I handed it over.
He weighed it in his hands like he was assessing a weapon. Checked the lens. The settings. Scrolled through the imageswithout asking. His face gave nothing away. Not interest. Not disdain. Just focus.
“Faces,” he said finally. Not a question.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because I’m good at them,flashed through my mind.Because they don’t lie the way words do. Because I need to understand people before I can trust them.
None of those felt like answers he’d tolerate.
“They’re honest,” I said. “Even when people try not to be.”
He snorted.
“Romantic nonsense,” he said, flicking through more photos. “Faces lie constantly. That is their job.”
He stopped on an image I’d taken three days earlier. A woman on the métro, head tilted, mouth set in a practiced smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“This one,” he said. “Why this moment?”
“Because she was pretending,” I said, steady. “And she didn’t realize she’d stopped.”
Silence.
René looked at me over the top of his glasses. Long. Heavy. Like he was trying to decide whether I was observant or just lucky.
“Again,” he said. “But better.”
My pulse kicked.
“She’d just looked at her reflection,” I said. “She checked her lipstick like it mattered. When she looked up, there was nothing left to perform for. That’s when I took it.”
He studied the photo again.
“Hm,” he said.
I was starting to hate that sound.
He handed the camera back like it might bite him if he held it too long.
“You frame too safely,” he said. “You stand where it is comfortable.”
I opened my mouth.
He lifted a finger.
“Do not defend,” he said. “Listen.”
I shut up.
“You have an eye,” he continued. “A good one. Which makes this worse.”
Worse.
“You hesitate,” he said. “You ask permission with your body. The camera sees that. I see that.”
