TheBookOfElizabeth.pdf

The Book of Elizabeth

Before:

Title: "Senior Shenanigans," Subtitle: "Homecoming Fun." Ashley Forrest, Hunter Shudd, Amber Levin, and Jason Morris, left to right. Smiling with their perfect teeth, not a single fucking care in the world. When this yearbook gets sent out to Lakewood High's ditsy, ingenuine asshole population, they're gonna applaud these people. They're gonna flip through the pages filled with perfect pictures of perfect people. No one will stop and thank me for capturing the moment for them. People can't see through their shiny plastic facade, but I can. I can look at these pictures and see people for who they really are. They're all just insecure and selfish. But not her. Not Elizabeth Fellner. There's magic in the pictures I have of her, and god do I have pictures of her. Debate team, cheerleading, rugby, she does it all. Her tenacity has given me plenty of material. This yearbook should be about her.

I quickly click save, solidifying one more page of those senior "assholes being assholes." As I shut my laptop and turn in my chair, I see a crowd of birds through the computer lab door. They're chirping away, and flapping their little wings draped in Lululemon and Victoria's Secret bombshell bras. I'm about to stand and sneak through the door until she slides into the group. Elizabeth isn't like them. She wants to make a life for herself. She shouldn't be hanging around those girls. No one at this school is worthy of her. Elizabeth is perfect. So I reach into my bag and grip my camera, bringing it up to my eye and, click... flash. Shit! The birds cease to chirp; they all just swivel their heads to me. I stumble and shove my camera back in my bag, and then I'm falling. As my leg hooks a chair I feel myself hit the ground as the door swings open with a bang.

"Excuse me? Did you just take a picture of us?" some bimbo shouts out. Emily Mueller, I see upon further inspection of her too-tight sweatsuit.

I try to speak, sputtering, "I'm sorry I just thought-"

"Pervert," spits the Mueller girl.

"No, you don't understand... I was just-" I falter, still on my ass.

"It doesn't matter what 'you just.' You're a fucking creep!" She's about to turn on her heel when Elizabeth comes to my rescue.

"Emily. Just leave him alone. It's that yearbook kid, Artie." As the words leave her mouth I can't help but stare at the way her hair curls around her ears. I'm distracted by the gloss of her lips. I'm lost in my head and imagining her next to me. What would it be like to look into her speckled eyes and know she's looking back? To top it off, she knows my name.

"Hey, camera boy." I hear one of the birds chirp, and I'm broken from my trance. She's right there, her crystallized eyes looking me dead in the face. Elizabeth has her hand outstretched, and I don't know what to do. So, I grab her hand and she yanks me up kind of awkwardly. She doesn't wait to see if I'm okay. She just smiles apologetically and jets out of the room with her friends. It hurts me to see her wasting her potential on petty, popular, bullshit. Someone needs to save her. Someone like me.

It's not until the bell rings out that I realize how long I've been standing here. The door is shoved open by some scrawny ninth-grader, and a cascade of students follow behind him. I duck out into the back of the lab and dance my finger along a familiar sliding door. I lift a pair of keys out of my pocket and wrap my fingers around the familiar metal, sliding it into the lock. Twisting my way inside, my face glows red. This is my favourite place. The darkroom is mine. No one else has the key. Looking up, my photographs glisten, dancing, hung up on cotton string. They're fleeting memories of Elizabeth. There's One from a debate last month. Her hair looks so pretty pinned that way; there's passion in the way she tenses her jaw like she knows your greatest secrets. Then there's one from junior prom. She went with Joey Allen; I'll never understand her taste in men. I made sure to cut him out of the picture. My favourite photograph though is candid. She didn't know I took it, but I think she'd like it. She's kneeling on her bed with her hands stretched up in the air. She's dancing in her Fruit of the Loom undies, the ones she only wears at home. The slim lines and shadows of her body are a greeting. She didn't hear me at the window, and I'm glad. She wouldn't understand that I'm the only one here to protect her. Some men would take advantage of her, but I know her worth.