2. Skylar
Skylar Hartley didn’t need a break, no matter what her roommate thought.
“It’s a fair, Sky,” Poppy huffed, causing her honey-blond bangs to ruffle.
“Cotton candy. Ferris wheels. Questionable carnival games. College isn’t all about school and work.
” She tugged Skylar toward the entrance gate, weaving through families and clusters of students with the kind of effortless social navigation Skylar had never mastered.
“When was the last time you did something just for fun?”
Skylar couldn’t remember.
The late August afternoon wrapped around them, thick with the smell of fried dough and popcorn and the sticky-sweet residue of spilled soda baking on hot pavement.
Strings of lights crisscrossed overhead, waiting for dusk to show off their full effect.
Children shrieked on the spinning teacups.
A cover band murdered a Taylor Swift song somewhere near the Ferris wheel.
The whole scene pulsed with the kind of uncomplicated joy that made Skylar’s shoulders tight.
Kate would have loved this.
The thought came unbidden, the way thoughts of her sister always did.
Kate at twelve, dragging a ten-year old Skylar through the Ironwood County Fair, insisting they ride the Tilt-A-Whirl three times in a row.
Kate winning a stuffed elephant at the ring toss and giving the prize to a crying toddler because Kate couldn’t stand to see anyone sad.
Kate, always Kate, preserved in amber at fourteen while Skylar kept getting older without her.
“You’re doing that thing.” Poppy cut through the memory. “The thing where you go somewhere else in your head and your face gets all tight.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re exhausted.” Poppy stopped walking and turned to face her, light eyes sharp with concern. “How was the hospital?”
Twelve hours of fluorescent lights and beeping monitors and escorting a woman who reminded Skylar of her grandmother to the emergency room to search for her injured husband.
“Fine.” Skylar dug her thumb into the knot at the base of her skull. “Busy.”
Poppy’s expression said she wasn’t fooled, but she let the deflection stand.
She never let silence settle long enough to get heavy.
Two years of dorm life together and Skylar had learned that Poppy would fill every quiet moment with chatter, playlists, plans, anything to keep the energy as bright as her blond hair.
Exhausting, sometimes. But also, unexpectedly, a relief.
This year they’d moved to an apartment off campus and even though the commute to class took longer, the apartment came with a kitchen table, a couch nobody had bolted to the floor, and a front door that shut out everyone but the two of them.
“Okay. Well. Now, you’re not working. Now, you’re going to eat something terrible for you and ride at least one ride and maybe smile at least once.” Poppy linked her arm through Skylar’s and started walking again. “Doctor’s orders.”
“You’re a cheerleader, not a doctor.”
“I’m pre-med. Close enough.”
Poppy surveyed the crowded parking lot of the shopping center on the outskirts of New Haven that served as the temporary village of rides and games and overpriced food. “I don’t see Charlie anywhere.”
“Charlie?”
“I told you about him.” Even on her tiptoes, Poppy still stood inches shorter than Skylar. “Quarterback. Senior. Ridiculously good-looking. We’ve been hanging out.”
The way Poppy said “hanging out” suggested more than casual friendship.
“He’s here somewhere with some of the guys from the team. Said he’d meet me by the games.” Poppy pulled out her phone, thumbs flying. “You’ll like him. Everyone likes Charlie.”
Skylar doubted that. She doubted most things that came with the word “everyone.”
“I’m going to check by the funnel cake stand.” Poppy raised her hand across her forehead to block out the sun. “You okay on your own for a few minutes?”
“I’m not a child.”
“No, you’re a workaholic with a camera and a suspicious lack of social skills.” Poppy grinned. “I’ll be back.”
Her roommate vanished into the crowd before Skylar could argue, leaving her alone beside the ring toss with her camera strap twisted between her fingers.
She should be getting a jump start on her classes.
She should be sleeping. She should be standing anywhere other than the middle of a campus fair full of strangers, pretending she knew how to have fun.
The growl of an engine cut through the fair noise. Skylar spun to see a sports car pulling into the parking lot, recognizing the distinct low-slung style from an old calendar that hung in her dad’s garage.
The McLaren was orange. Obscenely, aggressively orange, the color of money that wanted to be noticed. Her jaw tightened as the vehicle slid into a spot, angled across two spaces because of course a car that expensive couldn’t risk a door ding from lesser vehicles.
Her stomach clenched with familiar, reflexive disgust. Rich kids and their toys.
Two guys climbed out, one wearing a jersey in the signature navy and gold of Thorndale College. The sun obscured their features as they headed toward the fair entrance. These were people who existed in a different universe than people who worked three jobs to afford textbooks.
A group of kids brushed past her, debating which ride to try first. Her fingers itched for her camera.
The Nikon D3100 sat in her bag, a comfortable weight against her hip.
Her mother’s camera, the one possession Skylar had managed to salvage from the ashes of her old life.
The leather strap was worn soft from years of use—first in her mother’s hands, then Skylar’s.
Every scratch on the body was a story. Every click of the shutter was a conversation with a ghost.
She pulled the camera out without making a conscious decision to do so. The weight settled into her palms, familiar as her own heartbeat, and the world narrowed to what she could see through the viewfinder.
A little girl with a cloud of pink cotton candy bigger than her head. Click.
An old man teaching his grandson how to throw a baseball at the milk bottle game. Click.
A teenager winning a prize for his girlfriend, both of them flushed with that particular sweetness of early love. Click.
Through the lens, Skylar could look without being seen.
She could study faces, capture moments, find the truth that people tried to hide behind their public smiles.
The camera created distance while allowing intimacy.
A paradox she’d never been able to explain to anyone who didn’t already understand.
A commotion near the entrance caught her attention.
A little boy, maybe five or six, stood frozen in the middle of the walkway.
His face was red and tear-streaked and his mouth open in the particular wail of a child who’d lost sight of his parents.
People flowed around him, glancing down with the vague discomfort of strangers who didn’t want to get involved.
Her stomach tightened and Skylar’s foot raised to go to the child but a man blocked her view, crouching down in front of the boy. She raised her camera automatically, framing the shot. The small figure sheltered by the kind stranger.
Late-afternoon light caught the planes of the man’s face, turning blond hair gold.
Tall, broad-shouldered, with the kind of jaw that cameras loved.
He’d dropped to one knee to put himself at the child’s eye level, and his hands were raised, palms out, the universal gesture of I’m not a threat.
His forearms, tanned and corded with muscle, stayed perfectly still as he waited for the boy to stop crying.
She adjusted her focus, zooming in to read the scene through her lens. The gentle patience in his posture. The complete lack of hurry, as if this terrified child was the only thing in the world that mattered.
Skylar pressed the shutter.
Click.
The boy said something, hiccuping through his tears. The man nodded seriously, then stood and offered his hand. The boy took the outstretched fingers without hesitation.
Her stomach uncoiled and she followed them through her viewfinder as the man led the boy toward the information booth, matching his stride to the child’s shorter legs.
He spoke to the attendant who spoke into a headset.
Skylar focused on the boy gazing up at the stranger with complete trust. The man again knelt to his companion’s height and his words made the boy’s face break into a grin.
Click.
Seconds later, a frantic woman entered the frame, scooping the boy into her arms with the desperate relief of a parent who’d imagined the worst.
The man leaned back. Tears streaming down her face, the mother mouthed thank you. He shook his head, waved off the gratitude, and pulled a face that made the boy’s grin break wide open.
Click. Click. Click.
Skylar snapped shot after shot as the smile transformed his face from a man with good looks that could grace a magazine cover to an unguarded expression.
Laugh lines appeared at his eyes, and his whole posture softened, shoulders dropping, chin lifting, as if smiling were something he did with his entire self rather than just his mouth.
She lowered the camera, her pulse tripping beneath her collarbone.
“Found him.” Poppy appeared at her elbow, breathless and bright. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
Before Skylar could process, Poppy pulled her toward the man who was now in the center of a group.
“Charlie.” Poppy brimmed with excitement. “This is my roommate, Skylar. The one I told you about.”
The blond man turned, extending his hand, and his smile was perfect. Polished. Nothing at all like the one he’d given the lost boy’s mother. “Nice to meet you.”
“Charlie.” A dark-haired man slapped him on the back. “Still can’t believe your dad just handed you the keys to that beast.”