Hi, finally updated. I was on a writers block again for nearly all my stories. Anyway, enjoy and don't forget to R&R.

When I walk in the front door. I hear familiar chatter from the living room. Once a month Mum hosts a women's book group she started. She's an English teacher at a high school a few towns away, and, even more than reading them, she loves talking about books.

She used to own a company called Capsule Corp. which was a world wide type of thing (though there was only one of us). She used to make inventions with my grandpa, but ever since Mum made that aging machine Grandpa has taken over the business by himself with his ever lasting youth… Okay, he's not young again but his aging had seemed to have frozen where it was and it seems it's not planning to change in a long time.

I peer around the corner of the foyer to see eight women sitting on our couch, chairs, and pillows on the floor. Trunks is there too, perched on the easy chair. Mum looks up.

"You all know my daughter, Bra." She says brightly. She extends her arm to me, inviting me to come. She is a different person when people are watching her.

The women smile, pausing from their tea and coffee.

Most have pieces of pound cake on napkins balancing on their knees. A few look me up and down, disapproving probably of my tight jeans and skimpy shirt. I recognise one woman as Marron's mother. She has plain dull yellow hair and heavy makeup (For once!). I had to admit; the 'heavy' makeup suited her. Auntie 18 wasn't really a big fan of makeup and neither was she used to hanging round with the rest of the 'Z Gang' but I guess the slight hint of loneliness got to her and ever since she's been trying to blend in. I believe she tries too hard at times.

"I have homework." I tell Mum.

Mum's smile is tight and unmoving. "You can say hello for a moment." She says. I bite my lip and move closer, letting Mum slid her arm around my waist. Trunks flips lazily through the book on his lap. He's the only one, I notice, who is actually holding a book.

"What are you reading?" I ask. I know Mum will appreciate my showing interest. At the least she will let me go upstairs sooner.

"The Poisonwood Bible." One of the women says. She has frizzy hair and glasses too big for her face. "Have you read it?"

I shake my head. Unlike Trunks, I'm not much of a reader.

"I only read when I have to." I say.

Mum leans forward, releasing me. That same smile is stuck on her face. "I don't know where she came from." She says. "Trunks and I are such avid readers."

Trunks glances at me quickly, then looks back at the book. I watch my sneaker as I move it back and fourth on the carpet, not wanting to see anyone else's expression.

Maybe she doesn't know what she sounds like when she says stuff like that.

"Some people like to read, and others don't," a woman says. "We're all different."

The room is quiet.

"I do photography." I say after a few moments, to defend myself.

The room erupts in oh's and ah's. They seem eager to break the discomfort.

"Should we get back to discussing Leah's character?" Mum says when the room settles. With that, I slip out.

Pan passes me the plate of cookies. She can eat anything and stay skinny as a pole. Ever since my body changed, a cookie goes straight to my thighs, just like Mum. I take one anyway, thinking I won't eat more. We are sitting on Pan's bed. Kyoto and the boys (the hottest boy band from Japan) smiles from the shiny cover of the 'Loud!' (Magazine)between us. The walls are pink. Dolls line an upper shelf. She hasn't changed her room since we met, back in second grade. That was right after her father died from the 'battle' and she and her mother moved houses to become closer to family. I'd suggest she redecorate, but she only repositions one of the dolls or changes its outfit. Her clothing has slightly changed, I could tell she wanted to move on to a more punkier/rocker look and style but her past seems to lock onto her. Despite that, she's comfortable in her childhood room. Maybe it helps her stay close to her father's memory.

"Coach thinks we can go to state" she says. She's talking about track. She has cross-country, I have photography. It's always been like that. During recess in second grade she ran and ran around in the playground while David Shafer chased her. I wandered off near the trees, examining the way the sunlight shifted on the leaves. I didn't care back then whether a boy looked at me or not. Now I can barely keep my own eyes still long enough to focus the camera. She can tell I'm distracted. "How's the contest coming?"

"Ugh." I say. "Don't remind me."

"I'm sure you'll think of something."

"Why does everyone keep saying that?"

Pan gets up and pulls open her blinds. Her back is facing me.

"I'm sorry, Pan." I say. "I just don't want to talk about it."

She looks back at me and pushes a strand of hair behind her ear. "Then what do you want to talk about? Let me guess: Goten."

"What's gotten into you?"

"Me?" She says. "You're the one who's changed.

I look down on my hands. There's a smudge of chocolate on my thumb from the cookie. I know she's right. What would she say if she knew about my walks? Is she knew about the guy in the Civic, how I've thought of him ever since? She would probably be appalled. "Let's just talk." I say. "What do you want to talk about?"

Right then Pan's mother knocks on the door.

"Come in." Pan calls without hesitation. This is another way we are nothing alike. She is exceptionally close to her mother, who she refers to by first name. She calls Videl her other best friend. And, from the way Pan talks about her, she can do no wrong. Pan's the one interested in psychology, so I'm amazed she hasn't figured out why she has to be best friends with her mother. Who else does she have?

"How are we doing on cookies?" Videl asks. Her dark hair falls loosely over her shoulders, and she is thin like Pan. They look like sisters minus the eyes. Videl's are a soft blue and Pan's are sharp and dark.

"We're good." Pan says. She gives Videl a look that says she'll talk to her later. Videl nods and closes the door.

We're in a silent moment.

I breathe in, trying to come up with the right thing to say. "You're so lucky." I say once Videl closes the door. "Your mum is so great."

Pan smiles and moves back towards the bed. She likes it when I compliment her mother. I mean it, though. Videl has always been kind to me. But I know saying so will get me back in Pan's good graces.

"She's the best." She says with another smile.

"Pan." I scrunch my face. "I'm sorry I've been such an ass."

Pan looks at me. "A double ass."

"Triple." I say.

She laughs.

I breathe out and before you know it I'm laughing with her. We're back to normal.

At home the house is quiet and dark. When I go upstairs, I can hear my mother's muffled sobs through Trunks' bedroom door.

"Who would have me?" my mother says. "I'm used and old."

"No." Trunks says quietly, almost whispering.

"Your father left me. Who will ever love me again? I'm just some ugly old bitch who lives in a huge empty mansion, used fucked up and lonely! Tell me, just who the hell would love me, ever again?"

"I do." Trunks says. "I love you."

I tiptoe away from the door, not wanting them to hear me.

In my room I pull down my book of twentieth-century photography. Why is there no chapter of self portraits? Most photographers, it seems, avoided the subject. I understand why. They focus on what was outside them: people, shadows, shapes. The same things I like to focus on. On my wall are the ones I'm most proud of, including the shot of the circular stairwell that won first prize in the Bergen Country Day eighth-grade art contest. I wasn't up against high school kids all over the country then. Leafing through the book. I stop on Cindy Sherman. Almost all her work is self-portraits. Here she is a man. Here she is dressed in lace. Here she is a corpse. She is brilliant, sliding into various identities. She tells who she is by becoming a tiny piece of who she is and who she is not. I wish I could be as clear.

I pull down shoe boxes from the top shelf of my closet. I sift through the photographs. Pan and me in Manhattan. Dad and Trunks and me. Mum and dad with us when we were little. Dad hangs his arm loosely over Mums shoulder. They look comfortable, settled. Mum told me they pregnant with Trunks months before they decided to get married. Mum was so anxious to have a family, Dad was too. But he wasn't really the type to let out his emotions. They were very much in love. They assumed, as I guess all married couples do, that their feelings would last forever. They didn't count on job and kid stresses. They didn't count on Dad pulling away and Mum grasping tighter, desperate for her life to be what she had planned. In the photograph they stare out at me, serene and unknowing. It's hard to understand these are the same people, now as frantic and restless as wild animals.

I hear Trunks' door open, then click shut. I hear Mum pad towards her bedroom. I stay perfectly still, hoping she won't hear me. But she stops outside my door, probably seeing my light.

"Bra?" she asks.

"What."

"You're home."

I watch the door, willing it not to open. She knows I won't let her cry to me the way she does with Trunks, but I have to keep my shield up to make sure. If I let it down for even a second, she might forget.

"Well, okay." Mum says when I don't respond. "Good night."

I listen for her door to close, and then I crumple the photo of our family and throw it at the wastebasket. It misses, hits the wall, and rolls under my desk out of sight.

I'm in the darkroom, where everything is still. The red light makes me feel as though I am in another Dimension, like being underwater, the world dreamlike and illuminated.

First I dip the pictures from the freeway. The leaves one is unremarkable, but I like the photograph of the girl on the phone. I can feel her sharp energy, almost angry, next to the old man. Why can't the contest be about other people?

Next I dip the prints of Goten and watch him come into being. I can see the slump of his shoulders and the way he rests his weight to one side. I can see the light in his hair, the roundess of his lips. Just looking at his picture makes me buzz with a want I can feel like I'm going to explode or scream or melt away. I've never felt like this before, like a dam about to burst. It's scary, but exciting. Like something's got to happen.

There's a knock and, without waiting for an answer, Ruth slips into the room. I don't have time to pull my Goten pictures down, so she sees them. Sees me looking at them.

"I thought I'd check on you." She says, looking at the pictures as I start undoing the clothespins. "What are these?"

"Just some photos." I say. "I was playing around"

She nods, watching me with a smile on her face. I don't meet her eyes; just keep taking down my pictures.

"I was hoping I'd catch you with something you were working on for the contest."

I don't say anything. I wave the photos in the air, hoping they're dry enough, and stuff then into my book bag.

"Was that Goten Son?" she asks.

I nod.

Her smile increases. "Are you two together?"

"No." I say. "Not really." I glance at the door, wondering how to escape. I don't want to talk to Ruth about this. She's known me for three years now, since I was eleven, since I thought boys were annoying, when I used to say the only thing that mattered in the world was my photography. I'm too embarrassed to have her know how mundane and pathetic I've become.

"You'd make a cute couple."

I reach for my bag. "I've got to go." I say and I bolt out of there. But sitting on the late bus home, I can't help but smile at the idea that Goten and I would make a cute couple. Mum stares straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel of our old minivan. She drives like an old woman, slow and full of anxiety. At this rate I'll never get to the photography class on time. Just when you though Aunt. Chichi was the granny type!

"I hope you're planning on spending the weekend with Trunks and me." Mum says.

"Fine." I say.

"With you two gone at your father's so much." She says, "I don't get any help."

I hold up manual Canon on my lap and look out the window at passing buildings. I want Mum to be happy, but why does it always seem to be at my own expense?

"Are you even listening to me?" she says.

"I said fine."

"You don't have to keep it a secret." she says after a moment.

I look at her, my pulse quickening. I think about my walks, about the guy in the Civic. I wonder how she could know.

"A secret?" I ask. Her shiny blue hair is pulled back behind her ears and I can see the tiny lines around her eyes. They call them laugh lines, but I can't remember the last time I saw her laugh. I wait, squeezing my camera.

"You can tell me about that woman he's with." Her face stays hard and unmoving. It takes me a second, but then I realize she's talking about Celeria.

"Mum." I say.

"No." she says, raising a hand up into the air, putting me on halt. "I'd rather you tell me than have everyone hide it from me."

"Nobody's hiding anything."

"I'm not some fool, you know," she says. This time her voice breaks and tears spring into her eyes. I look back out the window. A young woman is running with her dog on the sidewalk. I watch her running and running until she turns a corner, out of view. Mum slows down in front of the community college art building, where the class is taking place.

"I'm going to be late." I say, and I jet out the door without looking back.

As I approach the entrance to the building, I can already see this is a mistake. Three college-aged women are talking and smoking over their shoulders. My camera is nice, but it's not the top of the line like those. A white haired man who holds a tripod and a box meant for contact sheets. I watch as another man trots to catch up with him. He says something to the teacher, and they laugh. They all know each other already, having been together last week.

I duck behind a tree. After a minute they all disappear inside. That's when I head back to the road. It's a long walk home, plus I don't want Mum to know I didn't go to the class. I consider calling Dad, but he's probably out with Celeria or, worse, in bed with Celeria. So I go across the street to Starbucks. I figure I'll wait there until it's time to call Mum to pick me up.

I get a latte and sit outside, facing the street. The air is cool. We're one week into October, and already the leaves are filling the streets. Cars pass, and I find myself looking for the silver Civic. He would surely stop, wondering what I was doing here, all by myself. He would listen as I talked about my mother, and he would hold me while I talked about the ways in which I felt so alone. Cars pass, none of them him. Right then I decide I will go with him if I ever get the chance again.

Thanks for reading. Review.

Tempz99