Joyce’s Reviews > Picture This > Status Update

The moment his tongue slipped inside, tangling with mine, my entire world seemed to flip. Upside down. Right side up. And just like my favorite photographs, the edges blurred until all that remained was Noah and me, in perfect focus.

Twenty-six-year-old Delylah Banks

“That was the first photograph I took that felt like capturing a real moment. No one was looking at the camera. No one forcing a smile or saying cheese. Nothing fake or posed. It was real.”

All my favorite photos were fuzzy at the edges to draw your eye to the focal point.

“I like real too. It’s the reason I love photography. My camera gives me a chance to capture real moments.” A smile gifted from a stranger. A tear rolling down a child’s face. A man staring at a woman he loved when she wasn’t looking. Moments that only existed for a heartbeat before they were swallowed up by a busy world. I hated selfies because they weren’t real. They weren’t raw.

“My favorite part is the kids,” he said. “I love that they are brutally honest. Every day is a gamble. They’re funny and mean and sweet, and sometimes, little assholes. But they’re honest with their feelings. Most haven’t learned to mask them yet. I like that they can be real with me, and I can be real with them.”

there’s only so much compartmentalizing I can do before I feel like a robot.

Noah had always doted on Emily when we were younger, but their dynamic had changed after the accident. Since then, he’d indulged her every request.

~~~~~

When she was a sophomore, he’d been driving her to volleyball practice when they’d gotten into a car crash. A woman on her phone had blown through a stop sign and T-boned Noah’s truck.

“She thinks a new relationship is the best way for me to get over an asshole. I disagree.” Dumping the asshole was my way to get over it.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Carrying you.”

She rolled her eyes. “I can walk.”

“And I can carry you.”