“I sit beside the fire and think
Of people long ago
And people that will see a world
That I shall never know”
Click!
The Polaroid camera flashed, leaving Jet stunned where she sat. Amy grinned as she pulled the new picture from the mouth of the camera and began to shake it. Around them the sparse trees of the Pine Barrens shook with the early May breeze.
“You’re not actually supposed to do that, you know,” Jet said, poking the logs of the fire she’d started with a tree branch. “It’s just dyes between the layers, and messing with gravity like that will make them run.”
Click!
Amy stuck her tongue out at Jet and pulled out the second photo. “Alright, Miss Science,” she said playfully. She laid both carefully out on a log to let them develop. “Let’s do an experiment, then. See which one comes out better.”
Jet pulled her unzipped leather jacket around her tighter and scoffed. “I already told you–”
“I invited my girlfriend to come camping with me,” Amy interrupted, “not the fun police.”
“And I thought this was just a hang,” Jet retorted, “not a photoshoot.”
Amy rummaged through her bag and pulled out a massive woven blanket. Then she danced over to Jet, sank down next to her, and draped the thing over both of them. Jet pulled her in close, letting their bodies do the work the fire had failed to do.
“Why are you taking so many, anyway?” Jet asked.
“You’re going to Cambridge in a few months,” said Amy. “I have to stock up!”
Jet felt Amy’s arm tighten around her midsection. It’d been a weird few months since getting her early acceptance to MIT. In August, she’d leave behind everyone and everything she’d ever known, a challenge that stirred mixed feelings in her. She’d been so caught up in it she’d barely considered how Amy might feel about it. Amy, who planned on two years of community college here in South Jersey to give herself more time to decide exactly how to financially ruin her future.
“Stupid,” Jet said finally, ruffling her girlfriend’s short hair. “I already told you we’re video chatting every day. And I’ll be back for Thanksgiving.”
“Oh, it’s not me I’m worried about,” Amy said with her trademark grin. Ten years of knowing each other, and two years of dating, and it still managed to disarm Jet. “I need to capture you as you are now, before you go off and save the world.”
“What are you talking about.”
Amy held out a hand, as if gesturing to an imaginary headline. “Astrophysicist singlehandedly thwarts extraterrestrial invasion with prototype drone.”
“That’s not–”
“MIT Undergrad rover discovers life on Uranus.”
“I will not stay in undergrad long enough to–”
“I just think that your life is going to–pun intended–take off once you get where you’re supposed to be. And years from now, when we’re old and gray and dead, I want the world to remember you as you are now, Jessica. A bold, passionate, gorgeous girl.”
Jet and Amy stared into each other’s eyes for longer than they needed to, Jet flushed at hearing her actual name. Amy was the one to break first, to reach for her camera and try to capture another delicious, fleeting moment.
But Jet was too quick, pulling the camera from her girlfriend’s hand and opening it to inspect the film. “You know Polaroid film fades, right? Time, air, moisture–when we’re old and dead and gray these will just be a couple of smudged rectangles.” Despite her words, she set the camera down with care.
Amy was pouting now, another face that disrupted the processes in Jet’s brains.
“Besides,” Jet muttered, placing a hand on Amy’s cheek, “I’m not all too concerned with that moment in time right now.”
Amy put her hand on top of Jet’s, her eyes wide and expectant. “Yeah?”
“Right now, I care about this one.”
Jet leaned in for the kiss. Amy relaxed into it, draping her arms around Jet’s neck. The blanket fell from their shoulders, which only prompted them to get closer.
Six feet away, two Polaroids developed on a log, one clear and one fuzzy, both depicting a bold, passionate, and gorgeous girl in love.
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