CHAPTER 92

CHAPTER 93
"You sure this is gonna work?"

The Yankees-hoodie kid was showing that look of skepticism in his chin, the same I'd been wearing as a shield.
I nodded, yanking at the strap on the Canon camera thumping against my shoulder. "Only way to know."
They looked at me as though I were a specter. Half of them had already viewed my face on the Internet, set next to the fight that turned a field into a courtroom. The other half knew me simply as Zacks—the guy who left, the guy who fell, the guy who came back with tripods instead of touchdowns.

We stood in the parking lot behind the rec center, where I used to skip practice and smoke and pout and convince myself I had more in me. Now it was boarded up along the sides, vandalized with graffiti, the cement cracked like a map of broken promises. And yet… I chose it for this. It deserved another chance.

"Phones out," I told them, sticking my finger at my chest. "Or if you're one of the five myths who actually did take me seriously and brought an actual camera, bonus points."

Sienna, one of the girls, a fifteen-year-old, grabbed her dad's old Nikon and eyed it like it might bite.

"You said you were gonna teach us how to shoot," another boy said, leaning back against the dumpster. Wells would have scorned him. Thatch would have slammed his head up and down into the bricks for fun. But I just looked over at him and nodded.

"I am. But not at one another. Not today."

That made a couple of kids laugh. Giddy laughs. The kind I liked.

I knelt beside one of the kids—Javi, probably twelve, rowdy curls and something too serious in his eyes for a child. I pointed to where the light spilled across the wall. "See that? That isn't a shadow. That's a shape. That's a narrative. You learn how to interpret light, and you start seeing things nobody else does."

Javi narrowed his eyes, in disbelief. "Why you teaching us this, anyway?"

That question hung there.

Not because I didn't have an answer. But because… it hit somewhere vulnerable. Somewhere raw.

I stood. Make them see me hesitate. Make them feel me draw air through the memory. Mackenzie's voice in my head, soft and soothing. It's not about re-creating pain, Tony. It's about understanding it.

"I always thought that nobody saw me," I whispered. "Now I want to teach you to see yourselves."

Something shifted then. Not big. Not loud. But something significant.

—

The day drew out in color. Not the golden hour variety—actually, actual color. Bright sneakers on broken pavement. A shy girl named Brie photographing a stray cat licking itself against the side of a dented car. Javi capturing a fraction of a second of a boy laughing, suspended as if happiness did not know it was not invited to this zip code.

They were unkempt. Unclipped. But goddamn, they worked.

And what about me? I wasn't playing anyone anymore.

I crouched next to Sienna, who was scrunching up her face behind the lens. "Tilt your head to the side—yes, that way. Let the light hit his jaw. You're writing his story now."

She gave me a stare. "You know all of this?"

I smiled. "A girl who wouldn't leave my mind took a camera and handed it to me and said it was time I stopped hiding."

Sienna rolled her eyes but smiled. "Had to be some girl."

"She is."

— 

We arranged inside after the sun went below the roof. The rec center reeked of dust and regret. But we made do. I dragged in folding tables, cords, my laptop. Laid out prints from the last few months—pictures Mackenzie didn't even realize I was taking.

A sleeping woman on the subway, beneath the fluorescent flashes of flickering tunnel lights. A man feeding his sandwich to a mutt beside a bridge. A single mom combing her daughter's hair on the back porch of their apartment.

They belonged to me. But they weren't for me.

That's what shifted.

Before, my lens had been a weapon. A shield. A reason to stay angry. But now… now I peered out. I wasn't trying to prove a point. I was trying to see.

"Damn," one of the kids complained, pointing at the subway photo. "This yours?"

I nodded.

He whistled low. "That's real."

"Yeah," I said. "It is."

—

There was a brief time afterward, when everyone had congregated around the array of snacks and were discussing uploading their pictures, when I went out for fresh air. 

I stood against the chain-link fence, looking out at the basketball court where I suffered a wrist break sophomore year.

I once believed stadiums and trophies were ahead of me. Now… I had a dented Canon, a folder of faces, and a job that didn't need claps.

I smiled for the first time in forever without questioning whether or not eyes were on me.

Just… smiled.

And I thought about her.

Of Mackenzie, and the way her laughter was rebellion wrapped in honey. The manner in which she kissed as if she were savoring rain she'd not seen in months.

I still didn't know what we were.

Hell, perhaps we were broken. Perhaps we always would be.

But something she had given me—something I'd taken from her at first and then learned to deserve—had caught up.

She taught me to hold the world in my hands and not crush it. 

—

Finally, the crew broke up in waves. Laughter echoing. Others lingered to help with cleanup.

Me and Javi by ourselves again, the kid handed me a photo he printed from my old Canon.

It was me.

Smiling.

Unposed.

Backlit from the side by the broken rec center window.

"You looked happy," he said, scratching the back of his neck. "Thought maybe… you'd want to remember it."

My throat tightened. I did not cry. I could not. But my fingers wrapped around the photograph like it was holy.

"Thanks," I said.

He nodded. "You're more natural at this than football, you know."

I laughed roughly. "Don't tell my old coach that."

"Too late."

He smiled, and took off.

—

I waited until the darkness claimed the sky. Loaded my gear indolently. Folded chairs softly. Scoured tables. Lock the gate.

And when I sat finally in my car, I did not stir to leave.

I activated my phone. Went to our last chat. No new messages. She had not replied to the picture I sent her that week ago—the one of the fire escape where dandelions pushed up through the cracks.

But that was good.

She didn't have to answer.

Because she was in the light now.

And I wasn't roaming around looking for ghosts anymore.

Just pursuing them until they turned into stories.

—