Broken Lens - A Short Story

Anna snapped the lens into place, checking the battery light for the fourth time. She slipped the red strap of her Nikon D3X over her head and left shoulder, allowing the weight to sink against her chest. Then she pulled her phone out of her jeans to check it. A text popped in blue across the smooth surface. She slid it open and punched the screen.

Any chance I get an answer today? The opening in our company is still available if you want it?

Anna stared at the small square gray bubble. You won’t give up will you, mom? The tiniest frown twisted up her lips as she slammed the door shut to her truck and trudged out onto the sand, slipping the thin phone back into her butt pocket. Her shoulder length, tangled blonde hair poked out from under a navy blue Texas Rangers cap, offsetting vibrant green eyes and a very determined small chin. She tugged the zipper of her gray Columbia closer to her chin, covering a small pale scar on her collar bone.

Santa Monica Beach was empty as it was still early in the day. It was February after all, with rain in the forecast. The morning mists still hung in the air, hovering over the lapping tides. Anna’s boots sank into the sand, creating a trail of indentions behind her. She knelt behind a large wooden row boat leaning up against one of the white lifeguard stands. The tide was up, bubbling against the sand, chasing the seagulls from some dead jellyfish; the ocean farther out was white capping, foretelling a coming storm.  Two figures, a young man and a girl, were standing off in the distance near the Santa Monica pier. 

Anna pulled the strap off her shoulder so it dangled from her neck and powered on her camera. She pointed the lens at them and adjusted the focus, zooming in until both their faces filled her view. After an entire week of tailing Heather Grayson, Anna knew everything: the styles she liked, how she liked her lattes with skim milk, what eyeliners she wore to school and what she wore at home, where she liked to shop and who styled her hair ; although none of this mattered.

Anna was patient, though, and today her patience was being rewarded. Only yesterday, she had heard Heather setting up a meeting with someone here at the beach. Anna made an educated guess that this was also the person whose calls Heather kept hidden from her mother and always took out by the boat house on her family’s estate in Palos Verdes. Richard would be pleased with her. He had been waiting for two weeks for her to find him new evidence. Anna never knew the full extent of what he did with the photographs, but she really didn’t care. This was her fifth assignment for him, which helped pay for her rent and gave her the independence she needed from her mother.

Come on, mystery man; turn around. Anna stared patiently at the back of his brown curly head. He wore loose jeans and a light brown jacket like he had just stepped out of the house for stroll down the street. From what she could tell he was quite a bit older than Heather, probably just out of college. Heather was only a junior at Palos Verdes High.

Heather had just walked up to him, a huge frown on her Barbie shaped face. He reached out for her as if for an embrace, but Heather stepped back, speaking forcefully at him, frustration written in her squinted baby blues. Anna watched the man’s broad shoulders slowly sag as Heather circled him, still lecturing, moving her small manicured hands in animated gestures. He turned Anna’s direction in the midst of this one-sided dialogue and she caught a shot of his entire face. In the same moment she gasped and nearly dropped her camera. It couldn’t be! She pressed her eye to the lens, her gaze sweeping every inch of his strikingly familiar face. Looking closer showed several inconsistencies, however; the shape of the nose was just off, the tilt of the chin and length of the forehead.

It wasn’t him, but nevertheless Anna’s heart rate quickened and a cold sweat broke on her skin. She was fighting hard to forget. As Heather continued on her little rant or tantrum or whatever the girl was doing, Anna kept her camera fixed on the young man’s worried eyes. He never took them away from Heather, but watched her with deep concern. He obviously cared for her. Anna cursed quietly and set the camera down, watching them for a few minutes from a safer distance. A thousand images were spinning through her mind.

She cursed again, this time a little louder.

**

He promised me once that one day it would all end, our crazy lives, our crazy parents, our crazy town. He said we would leave it all behind, become different people. It seemed to be an impossible promise, one we both knew he couldn’t keep.  We were sitting on the roof that evening, just outside my bedroom window, trying to ward off the inevitable sleep and my dreadful dreams.

The trees were nearly bare of their leaves and autumn’s chill sank down from the sky. Luke’s calloused hand, which was warmly wrapped around mine, could not erase the images that seemed permanently burned on my brain, but he could change the way I felt. His eyes were fixed on the tangled branches of the old pecan tree that draped across the gray slated roof, face anxious. He knew what I was thinking; about the Widow Thompson and the pills she had overdosed on yesterday. I had not been able to stop her. It was the first time I had failed. I saw her gray lifeless eyes, her wrinkled clenched fist and the broken pieces of the empty wine glass. I could feel the heaviness leaving me, even as the scene flashed bright in my memory. I had not stopped my depressing thoughts; it was him, pulling them from my emotions. I squeezed his hand, wanting to tell him to stop. He pulled his eyes away from the trees in response. I could see it was weighing on him. His eyes looked tired. I knew that no matter how he felt would never stop. He didn’t know how to stop. It was a part of who he was.

“She was old and lonely, Anna. You can’t save everyone,” Luke whispered, leaning his forehead against my cheek, I could feel his warm breath on my ear.

“I’m only sixteen, Luke. I shouldn’t have to do this.”

“You don’t.”

“Then why the dreams?” I let go of his hand. “Why do I have to see?”

He grabbed my hand before I could pull it out of reach, uncurling my tightly knotted fingers and rubbing them gently between his own,” I don’t know. I don’t understand it either. I wish I could tell you why. I know it can’t just be a curse, it hasn’t been all bad.”

I was not able to answer. I buried my head in his shoulder, allowing the musky smell of his cologne and slightly sweaty t-shirt to numb my senses. His words were soothing. It was just his way, thought it wasn’t easy for either of us. He didn’t always know how to handle my feelings, or anyone else’s for that matter. I didn’t know what to do with my own dark, telling dreams.

“Hey…” Luke lifted my chin, forcing me to make contact with his eyes. “I love you.”

I knew he meant it, but somehow the words fell to the ground. Empty.

**

Anna turned up the heat and peered through her windshield into the small café shop where Heather and her companion sat perched over their frothy lattes. Santa Monica was now sitting under a downpour, the palm trees struggling against the wind. Anna’s camera sat useless in her lap. She had managed to snap one last shot before the torrent fell. Her pocket vibrated for the second time that day and after minute she realized it was a phone call and started digging for it. She glanced at the screen. Dr. Susan Faulkner.

Anna sighed heavily and let it ring twice more before answering.

“I’m working.”

“Then why did you answer?”

“What do you want, Susan?” Anna leaned back in her seat, drumming her uneven nails along the steering wheel.

“I was just calling to check…”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Anna stiffly offered.

“Ok. Fine. How’s school?”

“I’m passing.”

“Good,” there was a long pause. “I wanted to ask, well, I wanted to know how things are going?”

Anna didn’t have to guess to know what she meant, but she didn’t answer right away.

“Well, I’m sleeping and eating and walking to class and…”

“Anna…” she interrupted.

“Ok! It’s working, alright, at least, there haven’t been any more nightmares. The same as last time you called. Why do you keep calling and asking?”

“You were the one who asked me for the pills, Anna. It’s my job to care.”

“Look, I know my mom calls you.”

“Is it that hard to let her into your life, to open yourself up to her even a little? She is still your mother, Anna.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“You are way too cynical for someone your age,” Anna could hear her sigh.

“I didn’t choose any of this.”

“But you left Texas to find healing, right?”

Anna stared glumly at the rain beating against the glass. She could still see the two forms sitting in the café.

“Right?”

“Right,” she managed, ignoring the first question. “Listen, Susan. I really am at work. I need to go.”

“Where are you working?”

“I’ve recently picked up some freelance photography jobs here and there,” Anna replied, hoping that she didn’t ask anything else.

“Sounds normal.”

“That’s what I am. Normal…” Anna’s voice trailed off. “Anything else?”

“I guess I’ll leave you alone. Sometime I don’t know why I even try.”

 “I appreciate the call, Susan.” She really didn’t care but Anna just wanted to hang up now.

“Yeah. Remember you can actually call me if you want.”

Anna laughed, skeptically. “Bye.”

“Bye, Anna.”

She hung up and closed her eyes. The rain started to come down harder.

**

The closet was completely dark, but I could still hear the storm outside. There was another flash of lightning and a rumble in the distance. I buried my head between my knees, scrunching farther back in the narrow space until my back was pressed against the rough cedar paneling. I knew my mother was still standing there, saying my name over and over again, begging me to come out. I vaguely remember her talking to someone on her cell.

I was still screaming, but the noise was muffled against my flannel pajamas. I had been shaking in shock and it had nothing to do with the tempest outside. I’m not sure how long I had been sitting there, but eventually I heard a knock. Before I heard his voice, I felt his presence settle in around my emotions. The fear lessened immediately.

            

            "Anna?”

            I choked down a sob.

            

            The door opened and a boy my own age popped his curly head inside, a soft frown of concern on his face. He knelt down on one knee so he was eye level with me. He said nothing at first, just stared at me, with a half curious, half serious expression in his blue eyes.

            

            Normally I would have been embarrassed. He was cute and I was puffy-faced and wet with swollen eyes. I had no idea how he got here. How did he get past my mom? I should have been worried, but I wasn’t. All I could do was stare blankly at him for several long seconds as a smooth, calm warmth spread over my head and down my shoulders. I was almost positive it was coming from his eyes. Why did I suddenly feel like everything was right in the world? The fear vanished.

            

           “What did you do?” was the first thing that came out of my twelve-year-old mouth.

          

            He held one finger to his lips. “Sshh, it’s a secret.”

          

            I wanted to panic. What if this was just another nightmare? What if the boy was only a ghost of some dead child on the other side of town? What if…?

The boy shook his head slowly and I could feel that somehow he understood though he didn’t speak a word.

          

            “Who are you?”

            

             He grinned, shaking his long curly bangs from his eyes. “I’m Luke.”

**

After another half hour of waiting, the rain stopped. Anna lifted her camera, to get a fuller view of the two inside the café. Their faces were bent closer together now, holding hands across the small yellow table. Anna could see that Heather was asking the young man several questions. He was only nodding or shaking his head in response to each. The snap of the camera lens echoed in her car.

Then Anna watched as the both rose and slipped into each other’s arms. Anna’s finger thumped on the camera buttons. The young man gave the girl a lengthy intimate kiss. Anna felt her gut contort. She lowered her camera. This was it. The evidence Richard needed.

Anna waited a few minutes more until he left the café, slipped into his gray SUV and drove east out of Santa Monica. The camera clicked away, capturing his license plate. Five minutes later a taxi pulled up at the curb and Heather slipped inside. The rain had slowed to a quiet drizzle. Anna waited until the cab was nearly a block away before pulling her own vehicle from the curb. It was time to call it a day. She needed to send these pictures off to Richard before tonight. Anna turned north on Lincoln and headed home. Images of Luke still would not leave her mind. Normally she could distract herself, but today they wouldn’t leave. She hadn’t expected to react so emotionally on the beach earlier.

            

             In the parking lot below her apartment Anna checked her phone again. No new messages. She opened her last one from her mom and stared at it, finger pausing over the key pad. She didn’t want to work for her mom; working for her mom meant dreaming again. Anna was through with dreams? She was in college now; her mom needed to let it go. Anna shouldered her camera gear, pocketed the phone and stepped out of her car.

            

              Susan would tell her she was scared; scared of the confrontation of telling her mom the truth. And the truth is it was over. I’m done.

Just as she reached the door her phone vibrated again.  It was her mom.

            

            Please text me back.

            

            Anna gripped the phone as she walked up the stairs to her front door. The words of the text seem to swirl across the phone’s surface. She could see the young man’s familiar eyes staring at Heather. She remembered another moment two years ago when she had received a similar text. Anna dumped her camera stuff on the faded green couch as soon as she stumbled into her apartment. Without a moment’s hesitation she poured herself a glass of vodka and downed several uncomfortable gulps. She leaned against the kitchen counter staring into the empty space of her bedroom as the alcohol burned in her throat. A gray cat wandered into the kitchen, weaving in between her legs, mewing piteously. Anna ignored him, took another drink of the clear liquor and charged into the bedroom. She let the door to her closet swing open as she began digging under several piles of shoes. She knocked over her surfboard, sand still stuck in the waxed grooves. It bumped against her bed, nearly falling on the cat who disappeared into safety under the bed. It took several more minutes of searching but Anna finally uncovered a small leather journal tucked inside a box under her cowboy boots. She took a swig from her glass and opened the stained pages. Several folded pieces of worn paper fell into her hand and a faded photo. She held the photo up to the midday light flooding in from the bedroom window, sparkling through the glass in her left hand and bouncing off the black and white print in her other.

            

             The journal slid from Anna’s hands as she sank down against the bed, fighting back tears. In the photo Luke’s head was thrown back, mouth wide in mid-laugh. His hair was shaggy and long. He had been growing it out that summer. She bit her lip, pressing one trembling hand against her mouth. She had taken the snapshot more than two years ago only minutes before the disagreement that had sent her running out of his back yard. It had been nearly six months since she had last looked at it.

            

             Why had she not seen it coming?

Anna clutched at the picture, staring so hard her eyes could not focus. She could feel a headache coming on. His eyes seemed so alive. It only added to the agony of how she felt. They’d had arguments before; surely their disagreement that day had not been so bad. It had only been over her frustration with him controlling her emotions, something they fought over a lot. Had he really been that insecure with his ability? She had run through it in her mind a thousand times. Susan would tell her to stop blaming herself, but she couldn’t help it. She would always blame herself. Why had her dreams told her nothing?

Her phone buzzed loudly. Anna deleted the text without reading it and blindly reached up to a bottle of tiny blue pills lying on her nightstand.  No dreams tonight. 

**

I had no nightmares last night. Nothing. No warning, no premonitions. Luke’s last text was still in my inbox.

            

             Please call me back.

I glanced at it briefly before sliding into my truck to head to school. My finger hovered over the delete button before I snapped it shut, turned it off and slid it into the back of my jeans. I flipped on the headlights of my old Chevy. I pulled into the street and headed towards Big Springs High. Somewhere in the distance police sirens were blaring.

I arrived at the high school five minutes early and slid into my desk before half the class room was full. I didn’t feel my phone ring either time it buzzed. Thirty minutes into Coach Henry’s lecture on the Battle of the Bulge, the school’s guidance counselor, Mrs. Barron, walked into the classroom. I didn’t even look up, until Coach Henry said my name. My head popped up and my eyes snapped to attention. I could feel my cheeks flush as Mrs. Barron motioned me to follow her out into the hall. There was a low rumble of voices as I made my way around the other students’ desks and followed the older woman out the door.

Mrs. Barron’s normally firm and severe countenance was pinched and worried. Her gray eyes were red-rimmed.

“There is no easy way to tell you this, Anna,” she whispered. “It’s Luke.”

“What has he done now?” I asked, unable to hide my frustration.

 “There was an accident, Anna, at the lake.”

The words had hung there for several long seconds. I felt my hands instinctively clench at my sides. Her words had tumbled out so forcefully, echoing down the hall.

“What did you say?” I said, feeling like I might need to sit down on the hall floor.

 “Your mom called,” Mrs. Barron said. “You weren’t answering your phone.”

“Where is he?”

“At the Peterson’s lake house?”

“Is he all right?” I asked her, feeling the heat draining from my face.

Mrs. Barron just shook her head.

 “I’m going there now.” I pulled out my phone with shaky hands. There were two missed called from my mom.

“I don’t think that is such a good idea…” she began.

“No. I have to go.”

“Ok. Then I will drive,” she said quickly. “Get your stuff.”

We were on the road within two minutes heading for the lake. I was trembling for the entire ride. Mrs. Barron was talking nonstop, a stream of guidance counselor nonsense. I didn’t hear a thing she said. I saw the flashing blue and red lights when we were still several houses away. She had barely parked the car in the Peterson’s drive before my feet were on the pavement running towards the lake behind the house and the officers in the black uniforms.

My mother came out of nowhere and grabbed me, swinging my shoulders around to face her.

“Anna, don’t go down there!”

“What happened?” I screamed at her. “Where is he?”

“Anna…stop it,” her dark brown eyes pleaded with me. She grabbed my wrists pulling me towards the Peterson’s house.

I struggled against her. “No, where is he? Luke!”

“Anna, no, you don’t understand…”

“Where is he, Mother?” I repeated, trying to look over her shoulder.

 “Anna, he’s gone.” She began weeping, still holding my wrists tightly.

I stood there shaking.” No…”

“Don’t go down there, Anna. Please. It’s bad.”

“How?” I managed to get out.

She released my hands, looking as shocked as I felt. “Both of his wrists were cut.”

I shoved away from her and rushed towards the ambulance. They were putting his body in a black bag. I was probably screaming hysterically. All I could see was the pale whiteness of his face and limpness of his body. Someone grabbed me from behind, pulling me back. Luke disappeared inside the bag as one of the officers zipped it up.

 All I could think about was that this was my fault. Luke had killed himself and I had never dreamed it. I sank to the ground, buried my head in my arms and wept.

**

Anna lifted her head nearly an hour later as her phone rang. She sluggishly picked it up.  “Mom” the screen read. She threw it on the bed out of reach and stumbled to her feet still holding Luke’s picture. She wished the pills could block her memories instead of only her dreams. Susan seemed think that over time Anna could forget, but nothing could remove the images, least of all the agony of not having a clue about what Luke had been about to do. She could have stopped him. So why didn’t she dream it before it happened? It was the question she would probably go to her grave asking. But it was too late to change it, so why even think about it. None of this mattered. Luke was dead.

Her phone beeped. She glanced down, it was Richard.

Where are my pictures?

She wiped both eyes and slid off the bed still holding the phone and Luke’s photo. She walked into the living room and picked up her camera. She flipped it on and began scrolling through shots of the beach. She held up Luke’s picture when she found the one of Heather’s friend. They weren’t so similar now that she saw them side by side, but the eyes were pretty close. Funny how he had triggered so much emotion.

Anna scrolled quickly ahead until she found the pictures from the café. The couple’s moments of affection were perfectly captured in her moment by moment frames. Suddenly curious, Anna hooked her camera up to her MacBook to open the pictures on the wider screen. Heather and the man’s faces popped up large and clear. Anna felt herself especially drawn towards Heather. The girl’s nonverbal expression of the emotions she was experiencing was evident in the dreamy gaze of her eyes, the soft curve of her lips and the shy hesitation of her smile. Anna wondered if that is what she looked like when she had been with Luke. She felt embarrassed and yet empathetic all at once. Poor Heather, the girl didn’t know what was coming. These pictures could change everything for her.

Anna impulsively selected every photo in the café sequence and hit delete.

**

The dream was less vivid than most, but the facts were no less clear. There were strong male arms grabbing a young girl’s mouth, pinning her arms against her sides and shoving her into a white sedan. She had been standing on a curb in front of a pale blue two-story home, checking the mail. Why her parents would let a seven-year-old check the mail in that part of town was a mystery to me. A single solitary white envelope fluttered to the grass. “Claire Dalton” was scrawled in childish writing across the front. I could hear her frightened screams before the man slammed the car door. There was a screech of tires and a rumble of the engine as he sped off out of the neighborhood. The next thing I saw was the girl lying on a torn and thin mattress in a dirty room. The man’s shadow was in the doorway. I could the feel the child’s terror.

I woke up screaming, like I always did. My mom didn’t even come into the bedroom. It wasn’t as bad as others. Normally I saw more. I was thankful for the lack of details. I slid from the bed. It was almost morning. The air outside my window was light pink. I picked up my phone and dialed Luke. No dial tone.

I threw the phone across the room and rolled over into my pillow weeping.

                                                                                  **

Anna gently closed her laptop. She texted Richard quickly.

Pictures will be coming this evening. I didn’t get much this time. Sorry.

Her mom called as she was typing. She ignored it and sent her message to Richard. Afterwards her phone beeped and she knew her mom had broken down and left her a voicemail. She poured herself another drink before punching the phone on speaker and letting the message play:

“Anna, we need to talk. You’ve avoided me long enough.”

Anna grimaced. Her mom didn’t get it. She never did. Anna just wanted to be normal, to forget who she had been and to never dream again. This had never been her mom’s idea of healing from the tragedy.

Anna deleted the voicemail and turned off the phone. She wondered how long it would take before her mom would give up.