Photobooth

"Gabby. I need your help."

I jumped when I heard his voice coming from behind me, turning my head almost instantly to see who was talking to me. I smiled when I saw who it was.

"And what do you need my help with now Connor?" I asked as he slid onto the bench next to me. It was lunchtime, and for once the weather was nice enough to sit on the picnic benches dotted around the school courtyard, as opposed to eating in the common rooms because of the rain. I had been sat with some people from my Spanish class, up until just recently " I think they had gone to help with something to do with a language conference type of thing that was happening at school.

Connor wouldn't have approached me if I'd been sat with friends. He was like that.

"I really, really need your help with my photography." He replied, stressing each really like his life depended on it. "And before you say no, just remember this is me begging."

"Out of all of your friends, you decide you want to use me?" I asked and shook my head, tucking some lose strands of hair that had fallen from my ponytail behind my ear. "You know I'm not photogenic."

"Look, I knew you'd say that." He replied, "But before you say no completely, at least look at the picture. That way you'll understand why you have to do this for me." His big blue eyes pleaded with me.

"What exactly do you need me to do?" I asked. .

"I need to recreate a picture, and you are the only person I know who's hair looks something like that." Connor smiled. "So whatd'ya say?

"Fine." I sighed. "Just as long as nobody else sees the picture once you've taken it. Only you, me and your teacher."

"Fine, fine. Go straight home from school, and put on that white dress you've got, and I'll come pick you up at half four." He smiled and then almost as suddenly as he had arrived, he stood up from the table and left.

Half past four came quicker then I imagined, I felt like I had only been home a couple of minutes before the doorbell started ringing. I quickly rushed downstairs, pulling on the first pair of pumps I could find and opened the door to find Connor smiling down at me.

He practically dragged me to his car, barely giving me enough time to lock the front door to my house, and set off straight away.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" I asked.

"Because I need the right lighting." He replied simply. "Today is perfect to take this picture. We might not get another day this nice for another three weeks. You know what the weathers like here." Then he added. "Plus, it kind of needs to be in for tomorrow."

I rolled my eyes. Connor Goodman " my best friend the procrastinator.

It was typical really.

Connor drove us both out of the center of town where most of the houses were and up a country lane that I had only been up once before when some of the football team had decided it had been a good idea to throw a party in the woods. It was funny how the last time I had driven up this road I happened to be wearing the same outfit and I happened to be with the same person.

And how we both ended up in the same field where most people had been at the party.

"Connor. Did we seriously need to come up here?" I asked.

"Yes." He replied and jumped out of the car without bothering to open his door. It was a good job his car was a soft-top and he had the roof down. "Follow me!" He smiled and started walking off in one direction. I got out of the car and looked down at the ground, thanking whoever should be thanked that the ground wasn't caked in mud.

I followed Connor further to the top of the field and frowned at him when he stopped walking. He dumped his bag down on the floor and crouched down beside it, pulling out his camera that I don't think I ever saw him without any more. Once he had sorted everything out with his camera he looked back up at me.

"Right." He looked thoughtful and pulled something out of his pocket, something that looked like a small piece of card. After looking back and forth between it and myself several times, his eyes settled on me. "Take off your shoes?" He asked.

I stared at him. "Why?"

"Gabriella. Just trust me on this."

I sighed and pulled off my pumps, throwing them closer towards Connor. "Happy now?" I asked. I wanted to get this whole picture thing over and done with.

"Hmm. Not quite." He replied and looked down at the piece of card once again. "Take your hair down." He commanded.

I folded my arms. "You're being a bit bossy." I replied. He gave me a look that told me to not even go there so I sighed and reached up to pull my brown hair from the hair band it had been secured in all day. "It's just going to look a mess if its down though, it's been tied up all day."

Connor cut me off. "It looks fine. Your hairs always perfectly straight, so I don't see why your complaining." Then he looked down at his piece of card again and smiled. "Right, now put your arms up above your head."

"Why?" I asked, but complied anyway. "Like this?" I asked, feeling a little more then stupid right now. I mean, here I was standing in a dress that I thought made me look awful, without any shoes on and my hair hanging messily round my face " despite Connor telling me a million times it looked fine.

"Yeah, but jeez " relax a little." He grinned and then started snapping pictures on his camera.

"How can I relax when I feel like a complete idiot?" I laughed.

"Trust me, you don't look stupid." Connor winked at me and then went back to his camera. I blushed and looked away from him. "Wait!" He almost shouted. I froze. "Don't move!"

"Can I talk?" I asked confused.

"Well I can't really stop you can I?" Connor replied. It felt awkward because I couldn't look at him whilst I spoke, because he had told me not to move.

"Please tell me I'm not going to be stood here long." I smiled. I wished I could have seen Connors face, I just knew he would be smirking.

"Depends on what these pictures look like." He replied.

"Can I actually see the picture your recreating." I asked out of curiosity.

"Erm... not till I've done." He replied and I saw out of the corner of my eye that he was moving closed to where I stood, my arms still above my head. His eyes never left the screen of his camera.

"Hurry up then." I rolled my eyes. "My arms are starting to hurt a little now."

"Just a couple more." Connor mumbled and I sighed, staring off into the distance. You could get a pretty good view of town from up here. You could make out the top of our school along the skyline of small houses and through some of the tree's you could just about make out the park down the road, and all the small children straight out of school running around the small wood chip area.

"Are you done yet?" I asked. When I didn't receive a reply I just assumed Connor was too wrapped up in his photography to have even heard what I said. I continued to stare off into the distance, watching the cars driving along the main street.

"Right. You can put your arms down now Gabby." Connor laughed from behind me. I hadn't even realised he had moved. I dropped my arms and spun round, smiling once I saw he still had his camera in hand. That was no surprise.

"Can I see the picture you were recreating now?" I asked. Connor frowned and looked down at his camera.

"I suppose." Then he grinned at me and pulled the small piece of card out of his pocket, taking one last look at it before he handed it to me. "Please don't hate me."

When I saw the picture I almost smacked him. An old picture of me, that just so happened to be from the party I went to, the party that happened in almost the same area, almost a year ago. I couldn't tell what I had been doing when the picture was taken, it just looked like I had been dancing with my arms above my head. It wasn't my best picture, in my own personal opinion.

"Ha-ha You're funny. Show me the real picture please."

"That is the real picture." He replied simply. "I wanted to use that in my project, but Mr Deane said that I couldn't because I took it before I started the class. So I had to recreate it."

"But why on earth would you want to use an old picture of me in your project?" I asked simply and folding my arms, keeping a tight grip on the picture. There was no way he was getting it back now. "You have so many other friends who are possibly a billion times more photogenic then I am, so why pick me over all of them?"

"You really don't see yourself in the right light." Connor sighed and rolled his eyes. "You look ten times better than half of the airheads that I know." His eyes met mine.

I blushed, but still kept my arms folded firmly across my chest. Connor must have seen me blush, because he set his camera down on the grass and walked over to me. My heart started beating a mile a minute, because in the seventeen years that I had known him and the fourteen years in which he had been my friend, I had never seen him look at me the way he was at that moment in time. When he reached me he placed both his hands on the side of my face.

He whispered. "And I'm not lying."

I nodded, not dropping his gaze. "I know." I whispered back.

Because, for that one moment, having Connor looking at me the way he was, I felt it.