32. Locke

I lean against the doorway of my bedroom, where Maren's been holed up and glued to her laptop for three days.

Her face is so focused, she doesn't even notice the motion in her peripheral vision.

"Are you going to let me see yet?"

Her head snaps up. "No! They're not ready yet," she says, lowering the screen like I can somehow see through the back of it.

I cross the room in four strides and lie down on my stomach across the bed, mirroring her position.

Maren slides the computer to the side and kicks her feet up into the air playfully to see if I'll copy her—which of course I do, because I'll flirt with her any chance I get.

"All the hurricane shutters are down. The wind is starting to pick up."

She motions to my huge bedroom window. "What about that one?"

"It's the strongest pane of glass in the house, coincidentally called hurricane glass."

"Thank you," she smiles. "You're the best. Is your phone charged?"

I roll my eyes. "You're the only person I'd text anyway."

"Well, mine is." She pats her laptop. "And my computer."

"We have a generator. And I'm going to see them eventually," I tease.

"Of course," she sighs. " After I edit them."

"Then show me Camille's maternity shoot." Maren hesitates for a split second, but I don't miss it. "What?" I question her.

"NothingImadeawebsite."

"Nothingyoumadeawebsite?"

She nods as hurriedly as her words, and a dusting of pink spreads across her cheeks. "AndanInstagram."

"Why're you embarrassed?" I ask, grinning.

"It's silly," she says, holding her palms over her cheeks.

"No," I insist, "it's amazing."

She shakes her head. "Sometimes I feel like it's just a hobby, and maybe I should keep it that way. Like maybe if I don't make it feel real, then I won't fail. People won't see me. And it's not like I have any formal training or education, so does that make me a real photographer or just a silly amateur?"

"You take pictures," I state, "so it makes you a photographer."

She squeals "Locke!" when I lift my hips off the bed and pull my phone from my front pocket. I roll over when she pounces, holding it out of her reach. She gives up quickly after I bear hug her down to my chest and type her name into Google.

"Fine," she relents and straddles me, snuggling her forehead into my neck. "Don't make fun of me."

"I would never do that."

Scrolling past the bullshit about us, I find her photographer website on the bottom of the second page.

A photo of Camille in a gray-blue dress surrounded by a garden of bright flowers comes into focus on her homepage.

"Maren." My voice drops to an overly deep and serious tone. "This picture is beautiful. When did you make this website?"

"Yesterday," she says shyly. "I was dreaming—like I could make it real."

"It is real. "

"Camille said I needed one," she insists, slight defiance in her voice, like she has to explain herself.

"What?" I question her again. I'll drag every wiry thought out of her brain if I need to and then soothe them all.

She digs her chin into my sternum when she sighs. "Sometimes I wonder if I'll ruin it."

"Ruin what?"

"The joy of taking photographs. Taking something I love to do for myself and making it a job. Putting pressure on myself to ‘make it.' It's just another thing I need to do to please people, and it will become less and less about doing it for fun."

"I understand that," I say. "Doing something for fun and doing something as an obligation to other people, getting paid for it, can sometimes change things. But remember why you do it and hold tight to it."

She closes her eyes, smiles like a daydream runs through her head, then nods, almost like she's clinging to my advice.

I navigate back to Google to find her Instagram account. She has two followers, Camille and Elise.

"Elise must have found me on there," Maren laughs when she opens her eyes and sees my screen. "I swear I didn't tell her. She's sneaky."

Each new one that appears as I scroll through her photos of Camille and her baby bump has my jaw jutting into the top of Maren's head. This isn't even my thing, but it's hard to argue that these don't look professional.

"Camille made my job easy," she says.

"Nope, don't do that shit. You're a fucking good photographer."

"I'm still learning. Who's going to want to hire me without experience?"

"Do you want me to follow you?"

She picks her head up and laughs. "You have an Instagram account? "

"Of course." I roll my eyes. "Graham runs it. I don't follow anyone though. I can't remember my password, but I can text him."

"No," she huffs. "Please don't."

"Why not? You'll get noticed. People will follow you. People will book you for sessions. Sessions? Is that what you call it?"

She shakes her head. "Yes, that's what you call it. And no. Seriously, I don't want that. I want to make it on my own. I want people to follow me because they like my pictures, not because I'm your girlfriend. And eventually, when someone figures it out, I'm going to have to turn off my comments."

"Fiiiine," I sigh, pinching her side. She nestles back into me where she belongs. " Seriously , look at the light. How do you do that?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. That's my favorite part. Okay, no, I do know. Time of day and weather mostly. Aperture . They all have unique challenges, so it's just about learning to work with them all. But like all things, people like different styles of photography."

"What's your style called?"

"Um, natural light, I guess," she says. "I like to enhance the bright and natural colors."

I kiss the top of her head. "It suits you. You're like the light, you know."

She blinks, doesn't say anything. Just purses her lips.

"You are," I insist. "You shine when you walk into a room. Everyone is attracted to your smile. You make people happy, Maren."

"I've always thought of it as a bad thing. Light in pictures is a good thing. Light as a person just means you cater to everyone else."

I frown. "I think it's a brave thing."

"In my experience, people only take and take. They disguise themselves as a friend or a boyfriend, but really, they just want something from me. And I try. I try to give them what they want, but it never works out for me. I don't get the same in return."

"The world needs more people like you," I say. "Otherwise, it would be full of selfish jackasses."

"Yeah, but at what cost, Locke? The cost of myself?"

I squeeze her, and the lights start to flicker. "You know, I never wanted you to change. Actually, I think we're maybe even similar, but we choose to deal with it in different ways. I get burned, and I shut everyone out. You get burned, and you try again. I admire that—I admire you. You just needed help learning how to cut the people who burn you out of your life; stand up for yourself. Cancel out the noise."

"I know," she says. "You were right. The silence is better."

"But only the right type of silence," I say. "For instance, I like when you talk."

"How'd I manage that again?" she jokes.

The lights flicker again before we're plunged into darkness. She jumps just the tiniest amount before she holds me tighter.

"Why are you scared of the dark?" I ask as the lights come back on.

She pauses. "It makes me feel alone. When I was young, my mom used to sit with Camille at bedtime. I got left in my room by myself because I never complained or expressed how scared I was. Camille needed my mom more, cried about how dark it was. The shadows on the wall terrified me too, but I'd try to picture them as happy things, like flowers or ballerinas. It's silly, just my kid brain doing things that's carried into adulthood."

"Lots of silly things are carried into adulthood," I chuckle. "Just like the old therapy joke, it's all your mother's fault."

"I shouldn't blame her, but I do sometimes. I've tried to please her my entire life, but it never seems like it's enough. When did everyone else's praise become more important than praising myself, liking myself, living for myself? And maybe more importantly, why? It will never be perfect— I'll never be perfect. When and why did everyone start caring so much about the stupidest shit? I don't feel like I'm enough for anyone sometimes, and then I try too hard, and suddenly, I'm too much. I never figured out how to be in between. At least I figured it out before I turn thirty. Don't know how many years I'm late though… five? Ten? "

"Maren, you're just right. And it's never too late. I think some people never figure it out."

A forceful gust of wind whips through the backyard, and the lights go out again.

"It takes a minute for the generator to kick on," I tell her.

My eyes take a second to adjust before the moonlight reflects off the pool and creates shadows on the wall. I know Maren is watching them too.

The buzz of the generator starts to hum through the walls, and before the electricity comes back to life, I whisper into the dark, "How did you get so tangled up in my life?"

And why do I want to do absolutely nothing to unravel it?