He paged through slowly, studying every photo. When he was done, he pointed to another large portfolio case. “What’s in that one?”
“My senior thesis.” She grew solemn as she opened it. It was a photo collage with a small white label that read Fast Girls. The photos formed an X on the canvas. At first, he saw only bare arms and legs in various shades of brown. Then he looked closer and noticed hands resting on bare hips and breasts. Ambient light licked their skin and made their bodies glisten. His chest tightened, like he was seeing something he shouldn’t, but he didn’t want to turn away. “Jesus. Rachel, this is amazing.”
“My professor had a rule that prohibited real or simulated sex in our final projects. And I knew that. But I’d had this idea stuck in my head, and I had to do it. It felt wrong not to, like I’d be betraying myself if I didn’t. So I turned it in.” She looked at the collage like someone might look at their child: a prideful I made that. But then she swiped a hard hand over her eyes and looked away. “I got an incomplete,” she said. “And an email about professionalism that I forwarded to the student paper. It sparked this huge debate on college campuses about censorship versus academic freedom. And then my dad got sick, so I had to leave. The incomplete became an F and I never graduated.”
“You never got your degree?”
She shook her head, a small, stiff motion that looked more like flinching. “That’s who I was back then. Someone who would wreck her own career prospects to get what she wanted.”
Nathan knew what she was trying to say. He could list a dozen reasons why their situation was different, but he couldn’t compete with that soft waver in her voice. You can’t rationalize your way out of fear.
She touched his hand. “You said earlier that you wanted me to see you.”
Nathan shook his head. “We don’t have to talk about that right now.”
She leaned closer, scanning his face, and whispered, “I see you,” directly into his heart. That’s when Nathan stopped fighting. He stopped pretending that he wasn’t hopelessly in love with this woman. He lifted her hand and trailed kisses over her fingers, knuckle by knuckle, bracing himself for what he knew was coming.
“And I want you. But wanting something doesn’t mean you should have it.” She pulled her hand away. “I won’t let you make the same mistake I did. You could lose everything,” she said. He knew that by everything, she meant the show, the press, and the possibility that this could lead to an actual career. But she was also saying they weren’t worth it. That he should ignore how sitting this close made his body feel like it would crack and burn. How could she look at him as if he were oxygen one minute and hold her breath the next?
“Do you want me to stay away?” he asked. “Is that what you need?” She looked so panicked at the suggestion that he added quickly, “Or we can be friends.” It was a lie, but she knew that, right? He could hear the desperation in his voice. “I’m a good listener, remember?”
The way she looked at him and nodded—she knew. This was a Band-Aid over a gaping wound.
Rachel’s photos were original prints. Nathan offered to scan them into digital files, because it seemed like something a “friend” would do. He also wanted a chance to look through them at his own pace. Three days of sifting through the photos in his apartment introduced him to a younger Rachel, with devious grins and long languid limbs draped in clothes that typically left something bare. He thought about that collage, and the way her professor had shamed her for submitting it. The woman in those pictures wasn’t ashamed of anything. She was the center of the universe. Combustive. She leaned into the camera with a cigarette in one hand, laughing so hard it made her eyes squint. This was the woman at the drive-in. Buried and resurrected through pain. The woman he loved.
Nathan was interrupted by a knock on his door. He opened it and stood motionless, staring at Beto on his stair landing, waiting to be let inside. Beto’s gruff voice snapped him out of his trance. “Are you going to invite me in?”
His father strolled around and studied each component of Nathan’s apartment like a landlord conducting an inspection. He stopped occasionally to glare at something that irritated him. The leather couch was too flashy and the PlayStation was too childish. The drawing table, however, was ignored.
“It’s a nice place,” Beto said. “I wasn’t sure what to expect with the, uh…” He snapped his fingers and pointed to the floor.