Capturing the Moments

9. i didn't mind, because i was having fun.

“Blaze, how are you finding this town?”

He looked up from the muted screen of his phone and raised his brow, sending me a surprised look from the opposite side of the table. He didn’t answer straightaway, but I hadn’t expected him to. I hadn’t exactly been the most talkative person since that nice chat with my mom. Truth be told, I actually hadn’t said anything to him the entire time we had been setting up.

But that was a couple of hours back. Then I had told myself that I was ‘too busy’ to uphold any kind of conversation with him. However, now I had time to kill and a person to do so with, it was about due time for me to dissipate this awkwardly tense silence. Despite all the ‘encouragement’ I got from Emily and Arthur, in the end it was me who asked him to come and it would be rude and unappreciative on my part if I were to just say and do nothing all evening.

“I like it. It’s very quiet.” Blaze took some time to give me this short reply, but I didn’t mind. I had, not that long ago, found out that pushing him to answer and pressing on, was not going to make this any easier for me or him. I said I was going to try making an effort, but interrogating him was not what I meant by it.

“That’s good,” I smiled at him, and then leaned back in my chair. “I guess there’s a first for everything.”

To this Blaze cocked his brow again, but in a questioning way this time. “What makes you say that?”

I was glad that he finally chose to not just nod at my reply and leave it at that. If I didn’t know any better, I would say he was starting to get used to me. That or he simply was trying his might at being somewhat polite. Although I would have preferred the former over the latter, I was rather quite fine with either one because doing both still meant we would finally converse normally.

“The town of Eveleigh, is too peaceful,” I explained, “After living in this disconnected and small place for your whole life, the scenery gets too mundane. There never really is anything new happening around here. The most action you get around here is during Easter, Christmas and the mid-summer festival. Eventually, I guess, you just get sick of it all.” I know I have. I was a photographer after all. Yes, I was content with my family and friends, but that didn’t mean I was happy with the place I was living in. I yearned for new things to capture and share, however being tied down to this tiny town just wasn’t going to allow me to do so – which is why after I finished high school, I planned to go to a college somewhere far, far away. I guess you could say I had quite the case of wanderlust.

When it registered that I was (rather creepily) grinning to myself and that I had forgotten about the boy sitting right in front of me, I snapped myself out of my daydream and looked over at Blaze. He too seemed to be thinking of something himself; I could tell from the far-away glint in his eyes.

“Oh, okay.”

I disregarded that he had more or less just ended this conversation and opened my mouth to try again. “Hey, Blaze, seeing as this festival is the only good thing we’re going to see for a while, I thought maybe we could have a look around...you know, try some stuff

As I had expected, he didn’t seem interested at all. He didn’t even answer. Instead, he grunted in my direction and went back to typing away on his phone.

I tried again. “C’mon, it will be cool! And besides, it will also give me a great chance to take pictures for next week’s school news paper.” And my blog, but I wasn’t going to mention that. Although some people really liked my work, when it came to Blaze, I just didn’t think he could really bring himself to care.

“Okay.” He swiftly stood and casually sauntered away from the table. I guessed that once again he was assuming that I would follow suit and catch up with him. And as always, I did.