It's 3am and I'm lying in bed next to Dom, listening to his steady breathing, feeling the weight of his arm across my waist. He's deeply asleep, exhausted from a long day at the job site, but I'm wide awake.
My mind is racing with the conversation we had earlier. The plan. The portfolio. The understanding that we don't have to choose one life anymore, we can have both.
I slip out of bed carefully, trying not to wake him. He stirs slightly but doesn't wake, and I pad quietly down the hallway to the darkroom.
The red light clicks on and I'm surrounded by the photographs again. The crime scenes, the decay, the trucker's rig and cemeteries. All the hidden work I've been keeping secret even from myself.
But now it's not hidden anymore, it's the foundation.
I pull out the boxes I packed when we left the road, the ones I told myself I'd destroy but couldn't bring myself to touch. Inside are more photographs, more negatives and documentation of our journey.
The dead fox from Utah. The first thing that drew Dom to me.
Roadkill from Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico. The small town where we killed Carl. I didn't photograph the body as it was too dangerous, but I photographed the store afterward, the parking lot, the empty street where we escaped.
Environmental decay studies. Abandoned buildings, forgotten places, the residue of human presence slowly being reclaimed by nature. And then, at the bottom of the box, the photographs I took of Gary Hollis's truck.
Again, not the body or the crime scene itself. But the truck, parked in the lot where Dom found him. The cab where the violence happened. The steering wheel, the dashboard, the space where a man died.
I took these photos before we fled, it was a risk, but I couldn't help myself. Because this is what I do.
I spread the photographs across the counter, studying them in the red light. Some are good enough for the portfolio. Others need to be destroyed as they are too specific and identifiable. They are not worth the risk. But the impulse behind them is right.
This is the work I'm meant to create.
I pull out my sketchbook, the same one I was using on the Utah roadside when Dom first saw me. It's filled with drawings of sad people in public places, despair, any inspiration of the darkness I've been creating since being on the road.
I flip to a blank page and start drawing a scene from one of the pictures. The pencil moves across the paper with a life of its own, of the drunk fuck in the bar. Not a portrait, but an interpretation piece of how exposed his nasty soul was, the grunge vibe of the bar behind him. Making him demonic, half man, half pure evil.
I draw for an hour, lost in the work, feeling the hunger build with every move of the pencil. This is what I need and what's been missing. Not the commercial photography, or theengagement photos and landscape shots, or any of the fake work I've been doing to maintain the cover.
This, the raw truth.
When I finish the drawing, I pin it to the wall and step back.
It's perfect.
This is what the portfolio needs. Not just photographs, but drawings too. Mixed media. A complete vision of darkness rendered through multiple techniques.
I pull out another sheet of paper and start drawing again.
This time it's the trucker's cab. The steering wheel, the dashboard, the space where Gary Hollis died. I don't draw the body as that would be dumb, but I draw the residue of what Dom left behind. The emptiness and the understanding that death happened here.
The lead from the pencil smudges under my fingers, creating shadows and depth. I work quickly, urgently, driven by the desire that's been building since we arrived in San Diego.
I'm so focused on the work that I don't hear Dom enter the darkroom.
"Roxy."
I jump, spinning around, holding my chest at the split second of shock. He's standing in the doorway, shirtless, wearing only his jeans which are unzipped. His hair that is starting to grow is messy from sleep, but his eyes are sharp and alert.
"What are you doing?" he asks.
"I couldn't sleep. I needed to work."
He crosses to me and looks at the drawings pinned to the wall. The drunk. The trucker's cab. The beginning of the portfolio.
"These are good," he says quietly.
