Darkroom [18+]

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AURORA

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Sometime during the weekend, I call Rowan and ask her if she wants to go with me to the camera store. I rarely find myself going out of my way to make friends, mostly because I'm not sure I know where to start. According to everyone else, putting yourself out there at twenty-two shouldn't be so much of a challenge, but it is.

I went out of my way with Rowan because she's one of the first kind people I've come across in a while. The few hours we've spent together in class so far have been fun. She has this bubbly personality that's easy to gravitate to, and suffering from such a lack of warmth, I feel like I can learn from her. It's tiring to be so frigid all the time, and now, more than ever, I think I want more for myself.

We meet in the afternoon, in front of Paragon Studios, a photography store at the local shopping center in Creymore. It's gloomy out, far and few drops of rain hitting the top of my head and the shoulders of my coat. I let out a small sigh, trying to smooth out my hair. Rowan stands next to me, a fixed smile on her face, while I shake out my umbrella.

"I love this time of the year," she says, looking up at the dusty sky.

I want to shake my head and say it's not ideal, but she'll ask why I think so, and the answer sounds superficial. Mainly because it is, so I keep from saying it. But I hate the rain, I do.

I close my umbrella and try to agree. "Yeah, it's nice."

Walking into the store, I let Rowan lead the way. She helps me check off most of what's on the supply list for class. Rowan goes for the most affordable products in the store, finding dupes for what seems overpriced, thinking she's doing me a favor by keeping my total low. I don't tell her that whatever the cost is, it doesn't make a difference to me. Instead, I appreciate that the girl goes out of her way to make things easy for me, even though we only met a few days ago.

A half hour goes by. We're in the camera section. Rowan's at the end of the aisle looking through a small rack of equipment accessories, while I have no idea what I'm supposed to be looking for.

"What camera do you have?" I ask, turning to her.

She wraps one of the hanging slide straps she was holding around her neck and walks towards me, her eyes focused on all the different builds in front of us. I watch as her fingers trail along the name tags of each camera until she taps on one.

"This one. Nikon D850. Got it when it first came out, had it for about five years now." She scrunches her face, looks at me. "It's not the easiest piece to work with, though. How comfortable with cameras are you?"

I shrug. "I had one of those mini-Kodak cameras when I was little, but that's about it."

"Hmm. Okay, so you'll want something more beginner friendly. Let me go find you a few options," she offers, backing up towards the end of the aisle. "Keep looking around. I'll be back in ten."

I open my mouth to stop her from doing any more work for me, but she's already halfway across the store. Scanning the supply list again, there are only a couple things left to get. I gently refold the paper and stick it back into my pocket before picking up my basket and swinging out from the aisle I was in. Looking up at the signs above, I walk until I find the memory cards.

Perusing the shelves, part of me feels unsettled skimming through the different kinds of media storage. Flash drives, hard drives, micro to macro SD cards—these little chips able to hold up to five-hundred gigabytes worth of memory seems absurd. To fill up that much space sounds impossible.