It looked like my becoming.
My chest tightened hard enough to hurt.
Connor stood beside me, his hand at the small of my back. He didn’t say anything at first. He just looked—really looked—moving from frame to frame the way a man moved through terrain. Like he was mapping something important.
Then he leaned in close enough that only I could hear him.
“This is you,” he said.
My eyes burned.
“I know,” I whispered. “I didn’t—I didn’t realize how much until now.”
His fingers flexed once against my spine. “You’re brave,” he said, voice low. “You don’t even know it.”
I let out a shaky breath. “I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
A faint curve tugged at his mouth—not a smile meant for anyone else. Just for me.
“If you do,” he murmured, “I’ll handle it.”
The humor shouldn’t have landed. Not after yesterday. Not with everything still raw.
But it did.
It made me laugh, small and broken and relieved, and Connor’s gaze softened like he’d been waiting to hear that sound again.
People began to arrive—students from the residency, a few local artists Élodie knew, someone who looked like a curator, someone else who looked like they’d wandered in by accident and then stayed because something held them.
Amaya drifted in with her headphones around her neck like a necklace, eyes bright. “You did it,” she said, and for once, she didn’t sound ironic.
Élodie arrived last, like she needed everyone else to be there first so she could pretend she wasn’t the center of gravity. She wore black, of course, her hair pulled back, her expression severe.
She walked the wall without looking at me. Stopped at one photograph—a close shot of a woman’s face reflected in a café window, the street layered over her features like a second life.
Élodie stared at it for a long moment.
Then, without turning, she said, “Good.”
One word.
From Élodie, it was practically a love letter.
My throat closed up.
“Thank you,” I managed.
She glanced at me then—brief, assessing—and gave the smallest nod, as if to say,Don’t make it sentimental.
But her eyes weren’t as hard as they had been weeks ago.
The evening moved in pulses.
People asked questions. People lingered. People went quiet in front of certain images like they’d been touched without expecting it. A woman with red lipstick told me one photograph made her think of her divorce in a way that didn’t hurt. A man with paint under his fingernails asked what camera I used, then admitted it didn’t matter because the work was the thing. Someone else—someone important, maybe—asked if the series had a name.
I hadn’t named it.
I hadn’t wanted to pin it down.
