But before I could answer, she added, almost shyly, “Of course… it is soup night.”
I laughed. She’d told me about it in voice notes, always with this quiet warmth in her voice. “Is it?”
She nodded. “Yes.” Then, softer, “We can go out if you want. Or…”
She was giving me an out. A real one.
“Soup night sounds perfect,” I said. “Should we grab wine on the way?”
That earned me one of her rare, open smiles. “No, it’s Quan’s turn this week. Jules gets the soup. But—we can grab bread.”
I took her hand as we climbed the stairs from the métro. “Then lead on, Flash. Show me where the good bread lives.”
By the time we reached her building, several warm baguettes in a bag and the smell making my stomach ache pleasantly, Rachel had grown visibly lighter. More animated. Like she’d finally exhaled.
Public Rachel.
Professional Rachel.
Academic Rachel.
And now this one.
The one who just wanted to sit on the stairs with a bowl of soup and stop the world from asking anything of her for a while.
For the first time all day, she wasn’t running.
She was walking—with me.
From Rachel’s Diary:
I almost didn’t write again.
This notebook is starting to feel like an obligation instead of a conversation.
René says the difference between a good photographer and a great one is attention. Not just seeing something once, but noticing the tiny shifts before everyone else does.
I keep wondering what I’m missing in my own life while I’m looking so hard at everyone else’s.
Dominic being here isgoodreal good. I could get used to him being here. But I probably shouldn’t.
Chapter
Twenty
RACHEL
Ididn’t remember agreeing on how long Dominic was staying. Which meant, technically, we hadn’t agreed on anything at all. He was here and he was staying and—I didn’t complain. Not once.
The weekend unfolded like light I hadn’t accounted for—a candid I didn’t know I’d needed, slanting into my life at an angle I couldn’t control, only follow.
No alarms. No countdown. No return tickets mentioned out loud.
He worked from my kitchen table in the mornings while I rushed in and out between shoots and edits. He learned the rhythm of the building faster than I expected — learned which door stuck, which neighbor always forgot their keys, which café made coffee strong enough to feel like a moral support system.
At some point, without thinking about it, I started photographing him.
Not for work. Not for anything. Just… because he was there.
