Chapter 3 #2
I chuckled before I could stop myself.
I could picture him behind the camera—curls straining against the confines of his beanie, squinting slightly the way he always did when he was focusing on something that mattered.
For a second, that was all I saw, then my mind slipped further back.
Fourteen-year-old Elias, standing in the woods with me—tying my shoes without making me feel small. Telling me the trees weren’t chasing me, that I was just walking through them.
I realized, then, with a small and almost embarrassing clarity, that I missed my brother.
The cursor blinked in the text box.
I typed something about Wisconsin. Deleted it.
Typed a joke about how long it would be before Marianne would try to outdo Victor in the number of spouses they’d have in a lifetime. Spoiler alert: she’s currently on number four, but I deleted that too.
My thumb hovered.
There were three words I wanted to tell my brother.
Those meager words felt so much more important and daring than the hundreds we’d exchanged that night.
It felt strange that one little phrase could carry so much weight when we’d grown up in houses where no one said them out loud.
Where affection was implied through tuition checks and Christmas gifts and signatures on permission slips.
Seven-year-old me hadn’t had the words for what Elias had been to me in those woods.
Twenty-nine-year-old me did.
Before I could overthink it, I typed the words.
Me: I love you.
I almost added a joke to soften it. A “bro” or a laughing emoji to dilute the impact.
I didn’t.
I stared at the screen for a second, feeling the weight of the words settle.
Then I hit send.
The message delivered.
Then read.
The three dots appeared almost immediately. Disappeared.
Came back again.
I was frozen in place.
For a second, I wondered if I’d overstepped. If I’d made something more emotional than it needed to be. If handing someone something that unguarded was how you scared them off—
Eli: Love you too, kid.
No joke to soften it. No extra words.
Something in my chest loosened, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
The apartment didn’t feel quite so empty after that.
The two-decades-old photo of Elias and me still filled my monitor—tilted horizon, sunlight washing out the corner.
Back then, we were two boys in the middle of something we didn’t understand yet. A house that was always shifting, conversations that didn’t last. People coming and going without warning.
We had everything we were supposed to have.
We just hadn’t had time with each other.
In that picture, though, the woods stretched out behind us—wide, grounded, unmoving.
Real.
Unedited.
I clicked back to the wedding gallery.
The bride’s veil suspended in midair, light hitting exactly where it was needed. Everything aligned just enough to look effortless.
I zoomed out, then in, and out again.
I wasn’t looking for anything new, or anything to fix. My mind was just a bit… restless.
It wasn’t because of the wedding, or the baby shower I’d shot last week. It was because of my career as a whole.
Seven years of events that blurred into each other—weddings, anniversaries, private dinners, celebrations that followed the same rhythm even when they called it something different.
Seven years of adjusting light that didn’t cooperate. Of smoothing, correcting, refining until everything matched the version people wanted to remember.
Seven years of capturing moments that were real in pieces, but rarely all at once.
Seven years of watching people build something permanent—while I kept everything in my own life temporary.
I leaned back in my chair and let out a slow breath, glancing up at my calendar.
I was booked through fall. Corporate launches, a destination engagement in Napa. There were three weddings in September alone. Victor had already forwarded two “excellent networking opportunities” for next quarter.
I could keep going.
Like Ethan had said, nothing would fall apart.
I pushed to my feet and crossed to the window.
The lake stretched out in the dark, dull and gray under the city lights. Traffic moved below in a steady stream, headlights sliding past each other without pause.
Everything in its place.
I returned to my desk and opened a new browser window, typed in “Midwest hiking trails” and hit search.
Results filled the screen instantly.
Wisconsin came up first and I scrolled through what felt like an endless list of state parks and forest preserves.
Then my attention snagged on a listing in Walworth County—Bray Road.
I paused. The name felt oddly familiar. I frowned, trying to place it, but nothing came to mind.
i kept scrolling through the endless offers of cabin listings. Small places set back from the road, surrounded by trees. Some looked maintained, others didn’t.
I clicked one at random.
Photos loaded—wood siding, a narrow porch, a stretch of trees that ran uninterrupted behind it.
No neighboring houses in sight.
Two months were wide open in the spring—off season.
Perfect.
I stared at the screen, taking it in piece by piece. The potential solitude. The space. The absence of anything that needed to be adjusted or managed.
I imagined waking up without the sound of traffic outside my windows. No elevator hum. No curated kiss waiting in a queue. No second takes.
No casual hookups. No gala invitations.
Just trees. Space. Quiet.
I leaned forward slightly, reading the details again.
It wasn’t the exact place I’d stayed twenty-years ago with my brother and Mrs. Alvarez. But it didn’t need to be, so I opened the contact form.