What’s seen through the lens
Shades of maroon and gold flowed through the concert hall with a loud tone. Over every wall was either golden white drapery, maroon banner with a yellow bobcat’s paw, or even black cursive lettering and symbols proclaiming graduating class of 2013. Keito had to admit, the school had done an unexpectedly good job turning the once grey monochrome hall into a Chelsea high school graduation ceremony. Yet even with all the loud decor it still felt unreal, him and his friends now graduating. This would be one of the biggest nights of his young life, so understandable he was nervous, but he was determined not to miss a single moment of it.
He had his graduation present by his side, a Nixon D7100, ready to capture any moment. There were a lot of things he had captured so far: he had taken pictures of everything from this graduation gown to friend in funny poses, and even pictures of the ceremony where his teachers gave speeches. Yet with all the pictures already taken, one was missing; one picture of his girlfriend, Bree. Keito wadded through the crowds of nervous and emotional students trying to find where she had gone off to. Only stopping to give the customary “I’ll miss you” and “goodbye” to his fellow student, he navigated through the seemingly endless maze of student bodies for what must have been twenty minutes before his exhaustion caught up with him.
Keito chose a seat down in the front row and sat down to regroup. All that was on his tired mind was Bree, and where she ran off to. She had promised him on the ride here to meet him by the large entrance doors after the ceremony, but she never showed up. He had chalked it up to her saying goodbye to some of her girlfriends, but still something inside him didn’t feel that was right. Hopefully, Bree wasn’t just avoiding him. Keito decided he needed to distract himself; he brought his camera up to his face and scanned through all of the pictures he had taken so far. He saw pictures of his friends James and Jamie lee making faces, him and his parents at home on the staircase smiling together, and Mr. Moore giving the entrance speech. For the next three minutes Keito had done a pretty good job distracting himself, atleast until he heard an odd noise.
A strange shuffling sound coming up from behind the large golden curtain, but no one was supposed to be allowed back there. He got up slowly and made his way to the side stairs, climbed up them, and made his way to the far right side of the stage where the noises were. As he walked closer he could hear the noise evolve from shuffling to footstep, footsteps turned to muffled voices, and muffled voices turned to moans. As he came to the spot before the noises they were louder that he had excepted; just what was going on behind there? Cautiously he raised his hand to the part between curtains and slide the left out of the way. Keito had found Bree.
Keito had found Bree not saying goodbye to friends, but pressed against some other man kissing and groping intensely. His body frozen, he could hear his heart pounding in his ears and a look of disbelief cross over his face. He just didn’t want to move, but his body had another idea. Unconsciously knowing it his arm lifted the camera to his face, and clicked the button. One picture was taken, then two, and four, and seven. The eighth picture, she turned and saw him. A second of them locking stares happened before she recognized Keito, and a wave of embarrassment mixed with disbelief came over her face.
She reacted before the man did and shoved him away, leaving just her and Keito while he stumbled out of the scene. He stood in the same spot where he had when he caught them as she ran up to him, teary eyed and apologizing humiliatingly. None of it resonated with him; he remained as numb as a broken heart could possibly be while she continued to plead. Finally Keito had heard enough and regained his senses, turning from her abruptly and running down the steps into the sea of students. Running through the crowd, the hall way, and finally he made it to the outside area, where he just stood there breathing heavily. It was too much, just too much. Keito collapsed to the ground and sat against the wall, in somber silence while tears ran down his face. Emotions mixed in him; anger, rage, sadness, disbelief, all swirled like a storm inside him. He had caught her cheating; he had caught her cheating with his own eyes and his camera. Keito’s eyes widened: his camera!
He grabbed the camera and flipped through the pictures until he found the ones of his cheating girlfriend. As each image of her flickered past his eyes, his rage grew deeper and deeper until it was too much. A scream almost bloodcurdling escaped his mouth. How could she do this to him? How could she betray his trust? How could he have cared for such and awful, despicable girl? And there was nothing he could do about it. At least, that’s what he assumed. An idea soon came to him suddenly and surely, a way for revenge. There was a special feature on Keito’s camera, a feature that allowed you to send pictures straight from the camera to your contacts. He could send the pictures to everyone, everyone that knew him and her.
He found the pictures, put them in a file, and selected all the contacts on his camera. His finger hovered over the send button, but he just couldn’t manage to press it. His conscious was revived, asking him if this was really right, or was it just a reaction to rage. Did she really deserve it? Right next to the send button was the delete button, slowly his finger made its way to the delete button, but before he pressed it a single word popped into his mind, yes. She had chosen to be promiscuous, so she had to deal with the consequences. A devious yet subtle smile played across Keito’s lips as he pressed the send button, and he waited until he saw the little sent icon pop up. Slowly but purposefully Keito rose from the ground, wiped off his gown, and began walking back to the ceremony.
The picture spread across the student body like a wild fire through dry grass. Collective gasp and shocked expressions were everywhere you turned, forwarded messages and shared screens were present is every group. While others were enthralled in the scandal, Keito wandered through the dense public, with an innocent and guilt free smiles playing across his sweet face.