Torrid Exposure - Book 1

Chapter One

Chapter One

“I THINK it looks nice.”

“Are you crazy? It isn’t even at all.”

“Well, you do it then, April.”

I sigh and take a step forward, looking at the photo that Emily has hung up in the living room. It looks crooked to me. Okay, maybe just a little off center. I lean forward and nudge it slightly with my finger. It slides just over enough to look perfectly centered to me and I look back at her.

Emily is wearing an amused expression on her face. “Oh, yeah, massive difference.”

I know she is teasing me. I roll my eyes and look back at the photo. I hear Emily leaving the room to go finish unpacking in her own bedroom. I look around the living room. The big things seemed to be unpacked. I sit down on the couch and sink into it, relaxing my feet for a moment.

Moving felt as if it had taken ages. I am glad to see that the big things are all unpacked. Now I can try to relax for the night. Even though it is hot outside, part of me wants to bundle up underneath a pile of blankets and go to sleep.

But I get up and make myself walk to my own bedroom. My own bedroom. It sounds foreign to me. Not that I haven’t ever had my own bedroom. Of course, I had my own bedroom when I lived at home. But I shared a dorm room in college so I wasn’t exactly dealing with the utmost of privacy.

Now, however, I have a space all to myself. The only other person in this apartment is Emily, my best friend since I was little. Finally, it feels as if life is falling into place.

I sit down on the floor and start going through one of the boxes. I have always been terrible at packing. I usually end up shoving everything in boxes without any sort of organization at all. I never learn, apparently, because this current box has everything from clothes to my laptop. At the bottom, I yank something out. It is a photo album. This is weird... I didn’t put this in here.

I flip it open to a random photo and see myself at age six. My skinny arms are wrapped around my sister, who is beaming at the camera. Behind her is a water slide. We must have been at some water park.

I scowl. My sister, Spencer, must have slipped this in the box. It was most likely a last ditch attempt at getting me to reach out to her.

“It isn’t going to work,” I say out loud and shove the photo album back in the box.

Emily sticks her head in inquiring, “Did you say something?”

“Yeah. Not to you though. Just...” I bite my bottom lip, “... just that Spencer shoved this stupid photo album in one of the boxes. I didn’t notice it until now.”

Emily is staring at me, clearly trying to figure out what to say next. She, of all people, knows the relationship I have with my family and that it isn’t the best. But I don’t want to ruin our day of getting our own place with mention of them so I quickly shake my head.

“No, it’s cool, really. I’m just going to finish unpacking in here.”

“Okay,” she replies and turns around to leave before hesitating. “Listen, April. You know if you need to talk about them, you can. You don’t have to lock it all up inside.”

“I know. Thanks.”

Emily nods at me and leaves me alone in my bedroom again. My earlier zest at having my own space is now slightly dulled. I sit on the floor and run my fingers over the cover of the photo album. I don’t know when Spencer would have snuck this in. Did she really think this would do anything? Knowing her, she probably thought I would see it and decide to move back home.

Well, she is wrong. I stand up and decide to go through another box. If I find another surprise from her in any of these boxes, I am going to lose it on her. But I then think quickly, maybe that is what she wants me to do.

I decide I’ll unpack something I like. The big box holding my photography equipment is stacked up against the wall. I yank it over and sit down on the floor again, opening it up and slowly pulling everything out.

Once I am holding my camera, I feel myself calm down a bit. It is state of the art. All my equipment is expensive – and I purchased it all by myself. No hand-outs from Mommy and Daddy, no matter what anyone may think. I go through the box and organize everything. I’ve been itching to take photos of my room so I take some spontaneous shots. I want to start a photo album of my life beginning with moving out on my own and continue on as I get my career going.

After I finish taking some photos of my room, I grab clean clothes and head into the bathroom for a quick shower. I can hear Emily talking to someone quietly on her phone in the kitchen. It is probably her boyfriend. Ever since Matt and I broke up, she is worried that if I hear her talking to her boyfriend, I might start crying over my failed relationship.

Maybe I would have a couple of months ago. But I am working every day to get over Matt and everything we went through. I tell myself that what we had was just a college romance. Of course it was going to end after graduation. That was what I told everyone after we broke up. I downplayed how serious we were. I felt like a fool for not seeing it before it happened.

Only Emily knew how hard the break-up hit me. Better not to think about Matt now. I have other things that I need to focus on. Whatever I went through with Matt is in the past now.

I step into the shower to clear my mind. I have things to get arranged. No use in thinking about the past.