11. Teddy
TEDDY
DID I SAY THE PROBLEM WITH MUSES ALREADY?
I don’t look at the photos that night. Nor the next day when I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, wishing it could hand me answers, and not even the day after that when I pick up my camera, turn it on, then set it back down again without opening a single image. I avoid them, which is new.
I don’t typically avoid my work. I chase it.
Tear it apart, zoom in, zoom out, find the flaw, fix it, rebuild it into something that passes for meaning.
That’s how it works. That’s how it’s always worked.
But this isn’t just work. The camera sits on my kitchen table like it knows exactly what I’ve been avoiding, because somewhere on that memory card is the photograph.
The one I can’t stop thinking about. And tangled up in it is a pair of blue eyes and a kiss I’d very much like to forget.
Except I don’t really want to forget.
By the third day, I know it’s cowardice. I tell myself I’m waiting for the right moment, for whatever magical combination of time and perspective will make opening those photos feel less dangerous. It’s bullshit, and I know it.
Eventually my pride loses the argument.
Late-afternoon sunlight stretches across the floor in that soft, forgiving way photographers spend their entire careers trying to bottle. I settle into the chair by the window and pick up my camera. It rests heavily in my hands, as though it knows exactly what I’ve been avoiding.
“Fine,” I mutter.
I scroll.
Shot after shot passes under my thumb. Movement, color, noise. People mid-laugh, mid-step. Technically solid. Some even good.
I study them longer than necessary, lingering on frames I’d normally dismiss after a second or two. Ten years ago I’d have been excited about them. Three years ago I’d have built an entire campaign around one of them.
Now?
Nothing.
No spark. No pull. No instinctive urge to zoom in and see what I’d captured.
All I see are photographs.
My chest tightens as a familiar frustration curls through me. The frustration I’ve spent months pretending isn’t there. The frustration that whispers: maybe this is it. Maybe this is all that’s left.
But then I stop. On her. My breath comes back in a slow, uneven pull, relief expanding through my chest, because there it is.
Dannica’s friend is spinning her in a circle, both laughing so hard they can barely stay on their feet.
Loose strands of Dannica’s hair frame her face, and her smile is wide and unguarded.
Most people would see two friends having fun at a festival.
They’d see the laughter, the movement, the joy of the moment.
What they wouldn’t see is what isn’t there.
For one brief moment, Dannica doesn’t look like she’s carrying the weight of obligation on her shoulders.
She’s not carrying everyone else’s expectations or pretending she’s okay.
She’s lost in the moment, enjoying herself without thinking about what comes next. And somehow I caught it.
I stare at the image, my chest tightening for an entirely different reason than it has all day.
I haven’t lost it. I haven’t lost the ability to look beyond what people show the world and see what’s underneath.
To find the truth hidden inside a moment and capture something real.
It’s still there. And for the first time in months, I don’t feel panic when I think about picking up my camera.
I lean back in the chair, dragging a hand over my mouth as I stare at the image.
For months I’ve been chasing something I couldn’t quite define.
A spark. A connection. Proof that I still knew how to see people instead of simply photographing them.
And somehow, against all logic, I found it standing in the middle of a harvest festival wearing a crystal mask.
A humorless laugh escapes me.
Of course I did. Because apparently the universe looked at my already complicated life and decided it wasn’t nearly complicated enough.
I study her eyes, the expression I somehow managed to catch before the moment disappeared. My stomach sinks. I can’t separate her from the photograph or the feeling that hit me when I saw it. There’s just something about her.
This town was supposed to be temporary. A reset. A place to figure out how to fix what was broken before I went back to Los Angeles and the life waiting for me there. Dannica, on the other hand, has roots here. Family, friends, and responsibilities. She’s built an entire life in Boudica Springs.
She’s staying.
I’m leaving.
The certainty of that should make this easier. Instead, it leaves me with the uncomfortable feeling that I’m standing at the beginning of something I have absolutely no business starting.
I look away from the photograph, but it doesn’t help. It’s already burned into my mind. Just like she is.
My phone starts ringing, and I almost jump out of my skin. Rick’s name flashes across the screen. I consider ignoring it but I’ve already ignored enough of his calls to qualify as a missing person.
“Hey.”
“Teddy.”
The single word manages to convey irritation, concern, and the certainty that he’s been putting up with my shit for entirely too long.
“You alive out there?”
“I am.”
“Good. Because the gallery’s asking questions again.”
I lean back in my chair and close my eyes. Of course they are.
The conversation goes exactly the way I expect it to.
The sponsors want updates. The gallery wants updates.
Clients are asking questions. Nobody understands why one of their most reliable photographers suddenly vanished and stopped producing work.
Rick argues about how he’s done his best to shield me from most of it, but even he sounds tired.
“Have you got anything?” he asks eventually.
My gaze drops back to the photograph of Dannica. The answer is yes. For the first time in months, the answer is absolutely yes.
Unfortunately, I don’t know how to explain that the photograph currently restoring my faith in my career is of a woman from a town I was never supposed to get attached to.
“I’m working on it,” I say.
Rick sighs. “You said that last week.”
“I know.”
“You need to figure something out, Teddy. People are only patient for so long.”
“I know.”
I let him rant about how I don’t know a good thing when I have it. How I’m not only destroying my career but his too. I don’t have the energy to argue with him, so listening to his tirade is the least I can do.
After we hang up, I just sit there until the room grows darker around me. Rick’s right. I have a life waiting for me in Los Angeles. Deadlines, campaigns, meetings, clients, expectations. That was always the plan. Come to Boudica Springs. Figure out what was wrong. Fix it. Go home.
Simple.
At least it was supposed to be.
My eyes drift back to the photograph and settle on Dannica’s face. I was supposed to come here to uncomplicate things. Instead, I did the exact opposite.