That night he got straight to work with uploading the raw photos he had taken of Jasmine the other day to his laptop, quickly discarding any he didn't like. He intensely studied every minor detail from the lighting to the shadows; he outlined her delicate brown face, her narrow chin, and healthy, freckled cheeks; the strands of hair she had pushed away to expose her round forehead. He enlarged the picture. Her thick, pretty lashes encircled her glowing, sand-colored pupils and her lips looked inviting and warm, though they could not be moved to smile. He continued from the jaw into the neck, where she wore a black lace choker just above her collared shirt. She was perfect. He downloaded the picture and held his breath as he sent it. Immediately, she sent back a heart-eyes emoji.

"that's me??!!!" her text read.

"who else could it be lol"

"did any other pics come out good?"

He sent her a whole group of pictures.

"OMG! i'm def posting these on ig. I'll credit you, ofc"

"don't worry about it. I don't even have an ig."

"you should def make one! start showcasing your talent. you could really do something with this. i'm srs."

"ah idk. looks so hard!"

"don't worry. i'll help you! what are friends for?"

Through their phone screens they were connected, sharing a faint smile the other wouldn't see; Michael, sitting alone at his desk, and Jasmine, sitting on her fire escape clutching her knees to her chest as she shivered. The night had gotten chilly. But it was better than being inside with the jarring sound of shattering plates and her mom screaming at her dad, and her dad screaming back. She held her phone in front of her and finally texted:

"hey...

"is it quiet over at ur place"

"sure i guess. why?"

She began to type: "can i come over," but she deleted it, shaking her head.

"nvm," was all she sent instead.

"gn," she added, before sliding up the window and crawling back into her room.

His heart was fluttering; his mind had become crowded with epic thoughts of what it could have possibly meant when she asked about his place. Maybe she wanted to be more than friends. Maybe she wanted to do things with him. How could he convince his mom to let her come over? Impossible, he thought. They would have to run away and get married. It was the only way. But how would they support themselves? She dreams of going to an expensive college, so he'd like have to drop out to support her. Maybe he could make a living with his dad's old camera? The thought made his head ache, but the picture in his head of coming home to Jasmine every night caused the bulge in his pants to grow.

He opened the next picture in the folder. He gazed into Jasmine's caramel-colored eyes which were soft and warm and inviting. Her lip gloss was fresh and glistening wet, and the shapely outline of her body made it tantalizing to imagine naked. Slowly he let his left slide beneath the waistband of his boxer briefs and tugged at himself. He wanted to see every detail, every secret his camera could expose. He tugged at himself as he imagined the picture coming to life and she was here, plunging on his dick as she cradled the back of his head in her arms until he finished. He cried out her name as he imagined the way she would scream his. A hot bead of sweat went careening down his nose, as he tried to settle his heartbeat. He wiped his hand on his pant leg and slowly crawled into bed. The hormonal crash was always swiftly accompanied by the ponderous reality pinning his flaccid dick underfoot like a helpless worm gazing up into the eyes of a callously cruel god denying him his chance at the sun.

After all, they were just friends. And he was, quite likely, the nerdiest kid in school.

Jasmine put on boots and grabbed her jacket, tossed the bedroom door open and stormed down the narrow hallway to the front door. She saw warm light from the kitchen from the opening on her right. Before she could reach the door, her mother intercepted her by the arm.

"Where are you going!" she snapped. Jasmine didn't answer. Instead she ripped her arm from her claws, nearly ripping her jacket sleeve in the process. Her burning, sulking eyes wouldn't look her mother in the face.

"Who do you think you are!" she roared, shoving Jasmine against the wall.

"Where's Daddy?" she growled, her searing gaze burning a hole in her shoes.

"You want Daddy? What do you want with Daddy this late at night, huh? You wanna go to where he keeps his other girls, his other families?"

Jasmine wouldn't answer. But her chest was heaving through her jacket, holding back a vomit of venomous, hateful words she had bubbling over in her stomach. At that moment, she wanted to spit them like acid and disintegrate her mother's face to the bone.

"You ungrateful little bitch. All you did was suck me dry. You stole everything from me. My best years. My looks. My beautiful body. All because I got knocked up in high school. And you dare look at me like I did something to you! You did it to me! You did!"

"I didn't ask for this," Jasmine whimpered tearfully, barely making any sound.

"Like hell you didn't! I know all about what you've been doing. You think I don't? You probably knew you wanted it since you were a little girl. You wanted everything from me!"

Her fingernails were dug into her shoulders now, crushing her tiny body against the white wall as her knees crumbled beneath her. Whether by a small inkling of shame or guilt, or simply by a split second lapse of conviction, she loosened her grasp. Without speaking, Jasmine swatted her mother's hands away and bolted to the door, throwing it open and slamming it behind her as she fled.

"Daddy, wait!" Jasmine cried out as she caught the blue sedan peeling out of the driveway in reverse.

"Get back in the house, baby girl, you can't come with me," he leaned his head out of the window and warned. Her shoulders slumped. He watched her chest heaving as if she was about to burst. He let out a heavy sigh, knowing immediately he couldn't stop her when she looked like that.

"Fine, come on," her father conceded. Jasmine's nose wrinkled up and her lips curled into a tiny smile as she skipped to the car. Soon after she closed the door, her father backed out and took off down the road.

For awhile, he drove without saying anything, as the radio played quietly in the background of her thoughts. The old walls pulsed with the gentle rumbling of the tires on the road. The inside of the cabin came alive with breathing vibrations of the sultry R&B instrumental playing; the spacey sounds from the harmonized vocals moved between Jasmine's ears like a clockwork moving blood vessel, and all the speakers came together to emerge from the cold nothingness of the empty space between them like the cleft of a cell, changing and growing and becoming life. Suddenly, Jasmine became hyper-aware of her own rhythmically fluttering heartbeat as she watched her father drive, softly humming along with the words.

"Why did you leave the house, Jas?" he finally asked.

"Why did you?"

"I guess that's a fair question."

"It's 'cause you hate her."

"What? No, no. I don't hate your mother. Sometimes, it just feels good to just get out and drive around, ya know? Gives me time to think."

She felt helpless. She felt herself dangling over the edge of an abyss, begging to be reached for, to be embraced, but all the while fearing he would leave her stranded there on her own. He wanted to escape, like she did, but all she could do at that moment was cling to him. Her eyes pleaded for him not to leave her behind.

"Is it true, Daddy?" she finally said, "what mom says?"

He fled from her big, wet brown eyes, glistening in the whirring light of the street lamps whipping past. He blinked, averting his gaze from hers.

"You're the only girl for me, baby girl, you know that," he answered with a grin.

"Uh-huh." She smiled affectionately. Her brown dimples were warm, and her eyes were wet and vulnerable.

They had stopped by the docks. The two of them lay with their seats reclined as they watched the stars above and the incoming waves below. Her dad glanced over. Jasmine's eyes were on her phone. She was watching an old video they had taken together a few summers ago.

The camera was pointed at her bare feet, as she had emerged from under the dock, shaking her blue summer dress and wiggling her toes in the sand. She turned the camera to face the shadows behind her, just briefly. Returning to her brown sandals, she continued down the white stone road to the market. The sunlight was at her back now. As she walked, her shadow led the way to a seaside jewelry vendor. There were pretty seashells in the window that captivated the gaze of her lens.

They were large and painted in shiny colors. They were pretty, all on display. From the seashells came a little twitch, a sudden outburst. Pretty wings emerged, and fluttered above the girl. A pretty butterfly had nestled and rested atop the seashell display, with wings folded, quietly and gracefully. Its blotchy colors poured out beneath the high sun, they captivated the girl, compelled her to follow them. Into the sunlight, back onto the beach, back to the steady murmurings of the ocean foam as it crashed. It flirted with the shore, as if it would ever leave, put its wings to the breeze and go, disappearing into the sun.

There came a familiar whisper. She pointed the camera to face his weary smile.

"You know they say that daddy's love their daughters so much because the daughters are a father's past-life lovers." Her big brown eyes glowed as she hugged him.

"That's so silly, daddy!" she giggled.

"It's true. And when you dream, you're really just remembering the life you lived in another time, in another reality, even. With one constant: my love for you exceeds lifetimes."

As he watched the old video, without realizing what he was doing, he let his finger drift across his cheek, only for another tiny refracting bead to appear and hang in the corner of his wide and glassy gaze. It made him blink rapidly, embarrassed by his show of emotion. He tried to hide his eyes behind his raised shoulder.

"Do you remember this, Daddy?"

"I'll never forget, baby girl. Never."