Chapter 4: photographs and fault lines
778 Words
Chapter 4: Photographs and Fault Lines
Kaeynna couldn’t stop thinking about that moment.
The click of Calix’s camera had been so soft, so unobtrusive—yet it felt louder than anything else that had happened in weeks. It echoed inside her like a pebble dropped into still water, creating ripples in places she’d long kept still.
“You’re someone I want to remember.”
That sentence haunted her more than she liked to admit.
Back at her apartment, she paced her living room, every corner suddenly too sharp. The photo. The way he’d looked at her. Like he saw something in her she couldn’t even name.
She didn’t want to be seen like that.
Not by anyone.
---
Later that evening, she called Samantha. She needed grounding. Sanity. A distraction.
“You’re falling for him,” Samantha said immediately, no hello, no preamble.
Kaeynna groaned. “I called to ask about your dinner with that tech guy from Bumble, not get psychoanalyzed.”
“Don’t deflect. You showed up, Kay. You went to the park. With coffee. That’s... huge.”
“I was curious,” Kaeynna muttered.
“You were hopeful.”
“Stop.”
“I’m serious,” Samantha said more gently now. “I know it scares you, but maybe you need someone who doesn’t want to fix you—just witness you.”
Kaeynna sat on the floor, back against the wall. “I don’t want to be someone’s project.”
“You’re not. You’re someone’s pause.”
Kaeynna closed her eyes. “What does that mean?”
“It means Calix sees you as the moment that made him stop running.”
---
The next day, an email popped up in her inbox from a contact she didn’t recognize. Subject line: For Your Eyes Only.
She almost deleted it—spam, maybe?—but something made her click.
Inside was a single image.
Her.
Sitting on the park bench. Head slightly tilted. Hair pulled into a messy bun. Eyes half-shadowed, but somehow luminous.
The world blurred behind her like time had slowed just for her breath to catch.
No caption.
No explanation.
But she knew immediately—it was from Calix.
She stared at the photo for a long time, fingers hovering over the delete key. But instead, she downloaded it.
Saved it.
Titled it: Calix_01.jpg.
She hated that it was the first file she’d named after a person.
---
The following weekend, she saw him again. Not planned. Not expected.
He was at the bookstore near her office, tucked into a corner with a stack of poetry books. His expression was calm, but his fingers twitched the edge of the page like the words were trying to escape him.
She walked right past him, pretending not to notice.
He didn’t call out.
Didn’t move.
But as she reached the door, she stopped. Turned around.
“Seriously? Rilke?”
Calix looked up, a smile tugging at his lips. “It’s my favorite kind of heartbreak.”
She walked over. “Let me guess. You highlight all the lines that talk about longing.”
“I underline,” he said. “More discreet.”
She smirked. “You are such a cliché.”
“And you’re predictable. I knew you’d stop.”
That made her freeze. “You did not.”
“I hoped,” he said simply.
That word again. Hope. The thing she had tried so hard to live without.
“I don’t know what this is,” she admitted.
Calix closed the book. “It doesn’t have to be anything yet. Let it breathe.”
“I don’t do well with things I can’t name.”
“Then call it whatever you need to,” he said, eyes meeting hers. “But don’t run from it.”
She looked away. “I’m not running.”
“Yes, you are. But I don’t mind chasing.”
---
That night, Kaeynna opened her laptop. She stared at the photo again.
Zoomed in.
There, in the image—captured forever—was something she hadn’t seen in herself in years.
Softness.
Possibility.
She opened her messaging app. Hovered over his name. Typed:
Kaeynna: You have no right making me look like that.
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
Calix: Like what?
Kaeynna: Like someone who could be loved.
There was a pause. Then:
Calix: Maybe that’s because you are.
She shut the laptop before her heart could give itself away.
But her breath trembled.
Because for the first time in years, she didn’t feel like she was standing at the edge of a cliff alone.
She felt like someone might actually be reaching for her hand.
- Writer
