5!
5 - Can I sit here?
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Rae was sat in the kitchen, her laptop open, music playing in the background to her editing session. It was a typical, English winter’s day. The sky was bleak and grey, over run with thick, ever darkening cloud, and everything felt cold and lifeless. Even the orange glow of the kitchen light didn’t make the world feel brighter.
The tea Rae had made herself kept her left hand warm as her right, swiped over the trackpad of her laptop, moving levels on the editing software trying to make her photos look as good as they possibly could. She’d just had her first lecture for her second practice ‘Photography and Place’, which for all intents and purposes meant landscape photography.
The word ‘place’ had really made her think though. For her ‘place’ was a funny word. She was still trying to find her ‘place’ and she had so two ‘places’ she called home, and so she decided to explore that a bit more. Look for parallels and opposites. She was currently pouring over a photo of the cattle yards she’d taken not long before leaving Australia for Brighton. They had a bunch of weaning calves in the yards and one had managed to worm its way into the hay feeder. It still made her chuckle now, the same way it had when she saw it and knew she had to grab her camera.
The kitchen door pushed open, Rae lifting her eyes from her laptop to the opening door. It was Wednesday afternoon. There were only two people in the house on Wednesday afternoons. Rae knew exactly who to expect, and she smiled gladly as Harry rounded the kitchen door.
How is it he always looks so soft? She wondered to herself as she looked him up and down as discreetly as possible. As always, he had a pair of black skinny jeans on, but Rae could tell they were the ones he’d been wearing all week because they were getting baggy on the knees and on Monday they were skin tight. He was wearing her favourite jumper, though he didn’t know that. It was cream and a thick knit, he always had his hands tucked into the sleeves all though this time he had a notebook and hard back clasped in his right hand. His glasses were perched in his freshly washed, glossy hair, and it took every part of Rae not sign adoringly at him.
‘Sorry,’ Harry started, taking steps into the living room, his socked feet sliding against the lino. ‘Can I sit here?’ He asked nodding at the seat she normally occupied at dinner time, Rae having taken his own.
‘Of course, I’m about to make some more tea, do you want one?’ Rae asked him, pushing her chair back and lifting her mug to finish the last mouthful or so of tea.
‘Please, if that’s ok.’ Rae just smiled in response, spinning on her chair to get up from it. Harry wondered if there was ever going to be a time, when that gentle, warm smile, didn’t make his heart flutter a little. ‘How’s first year going?’ Harry asked, finally plucking up the courage as the silence lingered on, Rae busy with the mugs.
And then it started, an afternoon of intermittent conversation as Rae worked on editing a collection of photos for her one to one the following morning and Harry worked on some artist research. It didn’t take much of Rae to make Harry feel ok, but the way she always looked at him like he was the only thing that mattered as he spoke, was the best thing in the world to him at that time. She’d never know that though, even if she was clinging to every word he said like it was gold dust.