Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
RACHEL
Iwas already heading for the door, keys in hand, camera bag slung over my shoulder, dressed and ready to take on the day. Rain demanded I make some concessions, so I’d added a jaunty little hat—practical, ridiculous, and somehow exactly right. Paris didn’t mind either way.
The apartment smelled faintly of flowers. That was new.
I did a quick sweep of the apartment as I crossed the living room, eyes skimming out of habit more than concern. My backup camera was on the charger. Contact sheets stacked where I’d left them. Prints lining the walls in their familiar, imperfect order.
Everything was where it should be. Even my Kindle which was waiting on the coffee table.
I’d made myself leave it there and go to bed despite the excellent book sucking me in.
I was such a mood reader these days, I’d started and stopped four different books this week before I landed on the one Frankie said I had to read. So I’d given it a chance.
It was called Queen of Carnage, and no lie, the title hooked me before I even hit the first page.
A good book was the bane of all sleep and I was looking forward to finishing it tonight.
I was also not sure if I was happy about how many were in the series—gonna be a lot of sleepless nights ahead—or frustrated because I was going to have to exercise a lot of self-control.
Giving myself another little shake, I reached for the door and pulled it open—
—and nearly walked straight into the bouquet sitting neatly on the mat outside my apartment.
I stopped short.
The flowers were wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, deliberate and unflashy, like someone had taken the time to let the flowers show off, not the presentation.
White ranunculus, clean and soft, with something green and trailing I didn’t try to identify.
They were pretty. That was enough. Rain had speckled the paper lightly, darkening it at the edges.
There was a card tucked into the twine.
Knock them dead today. —D
I smiled before I could stop myself.
A second note was taped to the card, written in a looser hand.
They came stupid early. I was up. Enjoy. —Alix
That made me laugh out loud.
It settled something in my chest I hadn’t realized was tight. Dominic’s timing. Alix’s thoughtfulness. The quiet reassurance that people knew where I was and had my back—even from different directions.
I ducked back into the apartment, trimmed the stems with the dull kitchen scissors, and put them in a vase on the windowsill where the light—what little there was—could find them.
It put me about eight minutes late on leaving than I’d wanted, but worth it.
The flowers and the notes both buoyed me in all the right ways.
Blowing a kiss to Dominic that he couldn’t see or feel, I doubled back to the door and continued with my rush. Today was already packed.
Paris Daily was already humming when I arrived, the rain doing nothing to slow it down. I shrugged out of my coat, dropped my bag at my desk, and pulled up the files from the day before.
Four images.
Mischa Condre’s first class required each of us to present four photographs—no explanation beyond bring work that tells me how you see. No warm-up. No easing in.
I’d selected them the night before, then changed my mind. Twice.
Now, with the clock ticking louder in my head, doubt crept back in.
Too similar. Too safe. Too much like René would approve and not enough like me. I wanted this to be my work. I’d already pulled the images from yesterday’s shoots for René and sent them over via email.
“Early,” Margaux said, appearing at the edge of my desk with a coffee in hand. She glanced at my screen. “Or is that just your normal now?”
“Temporary insanity,” I said. “I need four.”
She leaned in without asking, scanning the thumbnails quickly. “For class?”
I nodded.
“These,” she said immediately, pointing. “And that one. Not the green one—the other.”
I hesitated. “That’s risky.”
“Of course it is,” Margaux said with an easy smile. “That’s why it is a good choice.”
To be fair, I kind of loved that one. A lot. I was going to print it to add to my taped ones on the wall in the bedroom to see if I wanted a larger print later.
Exhaling, I trusted her and dragged the files into a new folder.
“Someone was asking about you yesterday,” she added casually, straightening.
I sent the images to the photo printer before exporting them to my thumb drive. “Who?”
She shrugged. “Didn’t catch a name. They came in after you left for your shoot.”
“Did they leave a message?”
“No—”
I glanced at the time and cursed softly. “Sorry, I have to go. I owe you coffee.”
She waved it off. “épate-les.”
Wow them.
Mental fingers crossed, I grabbed my bag, ejected the thumb drive so I could stuff it inside, and hurried to the printer to scoop out the images. I managed to do it all without dropping anything then nearly collided with René as I headed toward the door.
He glanced at me as he passed. “You chose the third.”
“Yes,” I said over my shoulder, already walking.
“Hm.” That was all.
I adored that man.
The Sorbonne seemed different today—older, heavier, almost monolithic. The rain darkened the stone and pressed the air close, making the buildings feel less like structures and more like witnesses.
European cities were literally teeming with history.
Not curated or cordoned off, not preserved behind glass or plaques you had to choose to read.
It was everywhere—layered into the walls, worn into the steps, carried forward by people who moved through it without needing to name it.
The past wasn’t something you visited here.
It was something you walked through on your way to class.
In the States, history was treated differently.
Managed. Curated. The parts people were proud of were polished and displayed, framed neatly with dates and narratives that made them easier to digest. The rest—the uglier bits, the inconvenient ones—were quietly discarded or smoothed over, treated like clutter you didn’t need to carry forward.
If it didn’t fit the story, it was easier to pretend it hadn’t happened at all.
Here, there was no such editing. No clean version. History existed in full—heavy, unresolved, unconcerned with whether you found it flattering or comfortable. You simply had to live alongside it.
I adjusted my bag on my shoulder and crossed the courtyard with the rest of the students, feeling smaller in a way that wasn’t diminishing. More like being reminded that what I was doing—what any of us were doing—was part of a much longer, messier conversation.
I wasn’t the first student to walk in here in search of art, truth, and the future. I wouldn’t be the last. I was part of a continuous line, the stone beneath my feet worn smooth by centuries of motion.
Today, it was my turn.
Mischa Condre wasted no time.
She stood at the front of the room, arms crossed, eyes sharp and unapologetically bored as the first student fumbled through an explanation that hadn’t been asked for.
“I didn’t ask why you took it,” Mischa said flatly. “I asked what it shows me.”
The room went quiet after that.
When it was my turn, I didn’t say much. I let the images speak, hands steady as I clicked through them. A woman mid-argument on a street corner. A man laughing into his phone, unaware. Light caught wrong on stone, turning the ordinary into something briefly unguarded.
Mischa studied them for a long moment.
“You hesitate less than you think,” she said finally. “But you still apologize with your framing.”
I felt the words land and rearrange themselves. Her words reminded me of René, the critique sharp but not cruel. At the same time, the faintest note of warmth filled the first sentence into a grudging compliment. She wasn’t damning me with faint praise, but it felt like praise all the same.
“Work on that,” she added. “Next.”
By the time class ended, my brain was buzzing in the best way—overstimulated, energized, hungry for more.
I checked my phone as I boarded the metro.
A number I didn’t know had texted.
Hi—this is probably abrupt, but I was hoping it was okay to say hello.
Before I could wonder who it was, another message followed.
A selfie.
Oh. The model. That beautiful disruption.
I stared at the screen, pulse kicking up, then typed back before I could overthink it.
Hi. Absolutely okay.
Three dots appeared almost instantly.
Good. I’m glad. I was worried I might be overstepping.
She wasn’t.
We exchanged a few easy messages as the train rattled along—about the weather, the city, the strange intimacy of working around the same people without ever being formally introduced.
Then she asked:
Would you like to get a drink sometime?
I didn’t answer right away. I could make it work, I thought. Just one drink. Just a pause between obligations.
My phone buzzed again.
Dominic.
Can I call?
I typed back quickly.
Give me five—getting off the metro.
I looked back at the other message and smiled, something warm and anticipatory curling low in my stomach.
Sure
I wrote.
Where were you thinking?
I stopped at a café near the Daily, ordered coffee I didn’t need but desperately wanted, and took Dominic’s call as soon as I stepped back onto the sidewalk. The rain had given up to a faint mist and even that was slowing.
He sounded good. Familiar. Steady.
“How did class go?” he asked.
I launched into it, words tumbling over each other as I tried to explain the energy, the critique, the way it felt to be challenged without being insulted or belittled. He listened, asked questions, laughed in the right places.
“I wish I could’ve seen it,” he said.
“Me too,” I admitted, without hesitation.
There was a beat, then—
“What’s your schedule like next week?” Dominic asked. “I have to be in London, but I could take the train over if—”