Hard Beat(29)

Beaux falls silent and just shakes her head. “Obviously you have trust issues. I’m not the one who screwed you over, and I refuse to stand here and have the shit verbally beaten out of me for whoever it was. You want another photographer? Call Rafe. You want to know why I took a picture of Omid? See for yourself.” She reaches for her camera and opens a little door on the side of it. She messes with something momentarily as I try to figure out what she’s doing.

When Beaux finishes, she looks me in the eye as she extends the memory card out to me. I refuse to take it, even though I’m curious because now I suddenly have a feeling that I’m going to end up being the royal prick when all is said and done. When I just hold her gaze, she purses her lips and gives a resigned sigh before walking back to the nightstand. She sets the card down and heads to the door, but stops before stepping through it.

“I quit.” She announces the words in a quiet whisper, but they reach across the distance and hit me like a sucker punch as she leaves.

So I stare at the closed door for a few moments, completely at a loss for words over how the day turned us from partners to fighting to this, completely disassociated. All things considered, I should be happy; I just got what I wanted. The temptress who played me for the fool is now gone, and I can continue as a one-man jack-of-all-trades.

So why do I not feel victorious? Why do I keep glancing at the memory card, wondering what it is she wants me to see?

Don’t do it, Tanner. Don’t walk into another one of her mind games by doing what she intentionally left for you to look at.

Screw that. And yet curiosity killed the damn cat. Fucking cats and their nine lives.





Chapter 8





“S

he – she quit?” Rafe’s stuttering tells me he’s displeased with the sequence of events. And of course he has every right to be. “Is it that hard to keep your * tendencies to a minimum? Fix this, Tanner.”

When I hear the dial tone in my ear, I don’t even flinch at the fact that he didn’t give me a chance to explain myself. Instead I’m transfixed by the photos on my computer screen. I keep the slide show running over the thirty or so pictures, mesmerized by what Beaux has captured in such a short time frame.

After I successfully ignored the memory card for most of the day, it sat there taunting me when I came back from my rooftop haven where I escaped into the memories there to calm down. And of course curiosity got the best of me, the need to know rooting itself into my thoughts until I couldn’t resist any longer. When I inserted the memory card into the computer, I was shocked when my own image looked back. At first I was pissed that she took pictures of me. It took me a few seconds to realize she snapped them yesterday from across the lobby when I was looking out the window lost in thought.

And the anger and outrage that I’d usually hold on to with my type A personality dissipates when I look at the pictures again. I can’t stay angry. She captured something in my eyes – more than just the expression on my face – that reflects everything I’m feeling inside but thought I was hiding so well: loneliness, anger, bitterness, grief, and temerity. You can’t escape the truth in your own reflection – and everything she’s drawn out through the curve of the lens hits me like an inescapable ton of bricks.

I can’t stop staring at my image, for the first time really comprehending how other people see me, and when I’m finally able to tear my eyes from the lines and shadows of pain and loss written all over my face, I click the next set of pictures. The images depict the daily aspects of life here that we saw on the way to the meet but in a unique perspective. Objects are crisp but people are blurred; yet the images tell a story about each person with such a definitive clarity, I’m overwhelmed. It’s eerie and beautiful and haunting and poignant all at the same time.

Each image is more compelling than the last. Each one holds my interest and engages my imagination. And it scares me that she can see through things so well, because that means she’s probably seeing everything that I’m trying to hide.

I proceed through those images, and when I come to the picture of Omid, I’m staggered once again. Chills chase over my flesh as I stare at his face close up and see the exact same thing in his eyes and expression that she captured in mine. Identical.

We are two men with extremely different backgrounds and experiences in life, and yet it’s unmistakable how similar our stories are. I stare at his picture for quite some time, wondering what atrocities he has seen, what life-changing events he has experienced, and can’t help but feel ten times closer to this man whom I’ve only known from our limited forms of communication.

Clarity comes at me loud and clear: Beaux wasn’t trying to steal my damn story. She was trying to capture a moment in time that relays an entire encyclopedia’s worth of information in a single snap of her shutter.

For hours, I get lost in the images. Over and over I flip through them until I have to take a break, because you can only look at the truth staring you in the face so long before it becomes a sign of your own stupidity. Sighing, I lean back against the headboard and consider how I could possibly make this right. Because as hard as it is to admit, I was wrong. Beaux’s an incredible photographer.

No one will replace Stella, and I need to come to terms with that right now before I waste more time fighting something that’s not even in front of me. While Stella was an incredible photographer, she looked through her lens at the world in a different light than Beaux does. It feels silly to justify it this way, but it’s so true.