Page 164 of The Best Shot

A master of zen, then.

I laughed alone in my room at 2 a.m, the sound echoing off the walls.

By month two the sun dipped below the horizon for a few hours each night, and by month four it was gone. I thought I was ready. I wasn’t.

I stopped trusting my eye for a while after that.

Light had always told me where to look, what mattered. Now everything existed in gradients of blue-black and artificial station glow, and I felt like I was relearning photography from scratch.

Half the time I was shooting by instinct and prayer.

When the light went, the station shrank. The same faces, the same meals, the same conversations looping like a stuck playlist. I started sleeping too much, then not enough, then at the wrong times. My body had forgotten what it was supposed to do.

The station psychologist held mandatory weekly check-ins. I sat in her office and told her I was fine.

“You’re not sleeping,” she said.

“I’m sleeping.”

“The logs say you’re in the gym at 4 a.m.”

“I like the quiet.”

She gave me that look—half pity, half I-know-you’re-full-of-shit. But she let it slide.

Hale called on a Sunday. “Hey.”

His voice hit like warm air after months of windchill.

I dropped onto the bed, pressing the receiver so hard against my ear it hurt. “Hey. Hi.”

“You sound tired.”

“I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh.”

A laugh slipped out, embarrassingly watery. I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand. “How’s things over there?”

“It’s Texas. You’re not missing much.”

“How’s Dolores?”

“Mean as ever.”

The line crackled.

“How are you really?” he asked.

I opened my mouth to say the usual—work is incredible, I’m fine.

Instead the truth came out thin and shaky.

“It’s dark here all the time now. I forgot what the sun looks like. I miss you.”

The silence went on long enough that I checked the line was still open.

“I know,” he said finally.