in color and she could not resist buying at least two before leaving the store. She touched the thermal, long sleeve tops and searched for one in her size.

"The smaller sizes are always on top," a toneless male voice suddenly said.

She looked up and saw a fair skinned male standing just across from her with large, piercing dark eyes and coarse hair that was in an unkempt high top fade. His facial hair was stubbly and grew in patches around his face.

"You work here?" She asked.

She hadn't meant for her words to come out so disbelieving but the guy had taken her by surprise.