Not in a weird way. Just… practical. He said if we’re serious about this, maybe it makes sense so we don’t have to think about condoms all the time. I told him I’d think about it.
I actually have been.
Not just because of him. The idea of not dealing with my period every month sounds like cheating somehow, but also… appealing. Like removing one more thing from the calendar.
Which is probably a terrible way to think about my own body.
But lately everything feels like it’s being scheduled. Work. School. Dominic. Calls home. Sleep.
I’m starting to understand all those times Uncle Basil said he was too busy for his own life.
Chapter
Fifteen
RACHEL
The days following the night shoot didn’t blur so much asstack. Sleep came in shallow layers. Coffee became fundamental to survival. Time bent in strange ways—stretching when I was waiting and snapping shut when I needed it most.
René kept his promise. We reviewed the contact sheets that afternoon, the light outside still pale and undecided, my brain buzzing from too little rest and too much adrenaline.
He liked three.
He hated one.
He didn’t tell me which until the very end, just let me sweat through his silence as he flipped through the images with surgical precision.
“This,” he said finally, tapping the screen. “This one—you flinched.”
Yeah, I definitely had.
“You didn’t delete it,” he continued. “That was correct.”
That was it. That was the whole conversation.
I floated out of his office like I’d been given a medal.
Classes at the Sorbonne demanded a different kind of attention. Mischa Condre didn’t soften. Alia Gagnon didn’t repeat herself. They spoke like they assumed you were already keeping up—and if you weren’t, that was your problem to solve.
I liked that. I likedthem.
I met people in fragments. Names exchanged over shared outlets, brief smiles while pinning work to walls, whispered commentary during critiques that could either save you or ruin you depending on who heard.
There was Léa, who shot film exclusively and smelled faintly of clove cigarettes. Thomas, who talked too much but saw composition like a mathematician. Noor, who painted but came to every photography critique anyway, absorbing everything like it might be useful later.
We formed the kind of loose, temporary circle that happens when people know they’ll be seeing each other again but don’t yet know how important they’ll become.
At home, the building had come alive and seemed determined to stay there—not that I was complaining.
David and Quan practiced at odd hours, the music drifting through the thick walls just enough to remind me they were there without demanding attention. Sometimes, I paused on the stairs again—always unintentionally, always longer than planned.
More than one night, I was guilty of taking a glass of wine out to sit at the top of the stairs and listen to the music drifting up to wrap around me. It was?—
Alix and Jules declared Thursday “soup night” even though no one had officially agreed to it. It just… happened. Someone always brought bread. Someone always grabbed wine. Someone always showed up late. Someone always forgot spoons. Someone always stayed longer than they meant to.
It was the best kind of comfort without stress. The door was always open and no one ever complained—at least not about whether we got there on time.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it, my phone sat heavier than usual.
