Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
RACHEL
René’s office always smelled like coffee and consequences. His door was open when I arrived at the Daily, which was either an invitation or a trap. With René, it was usually both.
I’d left early. I’d eaten half a banana standing at the counter like it counted as self-care. I’d triple-checked my batteries. I’d done everything I could do to make sure the only variable in this morning was me.
That was the problem.
I stepped inside anyway.
René didn’t look up right away. He was at his desk with a contact sheet spread in front of him, glasses low on his nose, pen in hand. The room was quiet except for the soft, precise scrape of ink.
“You are on time,” he said.
It wasn’t praise. It was a baseline requirement. Still, my body accepted the relief.
“Barely,” I admitted with a bit of a grumble. The métro had run a little late, even though I’d been on time. Then the crowd had been thicker than normal. The biggest drawback, however, had been the sunny skies.
It had been a while since I’d seen it so blue and bright out there. It had definitely distracted me.
René made a small sound that might have been amusement if he were a different person.
He tapped the pen once on the edge of the contact sheet.
“Close the door.”
My stomach tightened. I did.
The click was not loud. It still felt ominous.
René gestured to the chair across from him without looking at me. I sat, keeping my posture neutral, professional, like I wasn’t bracing for impact.
He finally lifted his gaze.
“You sent me alternates,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And one of them,” he continued, as if he were discussing weather, “was not an alternate.”
My pulse ticked hard. I kept my face still.
“It was—”
René lifted a finger.
No.
Not yet.
He slid a print toward me.
Not the safe ones.
Not the technically correct ones.
The risky one.
Her laughing, unposed, warmth breaking through a brief that had required distance.
For a second I couldn’t breathe. Not because I was surprised—because I wasn’t. Because part of me had thrown that match on purpose.
René watched me look at it. I was as aware of his observation like a sunburn on my skin.
He wasn’t watching my eyes.
He watched my reaction.
“This,” he said, tapping the top edge of the photograph with one of his blunt fingers, “is you.”
The words rake so much differently than praise. It was like being caught out doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing.
“I didn’t mean to—” I started, reflexively reaching for an excuse, for a reason, for anything that would make this easier—safer—something.
René’s voice sharpened. “You are doing it again,” he said. “Justifying.”
I stopped. Swallowed the rest of the sentence like it tasted bad.
He leaned back slightly, still holding the pen, still impossibly calm. “Tell me,” he said, “why is this image good?”
It wasn’t a trap question. It was worse. It was a test of whether I really knew what I was doing.
I looked down at the print. At the way the light softened her cheek. At the honest mess of her laugh. At the way the frame made the room feel human.
“It’s… alive,” I said. My voice came out quieter than I intended. “It’s not performing for anyone, least of all the concept. But it’s revealing and human and—breathing.”
René stared at me for a long beat. Then he nodded once.
“Good,” he said, then he pointed to the print again. “Now tell me, why is it dangerous?”
My throat went dry.
Because it was personal.
Because she was looking at me.
Because I was too close to the subject in a way that had nothing to do with focal length.
Because if I admitted any of that, the whole structure I’d built to survive would wobble.
“It doesn’t match the brief,” I said instead. “It’s… not what they hired him to deliver.”
René’s mouth tightened faintly, not quite approval, not quite disappointment.
“Technically correct,” he said. “But the brief is not always the work.”
He let that sit between us.
René stood then, moving past me toward the monitor with the quiet precision of someone who never hurried and never doubted where he was going. He clicked a mouse, and the screen woke.
A folder was open.
My alternates.
He scrolled.
One by one, frames appeared. The safe ones. The polished ones. The ones I could deliver in my sleep.
Then—
The risky one.
On the monitor, it looked even more like a confession.
René studied it like he studied everything—head slightly tilted, eyes narrowed, not seeking meaning but evaluating consequence.
“This is why I asked for your eye,” he said.
My chest tightened. “So you’re not mad?”
René glanced at me as if I’d said something childish. “Mad is not useful,” he replied. Then, after a beat, “But I am not blind.”
Heat crept up my neck.
René clicked away from the image.
“Here is your problem,” he said. “You want to be perfect. You want to be liked. You want to be everywhere. You want to be everything.”
I didn’t deny it. There was no point.
“And then,” he continued, voice still calm, “when something real appears, you react like it is a mistake.”
I stared at the floor. At my own shoes. At the part of me that always tried to disappear before anyone could point to what was human in me.
René’s tone softened—not kind, exactly, but less sharp. “You are at the stage,” he said, “where you risk technique becoming camouflage.”
Mischa’s words flashed in my head like a warning.
Stop performing.
I felt my stomach drop.
René was still speaking.
“I want you to bring me ten images by Friday,” he said. “Not for the publication. For me.”
What? My pulse spiked and I jerked my head up. “Ten?”
“Ten,” he repeated.
“What kind of—”
He held up his hand, cutting off the question before it became negotiation.
“Images you care about,” he said simply. “Images that cost you.”
My mouth went dry.
“That’s—” I started.
René’s eyes sharpened. “Do not tell me it is difficult,” he said. “Tell me you will do it.”
I swallowed. What choice did I have? “I will,” I said.
He nodded once, satisfied. Then, like this conversation had never been about my feelings in the first place, he added, “Also, you will assist me Thursday. It is important.”
My stomach tightened again. “What is it?”
His expression went unreadable. “A private viewing,” he said. “And you will be careful.”
The word careful landed like a threat.
He dismissed me with a flick of his fingers.
“Go,” he said. “Eat.”
I stood, print still on the desk. I didn’t touch it. Didn’t take it. Didn’t ask.
I left it there like evidence.
Like a verdict.
Campus hit me like cold air and too many voices.
It wasn’t raining, but everything still smelled like it had—stone holding damp in its pores, leaves rotting quietly along the edges of the courtyard, students moving in clusters like migration. At the same time, there was a cold, clean breeze picking up speed around the buildings.
I arrived early for once.
Which meant I had time to sit with dread in my lap like a familiar animal. Mischa had asked for the first set next week.
René had asked for ten images by Friday.
Dominic wanted five minutes.
My calendar wanted blood.
I stared at my phone until my eyes felt tired.
I didn’t call Dominic.
Not yet.
I told myself I would after class, like that wasn’t the same lie with a fresh coat of paint.
Mischa found me before I could escape.
Not in the classroom.
In the hallway.
That was worse.
“Rachel,” she said.
Her voice was quiet. Her posture was perfect. Her presence made the corridor feel narrower.
“Hi,” I managed.
She looked at my face like she was reading what I’d tried to cover with competence. “You look hollow,” she said.
I let out a laugh that didn’t have humor in it. “That’s… an aggressive greeting.”
Mischa’s mouth did not curve. “Come,” she said. “Five minutes.”
I almost swore. It wasn’t a suggestion. Because—of course it wasn’t.
Five more minutes. I followed her into a small side room that smelled like paper and old fixer—the vague scent of sulphur that accompanied the development chemical turning yellow or cloudy.
Either way, it was bad at getting the photos to show up and it could stink. She closed the door.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then Mischa reached into her bag and produced my folder.
The project list.
The dare.
“You have chosen?” she asked.
My throat tightened.
I should lie.
I should say yes.
I should produce an answer the way I produced everything else lately.
Instead, I said, honestly, “No.”
Mischa’s gaze sharpened. “Why?”
Because choosing meant committing.
Because committing meant failing.
Because caring meant being seen.
Because being seen meant being judged.
Because…
Because…
Because!
“I don’t know what costs me anymore,” I said quietly. “It feels like everything costs me.”
Mischa watched that land in me. Watched me flinch as if I’d said something too true.
Then she said, almost gently, “Good.”
I blinked.
She tapped the folder once. “That will be your project,” she said. “You.”
My chest tightened hard. “That’s not—”
Mischa lifted a hand.
“No excuses,” she said. “No performance.”
I swallowed.
She leaned in just slightly, eyes intent. “Your work is becoming too polished,” she said. “And it is becoming empty. A computer could generate it.”
That slashed through every ounce of ego I’d ever possessed.
“You are too smart to not know the difference.”
The dread that rose in me was intimate. Immediate. “I’m really trying,” I whispered, and it was only rigid self-control that kept me from weeping. I would not cry.
Mischa’s expression softened by half a degree. “Then stop trying to survive everything,” she said. “Our greatest teacher is failure. You cannot succeed at everything. To attempt is to lose at all of it. Choose one thing to be honest about. Only one.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. The words were locked up in my throat.
Mischa studied me for a long beat. Then she opened my folder and slid one print toward me—the café image. The beautiful emptiness. The controlled distance.