The Photographer - h.s

Friends

Harry

We were a bottle of wine into our night and we sat on the floor across from each other playing scrabble and so far she was winning...but not by much. It was her turn to play a word and she placed down mother.

"Tell me about your mother." She said lightly and smiled at me after picking up more tiles.

"My mother...she's truly an amazing woman, her name is Anne. She is the kindest most caring woman ever. I saw her just a few weeks ago for Christmas and had so much fun with her and my sister. She's the first person I go to when I finish music, I sent her the album the second we finalized it." I told her and she smiled sweetly and watch as I played the word Zoo, it was all I had but I got a double word score to help boost my points and I took the lead.

"She sounds lovely." She replied as I took two tiles from the pile. She looked at her tiles and thought about her next move.

"Mmm, she is. And your mom?" I asked her. I know she mentioned her parents weren't around and I wanted to learn about her. I want to know her.

"There's not much to tell..." she said and played another word and replacing the tiles.

"Eh....tell anyway." I said lightly and she looked up at me and back to the board and was silent. "You can trust me, Victoria."

"My mother... she was the bad cop between my parents.  She was uptight about chores and I was never really allowed to have anyone over the house. She had a lot of rules but...but she loved so hard. She put me above everything. So.... so when she cheated on my father it was so shocking. And when she left my father and I...it was earth shattering.... I was only 7 when she left, she has an entirely new family now. She's married, has 2 boys, and a lot of money. Haven't talked to her in years." She said and my heart broke a little. She talked highly about the mother that she knew and the mother that she missed.

"Tell me about him, your father." I said and I played my turn and looked back to her. She glanced up at me before looking back down quickly.

"My dad...he truly was the most amazing person I've ever come across. He was like a real life superhero to me, he did everything he could to make sure I was happy. He drove me to every single sports practice, he was at my graduation and he was always cheering the loudest, he was always behind me cheering me on through every step. He was my best friend. He uh...he died 2 years ago, he was driving home from work and a driver ran a red light and crashed right into the drivers side of his car." She played another word and grabbed her tiles.

"Vic...I'm so sorry." I said to her and she shrugged and looked up at me and I offered her a soft smile.

"It's ...it's okay. It was 2 years ago... I've been to therapy, did all the grief counseling, went through the motions... I'm okay with it now." She sat up and took a deep breath "thank you, for your condolences though, I appreciate it." She gave me a soft somber look and smiled at me. "Okay, tell me about.... tell me about you. Tell me the stupid things that people don't even bother looking up online. Spill it." She said lighting trying to move on to a new topic and I raised an eyebrow at her and thought. What did she want to know? Surely I'm not as exciting as she thinks i am... but in all honesty I'll talk about absolutely nothing it if means she keeps looking at me like she does, it makes you feel... seen and like she actually wants to listen to what you say, it's not something I'm totally used to.

"Let's see, where to start?....well my favorite color is blue-" although the color of her eyes make me question my answer "I'm from Holmes Chaple in England...used to be baker actually. Formally 1/5 of 'One Direction', uh.... oh boy I'm not really that interesting, I'm not sure what else to say.." I told her and she gave me an annoyed look.