The terrible thing about photographs is that they don’t change.
No matter what happens to the people in them, no matter who dies, who marries
who, who winds up hating each other and who winds up loving each other, who
winds up exactly as everyone always said they would and who pulls a fast one
and shocks everyone with perhaps a personality trait or a talent that none
knew they possessed, no matter how changed the people shown in the photographs
might be, the photographs themselves never change. They are a constant,
painful reminder of the way things were, the way people were, the way things
and people will never be again. Because were the people to want to take
everything back and be the same, circumstances would not allow it, and if, per
chance, fate did dodge all probability and proffer the opportunity to those
involved to recreate what was, then they themselves would prove the
impossibility to the idea by refusing. Too many things have been said and
done or not said and not done, too many things forgotten or remembered,
exaggerated or underestimated.
That summer destroyed our lives and replaced the shattered pieces with new
ones, new lives that had very little to do with each other, new lives that
were so far different from the ones we had led that it’s useless to try and
decide whether they sufficed as improvements or unfair exchanges. Whatever
the case, though, that summer was what did it, that summer in that same little
sleepy fishing town in which we had found ourselves so completely thrown
together year after year, every May to August and sometimes for small periods
in between. That little fishing town with its simple people going about their
simple lives. That little fishing town where salt caked everyone and
everything like an extra layer of skin, where the sun clung to your arms and
legs the way the barnacles latched onto the sides of fishing boats older than
any of us, where the sea breeze almost unceasingly played with your hair and
ran its fingers over the back of your neck except when you most welcomed its
cooling whispers, at which point it promptly disappeared to dance out over the
capping waves that lapped the shore, carrying rumours and secrets and
declarations screamed at its cool blue surface back out to the deep waters
along with the bits of shell and bone and dry grass that unfailingly lined the
beaches.
We came, and had come before, for any various reasons –family, friends, jobs,
talents, school. Each of our presences in that little fishing town was
nothing new, and so what was it that made summer so different? What was it
that marked that particular summer right from the beginning to be the one that
would change all our lives so drastically? Was there some one thing that any
of us said or did that dog-earred that summer in particular to be as it was
–or, rather, was there any one thing that any of us could have said or done
that would have altered events enough that... that certain things would not
have taken place? That certain things would have turned out differently?
I can’t honestly say. And though I can think on it all I want, I’ve learned
that thinking on it doesn’t change the facts, doesn’t change the way we were,
doesn’t change the photographs. But God, how I wish I could change the
photographs. How I wish I could take all those dozens of photographs we have
from that summer and rip them into pieces too tiny for anyone to ever put back
together. If only with those pieces I could throw away all the memories and
regrets that I keep stored in that black shoe box alongside those photographs!
And yet I haven’t the heart nor the strength to get rid of any of it, because
the truth is that those photographs are us, and by destroying them, I would be
robbing all of us of a reminder, however painful, of the way we were, or what
made us the way we are now. Though I’d like to forget everything that
happened that summer, I can’t anymore than I can ignore what it did to all of
us. The deaths and births, marriages and break ups, the lying and
backstabbing that accompanied the disasters, all the evil that we found
ourselves so enveloped in... no, I can’t forget any of it, though I felt at
one time as though as long as I remembered, as long as I held on to those
photographs, that I would forever be a slave to that sinful summer.
Believe it or not, though, this isn’t about that summer. Or, rather, it is,
but only as much as what must naturally be recalled in the events that will
follow in this narrative. I leave it to you to judge us each as you will,
though I beg you not to judge too harshly, for I suppose everyone has their
own “that summer” that changed them so drastically they can’t help but
nickname it thus, and the fact that ours was so much more explosive, or
perhaps implosive, I ask you to blame on our youth, on our dreams, on our
passions. Yes, if you are to blame anything, blame our passions, for whatever
can be said of any of us, it can never be said that we lacked passion.
And this is agreed by the undersigned, that those vows which we have made
in all previous years are to be continued: that when one is in need, the
others shall rise to meet; that when one is in danger, the others shall seek
to warn; that when one is in fear, the others shall come to comfort; and that,
above all, no one shall ever be alone, for not even the tempests of hell may
rip that apart which we hold so dearly: our friendship.
Here signed, Jemmalyn Beckett, Cody Birdsong, Michael Adago, Kelly Mitchell,
Alex Heart, Michael Beckett, Zane Ellan, and Catherine Paramour
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