“You really have some energy to burn, don’t you?” Dylan asked.
“Next time, don’t miss practice,” Emmy said with a playful wink. “Who knows what other newbies show up for you to obsess over.”
“I’m not—okay, whatever, fuck you.”
Emmy laughed and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “What do you want, a burger or a hot dog?”
“I’ll take a double burger, please.”
“With a side of fate fries?” Dylan asked.
Damn it. That was a good one.
I rolled my eyes and stuffed down my laugh. “You’re such a moron.”
Chapter Four
Vaseline Filter
ELI
Goddamn,it was quiet in my house.
I didn’t like that. I was used to either having Ben around to talk to if the silence got too heavy or I’d put on some random YouTube video on the TV just so I could have background noise. Sometimes that was a hockey game, sometimes it was an eight-hour-long city walk through some place I’ve never been to, or a tutorial video on a new photography technique.
I was a man of varied tastes.
But my television still wasn’t hooked up. The mount broke, and I hadn’t gotten around to ordering a new one.
So I slumped back into my couch and stared at the plain white wall in silence.
…which lasted about five seconds before I stood up and decided to busy myself with unpacking some boxes and decorating the house.
I didn’t have all that much in terms of decorations. I had a few paintings—random shitI’d bought at Marshalls—and a couple of nice lamps and pots I’d gotten in the breakup. Ben had been the one with the talent at interior decorating and pretty much took control of putting together our entire apartment. It was very apparent when all I had to pack in terms of household items as I was leaving was a random cookbook I’d never even opened and a couple holiday decorations.
And if I had been aware of my lack of belongings, he was sure to remind me of that when we were breaking up. Even though he’d been the asshole who betrayed my trust,Iwas apparently the one who was losing it all because I’d never had anything to contribute to our relationship.
He had made me believethatwas the reason he’d been seeing someone else.
Because I wasn’t enough for him.
The man I loved. The man who’d been my everything. The one I trusted, and cared for, and strived to be better for.
The man who would reward me with physical affection. And who would punish me with the lack thereof.
So many sides to him. All of them hurt me. The good sides to him hurt me with their absence, and the bad sides hurt me with the memories.
And now, this damn silence was hurting me by amplifying all my negative thoughts.
I pulled out my phone from the pocket of my sweats and opened up my music app, hitting Shuffle and setting it down on the arm of the couch. I grabbed my laptop sitting on the coffee table and sat back down. I went straight to Google and looked up things to do around town this weekend.
A pleasantly surprising number of options appeared. I clicked on the website for the local newspaper and found a ton of different events were happening. Therewere paint and sips, pottery courses, nature walks, a Lake Champlain Pond Hockey event (which looked fun, but it was already too late for me to register), and a… oh, interesting.
There was a photography meet-up happening at a coffee shop in the downtown area. It advertised a space for hobbyists and professionals to come together and talk shop, make connections, and then go off in groups to use what we learned together.
It was an open event. No registration required. They didn’t even require you to own a camera, just have a love for photography.
I happened to have both.
