Lawrence: I need my camera back Lia.
Dalia paused her show to text the boy back. She technically had dibs on whatever she wanted in the photography suite, as it was her family's business.
But I digress.
Lawrence had been nagging her about that camera for some weeks at that point. She would have given it back, but something in her just reveled in owning something he wanted so dearly. She had finished what she wanted to do with it days prior.
It was becoming increasingly clear that Dalia had no actual control over how life moved-- all she could do was move with the motions and be open to them. Historically, she struggled with change. She struggled with allowing herself to be a feather.
She was getting lighter and lighter every day.
She ignored the text and flipped her phone face down on her bed. Lawrence would not be getting a response.
It was on her dresser, just like the other one had been over a year prior. Time didn't just fly; it warped. There was no way she'd met Lawrence a year ago. Or Dean.
Her hair was out, airdrying. It was Sunday, and according to Wendy, that was short for Self-Care Sunday. They'd started their tradition in honor of Issa and Molly on Insecure.
"I'm worried about Issa and Molly," Dalia said out loud to herself.
Her phone started ringing then. "I need to get some new tactics. He's catching on."
Dalia picked up her phone and accepted his FaceTime call with a fart noise. "What, 12?"
"Stop playing with me, Dalia," he said to her. "I got work tomorrow. It's not the time for your cute antics and shit."
She put her phone against the pillow in front of her so that she could show him her sopping wet hair. "I was in the shower," she lied.
"I need my camera. I have a shoot tomorrow."
"Is it another model chick you're going to bag?" she smirked into the camera.
"Haha. This phone call is lasting too long."
"Well, I don't know what you want to me to do. I don't drive, my parents are not home, and there's no way I'm getting on the bus on a Sunday. It's simply not happening."
Lawrence grabbed his chin with his hand and pondered that. Â "You said your parents aren't home?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm on my way," he said before he hung up the phone.
"Oka-," she began to say. He hung up before she could get it out.
She didn't think much of it, so she hit play on her show. Something in her wanted to get up and get pretty for him, but she couldn't find the worth in that. It woudn't change anything.
Life was going according to its regularly scheduled programming until shew as hit withi a sudden wave of deja vu. The memory on the camera was full.
Lawrence would not have the privilege of seeing her shit without her consent again.
"Oh shit. Shit," was all that she could articulate as she hopped out of her bed.
She looked at the other side of her queen with frantic eyes and snatched up her MacBook. She had an idea of where Lawrence lived, and it wasn't that far.
The computer was there, but it was dead. That was cool. She plugged it in and stood with her hands on her hips, waiting for it to come alive. It made that boujie noise that MacBooks made, and then another slap of reality hit her in the jaw.
The USB.
She'd tried setting up the Wi-Fi on that thing multiple times, but it never would sync the way she needed it to. She needed a cord to get the pictures from it. However, she had no clue where she'd last put it.
Usually, it would be sitting on her dresser next to the camera, but for some reason, it was not. She had moved it quite a bit, as she had actually used it that time.
"The painting room," she remembered. With her wet t-shirt hanging from her frame, she ran into there and spotted the cord sitting in the corner.
No, she hadn't gone against her mother's wishes. She asked to use the space and promised she wouldn't destroy anything. She'd made good on her word, too.
"Upload, come on now," she tapped at her computer screen as the pictures loaded onto it. It felt like it was taking forever. Lawrence would be there any time--
He rang the doorbell.
I can just leave him out there until these are done. He can wait. This is my house, she recited in her head.
Then she began pacing. Those pictures were taking entirely too long. Her nerves caught the best of her, and she stubbed her toe on the corner of her dresser and knocked her metal water canister over onto the ground. The sound of her cussing combined with the loud thud of the bottle was all it took for Lawrence to invite himself in and investigate. She was ashamed of her parents for leaving the door unlocked with her in there.
"Lia?"
He rushed up the stairs and invited himself in her bedroom, where she was hobbling on one leg, trying to will the pain away.
She looked at him and back at the camera before snatching it and deleting the memory on it. Then, she looked back at her computer and shut it with quickness.
He saw her in all of her painful glory and laughed. "What are you doing?"
"Bruh, I didn't tell you to come in," she groaned through the pain in her big toe. "Take this shit," she said as she thrust the camera in his direction.
He flicked it on, with a clear face of surprise at the clean memory.
"It's not like you would have remembered to put on pants anyway," he smirked as he snapped a picture. Dalia whipped her head down to look at her bare legs. "Shit."
In any other circumstance, maybe she would have run away or downplayed the situation, but she had in no way anticipated for her nakedness to be one of her problems that day.
"I'll go," he said quickly. His whole demeanor shifted.
Dalia sprung into action. She didn't want him to go. It was the first timie he was there. They could watch a movie, eat cool snacks, something. They didn't get much time to each other those days, and now that he was there, she wanted to make something of it. That was another reason she'd kept his camera pasts its due date. She wanted him to have a reason to keep talking to her.
"No, you're good. Just let me put--" she turned around and bent over to grab her shorts.
"Dalia, bro," Lawrence put his arms up to cover his eyes.
"Oh my gosh," she said as she turned back around and jumped into her shorts in one embarrassed movement.
The pair, now both fully clothed, stood there with deep blushes in their brown skin.
"I feel violated," he dryly joked.
"Oh wow, thanks for the compliment, Lawrence. You sure know how to make a girl feel special," she returned. She was a little hurt. Even if it was unintentional, she never wanted a boy, Lawrence especially, to feel grossed out by her body.
Her eyes didn't well up that time. Her adrenaline had stilled.
"I didn't mean it like that, come on," he reached for her arm as the blush remained in his cheeks. It was clear that he didn't know what to do.
"Then how did you mean it, Lawrence?" she asked with her arms crossed. She wanted to hide.
Lawrence was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
He couldn't find a good way to articulate what he was experiencing. Dalia was always doing some shit. They could never just have a normal interaction. She was always tumbling, and she was always inviting him to come with her.
Her hair was soaking wet; he believed that she was in the shower. It looked like she'd gotten back in after he hung up the phone. When he'd reached to grab her arm and reassure her, a cold drop of it hit his forearm and made him shudder. At that moment, he hadn't even cared that her hair was dripping onto his leather sneakers. They'd be ruined at any moment.
Her shirt was soaked through in most places, and she looked like a Dalia he never got to see. A part of him never wanted to see it, because he knew he'd be stuck the way he was then.
The lines in his head were becoming blurry, and he knew not how to explain anything to Dalia. He couldn't just leave her standing the way she was, looking up at him. She needed a response.
He stuck his hands in his basketball short pockets and turned his hat backward. "It felt wrong."
"That's the same shit."
Lawrence liked to place strict boundaries on his life to prevent situations like the one he found himself in.
He had categories of importance for his companions; there was a hierarchy.
Dalia was constantly falling through and stomping up and down the stairs of that hierarchy, rendering it useless. One day she would be an adventure, the next day she would be a brat, and the next she would be... this.
He couldn't imagine that she was oblivious to what she was doing.
Beating around the bush wasn't going to get them anywhere.
"We're friends," he said with hopes of her receiving what he meant.
And he treasured their platonic intimacy. He liked them, as they were.
Dalia cocked her head to the side and analyzed his face. "I see."
In a way, she looked tired. It wasn't the kind of tired that showed eye bags and wrinkles. It was a determined version of tiredness; one that struck fear into Lawrence's heart.
She looked at him for a bit, and it took a great deal of his might not to cower under her gaze, or even worse, let it fuel him. His fists balled up in his shorts as he tried to control his breathing.
It's just Dalia. Fish Eyes.
Then she kissed him. And it turned him inside out.
-
Frank Ocean: Self Control
social media
instagram: rachelmcbriide twitter: rachelvmcbride snapchat: rachelmcbriide youtube: rachel mcbride tiktok: rachelmcbriide