Page 171 of Impulse Control
I thought of Kiara.
I thought of René’s ten images.
I thought of my calendar, screaming in color.
Mischa Condre let out a low sigh and moved to lean a hip against the table. She faced me with a kind of frankness I didn’t deserve. “One of the most difficult choices we face is reconciling our art with business. Business is about demands, meeting a concept, extracting everything human out of it in order to create product. Art is the complete opposite. To be a photographer is to be the master of both.”
My stomach churned. “How do you do that?”
She gestured toward the photographs. “These images are the first time I have seen you stop long enough to be affected by yourself.”
My throat tightened.
“You are afraid that if you slow down, you will fail,” she continued. “But what you are actually afraid of is that you will feel.”
I didn’t argue. I couldn’t.
She softened, just a fraction. “Feeling is not efficient. It does not schedule well. It cannot be optimized.” A pause. “That is why you have avoided it.”
I stared at the table, at my life laid out in ten fragments, and realized with a dull, sick clarity that she was right.
I hadn’t been choosing anything.
I’d just been moving fast enough to avoid the moment where I had to decide what mattered more.
“I don’t know how to pick one thing,” I said. “Everything feels real. Everything feels important. How do youchooseone?” How could I?
Mischa’s gaze softened, just a fraction.
“You must choose the one thatscaresyou most,” she said. “Because that is the only one that is actuallyyours.”
“And if I can’t afford it?” I asked. “If doing that costs me everything?”
Mischa’s gaze was steady.
“Then at least you will know what you are paying for.”
Dominic called that night.
It had been four days since we talked.
Four days since I told him about Kiara.
Four days since I’d gone to find her and…
It was evening here when he called. That made it lunchtime there. The number was his apartment. Not his office. Not his cell phone.
This call wouldn’t be—five minutes or on his way to court or rushed.
My stomach clenched around all the things I hadn’t said and might need toifI answered. I almost didn’t.
But I did.
“Flash,” he said, and his voice still did that thing — steadied me, grounded me, wrapped me up in a hug that I never wanted to leave.
“Hey,” I replied, instantly aware of the tears filming my eyes and clogging my throat.
A pause. Not awkward. Careful.
