Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
RACHE
The next week arrived like a blockbuster — loud, crowded, and impossible to escape — everywhere I went, I had to stand in line, but I told myself it was worth it.
Granted, there was no swelling music, no apology speech, no grand moment where René admitted he’d been wrong to doubt me. Just an email that hit my inbox at 06:12 with a call time, an address, and two clipped words that might as well have been forgiveness.
Be ready.
I read it twice anyway, as if the second time would reveal the subtext I needed to survive the day.
I told myself it meant he was over it. That my mistake had been filed away under corrected and not repeated and don’t do that again.
I told myself a lot of things while I dressed.
I drank coffee standing at the counter, not even tasting it, and checked my gear thoroughly. Battery. Cards. Backup cards. Lenses cleaned twice. Strap adjusted. Everything tidy and in its place. Everything orderly.
If I made myself precise enough, maybe I’d feel steady again.
The city outside was still damp from a night of rain.
I never really understood just how much it rained in Paris in the autumn.
But an umbrella had also become a part of my regular kit check.
It was getting colder by the day as November bore down on us.
This morning, though, Paris glistened like it was trying to look innocent. I didn’t buy it. I left a little earlier, made it to the métro, then I was on set fifteen minutes early.
That mattered.
The shoot was for a small brand campaign—minimalist, high-end, everything in soft cream and beige, with a sophisticated if effortless air.
Turning a single word concept into a full on shoot took a lot of effort.
We were in a converted space with tall windows and white walls for our canvas.
The team in charge of dressing the set and getting the lights ready moved with a kind of efficient ease and shorthand developed over months of working together.
René was already there, of course.
He stood near the monitor with a coffee that looked untouched in his hand, coat still on, scarf loose at his throat. He didn’t greet me when I walked in. He didn’t have to. His acknowledgment was subtle—one glance, a small nod, and then his attention slid back to the set.
It was the closest thing he did to welcome.
I hovered at the edge until he flicked his fingers, a silent come.
When I stepped closer, he handed me a lens without looking at me.
“Switch to the eighty-five when we move to the window,” he said.
Just instructions. Just trust. My chest loosened half an inch.
“Yes,” I said.
He finally glanced at me then—brief, assessing. “You ate?” he asked.
The question startled me because it shouldn’t have existed. He never asked me about stuff like that.
“Of course,” I lied.
His eyes narrowed, but he glanced away again without comment.
“Good. Watch the light. It will change fast.”
And that was it.
Forgiven.
Or at least… still useful.
The shoot itself ran smooth, the kind of controlled calm that reminded me of how behaved a schedule could be.
I stayed close, handed him what he needed before he asked, adjusted reflectors when the highlights started to blow, moved cables out of the way without being told.
When the model shifted, I caught it in my peripheral and compensated with the settings without thinking too hard.
I didn’t let my hands shake.
I didn’t let my brain get ahead of my body.
I didn’t let anything slip.
René didn’t praise me. René didn’t do praise. But halfway through the second look, he said quietly, without looking up—
“Good.” One word.
It hit me like a sedative.
I could breathe again. See? I told myself. You’re fine.
When we wrapped, the crew began breaking down with the practiced speed of people who didn’t carry their work home in their backpacks.
René started past me, then paused.
“You will assist Cyrus tomorrow,” he said.
My stomach tightened. Not fear—something closer to pride and dread tangled together.
“Okay.”
“And Wednesday, Margaux. Thursday, a freelancer. I am widening you.” He said it like he was describing a camera angle. “You will learn other styles.”
I blinked. “You’re… farming me out?”
He finally looked at me fully, expression unreadable. “I do not need you attached to me like a charm,” he said. “I need you capable.”
I didn’t know whether to be insulted or grateful. Probably both.
He took a sip of his coffee, still too calm. “Do not make me regret it.”
“I won’t,” I said immediately.
His mouth tightened faintly, not quite a smile. “You will try.”
Then he turned and walked away, coat swaying behind him like a villain’s cape. Funnily enough, I was pretty sure René would rock that look.
I stood there for a second longer than necessary, the lens still warm in my hand, as if it held the proof that I hadn’t been cut.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
A calendar alert.
Right. Wake up, Rachel.
Something else to do.
Of course.
Campus smelled like damp stone, ambition, and too many people trying to become something all at once. At least the rain had stopped, even if the skies remained a gloomy kind of half-gray.
I arrived with my bag biting into my shoulder and the faint sense that I’d already lived a full day before noon. The courtyard was busy—students drifting in clusters, smoke and laughter and the low hum of conversation threading through everything.
Thomas waved at me from the upper tier, pen in hand like a conductor’s baton. Noor gave me a tired smile that said I’m not okay either, but we’re here. I jogged up the steps to sit beside them and forced my mouth into something that resembled normal.
Mischa didn’t enter the classroom so much as she claimed it. She moved with that same measured precision, black coat, sharp gaze, posture immaculate like her body didn’t know how to slump.
She set her bag down.
Placed her notes.
Looked up.
Waiting.
Not for silence. Not for permission.
Just waiting for someone to be brave.
Today—that wouldn’t be me. I was here and I was functioning. I had no interest in pushing it. Class went by in a blur of critique and vocabulary—composition, intention, risk, presence. Words that were supposed to feel like oxygen and lately kind of wrapped around my throat like dead weight.
When she dismissed us, the room emptied steadily. I took my time repacking my bag and double-checking everything—I had another alert set to go off and I didn’t want to forget anything. Noor and Thomas headed out for coffee that I had to decline, though I promised next week.
Just when I was ready to leave, Mischa called my name.
Like she’d known I would stay.
“Rachel.”
My pulse ticked up anyway.
I approached the front of the room. Mischa didn’t smile. Mischa’s face didn’t do unnecessary things.
“Sit,” she said, waving to the first row.
I sat.
She slid a folder toward me—my work. Prints. Notes. A few contact sheets I’d turned in last week. The edges were worn like they’d been handled.
“I’ve been reviewing your portfolio,” she said.
My stomach dipped. “Okay.”
Mischa studied me for a beat, as if she were reading my exposure settings instead of my face. The longer she stared, the more my nerves tightened, like I was waiting for a verdict I’d already half-written in my head.
“You have raw talent,” she said finally.
Relief flickered.
“But,” she continued, and that brief flicker died, “you are beginning to hide behind it.”
Ouch.
I opened my mouth, ready to defend myself, but Mischa lifted a hand.
“I am not accusing,” she said, and the crisp, surgical tone she used in class softened just enough to feel almost kind. “I am merely making an observation.”
She tapped one of the prints on the table.
It was a café.
Or at least, the idea of one.
Sunlight slanted through tall windows, dust caught perfectly in the air. A single table in the foreground, cup abandoned, steam already gone. Chairs slightly misaligned, as if someone had just stood up and never come back.
It was clean. Beautiful light. Perfect framing. The kind of photograph that looked like it belonged in a magazine spread about Parisian solitude.
It was also… empty.
Not visually — emotionally.
Like I’d photographed absence instead of a person.
No story. No tension. No risk. Just atmosphere, carefully composed and completely safe. The kind of image that proved I knew exactly what I was doing.
Unfortunately, it also revealed just how distant from my subject I was. I didn’t feel any of it.
“These are almost professional,” she said. “And they are distant.”
I swallowed. “That’s… good though, isn’t it?”
Mischa studied me the way she studied images — like she was looking for what I’d cut out.
“Professional does not mean safe,” she said quietly. “It means you are choosing what to show.”
The word safe burned on the way down.
She settled on the seat next to me, turned so we were facing each other. “When you arrived, your work was hungry. You were imperfect and bold. You looked like someone who had something to prove and didn’t care if the proof was messy.”
I couldn’t tell if she meant it as praise.
“I’m still—” I started.
“No,” she said, quietly. Not unkind. Just final. “You are now capable. Efficient. You are meeting expectations. And you are leaving yourself out of the frame.”
My chest hurt. Not dramatically. Just… pressure.
Mischa watched me absorb that, and for a moment her expression softened so slightly it might have been imagined.
“It happens,” she said. “People get tired. They survive. They learn the rules. And then the rules become the work instead of the reason.”
I stared at the folder like it might rearrange itself into something kinder.
“I don’t want that,” I said.
“Then stop performing,” Mischa replied.
I blinked.