Page 64 of Twisted (Never After)

Her gaze jolts open, her face turning toward me.

“So serious,” she mocks. “You know, Baba used to say if you frowned too much, your face would get stuck that way.”

“Fascinating,” I drawl, taking a drink of whiskey and reveling in the burn as it blazes down my throat and settles in my chest.

“I could see you being a grumpy kid, I won’t lie,” she muses. “Got any pictures to dispel my theory?”

“Enough,” I snap, not wanting to talk about my childhood.

She sticks out her bottom lip, scoffing and rolling her eyes. It’s an immature thing to do, and my hand tingles, imagining what it would feel like to spank her ass and make her sorry for the disrespect. I take another sip instead, trying to shake off the feeling.

It goes silent after that because I definitely ruined the moment, and I’m about to leave her to continue drinking on her own when she speaks, her voice quieter than before.

“How do you remember then?” she asks.

“Remember what?”

“You know…” She waves her arm around. “All the good stuff.”

I drain the rest of my glass and set it down on the end table beside me. “I’d rather forget.”

Her brows furrow and she tilts her head, a curious gleam coasting across her eyes. The depth of her stare makes me uncomfortable, like she’s peeling back layers that I didn’t mean to expose and trying to find the broken little boy that’s buried underneath.

She won’t find him there. He disappeared with my piece-of- shit father.

“I love taking photos, but I haven’t done it for real in years,” she says absentmindedly.

“I’ve seen you with your camera several times,” I note.

“Yeah, but it’s not the same.”

“A picture is a picture.”

Her hands smack the couch and she scoffs. “And a diamond is just a diamond, right?”

I tip my drink toward her. “Touché.”

She runs her fingertip along the bottom of her mouth, and my stomach jumps, wondering what her lips taste like with whiskey on her breath.

“You wanna know something?” she asks, a playful gleam in her eye.

I sigh, pretending to be annoyed although I’m anything but. “I assume you’ll tell me regardless.”

“I took photography courses in college.” She smacks her hands over her mouth like she didn’t mean to tell me.

“Wow,” I drawl. “You’re such a rebel.”

She runs a hand through her hair, reaching to the table and grabbing her drink before gulping down the rest and placing the glass back down. “Yeah, well, my father doesn’t know. But like… when I tell you I’ve never experienced true joy withanythingthe way I did when I was in a darkroom developing my own film?” She shakes her head. “I mean it. Now, everything is instant.” She snaps her fingers. “Digital. But when I was alone in a room with no light, watching memories I captured form in front of my eyes…” She shakes her head. “That’s the only time my mind would stop badgering me with uncontrollable thoughts.”

My chest tightens as I watch longing peek through her face. I hadn’t even known she was seriously into photography. I had always just assumed she was busy spending Ali’s money and frolicking around the city on a flash-in- the- pan hobby she didn’t really care about.

But that’s not this woman in front of me, and now I’m wondering if the version of her in my head ever really existed at all.

“That’s what you love about it? The silence?” I ask, suddenly desperate to know more about her.

She smiles softly. “I love capturing memories. Emotion that’s usually fleeting being frozen forever in time. The wisdom in the gaze of a person who’s lived a full life. The look in someone’s eyes when they realize they’re in love. The joy in their face when they’re laughing at a joke. Photographs help us remember things we’d otherwise forget.” Her grin fades. “I’ve been trying to take some of my father while I still can, but I have to sneak them in when he isn’t looking. If he knew, I don’t think he’d evenletme take a snapshot to capture his last moments.”

Her voice breaks on the last word, and an unwanted pang of sympathy hits me in the chest.