Guns For Hands: A Violent Haven

Chapter 2

Harry’s POV

The world is a beautiful place, and I try my very hardest not to hate it. I sort of believe that everything happens for a reason. There are some incomputable things that happen to me, though.

For example, I almost got hit by a car yesterday. Is there really any light in that situation? Also, why is that same girl in my photography class? Out of all the subjects in the entire school, ranging from gym to cooking, why did she have to be in the one class that I deeply enjoy? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate her. I try not to hate anything, but sometimes there is nothing left to feel except hate.

The German teacher was fired recently, and they couldn’t find anyone to replace him, so all the kids that took German had to be switched to another class. Photography happened to be one of the choices. We almost always had a small, maintained class, but now it was filled with many unfamiliar faces. There were about fifteen kids added into the class. She was one of them.

“Okay, since we have a lot of new students, we’re going to do an experiment,” Ms. Williams spoke up, looking around the room. She was a petite woman, who always felt the need to wear heels. She also tans very well. I've come to know a lot of little things about her. I practically live and breathe this class.

Photography is the last class of the day, so a lot of my fellow students have that “I don’t feel like doing anything” look plastered on their face. That’s infuriating because this is the one class where I actually want to give my all. This is my fucking passion.

Photography gives me the opportunity to permanently capture those rare, beautiful moments in my life, while also giving me an out to help me abscond from life's disasters. But no one will ever understand it in that way.

“Everyone pick a number from the basket,” our teacher instructed. Thankfully, all of us did as we were told. I had picked up the number twenty-six.

“Now, using your communication skills,” she laughed “Find the person who has exact same number as you.”

It took a moment before everyone gradually got up from their desks and began to mingle. I stood in one spot and began to search the room for her, just to make sure we didn’t have the same number.

I saw her lips form the number, you guessed it, twenty-six to some guy who must’ve been in her German class. This marks my downfall. I continue to stare at her, but this time looking into her blue eyes.

She caught me staring, and made her way over. When she was standing directly in front of me I showed her my card, and her small eyes looked directly at mine. I think this is supposed to be the part where we have some sort of emotional connection.

“I feel like I’m living a Nicholas Sparks movie,” I spoke up, breaking the eye contact. I always tried to play the comedy card in awkward situations because shoving a camera in a stranger's face would simply be odd.

“I’m only staring, because you have a serious staring problem,” she said back, not missing a beat. “By the way, technically we are supposed to live a Nicholas Sparks movie.” She motioned to the folded up piece of paper with the number on it, I guess that would be the assignment.

As I skimmed the directions on the paper, I realized what I had gotten myself into.

The assignment wanted us to act as a married couple, and capture moments of emotions like love, lust, and loss. The modeling part was optional, but it was worth bonus points. We had the rest of the time period to “discuss” with our partner.

“Let me start of by saying I know nothing of this marriage concept,” I spat the word out like it hurt me to say. “My parents got divorced when I was younger.”

“Look,” she sighed. “It’s a sore subject for me too, but can we just get this over with?

I understood her pain. After all, my parents' marriage wasn't perfect either. At the tender age of seven years old my parents sprung the news of a divorce on me. I was seven, how was I supposed to react!? From that moment on the idea of “true love” and marriage became foreign to me.

My mum ended up marrying again though, and now she’s happy. Robin made her happy. I often wondered if I could ever move on and find love like she did, but it’s hard to find love when my eyes are covered by a fuzzy cloud of lies, loss, and lust. That’s all that matters, really. I am nothing but collateral damage from a failed marriage. Mum doesn’t think so, except I can't help but look at myself that way.

It might be a little cliche to give up on love after you realize your parents never loved each other, but I don’t care. I'm not sure if all this was going to go against us or if the same girl who hit me with her car was simply going to closely let me figure her out. I wanted to know what caused her pain. I’ve always seen her around school, but she avoids people. Just like me. There was really no chance to start a conversation, or anything.

There was some kind of familiar pain in her eyes that made me forget about whatever sarcastic comment I was about to say. I had been so lost in my thoughts.

 “Yeah,” I said, after a long pause, hoping she didn’t notice.

It wasn’t like I was speechless, though. I just knew this wasn’t the time to say anything. There was just so much emotion in her face. It could have been a really long day. Her dog might’ve just died. I don’t know, really.

I’m known for being insensitive, and I don’t really fit in, but I feel like she’s somewhere in the same boat. My thoughts were really confusing me. So, I pulled out my camera. She looked confused, but I proceeded to take a picture anyway. I needed to capture the first girl, in a while, that made me want to care.