Christian leans forward to feed the booth three dollars, and I kiss his cheek. “I love you,” I say.
“I know,” he says back.
He sits back again and I put an arm around his shoulders. “Color or black and white?”
“Black and white for elegance,” I joke.
Christian chuckles and pushes the left button. “Black and white then.”
The machine counts down from five and he smiles wide, and just before it hits one, I kiss his cheek. The next photo is me smiling, taking up the entire frame. The third is our tongues sticking out and touching, and the fourth is me with a giant smile, my dimples on display, and my eyes bright as he kisses my neck.
The booth prints two strips of our photos and I hold the delicate memories between my thumb and forefinger, smiling at our love. “You look so cute,” he says and kisses my cheek with his hand on the small of my back.
“We’re a hot couple,” I chuckle and tilt my head back.
“You’re the hot one.”
“You’rethe hot one.”
Christian’s hand wraps around my jaw (I love when he does that) and forces me to stare into his coffee colored eyes. “I love you.”
I smile, biting my lip. “I know.”
His fingers tighten around me and I stand on my toes to kiss his full, pillowy lips. The only lips that have the power to make me feel the safest and most at home. The man that makes me feel the safest and most at home.
My first real love.
We pull away panting, my body overheated and my lower belly tight. He nips at my bottom lip and his hand drops, tapping my ass cheek. I stifle my grin and my fingers move to my lips, tracing them and feeling the tingle beneath my touch, the ghost of his lips still on them.
I watch him take out his wallet—there is a polaroid he took of me earlier this summer as soon as you open it—and he carefully folds the photo booth strip in half before he tucks it away for safekeeping. Christian grins as he does.
He folds his wallet closed, puts it back in his pocket, and wraps his arms around my waist to kiss my cheek.“Come, let’s get on the ferris wheel.”
“Again?”
He shrugs. “You don’t want to make out with me on the ferris wheel?”
I bite my lip.“Ialwayswant to make out with you on a ferris wheel.”
“Wow,” he breathes, smiling. “The perfect girl.”
I shove his shoulder. “You owe me a hot dog.”
Christian kisses my forehead, his lips lingering in the soft press, and then throws his arm around my shoulders. “Ferris wheel then hot dog?”
“No mustard.”
“Deal.”
These pictures…
It’s like they hold the entire world. My entire past life of happiness and peace before it went down the toilet with his alcohol induced vomit. Everyday, most days, I lie awake in this bed and wonder—if I think or imagine him hard enough, maybe his ghost will appear and I can talk to him as if he were real.
Maybe I can hear my favorite voice again. See my favorite face on my favorite person.
It never works.
So instead, I lie in this bed and write out our timeline on my blank ceiling. I try to pinpoint all the places it went wrong. When the drinkingreallybecame a problem and what I could have done to prevent it. I think about the times Christian came to me with bruises on his face because his fatherbeat him—because he was drunk and used Christian to take out his anger. I think about the day his mother came to my door and told me to leave him alone, told me to let him leave because he had responsibilities and couldn’t be held back by an orphan girl like me with nothing and no money. I think about the money his mother gave me and how I was such an idiot to take it because I was so angry at him.
