The Last Photograph

As long as I can remember, I’d always loved taking pictures. I would rise earlier than the sun just to capture its radiance with a simple click of a button. Photos don’t ever portray the real thing in its complete magnificence, but I think it’s the next best thing. Pictures, though, don’t pay the bills, that’s what my dad told me, anyways. Besides, most boys didn’t grow up taking pictures all day. 

That’s how I ended up here, in Cambridge Massachusetts, studying law at Harvard University. That Saturday, I didn’t have any pressing work to get done, so I decided to go for a walk to clear my head. The autumn breeze caught my wavy, dark hair and whipped it playfully around my head and face. Massachusetts would get cold that time of year, but I found the brisk weather and the changing foliage all a part of my inspiration. Taking my camera out and checking the lens, I glanced up at the trees; I wanted to take photos of the purple maples overlooking Bare Hill Pond—

—That’s when I saw her. 

She was wearing a maroon sweater and an off-white scarf that was billowing in the breeze. Her shining, dark hair caught the leaves as they fell, and like the leaves, I was falling—falling, falling. Before my awestruck brain could argue with my heart, I approached her almost automatically. I didn’t know what to say, or what I should say, but I knew I had to talk to her. 

“Hi.” I greeted her a little too cheerfully, and cringed inwardly at the pitch of my voice and at the abruptness of my approach.

 Lifting my eyes to her face, I drew back slightly and felt the anxiety twisting within me:

she was crying. 

Taken aback, I mumbled, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have bothered you…” 

Her beautiful blue eyes burned into mine, and I saw a storm of pain behind the mist of sorrow. She forced a smile, and the mist in her eyes cleared for a moment. 

“H-Hi.” Her voice was low, but so full of feeling that it caused my skittering heart to flutter. 

I took another step back, still feeling terrible for intruding upon her while she was so venerable. She swiped at a tear and tucked a strand of hair delicately behind her ear. 

“Are… you okay?” I asked tentatively.

I knew she was a complete stranger to me, but my heart had reached out for hers, and the storm in her eyes and the sorrow behind them had motivated a genuine concern for whoever she was. She nodded her head and swiped at more tears. Noticing suddenly that I was holding a camera, she smiled again.

“Do you take pictures?” She asked softly. 

Nodding dumbly, I shifted my position, unsure of what to say next. Her sad vision held a question.

I stammered, “Do you want me to take a picture of you?” 

She giggled, a high, beautiful laugh that touched the grief in her eyes and seams to lessen the strain on her heart. 

“That’s an odd thing to ask a stranger, isn’t it?” She breathed.

I shrugged, feeling awkward. She pushed more hair out of her face and nodded; her previous tears now dried against her rosy cheeks. 

“Would you?” She whispered, almost hopeful. 

I agreed, grateful to offer her something to distract her from whatever had caused her to cry. She walked over to a bench near the lake and sat down in a perfect model pose. I took the photo, and grinned as she hurried over to look at it. 

“Wow…” She laughed lightly in amazement, but then the joy in her eyes faded back to the sorrow before. 

Desperate to bring back her happiness, I offered her another photo, and another, and another. Before long, we had spent the rest of the day together. 

“Do you… well… are you hungry?” I ask quietly, my swollen heart resonating in my ears. 

Her ocean eyes stare blankly up at me, and I thought I saw more of her sadness lessen. 

“Sure.” She breathed, her voice high and light. 

I wish I could say it was ‘happily ever after’ from then on, but unfortunately, that’s not always how a turbulent storm ends. I thought, and I thought wrongly, that I could erase the sorrow behind her thin moments of happiness. Our days turned into weeks, and our weeks turned to months, and months to years… and yet I never saw her with a smile that reached her eyes. Somehow, right before I was to meet her at that same park, I found myself in a jewelry store, looking anxiously at engagement rings. I had saved a sizable amount of money, and I thought I could use it to make her happy; to make me happy.

“Hi, Johnathan.” She smiled shallowly, and added softly, “I love autumn.”

I nodded and whispered, “Happy anniversary.” 

My hand gripped the little ring box I had purchased earlier. My heart was falling with the leaves, once more. 

“To you too.” She whispered.

She embraced me, and I felt she held me longer than normal. When she pulled away, I noticed she avoided my gaze, and instead turned to look out across the lake. 

“Elle…” I whispered, a nervousness in the pit of my stomach that consumed my anxiety and heated my heart with an intense uncertainty. She turned and grabbed my hand as if to reassure me, but her eyes didn’t connect with mine. 

“What is it?” I asked gently. 

Not saying anything at first, Elle squeezed my hand tighter. Deciding that I wouldn’t spring the question on her today, I shoved the ring deeper into my pocket. I could see she was not herself today, and I wanted everything to be perfect.

“Thank you, Johnathan.” She whispered randomly.

The chilly autumn breeze tugged gently at her flowing hair, and I tilted her head towards mine; I realized her ocean was calm today. It was sorrowfully and yet eerily at peace. 

“Thank you?” I asked curiously, “For what?”

My heart hammered away with each step we took across the leaf carpet of reds and browns. Elle laughed lightly, but it held a nostalgic feeling of melancholy. She smiled sadly and avoided my gaze.

         She murmured, “…for…everything.” 

I had smiled then, thinking she had finally allowed herself to be happy. We took more photos, and we ate the same food we had eaten when we first met. I drove her home and kissed her goodnight, and she seemed to cling to me again. I should have listened to my heart, for I knew it was tied to hers. My heart said something was wrong, and my head argued she was okay, she was okay. 

“She… w-was okay.” I mumble, tears glisten upon the corners of my eyes. 

My heart seems to have burst, and its remnants have made it to my eyes. A turbulent storm rages within, and the ocean of my eyes pour with sorrow; a pain unexplainable. My therapist nods kindly; his face one of polite concern as I sob openly into my hands, angry at myself for having been so blind.

My psychologist sighs reassuringly and murmurs, “Johnathan, it’s been a year. I think its time we try and move past this.”  

He puts a comforting hand on my shoulder, but I know he can’t possibly understand. He didn’t walk in to see his girlfriend hanging from the ceiling fan. He didn’t see her face all twisted in pain, or her dark hair all matted around the bruises on her neck. He didn’t see her beautiful, stormy eyes bulging with red, like the color of an oak in autumn. He didn’t read her heart wrenching words scribbled on a page that expressed the makings of a broken heart. There is no way he could possibly, understand. 

I don’t take pictures anymore. I can’t. The last one I took was of my beautiful Elle, standing under the purple maple near Bare Hill Pond. I had it framed, and it sits on my desk beside my camera, near the little ring box that I never got to show her. One thing I understand better now is the pain in her eyes I could never seem to fix. It takes something terrible to stir up those waves of sorrow, and only something just as terrible to calm it. 

I’m staring down into the ocean right now, fourteen stories up, and its autumn again. Elle would’ve loved this bridge, with its startling architecture and the warm colors of the season surrounding it. I take a breath, and for once, I feel my storm settle; I have decided. Pictures can capture beautiful memories, but they can’t be the memories. For the past year I’ve lived in the past, relishing my photos, but those beautiful images can never cancel out the last picture my eyes took of Elle. I grip the bridge railing and, leaning forwards, I fall—falling—I’m falling, like the leaves, last autumn.