FIRSTS Stories: The Boys Tell All

William Malcolm

Confession: I suck at photography. My pictures are too dark, my subjects are too blurry, and I always manage to cut people's heads off. I'm like a freaking camera-wielding guillotine. Maybe it shouldn't piss me off that I suck so much. But I really thought photography might be my thing. It seemed easy enough—you point, click, and hope for the best. I had no idea there'd be so much to it. Composition and lens settings and shutter speed and aperture and a bunch of other words I never remember and sure as hell don't understand.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. After sucking at so many other things—baseball, football, volleyball, anything with "ball" in the name—I've kind of realized that I might never have a thing.

"That one's not bad," Tommy says, staring at the picture I'm hanging on the line—it's my dad staring at the ocean, or at least my dad minus one-fourth of his head—and clapping me on the shoulder. I know he's lying and he's too nice to say the truth—that I suck. Tommy's like the polar opposite of me. He's good at everything. Photography, baseball, school. Probably sex, too. He and his girlfriend Jillian are basically like the Barbie and Ken dolls of Milton High. I've tried to hate Tommy for being everything I want to be, but it doesn't do any good.

"How do you do it?" I blurt out, spinning around to point at Tommy's photo, which is floating in a tray of solution. "You always manage to get her whole head in the picture."

Tommy laughs. "It's not that hard. You just have to practice and get the hang of it." He stares at the picture and smiles, then starts whistling. Freaking whistling, like he won the goddamned lottery.

I can't whistle. No sound comes out. Another thing I suck at.

"Everyone can whistle," Roxanne said when I first told her I couldn't. "Just purse your lips and blow." She did it, and this crazy-cool sound came out, and of course I got a boner, right on cue. Thankfully, she either didn't notice or pretended not to. Instead, she messed up my hair and said, "I guess I'll have to teach you, won't I?"

I got the feeling she was talking about more than just whistling.

Roxanne Shelton-Hutch. My girlfriend. Well, that's what I call her in my head. When I tried to use the G-word in real life, she rolled her eyes and told me not to put labels on everything. But we've been dating for three weeks, basically since right after school started. She's new at Milton and I got volunteered to give her the grand tour and show her to her classes. Then we ended up in the same math class and she asked if I could tutor her, and I didn't have the heart to tell her that the whole thing about all Asians being good at math is a bunch of shit.

Tommy's still whistling. He does that a lot more lately. When school started, he seemed kind of off his game, but now he's all relaxed and whistle-y. I guess there's no shortage of things for the guy to whistle about.

"I'm going to get a pop," he says. "Want anything?"

I shake my head. Roxanne told me aspartame makes your dick limp, and I have no idea if that's true or not, but I don't want to find out.

When Tommy's gone, I take a closer look at his picture. It's black and white, and Jillian's staring into the distance, with the strap of her top falling off her shoulder. Smoking hot.

"Pretty," says a voice behind me. Roxanne. I whip around and I know I look like a creep for checking out another guy's chick, but she doesn't look mad. She looks weird, though. Her eyes are all big and her hair's kind of messy and she moves away to shut the darkroom door behind her.

"I was thinking about you, Will," she says, and then her hands are all over me, pushing me into the counter where our pictures are hanging up. Roxanne won't let me take her picture. Not that I blame her. Maybe she doesn't want to lose her head.