The Bystander ✔

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Photography class had at least eight empty seats. For a class with a surprisingly large budget, it was never one that had gained much popularity at Westwood. But Eva needed another credit and having submitted her preferred grade eleven schedule late, all the good electives were taken and she was left with trying to figure out how to work a camera every second period.

Eva never really had much talent when it came to being artistic. So trying to capture the perfect moment with a camera she could barely use was starting to make the easiest course in school one of the hardest.

When Eva walked into the classroom, she was five minutes late and all the lights were off, the only visual guide being the painfully bright projector that the teacher was nearly blocking with her body. Mrs. Campbell didn't even glance over at Eva when she walked in and merely continued to talk about the image her shadow was covering.

Eva settled into her seat in the middle of the class, off to the far left. The desk next to her was empty so she gently placed her binder and books down and lifted her feet onto the vacant blue seat beside her.

"Today you will be doing an activity that will take up maybe half the period but we'll see how it goes," Mrs. Campbell said. "The yearbook class needs some of the cameras so we're low on stock today. You'll be in pairs with one camera between you, going around the school and trying to get the best image you can, with the focal point being the colour yellow."

All of a sudden half the heads in the room had turned and were scouting out their friends where they caught each other's eye and made a silent nod of affirmation. Eva didn't have that friend waiting for her to make a weird signal to from across the room. It was the one class where no one she knew was in it, or at least no one she was well acquainted with enough to ask them to work together. Natasha, Taryn and Carmen were the ones that easily made friends and knew someone in every class, no matter what it was. Eva was the slightly more awkward tagalong that really needed to get her social skills refined.

Eva frowned at the task in front of her and the teacher came around with an assignment sheet that Eva confusedly read over. Of all the colours, Eva thought, why would she pick something as uncommon as yellow?

"I don't mind who you are partnered with, just as long as you have one. If you don't, come see me and I'll sort something out," Mrs. Campbell said and immediately chairs were being scraped along the floor as people paired off and signed a camera out before rushing out the door. "Be back at quarter past eleven!"

Eva stood up and looked around the room. A few people had dawdled back but before Eva could scoop in and ask them to work with her, they had also paired off and left the room. She realized she was going to be the only single-person team in the class and slowly walked to the front of the room where the teacher was stood with one leftover camera on the table in front of her.

"I don't have a partner," Eva said and Mrs. Campbell looked up from her papers with a tight and short lived smile.

"That's okay, neither does Cathy."

Cathy?

Eva turned around to see Cathy trudge over from the back of the classroom in the corner seat. She had a messenger bag slung over her shoulder that hit her knee with each step she took. They glanced at each other before Eva quickly looked away and signed out the last camera. She didn't wait for Cathy as she walked out of the classroom and strolled down the hallway.

They walked for a while and Cathy always stayed one step behind, letting Eva lead. She tried to slow down and get Cathy to walk next to her but they never ended up at the same pace. Eva walked down the hallway where the science and math classrooms were and stopped outside a door that had a yellow poster taped messily to it. The corner was hanging off and there was probably nothing artistic or visually appealing about it but Eva turned on the camera and after hitting the zoom button twice, she finally managed to get a picture of it.