Free Picture Perfect by Evangeline Anderson Page A

happened.”

    He nodded and there was a finality in the gesture that tore at my heart. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “I think that’s exactly what we should do.”

Chapter Eight

    And that was exactly what we did. For a solid two months following the modeling job we’d shared, we acted like zombies around each other. Oh, we tried to hang out together and do all the things we used to do. But whenever we sat down on the couch together to watch a movie, I couldn’t help wishing that I could cuddle up to Kurt’s side and feel his muscular arm around me. And when we made an ice cream run down to Bo’s to pick up a lime freeze for me and a dipped chocolate cone for him, the car just seemed too small for the both of us. I could never think of anything to say to him -- or maybe I should say I could never think of anything appropriate to say. That was because the only words that wanted to come out of my mouth went along the lines of, “I love you” or “I want you” or even, “Please can we just forget about the stupid stepsibling crap and just go screw each other’s brains out?” As I said, hardly appropriate.
    Kurt started coming around on the weekends less and less, and I stopped seeing him around the USF campus. I knew he was avoiding me, and I didn’t blame him. We were both so uncomfortable we could barely speak to each other. The long, awkward silences every time we got together were unbearable for both of us. We didn’t even fight the way we used to, and Kurt had stopped butting in and trying to run my life, too. Surprisingly, I found I missed his overprotective concern. It was just no fun to make a date with someone who wasn’t up to Kurt’s standards for me, or take a job in an iffy part of town, or stay out late without Kurt to object to it. I started taking only safe jobs and staying in at night. And as for dating, well, there was just no one else I was interested in. No one but Kurt.

    And then one day the packet came in the mail. I took it from the postman and carried it upstairs, away from my mom’s prying eyes. She had been worried about me lately, asking if I was depressed, and never giving me any time to myself. I was beginning to see that it was time to move out of the house the way Kurt had the year before, but it made me sad to do it. I was reluctant because my parents’ house was still the main focal point of our family -- the one place I could be sure of seeing Kurt on a regular basis. I didn’t want to give that up, no matter how annoying my mom got.

    Once I was safe in my room with the door locked, I tore open the large manila envelope with Lisa McKenzie’s professional address on the front of it. A handwritten note in her looping scrawl fluttered out along with a stack of black-and-white and color photographs.
    Thought you’d like to see these -- they came out lovely. The book will be a limited print run so you might not be able to find a copy at your local bookstore, which is why I am sending a copy of everything. I enjoyed working with you and Kurt and would be happy to shoot you again. I’m enclosing my card -- call and I’ll let you know what I have available.
    The open invitation to work again with such a famous photographer should have made my day. Instead, I found my eyes blurring with tears as I looked over the beautiful, erotic photos of Kurt and I intimately entwined. Lisa had really made the most of the light and shadows in the old warehouse we’d been in, and the end result was stunning in its simplicity and beauty.
    I love him , I thought as I flipped through the photos. Not that it did me any good. The way things were going, in a month or two, these pictures would be all I had to remember my stepbrother by. He was slowly but surely fading out of my life the way I was fading out of his. I looked at the pictures again sadly, studying the expressions on our faces as we touched each other. And, as I looked, I began to see that maybe I wasn’t the only one in