Karma ||H.S||

Chapter 4

 I only took a few photos of Harry before rushing off to my room to be alone with my thoughts before Editing class started. I knew that him trying to take off my jacket came with no intentions, other than to get a good shot, and I hated that his simple and hesitant touch shocked me so much.

It was the first time someone of the opposite sex had been that close to me in months. Close enough to make me feel nervous anyways. The way I reacted to him didn't surprise me in the least, I knew that it was just my past coming to haunt me. And even though I had no intentions of trying to hook up with someone or get a boyfriend, the fact I was terrified of this boy's closeness, scared me for my future for when I did maybe want to be with someone.

I took off my leather jacket and threw it over my desk chair and looked down at my arms. Scars; The oldest ones faded to a visible white and the newer ones still a shade of light pink, graced themselves between my wrists and the inside of my elbows. I had wished more than anything for them to finally all fade to white so they would all finally be less noticeable. California was so much hotter than Vancouver and I wasn't sure I'd be able to wear long sleeves forever in this heat. They reminded me of all the times I allowed myself to get hurt. There was at least two hundred scars on my arms from over the last two years. Two hundred reminders of the pain. Two hundred bad memories, some of which I couldn't even remember, and two hundred reasons I left that life. It was sad that it took me at least two hundred times to figure out I deserved better than what I was given, but the fact that I even realized it at all, made me realize that at some point, I had allowed myself to have at least some kind of respect for myself, and for that I was grateful. I was grateful for being strong enough to finally get away, even with the little bit of dignity I had left. I had to hold my head up high and be happy knowing it was over and I could get on with my life.

I threw off my white tank top and sighed, deciding to change into a white long sleeve shirt with 'Cute as F*%k' printed in bold black letters across the front and deemed it presentable enough for the second class of the day.

Before going to Editing class, I stopped at the coffee cart again where I ran into a girl I recognized from class this morning. She happily introduced herself as Astrid and said she was glad to have found someone else from class to talk to other than the girl she had gotten paired up with for Portraits, who wasn't very nice, and we made our way through the school to the bottom floor where all of our classes were, with freshly made coffees in our hands.

"So I booked us some time in the studio tonight from seven to nine," Harry informs me, as he sits down next to me when he walks into the classroom filled with computers. He doesn't even look at me when he plugs his camera into the computer in front of him and waits for his pictures to load.

After I don't say anything in return, he looks at me. "Is that okay with you? I wasn't sure if two hours was too much, but just in case you don't know what you're doing, I thought I'd book it for a while."

Douchebag. Assuming I don't know what the hell I'm doing and he doesn't even know me. "Yeah, seven works for me," I simply tell him.

Just as his pictures finish loading and they pop up on his screen, the professor walks in. Her high heels echoing through the classroom. My attention doesn't leave Harry's computer though, as he scrolls through the shots he got of me earlier today. Surprisingly, he had taken quite a lot of them, where I had only taken a few, wanting to get away from him and my uncomfortable feeling as quickly as possible. When I realized how sad I looked in his pictures, my smile not meeting my eyes, I decided to focus my attention on the professor who was writing her name on the dry erase board. 'Professor Megan Wilson.'

As she is going through her explanation of what to expect this semester, which feels like is never ending, Harry pokes me on the shoulder taking my attention away from where it should be. He apparently hadn't been listening to Megan's introduction speech at all, and was already editing a picture of me the whole time on photoshop. "Hey, check this out." He doesn't even take his eyes off the screen as he finishes what he's doing, saving the picture and brings up the original and shows me his edited version.