Page 146 of Impulse Control
“It was?—”
René lifted a finger.
No.
Not yet.
He slid a print toward me.
Not the safe ones.
Not the technically correct ones.
The risky one.
Her laughing, unposed, warmth breaking through a brief that had required distance.
For a second I couldn’t breathe. Not because I was surprised—because I wasn’t. Because part of me had thrown that match on purpose.
René watched me look at it. I was as aware of his observation like a sunburn on my skin.
He wasn’t watching my eyes.
He watched my reaction.
“This,” he said, tapping the top edge of the photograph with one of his blunt fingers, “is you.”
The words rake so much differently than praise. It was like being caught out doing something I wasn’tsupposedto be doing.
“I didn’t mean to—” I started, reflexively reaching for an excuse, for a reason, for anything that would make this easier—safer—something.
René’s voice sharpened. “You are doing it again,” he said. “Justifying.”
I stopped. Swallowed the rest of the sentence like it tasted bad.
He leaned back slightly, still holding the pen, still impossibly calm. “Tell me,” he said, “why is this image good?”
It wasn’t a trap question. It was worse. It was a test of whether I really knew what I was doing.
I looked down at the print. At the way the light softened her cheek. At the honest mess of her laugh. At the way the frame made the room feel human.
“It’s… alive,” I said. My voice came out quieter than I intended. “It’s not performing for anyone, least of all the concept. But it’s revealing and human and—breathing.”
René stared at me for a long beat. Then he nodded once.
“Good,” he said, then he pointed to the print again. “Now tell me, why is it dangerous?”
My throat went dry.
Because it was personal.
Because she was looking at me.
Because I was too close to the subject in a way that had nothing to do with focal length.
Because if I admitted any of that, the whole structure I’d built to survive would wobble.
“It doesn’t match the brief,” I said instead. “It’s… not what they hired him to deliver.”
