25. Emma
25
EMMA
Y awning, I turn on the red light and slip into the dark room.
My study class ran so late that the thought of developing more pictures is almost too tiring to think about, but I can’t put it off any longer. I’ve been eager to see the pictures from our photo studio session for days and booking time in the dark room is always risky. There’s high demand for this place and it isn’t even my course of study.
Glancing at the clock, I debate how long I want to spend here before going home. At this rate, it might be more useful just to sleep here and save me a trip in the morning. I scoop my hair up into a ponytail, carefully rub my tired eyes around my makeup, and set to work.
Within ten minutes or so, all thought of going home fades from my mind. The process of developing pictures always soothes me. My mind falls quiet, my shoulders relax, and I fall into the rhythm of moving from tray to tray, watching pictures develop, and hanging them up to dry. The majority of the pictures I develop for my portfolio are the ones without anyone’s face in it, but I also choose a couple for my own personal collection. That session was amazing and I want to cherish these pictures for the rest of my life. As I work, I hum gently to myself, replaying some of the music that Ana introduced me to at lunch.
She’s fallen for a new, up-and-coming artist, and the songs are incredibly catchy. I don’t know the words, but humming the music gives me another relaxing thing to focus on. Picture after picture gets hung overhead, and I delicately check each one to make sure they’re drying properly. Another hour, and I’ll be able to get out of here. As I hang the last picture, the pull of my bladder bursts to the forefront of my mind.
I have to pee.
Checking that every picture is secure, I dart from the dark room and sprint down the hall to the bathroom. The campus is empty and almost eerily silent, but that’s to be expected at this time of night. I relieve myself, wash my hands, and then hurry back to the dark room, mulling over how to pass the next hour. I could spend it scrolling through TikTok or coming up with more ideas for summer vacation.
I arrive back at the dark room and my humming stops abruptly, my heart punching up into my throat.
The door is open.
“Hello?” Knocking lightly on the door, I step inside. “Sorry, I’m booked in here?—”
I stop dead in my tracks. Every single photograph that I left hanging up on the rack is gone. A few pegs still cling weakly to the rack, wobbling as if I only missed the culprit by a few seconds. Every nerve in my body jumps once as if I’ve been slapped, and then I fall to my hands and knees.
“Where are they? Where the fuck are they?” I hope, briefly, that they’ve fallen and I simply didn’t secure them correctly, but it quickly becomes clear that’s not the case. They’re gone.
They’re all really fucking gone. I scramble across every inch of the floor, then I stand and scan through every tray I can find, but there’s no sign of the pictures anywhere.
They’re gone.
“Fuck,” I whisper while my heart pounds with the force of a punch. “Fuck—fuck!”
If anyone sees those pictures, particularly the end picture of me surrounded by my Finn, Caspian, and Asher, their lives are over. They would all lose their jobs the second anyone found out they were sleeping with a student. My chest tightens, and my breathing reduces to short, sharp gasps.
Someone stole my pictures!
And no one will care because once they learn what the pictures contain, my life will be over.
All of our lives will be over.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t?—
“Fuck!” Stumbling out of the room, I struggle to get my phone out of my pocket and into my trembling fingers. Hot tears flood my eyes and my gut twists like a corkscrew has slipped into my intestines. I’m going to be sick.
I immediately open the group chat and type out a long, badly spelled message begging for forgiveness as I explain my pictures have been stolen. After I send the message, I stare through tears as the read receipts pop up but no one types.
No one says anything.
A sob punches out of me and then, suddenly, there’s an influx of messages telling me to stay calm. Finn and Asher are off campus, but Caspian is here and he tells me to stay where I am. He’ll be with me soon.
I then turn to my group chat with the girls and send them a similar message, mostly crying over how my life is about to be over and I’ll be ruining the lives of the men I’m falling for. Ana immediately responds with anger, trying to reassure me that no one will care about the pictures but it doesn’t ease my distress at all. Meghan’s name pops up at the bottom and I see her typing, but nothing appears.
She changes her mind and I can only imagine how she’ll spin this to be my own fault.
I clasp a hand over my mouth and the tears finally spill over, weaving a hot path down my cheeks. Fuck. How is this happening?
“Emma?!” Caspian bursts into the room a few minutes later and he makes a beeline for me. His brow is low, and his eyes brim with concern. “Emma, tell me what happened?”
“I just—” It takes me a few moments to get my sobs under control, more so when Caspian’s large hands land warm on my shoulder and he pulls me close. “I left here and I went to pee, and when I came back the door was open and all my pictures were gone. All of them!”
Caspian presses a swift kiss to my forehead then he steps away and enters the dark room. “You were working alone?”
“Yes,” I whimper, wiping at my tears. “No one else was scheduled. I was only gone for a couple of minutes and I—I don’t understand.”
Caspian follows the same path I took searching the room, but he comes up as empty as I did. Then he’s back next to me and he cups my damp cheek.
“Are you alright?”
“Me?” I gasp. “What about you? You and Asher and Finn, if someone sees then you’re all going to lose your jobs. Oh God…” The reality of our situation comes crashing down around my ears. “I never wanted anyone to get hurt. I don’t want anyone to lose their job. Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I’m so?—”
The band around my chest tightens infinitely, and suddenly, I can’t breathe. My mouth opens like a goldfish and I clutch at Caspian’s arms. No air makes it past my lips.
“Emma. Emma, listen to me. It’s going to be okay. You’re working yourself into a panic and I understand you’re scared but I’m here, okay? I’m here, baby. Take a breath.”
He strokes my cheek with the back of his fingers and somehow, it works. The tension in my chest unlocks and I drag in a ragged breath. My grip tightens on Caspian’s thick arms like he’s my sole lifeline.
“I’m so sorry,” I gasp out, panting. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey.” Caspian strokes my hair and guides me away from the dark room. “Listen, the campus has cameras. We can check them and see who has been in this wing of the building. That’s what we will focus on first, okay? A theft happened here, and that’s more important. So we will take care of this, all of us. We have your back, okay?”
“But what if those pictures get out?” I clutch tighter at him until the tips of my fingers ache. “You’ll get into so much trouble.”
“Let me worry about that,” Caspian assures me as he tilts his head, causing a few loose strands of hair to sweep across his forehead. “One thing at a time, okay?”
“Okay.” I nod quickly, blinking quickly through my tear-soaked lashes. “What do we do?”
“First, we get your stuff, and then there are a few things at the studio I need to collect. Then we will go home because it’s late, and first thing tomorrow, I’ll call security. It’s going to be okay.”
His words are calm and soft, but he doesn’t entirely hide the anger in his eyes. It doesn’t seem to be aimed at me, but it doesn’t make me feel better. I want him to be angry, to yell and cast me aside, to do everything he can to save himself because I have no idea who could have stolen those pictures.
My stomach churns and Caspian offers me a soft smile which only makes the guilt stew worse.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Caspian kisses my forehead. “One thing at a time.”
He helps me pack up my bag and carries it on his shoulder as we leave the dark room and trudge through the building toward his studio on the other side. My phone constantly lights up with messages from Ana, and it seems Finn and Asher are having their own discussion about what to do. They both have the same idea about checking the cameras and finding out who was in the building at the time, but before I can respond, we reach Caspian’s studio.
A wounded noise escapes him and I watch in cold horror as Caspian steps into the carnage that has befallen his studio. Canvases are ripped apart with blades; paint is strewn over everything in sight, and pottery is smashed on the floor or turned to slop if it wasn’t set. One window is smashed, clothing on mannequins is ripped to shreds, and a few chairs have been thrown into the display cases, shattering glass and projects alike.
My heart plummets as Caspian turns to me, pure pain in his eyes.
The studio has been utterly destroyed.