Work helped.
That surprised me.
Not because I hadn’t loved photography before—I always had—but because this was different. This wasn’t indulgent or exploratory. This was deliberate. Demanding. Exhausting in a way that left no room for spiraling.
René pushed without warning and without apology.
One morning he sent me to shoot a location without telling me why. Another afternoon he rejected an entire set and told me to find the story I’d missed. Once, he handed me a camera that wasn’t mine and said, “Adapt.”
I did.
Sometimes badly. Sometimes brilliantly. Sometimes just well enough to survive the day.
I learned where Paris hid its edges. Where people dropped their masks when they thought no one was watching. I learned that disruption didn’t have to be loud—it just had to be honest. I learned that hesitation wasn’t always fear, but it was always visible.
By the Thursdayaftermy night with Dominic, my body hurt everywhere. I hadn’t hurt this much when I tried to go to the gym.
I ate standing up more often than not. Showered on autopilot. Fell into bed without ceremony, my brain still half-framing shots as sleep dragged me under. I didn’t dream much.Or if I did, it was all light and shadow and movement without faces.
Dominic receded.
Not erased. Not forgotten.
But pushed to the periphery, where memory softened into background noise. Work did that. It demanded everything up front and gave nothing back unless you earned it. I liked that about it. Liked that it didn’t care who I wanted or what I was avoiding.
By Friday, René didn’t even tell me when something was wrong. He just sent me back out.
And I went.
Worse, he stopped hovering altogether.
He watched from across rooms. From reflections. From moments I didn’t realize were tests until they were already over. He corrected less and expected more. When he spoke, it was precise and minimal, like he was rationing words.
“You see faster,” he said once, almost idly.
That was it. No follow-up. No encouragement.
I carried that sentence with me all afternoon like contraband.
By the time the weekend rolled around, exhaustion hit me the second my head touched the pillow. No scrolling. No replaying conversations. No wondering what Dominic was doing or who he was with or whether distance had changed anything at all.
Sleep took me immediately.
I woke Saturday afternoon with my camera battery charging beside my bed and my shoes still by the door. I stretched, sore and foggy, and for a brief, disorienting moment, I felt… steady.
Like I’d outrun something.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Once.
I ignored it.
It buzzed again.
I sighed, already knowing.
Dominic:
