Personal life isn’t helping. Somehow that’s become another thing to manage. Calls. Expectations. Being present for people when I’m barely present for myself.
Mom started messaging out of nowhere tonight. I just can’t deal with the family right now. Uncle Basil promised he’d run interference.
One small victory: the birth control is working.
No period this month.
Which feels ridiculous to celebrate, but honestly—one less thing bleeding into the schedule.
Yay.
I should sleep.
Or work.
Probably both.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
RACHEL
The reception was technically work.
Which meant I was holding my camera but not really using it, standing near René but not really with him, nodding at people whose names I forgot the moment they finished saying them.
A designer showcase. Minimalist furniture. Brutal lighting. Everything in shades of bone and steel and the kind of black that pretended it wasn’t trying too hard. Seriously, it was so harsh, it was giving me a headache.
The room smelled like perfume and wine and other people’s ambition.
René was in his element — drifting from conversation to conversation, switching languages mid-sentence, collecting contacts like currency. He barely looked at me except to gesture vaguely when he needed a lens or wanted me to capture something “atmospheric.”
Which mostly meant people pretending to laugh.
I took a few shots. They were fine. They were all fine.
Then I saw her.
The nameless girl stood near the bar, one hip leaned casually against the counter, a glass of something pale in her hand. Her hair was loose tonight, falling in soft waves over one shoulder like she’d forgotten to decide what to do with it. No heavy makeup, no dramatic styling — just skin and freckles and a mouth that always looked like it was about to say something kind.
She wore a simple black dress that moved when she did, the fabric catching light and sliding over her as if it couldn’t bear the harshness in here either. Not curated. Not posed.
Just… her.
She didn’t look like she belonged to the event.
She looked more like the event had been rearranged around her.
She caught my eye across the room and smiled.
Not surprised.
Not awkward.
Just…pleased. Like seeing me was the best part of her evening.
Did that send warmth through me? Normally, I would’ve said no. Which was, apparently, a lie I was still very comfortable telling.
