Page 75 of Safe With You
“What do you want to know?”
“When did you know you wanted to be a photographer?”
I looked down at the laptop between us.
There wasn’t one answer.
I’d taken pictures long before I ever thought somebody might pay me for them. Disposable cameras when I was a kid. My mother’s old digital camera when I got older. A used DSLR I’d saved for months to buy because I was convinced better equipment would automatically make me better at using it.
It hadn’t.
“I don’t think I knew,” I said. “Not at first.”
Luna waited.
“I just liked taking pictures.”
“Of what?”
“Everything.”
“That sounds expensive.”
“It got expensive.”
She smiled.
“I was the annoying person who always had a camera around. Family stuff. Friends. Random things I thought looked interesting.”
“Were you good?”
“No.”
She laughed. “Not even a little?”
“I thought I was.”
“That’s worse.”
“Much worse.”
Her laugh lingered as she reached for her mug, and I found myself smiling with her.
“I got better. Eventually people started asking me to take pictures for them. Graduations first. A couple family sessions. Then somebody trusted me with a wedding, which I’m still not convinced was a good decision on their part.”
“Did you ruin it?”
“No.”
“Then I think you were fine.”
“They got lucky.”
“Or you were good.”
“Maybe both.”
I ran my thumb along the edge of my mug as she studied me for a second.
