From Bad to Cursed by Katie Alender Read Free Book Online

the urge to hold my hands over the image, to hide it.
    They were Carter’s wrists. His wounds, from when he tried to kill himself during his freshman year at All Saints. I remembered the day we shot that picture, how Carter’s arms shook as he held them under the lights. And how I wondered why he was okay with my taking a picture when he never showed his scars to anyone but me and his parents. He’d worn nothing but long-sleeved shirts since the day I met him.
    The one after that was Megan, sitting on her mother’s grave, the first time she was ever allowed to visit it. She slumped against the tombstone, her eyes closed, her face turned toward the sun. She’d forgotten about me, about everything except her grief.
    And the last one was my sister in her Harmony Valley loungewear, smiling wanly over her fourteenth birthday cake in the visitors’ lounge. Except we weren’t allowed to light the candles, and we weren’t allowed to have knives, so the cake was an uneven grid of presliced pieces with unlit candles sticking out at crooked angles. The scene was drab, joyless. The bite came when you looked into Kasey’s eyes—which were like the eyes of a caged animal.
    I’d betrayed myself and the people I loved most, letting those photographs be seen. It was almost as if I’d posted their naked pictures on the Internet or some-thing—only this was worse, because these moments were more private and painful than being caught naked.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, picking the book up—more gently this time. “I can’t.”
    “If you take those pictures out, you won’t win,” the woman said. “If you leave them in, you have a chance. They’re excellent. You’re very talented.”
    I turned to look at her. “Excuse me—who are you?”
    She switched off the work light. “I’m Farrin McAllister. This is my studio.”
    I took an involuntary step backward.
    Farrin McAllister?
    The Farrin McAllister? The photographer who’d shot every major celebrity and half the rest of the important people and events in the world? Who had thirteen Vogue covers and who knows how many Pulitzers?
    And she’d said my photos were…excellent.
    I felt a little queasy.
    “I’m closing up for the night,” she said. “You’d better make your decision.”
    I hugged the portfolio to my chest. “But…if I enter, who will see these pictures?”
    “Quite a few people.”
    “But I don’t know if it’s okay with my”—I gestured at the book—“for other people to see them.”
    “Nonsense,” she said. “What did they think you were doing—bird-watching?”
    I swallowed hard.
    “Am I even still eligible?” My last escape hatch. I wasn’t sure which answer I wanted. “Since we’ve talked?”
    “This is a competition based on talent,” she said, grabbing her purse from the counter. “Not a bingo game. You have until I reach the door to decide whether you’re in or out.”
    But she was walking so fast!
    Without thinking, I stuffed the book into the blue envelope and set it on the table.
    Farrin— Farrin McAllister— held the door open for me and gave me a little wave as she stayed behind to lock up.
    I’m not sure I exhaled once, the entire drive home.

T HE WEEK WORE ON . Miss Nagesh and I cleared the 000s and were most of the way through the 100s—philosophy and psychology. She was young and cool, and while we worked, she told me all about the novel she was writing. I told her about the photography contest, even though I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else. Not my parents—not even Megan or Carter.
    Kasey and Adrienne continued to eat with the Doom Squad, but Lydia didn’t seem to be outright mocking them, so I didn’t interfere.
    Friday night, Mom and Dad were going to dinner with Mom’s regional managers. Mom put on her swishiest dress, with her blond hair in a low bun; Dad wore his only suit and gelled his hair back. Mom kept calling him her trophy husband. I thought it was sweet, but Kasey huffed back to her room,