15. Teddy
TEDDY
THE PROBLEM WITH FOCUS
Time doesn’t bring clarity. After breakfast and more pacing than I’d like to admit, I arrive at a conclusion that should’ve been obvious from the start.
Distance. That’s what I need. From this apartment, from that image still sitting on my camera, and from whatever the hell is happening every time I think about the woman in it.
I force my feet into motion, gravel crunching under my boots as I head toward the mailbox out of habit. Something automatic that gives me a reason to be outside without having to justify it.
I find the usual nonsense. Bills, flyers, junk mail. Then I spot the diner logo, and I stop.
Even though I only saw it once, it’s been branded into my brain. My fingers tighten slightly as I pull the flyer free.
A coupon.
I stare at it longer than I should. It’s nothing. Just a discount. A reason to walk through the door, sit down, order food, pretend it’s normal.
Except it wouldn’t be. Not now.
And didn’t I just decide to stay away from Dannica?
But I could go. The thought slips in before I can stop it. Sit in a different section. A corner. Keep to myself, no conversation, no expectations. Just another place to eat.
Except I know exactly why I’d really be going, and it’s not the food. I could sit in the men’s bathroom, and I’d still be looking for her.
My grip tightens. Then I crumple the paper and drop it in the bin beside the mailbox.
I’m starting to feel something again. I’m not about to throw that away over a piece of paper and a pair of eyes I shouldn’t be thinking about.
I turn and start walking before I can change my mind.
I make it farther down the road before my phone pings. Out here, nothing feels urgent unless you decide it is, but habit wins. I pull it from my pocket and glance at the screen.
An email. The print shop logo.
I hesitate, then open it. I remember the owner leaning over the counter that first week, asking for my details. I’d nearly said no—privacy, control, all the things I’ve gotten used to guarding without thinking about it. But my email address was ambiguous enough, and then he’d mentioned discounts.
My dad’s voice moves through my head, low and matter of fact. You don’t stay comfortable by wasting what you’ve got, kid. He used to say it when he wiped grease off his hands, like it was just another rule of the world.
So I’d handed it over. And now here we are.
I scan the email as I walk. A promotional thing. Happy hour on Sundays. Reduced prices.
A reluctant smile pulls at the corner of my mouth. It’s ridiculous how quickly my brain shifts gears, how easily it reframes something into acceptable. It’s not about going there. It’s about the deal. About not ignoring an opportunity out of stubbornness.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
My thumb hovers over the screen, then I lock the phone and slip it back into my pocket.
A discount’s a discount. And this one doesn’t involve a blue-eyed waitress. It’s the print shop. It’s safe.
I can work with safe.
I take up a steady pace again, the cool air and open road doing what the apartment couldn’t. But my mind drifts back anyway. To the image of her still up on my camera. To the photo of her I didn’t have it in me to edit before I left. Because seriously, there wasn’t a lot to edit.
The memory hits differently now. Not as sharp. Not as overwhelming. Just there, sitting underneath everything else, quiet and persistent.
Distance. That’s still the plan.
Printing a photo isn’t breaking that. It’s work. It makes sense to print the image that’s been pulling me out of months of nothing. I don’t need to see her to do that. Don’t need to stand in the same space, breathe the same air, risk whatever that moment at the festival turned into.
Kissing her mask.
Jesus.
I huff out a quiet breath, equal parts disbelief and irritation. Not exactly the kind of moment to be proud of. Which is exactly why this works.
I can separate the subject from the work.
That’s the job. It always has been. Right?
The photo isn’t her. Not really. It’s what I saw.
What I managed to pull out of a single moment before it disappeared.
And if I hold it in my hands—see it outside the screen, outside my own head—then maybe I can prove to myself that I didn’t imagine it.
That whatever’s been missing isn’t gone.
The kind of shot that used to come naturally. The kind that made it feel like I was actually seeing the person on the other side of the lens, instead of just photographing them.
My jaw shifts, the tension easing just enough to let something steadier take its place.
That’s all this is. A small, quiet compromise. I can live with that.
By the time I circle back toward the apartment, the decision feels solid enough to hold. Sunday. Print the photo. Get what I need and leave it at that.
I step inside, the quiet settling around me differently than it did this morning. My gaze moves automatically to the camera.
I don’t go closer. I don’t need to. Sunday’s already fixed in my head with a certainty the rest of this week hasn’t had. For the first time in a while, I’m not dreading what comes next.
I’m waiting for it.
The bell above the print shop door announces me. Given the happy hour, I expected a queue, but there are only a few people browsing frames or flipping through sample books at the unhurried pace of a Sunday afternoon.
The owner looks up from the counter. His gaze lands on me. A beat passes.
“Congratulations. You’re the ten-thousandth customer of the year.”
I stop mid-step. “I’m sorry—what?”
He straightens slightly. “You’ve won a prize.”
“Ten thousand customers.” I try not to sound skeptical. “This year?”
“Indeed.”
I look at him. He looks back. “And the prize?” I ask.
He gestures behind the counter.
A tandem bike. It’s bright and completely out of place.
I look back at him. “What?”
“A tandem bike,” he says, as though that clarifies anything.
“I heard you.” A longer pause this time. I look at the bike again, then back at him, in case it makes more sense on a second pass. It doesn’t. “I don’t want a tandem bike.”
He shrugs, hands already on the handlebars. “Then junk it.”
I glance at the bike again. Someone put time and effort into it. That sits wrong with me. I also note that this man seems entirely unbothered either way, which is its own kind of strange.
“No,” I say after a moment. “I’ll take it.”
He nods, looking more relieved than the situation warrants. “Good choice.”
I’m not convinced it is.
The bike is a mistake.
I know this about three steps in, when the front wheel veers left like it has its own agenda and the back half lags just enough to make the whole thing feel like I’m dragging a stubborn animal. It’s balanced for two people. Every step compensates for something that isn’t there.
“Can’t even ride this alone,” I mutter.
I tighten my grip and keep moving, the grocery store where I left the Jeep coming into view.
I didn’t want to miss happy hour, so I parked there and walked the short distance to the print store.
The owner had offered to keep the photo behind the counter while I dealt with the bike.
Nice of him. Less nice for the guy who now has to make two trips.
Which means I need to figure out how to get the bike back to the apartment without scratching the Jeep’s interior. Then I’ll have to come back for the photo.
The bike rattles with every step, metal clinking softly.
It’s a distraction. A decent one.
Until it isn’t.
“Back off?—”
The voice cuts through everything. Sharp, tight, close enough to be real. My body reacts before my brain does—I stop, then I don’t.
The bike slips from my hand and hits the ground with a crack as the frame splits where it shouldn’t, the sound echoing sharper than it has any right to in the quiet.
I don’t look back. I’m already moving.
Adrenaline cuts through everything as I round the corner, my focus narrowing to one point, one sound, one?—
Her.
Dannica.
She’s at the back of the diner, body angled away, trying to pull free as a man grips her arm, his other hand fumbling at her bag.
Something in me locks into place. Not thought. Not decision.
I’m already closing the distance before I realize I’ve moved.