Skinny Boy ✔

Chapter 59: not gonna pretend

I woke up late Saturday morning to a text received from Garret the previous night. He was expressing how sorry he was for bringing people over when I never told him explicitly that I wanted to apologize to all that I've wronged. 

I just got the impression that you wanted to mend loose ties and fix things again, was essentially what his long paragraph text said in summary. I, of course, lost all sense of anger and spite I harbored toward him during the whole incident. 

We talked more, making an attempt at catching up after moving past the initial apology, and the longer we sent messages while doing our own things (him probably working on a song, in all honesty), the more I felt normal again.

I couldn't help but think again of what mom and I talked about just the night before. About normal being me not hurting all the time, and being able to feel comfortable as I am.

Was I still hurting? In some ways, yes.
Was I comfortable with myself? Not even close!

But I wasn't locking myself away inside my head. I was trying, honest-to-God trying to distract myself from the slew of nasty words running through my head on repeat.

So when Garret asked if I wanted to come over to make up for what happened the other day, I was more than happy to comply.

I showed up to his backyard as he requested, camera in hand, and called out before opening the gate. What? I didn't want to scare him half-to-death with the thought of some rando sneaking into his pool. Unfortunately, that's actually happened before. 

When he saw who it was, he greeted me with a small smile. "Hey." He nodded toward my camera, "So what photography assignment did you need help with? And I thought you weren't in photography club anymore." 

"I'm not," I said. "But there's this girl in my group therapy that has anorexia, and she says that the best way she can describe it is as something surrounding her, consuming her. But...she wants a more understandable way to explain it. So, I heard what some of the other girls were offering as an explanation and, I don't know. I guess I wanted to make a picture that could kind of explain it." 

Garret listened to my explanation before looking up at me again, mischievous look in his eye. "Wait, so you're doing this for a girl?" My face flushed when I realized what he was onto. "Let me guess, you like her?" 

I was quick to shake my head. "No! No, she's just a friend. Besides, she's thirteen, I think." He flinched at that, realization that this was no longer teasing territory sinking in. "And I'm still kinda hung up on you know who, anyway." 

"Chelsea?" It was now my turn to flinch. I nodded. "Dude, you guys broke up months ago!" 

"I know," I sighed, finally getting my camera out and turned on in hopes of changing the subject. 

He took the hint and dropped the topic. "So what are we taking pictures of?" 

I scratched my neck, tinkering with the camera with the other one. "Well, that's kind of what I needed your help with." 

His eyebrows shot up. "You wanna take pictures of me?" 

"Well, sort of." 

"Please, do explain," he said. 

"I mean, you don't have to have your face showing, if you don't want," I offered. 

"I don't care," he shrugged. "So how are we doing this?" 

"I was thinking that maybe it could look like something is consuming you; like maybe you're surrounded by branches, and it looks like you're tied up in them."