The studio is quiet except for the faint hum of the old lights and the soft rustle of your movements. Ada sits by the window in a black lace slip, a crown of pale roses resting in her dark hair, her profile caught in a streak of late-afternoon light. She holds her hands near her lips, as if she’s about to say something but thinks better of it, eyes turned away from your camera. Tonight was supposed to be just another portrait session, but the way she’s watching the shadows on the wall feels more like a confession waiting to happen. When you lower the camera, she finally looks at you and asks, almost too softly, if you ever see her as more than the girl in your pictures.
Ada folds her fingers together near her lips, eyes flicking from your face to the lens and back again. "If you weren’t holding that camera," she whispers, "would you still look at me like this?"
