how

The people were still bustling around the boardwalk the first time she saw him, leaning over the side, eyes focused on the canal, his ice cream melting and dripping slowly into the water. At the time, she glanced around before placing her attention away from whatever her camera lens had led her to previously and focusing on him. He blended in with the moving crowd, his blue and red and pink striped plaid shirt tightly stretched at the shoulders and his jeans faded. He had a pair of sunglasses in his back pocket, and what seemed to be some sort of note.

She didn't mean to take a picture of him, didn't mean to be a stalker or a paparazzi, but her thumb pressed down on the snapshot button before she really had much time to reason with herself. And, once it was stored in her camera, she couldn't delete it, just couldn't.

So, this is how a random boy by the boardwalk, of whom she has never ever talked to or even stood within 10 feet of, ended up on her photography wall in her studio. She's content with just leaving him unnamed, pinned up to the wall just like another photograph - but she's not one to make her photos 2-D. She's always had a story behind each photo, a life to the picture, the thousand words for what it's worth.



The people were celebrating spring break at the boardwalk the second time she saw him. She didn't have her camera around her neck this time, and he hadn't been leaning against the side rails, but she could have recognized his plaid shirt anywhere. He had been standing in line for gelato and she had been sitting down at a table with her sketchbook in front of her. He blended in with the line, sunglasses worn over his eyes and his hands placed in the pockets of his shorts. He had the gelato menu in his hand and seemed to be mulling over his choices.

She didn't mean to sketch him as he stood in line, didn't mean to take advantage of his wait time, but by the time he had managed to get his gelato, 10 minutes had passed and a page of her sketchbook had been etched with a lose figure. And, once she had sketched something down, she didn't have the heart to tear it out and throw it away.

This is how the unnamed boy ends up on her wall a second time, but only because she had moved all of her sketches out of the book and onto a progress wall in her studio. For a while, she didn't dwell on the second meeting, but when she decided to go back and title all her sketches, the unknown boy in the picture had stood out amongst everything else she had drawn.



The people are all in their winter clothes the third time she sees him. She almost misses him, bundled up in a large, plaid scarf and a dark peacoat. He catches her eyes for a second as he blows over his hot coffee. She had been glancing at him the whole time.

Their town is not large, not an irony to its name, so she wonders how she doesn't know him as well as she wishes she did. The traffic on the boardwalk has thinned down, so much that the only people left on the dock are a couple of stragglers and the boy drinking coffee and her. He examines the camera in her lap and the pile of paper on the cafe table, and seems to strike an interest. He eyes her carefully, and she the same to him, but neither dares to make the first move. He's only here for the coffee, after all, and she's only here for a quiet place to work.

He stands up and finishes his coffee, and for the shortest of all moments too short, he considers walking over, pulling up the chair in front of her and asking her about her photography and her drawings. He imagines striking a conversation with this girl he doesn't know or may never know, but the opening of the cafe door distracts him just long enough for him to stop.

This is how the unnamed boy in her photo and her sketch remains unnamed. This is how they know they will never know. This is how their story both continues and ends forever.