When she asked if I was nervous about school, I said no and meant yes.
After we finished eating, we opened a second bottle of wine and drifted through the apartment like we were touring it for the first time instead of living in it. Frankie narrated ideas for art on the walls, where a bigger table could go, how we’d host people once we both “settled.”
Outside of the massive sofa in the living room—the one we bought our first day here, dizzy on ambition and too much espresso—and the bedroom furniture Frankie insisted on because “you aren’t going to sleep on a mattress on the floor,” the place was still very much a work in progress.
I probably should have pushed back on the bedroom set. Should have insisted on something temporary. Practical. Neutral.
But for a little while, I let myself pretend.
Pretend “we” were building something permanent.
Pretend I wasn’t still half in love with her in the quiet, leftover way that lingers after hope expires.
Pretend this was asharedbeginning instead of a midpoint before one of us went home.
I let the furniture feel like we’d established a base.
I let the wine blur the lines between best friends and something softer.
I let the future look and feel simple.
“Office in here?” She studied the bedroom nearest the living room space. It was a little too small for anything more than a desk and some shelves.
“Maybe,” I said. “Need to check the light in here—and the other rooms, really.” I’d picked out the master suite I wanted. It had good windows and views, but I liked the way the morning sun had slanted across the floors. So yeah, that was mine.
“Oh,” Frankie murmured with a nod. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
I laughed, and downed my wine after giving her back a comforting rub. “It’s okay, sometimes it’s better to bat the ideas out aloud. Don’t always know what I’m thinking until I do.”
At some point, we wandered out of the apartment and down the curving staircase to the next floor. There was an empty studio space on one side, and another apartment on the other. The building had that old converted chateau vibe. History poured into its walls.
It wasn’t difficult to imagine all the stories it could tell. The stories I could find while I was here. Frankie shook the big keychain she held with the ancient looking keys on it. The doorshad all been converted, but the keychain was a gift that made me laugh.
We unlocked the door then took a good long look at the empty studio space while finishing our glasses of wine. She did a slow twirl. “Can you imagine it?” She called, her voice echoing off the empty walls. “Prints everywhere. Chemicals. Red light. Photography set ups. Space to store props. You in your element.”
Oh, I could see it. That was the problem. I could see ittooclearly. Me alone with my work. Me in a quiet apartment, figuring out who I was when no one else was looking. No expectations. No mirrors held up by someone else’s eyes.
“Come here!”
Her voice pulled me out of it. I turned toward the sound and found her by the window, the streetlight pouring in like liquid gold. It wrapped around her, caught in her hair, softened her edges until she almost looked unreal—like something you’d only get to keep in a photograph.
“Come take a selfie with me.”
I made a face, because that’s what I do, but I went anyway. I always go when she calls.
She laughed when I reached her, warm and easy, and hooked her arm around my shoulders. She held her phone up, angling it this way and that, frowning when the light carved a shadow across one of us.
When she huffed in frustration, I took the phone from her. “Let me.”
“Well,” she said, grinning at me like she knew exactly what she was doing, “youarethe photographer.”
“I also have longer arms,” I shot back, nudging her lightly.
I adjusted the angle, stepping us just enough into the light so it framed instead of swallowing us. We tilted our heads together. She tightened her hold on me, like she fit there naturally. Like she belonged there.
Her smile was wide and alive, no guard, no hesitation. The gold in her hair burned against the dark of mine. Her bright green eyes caught the light and seemed almost luminous, while mine—hazel, always shifting—looked deeper, harder to read. Her cheeks were soft and warm where mine were all sharper lines and shadow. Even my nose felt a little too prominent next to her small, sweet one.
We looked like opposites. Light and dark. Soft and angular. Sun and shade.
