A Story in an Hour or Less (part 4 - the scenes)
Part 4:
James watches as Ashley gets dressed. Her long, brown, curl hair draped over her head as she leans down to pull her black skinny jeans up her legs. When she flipped her head back James smiled and met her blue/green eyes. “What are you staring at?” she smiles back at James.
“I just can’t believe how lucky I am to have you” he says softly walking towards her to kiss her forehead.
“You tell me that everyday” She laughs embracing James after he kisses her.
“And everyday I mean it even more” James hugs her back in their small bathroom, he dreams of the day he’s going to ask her to marry him. He wants it to be elaborate, he’s written her a song he’ll play when the proposal happens. Her whole family and his will be there on the outskirts watching as he proposes. When she says yes, their families will rush out of nowhere popping Champagne bottles and cheering for the two. Jame’s has a few details to work out, but the days are coming when he will pop the question. James and Ashley have been together since they were in tenth grade, they are now twenty-two. Oftentimes high school relationships are a joke, and they don’t last more than a year or two before someone ends up heartbroken or someone wants to experience loving someone else. For James, Ashley is the only girl he’s ever been with and she’s the only one he can imagine spending the rest of his life with. He doesn’t fear not experiencing or getting to know anyone else like some people do, he knows Ashley is the one for him so he never questions it.
“I was meaning to ask you, Kaylee and I were talking about doing a photoshoot this afternoon when I get off work, is that okay with you if we use your camera?”
“Oh hun, of course. I don’t have an apportionment this afternoon if you want me to take them for you both instead.” James offers his expertise to Ashley.
“No, I don’t think so. Kaylee and I just wanted to spend time with each other and thought that is a fun way to for just her and I” Ashely looks up at James and smiles “is that still okay”
“Yeah, I trust you. So I won’t see you this afternoon”
“Probably not, you’ll be asleep when I get home. Kaylee and I will be out late, so no need to wait up” Ashley goes out of the bathroom to put on her shoes. “Love you James, I’ll see you tonight” with that she walks out of their apartment to go to work.
James feels so lucky to have someone like her.
James was drenched in sweat, his gray sweatshirt was darkened in some areas because of it. He had run four miles to Elijah’s apartment. James and Ashley only had one car at the time since their other one was getting fixed at the auto body shop a few miles down. Since Ashley took their only car to work that morning James had no other option than to run to his best friends house. Even though Elijah’s apartment was four miles down from James and Ashely’s apartment it was in the sketchy part of town. Outside Elijah’s apartment building were piles of trash, it smelled like dead fish in the neighborhood. There were vines crawling up the three story apartment complex, not only did the appearance of the neighborhood look sketchy but there was also a lot of crime in the area. James was trying to catch his breath as he banged on Elijah’s apartment door when he had finally answered Elijah saw the concern on James face immediately. “What the hell is wrong with you? Did you run here?”
James walked into Elijah’s empty apartment complex. The nicest thing Elijah had in the space was a 60 inch television and his xbox that was connected to it. However, it's not the first thing people notice when they walk into Elijah’s apartment, typically it's the tacky look of the lawn chairs placed all about the living room or the night stand used as a dining table that sits lonely in the kitchen. Even though the apartment itself was falling apart, the peeling paint or the stained carpet, when it came to messes Elijah didn’t have any. He enjoyed a clean space, he was better able to concentrate when it came to gaming. James continues to scan the place when he speaks “I have to tell you what happened this morning.”
“You already told me that Ashley took your camera” Elijah doesn’t understand what could be so serious that James had to run all this way to his apartment.
“Well yes that relates to what I’m going to tell you, but I didn’t tell you what happened when she gave it back to me and I looked through it this morning.” James' voice becomes weary and scared.
“What did you see?” Elijah begins to see him worrying even more so to lighten the mood he asks “did she destroy it? Or better yet, take her nudes on it?”
“That wouldn’t surprise me” James tries to muster a laugh at Elijah’s comment but he can’t break the seriousness in his voice when he spoke “but no, it was worse and I have no idea what to do about it.”
Elijah was losing his patience which made him ask “So are you going to tell me? or keep me guessing?”
“I don’t know, I’m scared to tell anyone.” James knew how serious the situation could be which freaked him out.
“Why did you even mention it to me then?” Elijah had realized they weren’t going anywhere with the conversation.
“I mentioned it because I want to tell you but I don’t know if I should get you involved” James began to make scenarios up in his head.
“I’m already involved because you brought it up” Elijah could have been prepared for what James was about to tell him.
“Fine, but can I count on you to help me?” James said as if he was begging for the help of his friend.
“Depends on what you are wanting me to do”
James gave up on his stalling and began to tell him what concerned him. “So yesterday Ashley asked if she could borrow my camera. She said she wanted to do a photoshoot with her best friend, so I let her.”
“You told me that already” Elijah interrupts
“Yes, I know but I’m leading up to what happened” James rolled his eyes.
“Okay, go ahead” Elijahs said annoyed and gave him the ‘okay’ symbol
“Anyways it wasn’t until around midnight that Ashley got home. That's when she put the camera on my nightstand and crawled into my bed. I was half asleep so I didn’t bother looking through my camera until she left for work this morning.”
“Is this where the story gets interesting?” Elijah genuinely asked James
Not realizing it was a genuine question James snapped back at Elijah “Am I wasting my time telling you? I can figure out how to deal with this on my own.”
“Calm down I’m just giving you crap. What did you see on your camera?” Elijah quickly tried to calm down James realizing the situation was a lot more serious than he anticipated.
“There was nothing on my camera besides this black photo, however it wasn’t completely black I could see an outline of something in the photo. So out of curiosity I took that photo to be edited and when I enlarged it and fixed the lighting I saw a man lying dead on the dirt” James' tone of voice became so serious at this point.
Elijah didn’t want to believe him so he said “that’s funny” in order to feel more at peace with what James just revealed.
“No I’m serious. The man was covered in dirt and blood, it was hard to tell because of the photo but I know what I saw there. I don’t know what to do, but she must’ve taken that photo.” James couldn’t believe he said those words out loud, he thought of himself as crazy but he also knew that wasn’t the case. He knew what he saw on his camera and now he just needed to figure out what to do about it.
“You have a visitor” Jefferson speaks as if she hadn’t said anything
“That’s new, haven’t had one of those for awhile” She knew what she was suppose to do when Jefferson open the little hatch in the door. She sticks her hands through and he cuffs her before opening up the entire cell door. As he escorts her to the visitor center she asks “whose my visitor today?”
“They don’t tell me, I was just ordered to bring you down here” He answers as they are turning the corner coming up onto the room itself. “Alright, you know what to do I’m sure, “ he says pulling out his jail key to unlock the visitors room. Ashley steps inside where two women officers pat he down before she makes her way to the table she soon realizes is hers because James’ is appearing on the other side of the glass. Slowly Ashley sits down and picks up the phone so they can hear one another.
“hey baby, I know how to get you out”
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