Page 20 of Matchmaking On The Menu

The memory slams into me—her mid-sentence, mid-expression, something shifting across her face like she’s following a thought the rest of us can’t quite see or watching a story unfold in real time and just… reacting to it.

I didn’t register it properly then. Not the way I should have. But now it won’t leave me alone.

If I’d had my camera, maybe I could’ve pinned it down. Caught that exact moment where everything lined up—whatever it is that makes her… her. Maybe I could’ve felt it again too. That instinct, that certainty. The thing I used to trust without thinking. Instead, all I have is the memory. Blurry in the wrong places, too sharp in others. And the quiet, gnawing thought that even if I’d had the shot, I might not have known what to do with it.

Back at my apartment, my phone buzzes. My breath catches as my agent’s name flashes across the screen. I groan. “Fuck! Of course.”

I answer, even though I know I’m making a huge mistake.

“Teddy, my man!” Rick’s voice bursts through, all sunshine and sales pitch. It grates on what feels like my exposed nerves. “You’re a difficult man to get on the phone.”

I close my eyes, pressing my thumb harder into the side of the phone than necessary.

“Hey, Rick.”

“How’s the… retreat?” he asks, like he’s talking about a luxury spa instead of a tiny apartment on the outskirts of nowhere.

“Quiet.”

“Love that for you. Big fan of quiet. Very… grounding.” A beat. “So listen, I’ve got three people asking when you’re back. One of them used the phrase ‘career-defining.’ No pressure.”

I huff out a laugh, staring at my computer screen. “That’s usually code for ‘sell your soul but make it glossy.’”

Rick chuckles like I’m joking, but I’m not.

“Come on, man. You’re the best in the game. You don’t need to go all… Eat, Pray, Whatever This Is. You’ve got it. You’ve always had it.”

Rows and rows of photos stare back at me. Perfect but empty.

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s kind of the problem⁠—”

He talks right over me.

“You’re Teddy—” He cuts himself off, rebrands mid-sentence. “You’re that guy. People don’t book you for introspection. They book you because you deliver.”

There it is. Deliver. Like I’m a service. Like this, this thing that used to feel like oxygen, is just a transaction now.

Rick’s tone turns practiced, careful. “The gallery’s asking questions. I can keep buying you time, Teddy, maybe a month, but not forever. The industry moves fast. If you’re not careful, people stop waiting.”

Translation: we will replace you.

“Got it,” I say.

“Attaboy. Knew you would. You’re the shit, Teddy. Always have been.”

The line clicks dead, and I lower the phone slowly.

Five years ago, hearing those words would’ve meant something. Back then, being told I was the best would’ve been validation that all the long hours, the travel, and the sacrifices were worth it. Now it just feels like a trap.

People don’t book me because they connect with my work anymore. They book me because they know I’ll deliver. Because I’m reliable, consistent. A safe investment. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe somewhere along the way I stopped being a photographer and became a product. I set the phone down carefully. For the first time since arriving in Boudica Springs, the idea of going back to LA doesn’t make me feel relieved. It makes me feel exhausted. I sit with that for a moment. Outside, a car passes slowly on the empty road.

I don’t touch the camera for the rest of the day. Instead, I grab my laptop and scroll through my previous campaigns. Faces that were anonymous but now grace every billboard in LA. Shots people called iconic. I remember taking them, remember the rush and instinct.

Because I haven’t beaten myself up enough today, I take one of my older scenic shots and compare it to today’s. My instincts aren’t wrong. Today’s image is empty, just a bunch of pixels that happen to look like an image of a tree against the sky.

Meaningless. Except, like most things over the last two weeks, it takes me back to the diner, to the waitress with eyes the same deep cerulean as the sky this morning. It makes me want to go back and talk to her, get lost in her eyes again and her easy conversation.

Five-minute drive. Coffee. Conversation. Easy. Maybe too easy. But that defeats the point, doesn’t it? Which is exactly what I shouldn’t be doing. I remind myself for the tenth time today that I didn’t come here to find people, I came here to fix what’s broken. Which makes my inability to stop thinking about Dannica more than a little inconvenient.