Chapter Nineteen
K i a n G r i m m
Obsession never announces itself. It begins like dust on my lens; thin, harmless, polite. A glance that’s held too long until it breaks open into more.
I learned that through photography.
You don’t wake up one morning consumed by a subject, you frame it in your mind once then again, adjusting the light and the distance to convince yourself it’s practice.
You tell yourself you’re in control because your hand is steady and your eye is trained but somewhere along the way the subject stops being something you observe and becomes something you need.
I think mine started when I was a child. My parents were generous with gifts instead of presence and warmth. Things with hundred dollar price tags instead of thought. They were mindless gifts, something to keep me busy while they were gone.
That’s when ownership became victory and when I found something that was mine, not bought for me or chosen by them, it felt sacred.
A rock pulled from a creek bed, a developed photograph in a dark room, Sylvia.
Possession became proof that I existed beyond their control.
Over time that fixation deepened, not from hunger but from absence—from care taken too far.
I no longer tell myself that Sylvia is a pet, a play thing for my enjoyment because it’s a lie. She’s buried in my mind and I’m aching for a taste of her sweet little cunt.
“Kian!” My name is called across the tennis court and I can hear the crack of the tennis ball against a racket.
The sound snaps the thread in my head and my gaze locks on Hayden. Pale sunlight reflects off the academy's court, white and blinding. Even against the harsh wind, sweat drips down my neck.
I breathe and the smell of wax from the parade and something earthy settles me.
“Sorry,” I mumble with a furrow of my brows.
Dressed in pale khaki pants and a white button up, he’s holding his racket at his side and staring at me, studying me like a creature of the unknown.
He taps his racket against his tan shoes. “You weren’t here again.”
“I hit the ball.” I shrug and take a swig of water.
“You were staring through it.”
I roll my eyes. Here he goes again. This has happened once already and it’s starting to frustrate me. I want a game of quiet and peace. Hayden seems to always find a way to get under my skin.
He rolls the ball between his fingers, the felt worn thin from my aggressive swings today.
“I saw Sylvia at the parade,” he adds as he serves. “You were staring at her like you might eat her.”
I straighten, barely missing the ball and sending it flying across the court at a useless angle.
“It’s hard to explain.” I serve this time, strong and straight over to his side.
“Nothing is ever simple with you, try to explain anyway,” he pesters and hits the ball back to me.
I swing harder than I anticipate but it lands in the court. He lets it skid past him and walks directly across from me.
“It started like everything else but it stopped staying where I put it.” I swallow. “It’s like something transferred. I don’t just want to understand her, I want her entirely. I feel like I’ll come apart if I don’t have her.”
“So a crush, you idiot.” He looks at me confused.
“I know but that’s the problem.”
“You can’t treat her like one of your…things.” He says as he rests his forearms on the tape.
“I don’t want to but I don’t know what else to do.” I respond honestly because at this point I’m driving myself insane at the thought of her.
“You’ve spent your entire life owning things because things don’t leave.” He points his racket at me. “Girls do.”
The air thins and I wonder if I’ve let her slip past my grip. “So? I do nothing?”
“No, you tell her,” he says immediately.
“You want me to give her an option?” I laugh once, it's sharp and bitter.
I’ve never given anything in my life an option and he expects me to give the one thing I want so desperately a choice.
“Yes, I want you to stop pretending this is something you can control,” he says. “If I don't say it now, you’ll turn into something worse.”
I rub my hand across my jaw. I seriously can’t think right now.
These gestures I’ve given Sylvia already have taken a toll on me and are beyond the normal for me.
Giving her more of me that I don’t want to give seems like something deeper than a confession, it feels like love and I’m not ready for that.
The wind ripples the net between us and I look down at it. My gaze is sharp and cruel as it always is. For the first time I understand what terrifies me, not embarrassment but the idea that she was never meant to be held the way I’ve held everything in my life.
If she is, she may crumble before I can have her.
There’s no modesty in my bones but Sylvia has a way of ignoring that, like she’s done all my other attempts at capturing her attention. The humbleness she’s served me on a silver platter should make this obsession simmer away, but it only beckons me forward.
It’s quite annoying having to go this extra mile for her, watching from the shadows to keep her safe, embalmed in my own restraint. My obsession has turned borderline.
I pull my coat tighter against the harsh winds and the streetlamp I stand under flickers each time the wind hits it. The air smells faintly of oil and pine, but I’m too focused on the car to notice.
Sylvia stands beside Pimble with a fake smile on her lips.
A smile I hadn’t even earned from her. The soft moonlight catches her hair and the wind worries the hem of her coat.
Christmas lights are strung around the white mansion and I hate that Pimble is already celebrating before Thanksgiving can pass.
He says something to her and places his arm around her. He doesn’t ask for permission and she accepts the gesture. He squeezes her until her face presses against his shoulder and only lets her go when he has to open the door to the car.
The thought of his arm all over something that belongs to me makes something inside me crack, a dull fracture that spreads.
She is my little swan. I tighten my fingers around my camera's case until my knuckles whiten. I want to lift it to my eyes and freeze them in a moment of black and white, but don’t.
He drives in the opposite direction of me and I step forward as if I can stop them but my watch chimes, stopping me.
I sigh, another photo shoot that I don’t want to do for people my father knows.
I look down at my watch as it rings its little warning, the sound too civilized compared to how I feel.
I swallow and turn to my bike behind me.
It’s black and low to the ground, the chrome handles dulled by the cold.
I swing my leg over and kick it to life.
The low vibrations of its exhaust settle through my bones and muscles asking to be set loose.
I peel off the sidewalk, already shifting through the gears to sit at a good 80 miles per hour. I fear if I look back or go too slow I may follow behind her. The town falls away from my view, blurring into a mess. My eyes sting and the wind tears through my coat.
It doesn’t take me long to get to the old mansion. Its weathered stone is dark with age and a wreath hangs loosely on the door. I kill the engine to my bike and the silence of the darkening night settles in.
I walk to the door with hurried steps but before I can knock it opens, a lady in her mid thirties stepping aside.
“Come in, dear.” I say a small thank you, respecting her even with her connection to my father.
Inside it smells of pine and cinnamon, Christmas decor and trees sitting in each room. I follow behind her to the parlor, where her husband and two kids await by the fire.
“Where would you like us?” She asks and her husband stands, shaking my hand.
“These are for Christmas cards, correct?” I ask, my tone simple.
“Yes sir.” Her husband responds this time and I nod.
I position them beside the tree. Her sitting in a chair and him standing beside her, one kid is to her right while the other stands beside his father. They all wear matching pajamas and a strange euphoric feeling passes through me. Would this be me one day?
I adjust my lens carefully and shift until I’ve captured them in the perfect light.
I speak softly as I switch their positions or ask them to smile.
The shutter snaps again and again, each flash wiping the room clean only to have it fill back up with her.
Her face burns into my vision instead of theirs and her smile ghosts over the lens.
I take longer than necessary getting each shot, circling and recalibrating. Time is moving without me because my mind is consumed.
“You take your time,” the husband says impatiently but politely.
I want to say something, to strangle him but I don't. I simply smile.
“Yes sir.”
I glance down at my watch and notice I've only taken four different setups in two hours. I look up at the impatient people. People who are receiving free photos yet seem ungrateful. My jaw ticks and I have them move positions again, taking their last round before I leave.