Perfect Strangers (Language, Violence and Big-Kid Stuff)

[[Desolate Divine]]

Chapter 5
My day had turned out quite the opposite of what I had planned. Whilst I had intentionally made plans without Emily, as to not spend too much time with her at once, that had failed. Even with me going into the city to look at camera gear, I still ended up running into her right outside. And a few minutes after she ran into Aaron, of all people. I am just thankful that he didn’t say anything more than he did. I didn’t want to keep what happened between Emily and I a secret forever, but was more waiting for the right time to tell her.

At least that’s what I told myself, as I looked at her across the table, in the bar in Melbourne Central. I took a sip of my beer as I thought about this. Truth is, I was putting it off, and now, the fact that she seems so annoyed about Aaron wanting to take advantage of her memory loss, means it’s a little harder to bring myself to tell her.

“So what were you wanting to buy today?” Emily asked, trying to make conversation, and pulling me from my thoughts.

“A new lens.” I replied as I got my phone up, and opened the web browser to get a photo.

I pulled up the store page with the lens, and handed it over to Emily.

“Jesus, $2800? For a lens?” She asked, shocked, “What’s so special about it?”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“If I went into detail we’d be here for a while.” I said, before taking another drink.

“Well you said that I like numbers, and that photography is mostly numbers.” Emily replied, “I haven’t got anywhere to be, so teach me.”

“Okay, but some of my terminology might be off, so don’t quote me.” I replied, “Firstly, you see how it is an 85mm lens?”

“Yeah?”

“85mm is the focal length. That is the distance between the lens and the point at which the parallel beams of light going through it converge. The higher that is, the more zoomed the shot is, and the more blurry the background becomes. Basically the human eye sees at roughly the same as 50mm.” I explained, “That photo I took of you last night was taken with an 85mm, just one a lot less expensive. It’s a good focal length for portraits.”

“Okay, so far so good, that makes sense.” Emily replied, “So what makes this 85mm so much better?”

“You see how it says f/1.2?” I explained, “That is part of it.”

“What what does f/1.2 mean?” Emily asked.

“That is the widest that the aperture can go.” I replied, “Basically, inside the lens, there is a series of blades that make up a hole called an aperture. The wider the whole, the more light that gets let into the shot, and the blurrier the background becomes. My current 85mm only goes to f/1.8.”

“So what, 0.6 difference?” Emily replied, “You want to spend $2800 on a blurrier background and a wider hole?”

I knew what she was doing. Playing dumb to keep me talking. She knew that when it came to photography, I couldn’t just let her believe that. She wanted to know more.

“It’s actually a pretty massive difference.The f-stop is a ratio. The actual size of the aperture is the focal length divided by the f-stop. So in my one, the widest the hole goes is roughly 47mm, whilst this one it gets to nearly 71.” I explained, “And that is a hell of a lot of light, and in photography you take all of the light you can get.”

I took another drink of my beer, before continuing.

“Basically, the amount of light in a photo is measure by three things. The aperture, the shutter speed and the ISO. To get the perfect shot you need to balance them three things.” I explained, grabbing four chips from the bowl of wedges in front of us, and lining them up into three lines lines, with the centre one being two tall.

“Each of those three things have side effects.” I explained, “The shutter speed is how long the sensor has light exposed to it. When it is quick, fast moving subjects are captured perfectly and have no motion blur. However the longer it is open the more light gets let in.”

“I told you about the aperture, that causes everything in front of and behind the subject to go blurry, the wider it is. And the ISO causes photos to become grainy and horrible if it is up too high.” I said, as I pointed at the chips.

“Just say I am taking a photo of someone playing sport, and I have the shutter speed at 1/100 of a second, the ISO at 200 and the Aperture at f/5.6, but they are moving too quickly, and the shot is too blurry.” I explained, “What do I do?”

“You’d make the shutter speed quicker wouldn’t you?” Emily asked.

“Yep.” I said, as I took a chip from the centre column, leaving it as now the same height as the others, “So now I am shooting at 1/200 of a second, but I am getting half the light…”

I stuck the chip at the end of the one on the left.

“Since I halved my shutter speed, I could double the ISO to 400 to let in more light, but that might make my photo grainy and horrible.” I said, before picking up the chip again and sticking it at the end of the one on the right, “So my best bet would be to open my aperture to f/2.8 instead. It will make it a little harder to focus the shot, but it means it will let in more light and still give a nice shot.”

“I get what you mean when you say there are a lot of numbers involved.” Emily replied, trying to process all of this, “It’s a lot more than just point and click.”

“Pretty much. It is all based around ratios and balance.” I said, as I went to eat the chips that were my props for the explanation, “If you adjust something, you need to compensate with something else to let in enough light.”

Emily took another sip of her drink before grinning slightly.

“Do you have any more stories from before the crash?” she asked, somewhat whimsically.

“You don’t like my photography 101 lesson?” I said jokingly.

“I think if you tried to teach me any more my head would explode.” Emily retorted with a laugh, “It’s fine if you don’t.”

“Nah I got one.” I replied, “This was at the end of Year 11, when we were about 17. Near the end of the year, around the start of summer…”
“Emily, have you even been to this place?” I asked during the last period of the day. Maths.

“No, but Tom and his mates go there all the time. They camp on the lookout there and apparently the view is amazing!” Emily replied, as she finished solving the last equation on the board, whilst I was still only about halfway through, “He said it’s not that far. Just down that road near the fire station. Five minutes.”

“They’re driving. It is gonna take longer than that.” I explained, “Besides, I’m feeling pretty wrecked. I might just have an early night tonight.”

“Come on! Seriously?” Emily said, “It is near the end of Year Eleven and next year we will be flat out! You won’t have time to hang out with me then, and by the time uni starts we will just drift apart and never see each other again. And whilst you’re making it as a professional ‘whatever-you-end-up-doing’, I’ll be a bored and lonely education student, drinking a bottle of wine a night to hide from my depression from my friends abandoning me…”

I was silent for a second. Whilst her anecdote was over the top, she did raise a point. We didn’t have a great deal of time left for stuff like this.

“You really know how to guilt trip me.” I muttered.

“So you’ll come with me to Blue Lake after school today?” Emily asked, sounding hopeful.

“I don’t really have a choice now do I?” I laughed.

“Thank you! You won’t regret it!” Emily said, trying to hug me from the seat next to me, and nearly knocking me off my chair. The noise of me nearly being tackled caught the rest of the classes attention, as I tried to put my head down and remain unnoticed.

“I just need to stop by home and grab some board shorts and a towel.” I explained.

“Fair enough.” Emily replied, “As soon as we’re done here, we’ll grab our bags and go to your place. No dawdling.”

Half an hour later, the bell rang, and I was pretty much being shoved in the back by Emily towards our lockers. I hadn’t seen her this excited in a while. Within minutes we were walking back to my place.

“So how did you convince your parents to let you go to Blue Lake?” I asked, somewhat curiously.

“I didn’t.” Emily said, “I told them I am going to Jordan’s place to work on an assignment. And I haven’t done this sort of stuff before, so they have no reason to think I’m lying. Well, at least, I haven’t been caught doing this sort of stuff before.”

“Why am I not surprised?” I laughed to myself.

“What about you? What will you tell your mum?” Emily asked.

“Nothing. As long as I pick up my phone when she calls, she doesn’t ask too many questions. Besides, she has a night shift tonight. She’ll be working from 4 til 1am. Probably won’t even realize I’m out.” I explained, “Growing up without Dad meant she had to let me become a little more independent a little earlier. She couldn’t be everywhere for both of them, so I had to grow up a bit.”

Emily was silent for a second.

“Sorry to bring that up…” She said quietly.

“Don’t be, you didn’t bring him up. I did.” I replied, “And to be honest, I think he’d be pretty happy with things at the moment. Ever since Tristan and his mates dropped out, school hasn’t been complete s***.”

“You do seem a bit more confident.” Emily said with a smile, “It’s amazing what a lack of a**holes does to a person!”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the spontaneity and sincerity of that comment.

We arrived at my house, with no car in the driveway, meaning Mum was already on her way to work. I rushed in to grab a pair of board-shorts, a towel, and a t shirt, as well as some food. Emily on the other hand was prepared and already brought her bathers, getting changed in my mums room, emerging in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt over her bathers.By the time we left my place and went to the bus stop, it was already 4pm.

The bus trip wasn’t very long, and we were stepping off the bus, out the front of the fire station in about half an hour. As we stood off, I walked over to the road that separated off from the main road and went down into the bush.

“Five minute drive you say?” I asked Emily.

“You said yourself it’ll take longer to walk.” Emily explained, “Either way, we can’t turn back now.”

“We can very easily turn back now…” I replied.

“Okay, let me rephrase that.” Emily said, “I’m not turning back now, and I’m not letting you turn back now. So let’s go.”

And with that, we started walking down the long straight road. After walking for about half an hour, we were at the end of the road, facing a sign that said ‘Yellow Gum Park’.

“It’s in here.” Emily said, “It can’t be much further.”

“I hope so, because my feet are killing me…” I muttered.

“Probably ten more minutes.” Emily said with a grin, nearly skipping into the entrance to the park.

Emily’s ten minutes turned out to be more like twenty, by the time we passed the car
park.

“I don’t see any lake?” I asked as we walked through the main gate to the actual park.”

“You won’t see it for a little while. It’s right down the bottom.” Emily explained.

“Wait, how far up are we?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. We can see from the lookout.”

“Do you know where it is?” I asked.

“Tom said that you follow the main path towards the bottom, but just before it actually goes downhill, there is another path to the right that leads to the lookout. Then you jump a fence if you wanna get right to the edge.” Emily explained.

Sure enough, not even two minutes later, this path to the lookout appeared. We followed it to the end, until we were standing by a fence. On the other side was a few meters before a sheer drop. However we couldn’t see any lake from where we were.

“I’m gonna climb over and take a look.” Emily said, before mantling the fence before I could object.

“Don’t get too close to the edge.” I said, “It doesn’t look safe. I can’t believe your brother camps there.”

Emily climbed the fence, and walked a meter or two forward, looking down.

“Jesus, this looks incredible!” Emily yelled to me, “Come over and take a look!”

“It’s fine. Let’s just go down and swim. We’re running out of daylight.”

“No, seriously come see this! I’m not letting you go down there ‘til you’ve seen this view!” Emily shouted.

I remained silent, intending to not let her win this. However instead of getting annoyed, she grinned at me, before taking a step towards the edge.

“Emily, don’t be stupid. Let’s just go and swim while there is still time!” I said to her, however she just continued grinning at me, and took another step towards the edge.

“You’re acting like a child!” I shouted, however she didn’t stop. Another step.

“For f***’s sake…” I muttered, as I climbed over the fence, “I’m coming, okay? Just get away from the edge.”

“Glad to see you care so much.” Emily said, before stepping over, and putting her arm around me, “What do you think?”

I looked down and saw around fifty or so meters below me, a massive lake. It was an incredible sight.

“It’s nice. Not worth me nearly having to explain to your parents why their daughter fell off a cliff though.” I explained, “Let’s head down before the ground crumbles beneath us.”

“Buzzkill.” Emily laughed.

“Well someone’s gotta do it, otherwise you’ll get yourself killed.”

We made our way down to the bottom, which took about twenty minutes, where we eventually found ourselves in a clearing with a few large rocks, and an entrance to the lake. I quickly found a densely wooded area to get changed, before making my way to join Emily in the water.

“How is it?” I shouted out to her.

“Perfect temperature! Couldn’t be better!” she shouted back with a smile.

I made my way to the opening of the lake, and launched myself in, trying to reach the deep part and not crash into the bank, as I wasn’t sure how deep it was. The moment I touched the water, I felt an icy chill go through my body.

“F***ing hell Emily, it’s freezing!” I yelled as Emily burst into laughter.

“It’s not that cold!” Emily yelled back, as I swam over. Her head was still dry.

“Really?” I asked, “So you wouldn’t mind if I did this…”

I dived underneath the water, and bearhugged her around the midriff, pulling her under the water with me. When we first met, we were about the same size, however I was on the back-end of puberty, and was now considerably taller and stronger than her, so it wasn’t much of a challenge.

Once she had been under for a few seconds, I let her go and swam back up to the surface. A few seconds later she joined me.

“A**hole!” she shouted, as she started shivering.

“Hey, after what you have put me through this afternoon, I think I owed you that.” I laughed.

Emily was silent for a few seconds, processing what I had just said.

“Well, I’m not gonna lie, you’re probably right.”

We swam for another hour or two, until the sun started to go down, before climbing back out of the water. We were both pretty wrecked from the walk here and decided to wait before walking back, and lit a campfire in the clearing near the water to kill time. We ate some of the food I brought with me, talking about life in general.

An hour later was when we had the conversation that put me on the path I’m on now.

I sat with my back against one of the large rocks, watching the fire with Emily sitting next to me.

“So why do you want to be a teacher, if you don’t mind me asking?” I asked her, “I mean, we spend 30 hours a week around teenagers, and most of them are a**holes anyway. Why go back?”

“I don’t know to be honest.” Emily replied, “I guess that I want to be there for them.”

“Be there to tell them off for not figuring out that x equal pi?” I asked.

“No, smart a**.” Emily scolded, “Think about it. Compared to when our parents were teenagers, how much worse have things got? The drugs, the bullying, the mental illness?”

“On paper sure.” I said, “But bullying has increased because of the technology evolving, and we know a lot more about mental illness now than we did twenty or thirty years ago.”

“So how much worse will it get by the time we have kids?” Emily asked.

“We?” I asked, to stir her up, before she punched my arm.

“You know what I mean. When we, separately, have kids.” Emily explained, “I look at my teenage years and I was lucky I had some decent teachers to support me. I guess I want to be able to do the same. Even if it means dealing with a**hole kids 30 hours a week.”

“Fair enough.” I replied, “I could never do it. I am struggling to get through high school, and really don’t want to go back there.”

“So what do you want to do?” Emily asked, “We finish school in just over a year, and I haven’t heard you talk about anything after that.”

“I don’t know what I will be able to do.” I said, “I’m barely passing Year Eleven.”

“Did I ask you what you will be able to do?” Emily said firmly, “Or what you want to do.”

“Honestly, I have no idea.”

“Really?” Emily asked in disbelief, “Nothing?”

“Really.”

“No dreams or passions?”

I was silent for a second, as I watched the flames a few meters from me dance around, too quick for my eyes to even comprehend. That’s when I had the idea.

“I’d like to take photos.” I said, “Granted, it’d be hard to turn that into an income anytime soon, since I’ve never used anything more than a phone camera, but that’d be cool.”

“So be a photographer?” Emily asked.

“Who else takes photos?” I replied sarcastically.

“Cops when people drive too quickly. Perverts when people aren’t looking.” Emily replied bluntly, “Is this your way of telling me you’re a sex pest who wants to take photos of people when they aren’t expecting it?”

“Really?” I asked sarcastically, “Yes, I’d like to be a photographer.”

“Then do it.” Emily said, “Seriously, school craps on about how important it is that we get a ninety-something ATAR score, and get accepted into twelve different universities, but really, you smashing every test isn’t going to make you a better photographer. If you wait until you finish school to get into a course for it, you’ll be stuck behind everyone who has been doing it as a hobby since they were a kid.”

“Why do you care so much?” I asked, not realizing how blunt I sounded. I was just surprised to hear her talking like this. I felt Emily punch me in the arm again.

“I’d be a pretty s***ty friend if I didn’t care.” Emily said, “I guess that I just haven’t heard you talk about the future much, and I’d hate for you to be stuck in some crappy job that you hate.”

I remained silent for a second, just thinking about all this. This is actually the most thought I had put into the future.

“Just promise me you will try it.” Emily said, “Even if you try taking photos for a month and hate it, just try it.”

“I will.”


I don’t remember much after that other than waking up to the warmth of the sun on my face, the ache in my back from the rock I had sat against all night, the weight of Emily’s head on my shoulder, and the sound of my 6:30am alarm going off.

We talked late into the night and must have fallen asleep before we were supposed to leave.

“S***, s***, s***.” I muttered to myself, “Emily, wake up!”

I felt movement on my shoulder as Emily stirred back into consciousness.

“Did we fall asleep?” Emily asked.

“No Emily, we went home, then magically teleported back here.” I said sarcastically, “We have school in two hours!”

“Oh s***.” Emily said, “Mum probably thinks I’m dead or something! I never came home last night!”

We quickly got changed into our uniforms from the day before, and made our way back up to the main road in, walking as quickly as we could.

As we were walking down the main road, Emily called her mum.

“I’m really sorry, we lost track of time working on this assignment, and by the time I thought to let you know I was staying at Jordan’s, I knew you’d be asleep.” Emily told her mum on the phone, “I’m on my way to school now.”

Once she was off the phone, she breathed a sigh of relief.

“She bought it?” I asked.

“I think so.” Emily replied, “Now we just need to get through the day.”

“You know we’re both covered in mosquito bites?” I said, “Do you think your mum will believe that you were working on your project outdoors last night?

“I hope so…”

We got to the bus and got to school on time, however both of us fell asleep during first period english, causing a few rumours about us that lasted a few weeks. At recess, I snuck out to the shops, to buy a few energy drinks to get us through the day, which they barely did.

I got home expecting to be crucified by Mum for staying out all night, however was pleasantly surprised when she didn’t say a thing. She got home late and went straight to sleep, then woke up at about midday, thinking I had gone to bed before she got home, and gone to school before she woke up.


“Jesus, how did my mum not kill me?” Emily asked as she fidgeted with her empty beer bottle.

“I’m not too sure.” I explained, “You never told me whether she found out or not.”

“Really?” Emily asked, “That seems odd. Unless it was scarring enough that I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t think so.” I explained, “The reason I told you that story was that that night actually changed my life. That night is the reason I am where I am now.”

“How so?” Emily asked.

“I think the reason you didn’t tell me how your mum reacted was because before you could, I went out and bought my first camera. And you were too excited for me to even think about it.” I replied, “Honestly, you were right that night. If I hadn’t have done that, I’d be doing some boring as f*** job that I hate right now.”

I looked down at the empty bowl that had our wedges in it, and the empty beer bottles, then at Emily. It was still pretty cold, so she was wearing a thick white jacket with a red scarf, fidgeting with the bottle.

“Stay still.” I said, pulling out my camera. She already knew what stay still meant.

“Jesus, all the photos you’ll have of me with a beer, people will think I’m an alcoholic.” Emily laughed.

”Trust me, you’re far from an alcoholic.” I thought to myself, “I’d know.”

Once I had the camera set up, I snapped a quick picture of Emily. The photo seemed pretty candid, as she wasn’t smiling over the top. More that she was already happy, and I captured that moment. She was leaning on the table a little bit, playing around the the empty beer bottle and smiling at the camera.

I passed the camera to her so she could see, as I looked out the window and saw how dark it was.

“We should probably head off soon.” I explained, “I got a bit of work to do, and need to make a start on that before it gets too late.”

“I can catch the train back, so you get home a little quicker.” Emily offered.

“Like hell I’m letting you catch the train alone at night.” I replied, “Seriously, it’s fine. I’m parked just around the corner anyway.”

We made our way to the carpark, where I paid for my parking, before we headed off. As I drove, Emily spoke up again.

“Why do you take photos?” she asked, “Why on that night in particular did you decide you want to be a photographer?”

“I guess that I love how a photograph can capture a moment perfectly. Even more perfect sometimes than the original moment itself.” I explained, “Honestly, that night changed my life, because that was when I realized just how special capturing the moment is.”

However I was leaving a massive part of the story out. That may have been the night I realized I wanted to be a photographer. But it was also the night I realized I was in love with my best friend.