Excerpt: Snapshot

“Can I open my eyes? Or at least sit down soon?” I begged. “I feel like I’m going to fall over.”

“Actually, yeah, you can sit down in about a minute.”

“Are we there?” I asked.

He replied, “Not exactly.”

“What does that—” I began, but he cut me off, answering my question.

“Step up,” he warned, practically lifting me onto the first of three stairs.

I felt relieved by the familiarity of public transportation. “A bus?” I guessed.

“Hey, you are sharp.” He led me to a seat that must have been at the back of the bus, because it took us forever to get there. He helped me to sit down and I exhaled in relief. Cameron sat to my left, still keeping my hand in his. I was going to tell him that I was okay, that he could let go, but I stopped myself when I realized that I didn’t want him to.

Cameron asked, “Feeling any better?”

I was, but I said, “I’d feel better if I could open my eyes.”

“No can do,” he said.

“What if I don’t look out a window? How about if I just look at you?” Was this flirting? I really wasn’t sure. I was sort of embarrassed to be doing it, whatever it was.

“You’d, uh, have to be pretty close to my face not to accidentally look out the window while you’re looking at me,” he said. I could feel his breath on my face; he was already pretty close.

The bus was moving, now, carrying us to somewhere unknown to me. I opened my eyes and saw nothing but Cameron’s face, inches from mine, at that inconvenient distance where you can’t meet both of a person’s eyes at once. As a result, my pupils flicked back and forth, trying to decide which of his to center on.

“Are you planning on getting contacts?” he said, ruining what could have potentially been a fairly romantic moment.

“What? Oh, contacts,” I replied, remembering. It had been a part of my plan, something that I hadn’t had the time or the resources to go through with yet. “Yeah, I am. I can’t have people recognizing me,” I added quietly.

“Blue, right?” I thought it was funny that he knew that and must have given him a strange look, because he explained. “I saw it when I was doing your license, and I couldn’t really tell from the photo what your eye color was. Terry’s camera is crap.”

My mind flashed to my own camera, sitting in the trunk of Cameron’s car. Would it be safe wherever he had parked it? I guess it didn’t matter; it was stolen, after all.

“But anyway,” he went on, “the reason I brought it up was because I think it’s really sad that you’re going to cover up your eyes. They’re such a gorgeous color right now.”

How could he say that when his eyes were the most stunning I’d ever seen? I didn’t think that people had eyes that color. I almost dared to ask him if his were contacts, but being as close as I was to his face, I could tell that he wasn’t wearing any.

His compliment made me want to look away. My eyes moved instinctively to the right to avoid his gaze, but this made it so I was looking to the open side of the bus. Cameron’s hand shot up to touch the side of my face, essentially giving me blinders.

“Hey,” he said. “I thought we had a deal.”

“Sorry,” I said, shutting my eyes again. Though I was enjoying the view as it was, I was far too uncomfortable staring at him like that. Or rather, I was too uncomfortable having him stare at me. No one had ever spent so long looking at me, and especially not directly into my eyes. It was as if I was frightened of what he might see there. Would he see what I saw in the photo I’d taken of myself? Would he see how terrified and lonely I was? And if he saw what I saw, this scared little girl who had come so close to death but managed to survive, what would he think of her? What would he think of Natalia? Would he like what he found, or would he wrinkle his nose in disgust? Would he be happy that he swept her away, or would he wish that he’d swept her under the rug?

“You okay?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

“Yeah, just a little dizzy,” I answered. And I was.