No Way Out

Marcie

Nothing else in that time slot. I can rework my whole schedule and drop one of the core nursing classes I need to graduate, setting me back another semester, or I can stick with photography. I spend the rest of my day turning the words over and over like there’s a loophole I’m just not seeing. The rest of my professors blur. I get lost in the familiar halls of McKinley, the science building. Somehow, I make it back to my apartment. My hands shake as I unlock the door without testing to see if it was locked all day. I’m not supposed to indulge.

I don’t want to know.

“Heather?” I call as I step inside.

Silence. I drop my keys on the shoe rack-table combo in the tiny rectangle of space Heather calls our foyer. She must still be at work at the newspaper on campus. I spent the whole summer hearing about what an amazing opportunity being a staff writer for the Ardent Weekly—or, as she calls it, the Arkly—is for a junior like her. I like her well enough, but sometimes I can really feel the age gap.

Just in case, I peer into the kitchen over the breakfast bar as I pass—nothing but peeling laminate and dishes I need to wash—and detour through the living room. The massive, squashy orange couch Heather arrived with doesn’t even show signs of someone recently sitting down, and it holds onto butt prints for several hours. I am home alone.

I sit on the couch and take a deep breath. I could call Dana. She always says she’s open for emergency sessions. But, god, I promised her I had my shit together this time. I don’t want to go back to everyone looking at me like I’m the crazy girl.

With a yell, I flop back against the cushions. I can’t lose my semester. I can’t lose my progress. Maybe I couldn’t dispel the hallucination in class, but there’s no way Ben looks as much like Ryan as I think.

“Okay,” I say out loud, totally not making myself seem even crazier. “I just have to prove that my brain is playing tricks on me. Then, I’ll be normal again.”

With trembling fingers, I pull out my phone, open it, and plug in the second password that takes me to the folder of pictures of Ryan I haven’t gotten rid of. If Dana ever found out about this, she’d be so disappointed, but I can’t live a life where I never see him. Ryan’s mom didn’t approve of social media; she thought he was going to get kidnapped by a pedophile or something, so I only have the pictures I took. I swipe through them one by one. He sits in the branches of our tree, sticking his tongue out at me. His eyes are the same laughing, pale blue I remember. The same color as Ben’s.

Stupid. I swipe to the next one. At our lunch table, he grins with his arm slung around Theresa, the final member of our trio, who holds a set of bunny ears behind his head. My throat grows thick, and tears threaten. Last one, then I’ll look for pictures of Ben.

A black-and-white picture of him perched on the rock in front of school with his chin on his hand. He made me take the picture and save it for the documentary they’d make about him someday.

I shut my phone as the first tear slips out. I’m indulging, and that’s more likely to make me crazy than anything else. I scrub the tear away, sniff back a second one, and pull out my laptop. What did he say his name was? Ben Andrews. I type that into the search bar of the first social media I have open and groan. A hundred thousand results within a hundred-mile radius. This is going to take a while.

The living room grows dark around me as I plug his name into social media after social media. Ben Andrews. Benjamin Andrews. B. Andrews. Lots of accounts, but none of them match what he looks like. Nothing, nothing, nothing. In a fit of frustration, I open a regular search engine and type his name with the word “photography” on the end. The page populates with results, and I click on the very first one.

It’s a portfolio website. Simple, modern layout. I click on the “about” tab. No picture, but a short description. This Ben Andrews is a freelance photographer for hire in the greater Peoria area. Indiana. The Ben in class said he was from Illinois. It also references Ansel Adams as an inspiration. My stomach turns. This has to be the same person. I click on the “portfolio” tab and pray for a self-portrait so I can convince myself I was just being dramatic.

Dozens of highly saturated rectangles fill the screen. My heartbeat roars in my ears. This is beyond indulgence; this is sickness. I’m stalking my professor! Well, my professor’s guest lecturer, but stalking is stalking. I have to stop.

I click on the first picture. A beautiful woman curls around the trunk of a tree, a gauzy, flower-studded robe hiding all the private parts of her while making it very clear that she’s naked underneath. Next. A man stares out a window, lit and framed in such a way that I can only see a neon-red sheen on his hair and the edge of his jaw. Next. Another woman. Next.

The pictures start to blur, and a distant part of my brain picks out patterns. Almost all of them feature people. No self-portraits. Not a lot of men at all. Ben obviously prefers female subjects, and suggestively scantily clad ones at that.

Not all of his photos are of women, but those that are show a specific type. There’s some variance, but most of his shots are of pale, long-haired brunette women with dark eyes. They’re often pretty tall, too, framed around trees or fences or cars that make judging their height pretty easy. Bigger on bottom and smaller on top—

My heart slams into my throat. My stomach flips. I fit the description of the women Ben likes to photograph to a T. Like… like they are all based on me. Like this whole portfolio is a sign from Ryan that he hasn’t forgotten me.

I shut my laptop, shoot up from the couch, and switch on the light. In the wash of fluorescents, all my fears abruptly seem stupid. What the hell am I thinking? There’s no way that’s true. Ryan is dead. I watched him die. He’s not sending me messages from beyond the grave. I grab my phone and text Dana to ask if we can move this week’s appointment up. After a brief hesitation, I add that I might need some extra support this semester. My face burns. One day of classes, and I’m already falling apart at the seams. I need to pull myself together before Heather comes home. She wasn’t here when I had my first big breakdown, and I like having someone in my life who isn’t waiting for me to crack. I scoop up my laptop and start to head for my room.

Keys scrape in the lock. I freeze then force myself to take a deep breath. Heather opens the door, and I roll my eyes internally at my needless panic.

“Hey,” she says breathlessly, yanking her keys out of the door. “Good first day?”

I shrug. “You?”

“Decent.” She holds up a folder I know means an assignment from the Arkly and grins. “Oh, the new photographer asked about you.”