Jason’s POV
I’d always measured the world by control, meetings, timetables, the exact angle of light for a photograph. When things went off schedule, I noticed. When tone shifted, I noticed. Lately everything in my life had leaned toward small, unbearable alterations: the way a tie sat at the wrong angle, a chair moved an inch to the left, the way someone laughed a half-beat too long.
The morning of myself and Ava’s shoot was clean and bright, the kind of day studios like: pale light flooding through high windows, the city’s louder edges softened by distance. We were using a loft near the river, glass walls, exposed brick, a patchwork of rugs and props that made the space look lived-in without actually living in it. Photographers were already rigging lights when I arrived. Voice, “mov
