Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
RACHEL
The reception was technically work.
Which meant I was holding my camera but not really using it, standing near René but not really with him, nodding at people whose names I forgot the moment they finished saying them.
A designer showcase. Minimalist furniture. Brutal lighting. Everything in shades of bone and steel and the kind of black that pretended it wasn’t trying too hard. Seriously, it was so harsh, it was giving me a headache.
The room smelled like perfume and wine and other people’s ambition.
René was in his element — drifting from conversation to conversation, switching languages mid-sentence, collecting contacts like currency. He barely looked at me except to gesture vaguely when he needed a lens or wanted me to capture something “atmospheric.”
Which mostly meant people pretending to laugh.
I took a few shots. They were fine. They were all fine.
Then I saw her.
The nameless girl stood near the bar, one hip leaned casually against the counter, a glass of something pale in her hand.
Her hair was loose tonight, falling in soft waves over one shoulder like she’d forgotten to decide what to do with it.
No heavy makeup, no dramatic styling — just skin and freckles and a mouth that always looked like it was about to say something kind.
She wore a simple black dress that moved when she did, the fabric catching light and sliding over her as if it couldn’t bear the harshness in here either. Not curated. Not posed.
Just… her.
She didn’t look like she belonged to the event.
She looked more like the event had been rearranged around her.
She caught my eye across the room and smiled.
Not surprised.
Not awkward.
Just… pleased. Like seeing me was the best part of her evening.
Did that send warmth through me? Normally, I would’ve said no. Which was, apparently, a lie I was still very comfortable telling.
“Fancy seeing you in the wild,” she said when I reached her. Something in my shoulders dropped without my permission.
Her voice was even softer in person than on set, that gentle Australian lilt turning the word wild into something affectionate instead of ironic.
I glanced around, not really having to feign skepticism. “Is this the wild now?”
She tilted her head, studying the room, eyes bright and amused. “More like a very well-funded enclosure.”
A laugh escaped me, the spark of humor a real surprise. More for me than her.
She nodded at my camera. “Working or pretending?”
“I—” I hesitated. “Both?”
“Same.” She smiled like that answer made sense, but then an element of mischief entered her expression. “But I’m better at pretending.”
We stood there together while the room churned around us — people interrupting, music pulsing just loud enough to prevent intimacy, the hum of professional charm.
René passed behind me without stopping.
The nameless girl leaned in slightly so I could hear her, the faint warmth of her perfume — something citrus and clean — brushing against me.
“You look like someone who’s very good at surviving impressive situations,” she said, almost thoughtful in her delivery. “Not necessarily enjoying them. But surviving them.”
I blinked. “That sounds… flattering—question mark.” The question mark did more work than I wanted.
“It is.” A beat. Then, gently, “But not sure it looks like much fun.”
The words slid under my skin before I could stop them.
I took a sip of wine from a glass I didn’t remember even choosing and tasted nothing.
“You’re here for work too?” I asked, partly to distract myself.
She nodded. “Brand ambassador, apparently. Which means I smile, say things like ‘Isn’t the texture divine,’ and don’t knock anything over.”
“You’re doing great,” I said.
“The bar is in hell,” she said with a grin. “But thank you.”
We stood there a little longer, not touching, not flirting — just close enough that I was aware of the way she shifted her weight, the way her fingers traced the stem of her glass, the way her being there made the space around me feel quieter.
And I hated that I wanted to stay.
Someone across the room called out her name.
Just a casual, familiar sound to get her attention.
Her name.
It reached me a split second before I let it register.
Before I let it become real.
She turned her head toward the voice, smiled in response — and in that moment I knew it.
I recognized that I knew the name.
I just didn’t want it yet.
Because as long as she was nameless, she was only a moment I didn’t have to account for.
Only light.
Only something that didn’t demand anything from me.
So I let it pass.
Then stayed exactly where I was, pretending I hadn’t heard it at all.
Dominic texted me later that night.
I was on my couch, shoes kicked off, makeup half-removed, the city humming faintly through the windows.
Dominic:
Thanksgiving’s coming up. I can take the week off. I’d love to spend it with you.
I stared at the message longer than I should have.
Thanksgiving.
Right.
The holiday that didn’t exist here. The one my calendar had conveniently ignored. The one that implied planes, family, Ohio or Texas, and a version of myself that had to exist somewhere else.
I looked around my apartment.
At his sweater laying folded on the coffee table.
At my camera bag hanging on its hook by the door.
At the unopened folder Mischa had given me.
I had no idea which version of me he was inviting.
I typed. Deleted. Typed again.
Me:
I don’t know if I can.
The words sat there, small and honest and terrifying.
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Dominic:
Okay
The single word response made my stomach drop. My mouth dried out and my pulse raced.
Dominic:
I’m not mad, Flash. I just want to plan something with you. Here or there. I’m not picky.
My chest tightened.
So did my schedule.
Me:
I really don’t know. It’s so packed here right now, they don’t break for t-day.
The lack of swift response had me nibbling on my thumbnail. I tried to cobble together a better explanation. The most challenging part was that I wanted to see him, but carving out that much time was not possible at the moment.
Not with the new assignments and the increase in my workload. I’d been busy before, but I was buried alive at the moment. I couldn’t risk letting even one thing slip. He didn’t respond the rest of the night or the next day.
It was earlier there, he could be in a meeting or in the car or a thousand other things. If I was remembering correctly, he’d mentioned a case he had to prep for the prior week. So I did my best to ignore the icy sensation creeping up my spine.
David was at the door to the building, carrying a couple of bags of groceries that next evening when I dragged myself home. Tired draped me like a heavy coat that threatened to suffocate me. I pushed to get there first so I could open the door for him since his hands were full.
“Hey,” he said as I unlocked the door and then nudged it inward. He waited while I wiped off my boots before he followed me inside. “You always look like you’re just dropping in on your way from one place to another.”
I smiled faintly. “Occupational hazard.” The smell of savory soup and fresh bread was so strong, my stomach lurched.
He frowned, not unkindly as I closed the door behind us and waited for the bolt to slide in. “You know, you never look like you’re even enjoying it anymore.”
The words sliced through me far more brutally than the nameless girl’s ever could have.
Than Dominic’s.
Than anything Mischa had said.
I opened my mouth to argue.
Then closed it.
Because I had no idea what enjoying it even felt like anymore. And that should probably terrify me more than being tired ever had.
I went upstairs, kicked off my shoes, and stood in my kitchen for a long time without turning on the light.
Then my phone buzzed.
Then my calendar did.
Then the moment passed.
I lay awake longer than I meant to, replaying David’s voice in my head. You never look like you’re enjoying it anymore.
The next morning, I sat across from Mischa with my portfolio in my hands and no idea what I actually wanted her to see.
She dismantled my first project images one by one.
Not cruelly.
Methodically.
“These are competent,” she said. “Which is not the same as being honest.”
I stood there with my hands in my pockets, nodding like a professional. Inside, something collapsed quietly. Not like a crash — more like a negative being overexposed until the image simply faded out.
Mischa studied me for a moment, as if checking whether I understood the difference. Whether I felt it.
“You are not failing, Rachel,” she added. “You are disappearing.”
The word echoed.
Not because it was cruel — but because it felt like a diagnosis. Like she’d named a condition I hadn’t realized I’d been living with.
Disappearing didn’t mean I was gone.
It meant I was still here, still functioning, still producing — just increasingly unrecognizable inside my own work.
Which somehow felt worse than failing ever could.
I swallowed. “So what am I supposed to do?”
Mischa didn’t answer immediately. She gathered the prints into a neat stack, tapped them against the table to align the edges, a small, precise ritual.
“Stop trying to be impressive,” she said finally. “Stop trying to be correct. You are using skill to avoid risk.”
I frowned. “That’s… not exactly actionable.”
Her gaze sharpened. “It is very actionable. You are running from anything that might cost you time, or comfort, or control. You are photographing what you can manage instead of what unsettles you.”
I felt my shoulders tense, like my body had decided to brace for impact.
“I don’t have time to implode,” I said, half defensive, half pleading. “I have work. I have deadlines. I have—”
“Yes,” Mischa cut in. “You have many things. Too many.”
The silence stretched.
Then, quieter, “You must choose what you are willing to lose.”
The words were a blow, so much heavier than anything she’d said so far.
“Lose?” I repeated.
She nodded once. “Sleep. Certainty. Approval. Some opportunities, perhaps. You cannot keep everything and also stay visible to yourself.”
I stared down at the folder in my hands. At my clean lines and perfect light and carefully neutral subjects.
“So what,” I asked, my voice smaller than I meant it to be, “you want me to quit something?”
Mischa considered me. Really looked at me.
“I want you to stop optimizing your life like a schedule,” she said. “And start inhabiting it like a human being.”
That one hurt. Not sharply. Just deeply.
She pushed the folder back toward me. “For your term project, I do not want beauty. I do not want control. I want proximity. I want discomfort. I want something that makes you hesitate before you press the shutter.”
My stomach twisted. “That’s… vague.”
“Yes,” she said. “That is the point.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “And if I don’t know what that is?”
Mischa’s mouth curved, not quite a smile. “Then you have already found it.”
I left her office with the same folder I’d walked in with — but it felt heavier now, like it was full of things I hadn’t photographed yet. Or worse, things I’d been carefully avoiding.
In the hallway, students passed me talking about lenses and lighting and exhibition spaces.
I just stood there, trying to figure out what part of my life I was supposed to put in the frame.
And what I was finally going to let fall out of it.
I didn’t go back to the Daily.
I didn’t go home.
I didn’t call anyone.
I left campus and just… kept walking.
Past cafés full of people who looked like they knew where they were going. Past tourists clustered around maps and monuments, pointing at things they’d planned to see. Past students sitting on the steps by the river, smoking and laughing and being loudly, messily alive.
The city moved around me like a current I wasn’t part of.
I walked without taking out my camera. Without checking my phone. Without even pretending I had somewhere to be.
When my legs finally slowed, I found myself sitting on the edge of a stone wall by the Seine, watching the water slide past like it had better things to do than linger.
I took out my phone anyway.
Opened Dominic’s name.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
Typed:
I miss you.
Deleted it.
Typed:
This week is insane. I feel like I’m disappearing.
Deleted that too.
Typed nothing.
Then, impulsively, I hit record.
Just ten seconds.
“Hey,” I said softly. “It’s crazy here. And I— I miss you.”
I listened to it once.
It sounded thin. Exposed. Like I was asking for something I didn’t know how to receive.
It sounded needy.
So I deleted it.
The screen went blank again.
I stared at my reflection in the dark glass, the faint outline of my face layered over the city lights behind me.
Not grief.
Not relief.
Just… empty.
A quiet, echoing absence where a feeling should have been.
And as the river kept moving and my phone stayed silent in my hand, a thought settled into me with uncomfortable clarity. I had become very, very good at filling space.
With work. With people. With plans. With motion.
But I had no idea how to actually stay inside any of it.
Not the city.
Not my relationships.
Not even myself.
I sat there until my legs went numb, letting Paris exist around me without participating, wondering when exactly I’d learned how to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time.