I stepped up to the table, pressing my palms flat against the surface, head hanging low. My lips quivered, and even as I pressed them together, that didn’t stop the swell of emotion that thundered through my chest.
Tears crested the inner edges of my eyes, soaring down my cheeks with an easy blink. Through my blurred gaze, I caught sight of a photo, sitting in the center of his chaos. I saw myself staring up at me, only faintly recognizing the smile I wore. It was a rare expression, but it danced across my cheeks more often when Foster was around. In the photo, he had his arm slung over my shoulders and I had my hand curled into a fist, seconds away from slugging him in the stomach. Laughter was colored in the lines of his face, and if I listened hard enough, I could almost hear it.
My hand felt numb when I reached for the photo, my thumb brushing over my smile as I lifted it from the tabletop. Flipping it over, I saw the word he’d scrawled on the back.
Brothers.
Grief was impossibly strong, and I felt it moving through me like a sickening disease, eating me alive as I stared at those letters and the truth they held.
I had a brother… and my father killed him.
Probably.
Pressing my face into the crook of my elbow, I took several long breaths and used the fabric of my sweatshirt to soak up my remaining tears. There was a telltale pinch in my chest when I took a final sniff and carefully placed the photo I’d found in my back pocket.
I wrestled with my nerves and stiff muscles, freeing the canisters from their denim prison. The plastic bit into my skin as I squeezed them in my palm, and I felt my jaw click as I surveyed Foster’s equipment.
One chance.
I hadone chanceto develop these photos without completely screwing it up.
I didn’t have a lot of time, but I’d done this with Foster enough times to feel marginally confident. What I lacked in assurance, I made up for in preparedness. Roman and I spent all night researching developing techniques and watching how-to videos.
I could do this.
Ihadto.
Popping the lid of the canisters, I pinched the edge of the film roll and removed it carefully. A breath left me as I reached for a pair of scissors, cutting off the film leader the way Foster had shown me. Locating the reel’s entry point was easy, and I moved with patience as I fed the film into the reel, twisting the sides until the end of the film was pulled inside. Placing the reel in the developing tank, I got to work collecting the chemicals, measuring them with extreme precision. I was moving almosttooslow, and I tried to steady my hands as I poured the developer in the tank.
The lights above my head flickered, and I cast a glance at the ceiling. Roman was several floors above me, sitting politely in a conference room with the rest of Ridegemont’s staff. I thought maybe his ears were bleeding as he listened to my father drone on about the rest of the year’s budget and all the progressive teaching techniques the state suggested we implement.
Arthur held this meeting every quarter, on a Sunday afternoon. Daddy bird thought it’d be the perfect time for me to develop Foster’s photos. Not only because the school would be empty, but because he felt better about me walking these halls with my father in his line of sight.
The plan was for me to develop the negatives, wait for them to dry, and then meet him in his office.
Roman had been in counselor daddy modeallnight.
I think he was rather nervous about how these photos would affect me, and how I might react to what they would reveal.
I was more concerned about him going rogue.
It’d be a miracle if Roman sat through a four-hour meeting without punching Arthur square across the jaw.
Not that I’d mind… but it wouldn’t bode well for the covert-level mission we were attempting.
I’d missed the entire week of school, spending my afternoons wandering around Roman’s house, reading books and studying. He’d gone back to work after the first day we spent together, feigning oblivion when my father fed him some line about me having the stomach flu.
My lip was mostly healed. The bruises had faded and the swelling went down. All that remained was a small, inflamed patch of skin that nobody would notice because nobody ever looked at me.
Removing the film from the developing tank, I tugged it slowly from the reel, using a sponge to absorb any excess water. The string Foster had hung rested at the tip of my nose. It was frayed, and I noticed patches of mold roped into the fabric when I hung the negatives with old clothespins he’d stolen from the campus laundry room.
And then… I waited.
The tips of my fingers were pruny, and I picked at their hardened edges as I sat along the wall, glaring at the photos as though my impatience would make them dry faster.
The constant buzzing of the lights felt louder now than it did several minutes ago, and my ears seemed to fixate on it. My brain throbbed with every jolt, and I slapped my palms over my ears, damping the sound as I looked around the room. I struggled to remember my best friend without an unsteady pulse of anger or a terrain of grief that felt too deep to escape from.
Foster’s photos were all that was left of him now, like little footprints on the earth, showing the world where he’d been and all the places he wanted to go.