The Photographer's Return novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: Kenzie
"Hi, Syl," she said.
She didn't come in.
I looked back at the room.
Casey had already lifted his head. Milo was by the cookie tray, not looking at the door yet.
"Outside," I said.
We stood on the sidewalk under the gallery's tall windows, in the cold that comes off the bay at night.
"I drove up from Santa Cruz," she said. "I start Monday at a surf school there. Teaching kids. Six to ten."
"You?"
"I asked for the little ones. The owner said nobody asks for the little ones."
She held the box tighter.
"I deleted the account this morning. All of it. Three hundred and ten thousand people. It took a few seconds."
I didn't say anything.
"I didn't come to explain," she said. "I've been explaining for two years. I'm good at it. I'm not doing it tonight."
She took a breath.
"You were there for all of it," she said. "I won't recite it back to you."
"I took your pictures and put my name on them. When you found out, I called you crazy in front of sixty thousand people, so nobody would believe you."
"And I left him on the sand so I could film myself. When he went in the water, I turned off my phone before I went to him."
Her voice didn't shake.
"I'm sorry," she said. "That's it. That's the whole thing."
"I don't forgive you," I said.
"I know."
"Not tonight. I don't know when. Maybe not ever."
She nodded.
"What would it take?" she said. "I'm not bargaining. I just want to know what it looks like."
I thought about it.
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